The WoW blogging dichotomy
In just a couple weeks, I will have my one-year anniversary as a blogger. It’s been a fabulous ride, though it has its ups and downs. It’s tough at times to come up with new content, but I am hanging in there, knowing that some of my regular readers will enjoy reading it, regardless of me raiding or theorycrafting or just rambling.
2009 has been a strange year if you look at the WoW blogosphere. Some of the biggest names in WoW blogging have closed their doors, including BigRedKitty and Resto4Life, but also guys like Skeleton Jack, who wrote my favorite DK blog. It makes me determined to keep going, even though the WotLK WoW is so different to TBC WoW in many ways.
The past couple of days has seen a bunch of posts from several WoW bloggers that show the vast dichotomy that currently exists. On the one hand, you have the professionals. There’s Matticus’ guide to blogging, who at times almost feels commercial with his ventures. Sometimes his blog feels less like a blog and more like a brand, and it’s all over the place. Incidentally the same day, Lassira, another (former) writer of the ubiquitous WoW.com, formerly known as WoWInsider, posted her commandments how to not suck at blogging. I vehemently disagree with some of her ideas. I only have to look at the post I wrote that has the highest ever comment count: Red Sword of Hotness. This much coveted drop touched a nerve with people. Gear and progress can do that. And it doesn’t make blogs boring. It all depends on how it’s written. A post that says ‘I got Last Laugh, mwah.’ might be boring. A post that tells an exciting story that finds you holding Last Laugh in your shaking hands at the end, now that sounds pretty neat to me. Not everyone comes to blogs to read the latest professional guide about classes. If I can find any fault with the two blogging guides above, is that they take things a bit too seriously. I am not writing to make money.
And so you have bloggers like Saresa and Leafshine, who present their views about WoW blogging, which are very different and a lot more relaxed than the above’s. Who’s right and who’s wrong? I enjoyed reading both sides of the dichotomy, and I fall somewhat in the middle. I try to come up with quality posts about tanking, solid stuff that’s decently written. I try to entertain with journals about my time spent in WoW, and that has just as many responses as my guides do. There’s a place for both in the world. I love reading Veneretio and Yakra as much as I love reading Naissa’s latest stories. There’s room for both. There should be. Every blogger wants to be read, and there used to be a time that I fretted over the visitor count, but life’s easier when you don’t. As long as people keep commenting and keep reading, life’s good.
That said, I have often pondered tossing out a request for new posts out there, for my target audience: not the tanks that are working on bosses deep in Ulduar, but the tanks that maybe just picked up protection, people who wish to start tanking and could use pointers. If you have any requests, send me a mail via my contact form, and I’ll see what I can do. 
Don't Look Up
Volunteer Work
50 Fish
Looking For Multitudes
I wouldn’t necessarily characterise myself as being on “the other side” as the others – it’s just that I don’t believe that their suggestions are the only way to blog.
I think they are talking about one way of blogging, but only that sort of blogging would make for a poorer blogosphere.
Leafshine´s last blog post..Leafy’s Blogging Bootcamp: the 10 Basics
Reply
admin Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
I was basing my post on your blogging bootcamp, which reads a lot more laidback. I am all for diversity in the blogosphere, and I always enjoy discovering new blog gems.
Reply
Leafshine Reply:
May 27th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Interesting. It certainly wasn’t intended to be an alternative, more of a “fundamentals” post that underlay either the more guide-related blogging, or chatty stuff, or the journal stuff.
Leafshine´s last blog post..Leafy’s Blogging Bootcamp: the 10 Basics
Reply
Great to hear your perspective on the matter Kadomi! It really is something which is intensely personal – at the end of the day it is all about how concerned you are with being the ‘top end’ or whether you just want solid content that appeals to your smaller audience, or whether you just want to have fun!
Saresa´s last blog post..Open Letter to the Blogging Masses
Reply
I have to unique ability to turn nearly every topic into a somewhat boring post, wrapped up in horrible Engrish. But this is the internet, and I can do whatever I want!
On a more serious note: I have never ever read a single post about improving my blogging. The reason is simple, I’m pretty much language capped. No matter how hard I try to improve, English isn’t my native language and this will always stick in they eye of the reader like a sharp unpleasant object. For me personally, it’s often pretty frustrating, because if I write a text in German, I’m very careful with my syntax and incorrect grammar is annoying me very much.
But whatever. I chose the path of the bigger audience and as long as some people (including myself) seem to enjoy it, I will continue.
drug´s last blog post..My Blogroll
Reply
It is indeed a perspective on blogging. It’s not meant to be the “true” way to blog. I guess you could say as a commercialized blogger, I have a certain view point. It’s meant to be nothing more than a collection of thoughts I can point a blogger to who wants to read.
The problem is is that I’ve written so much and for so long. I’ve had to evolve to keep up with monetary costs. This is a form of survival for me now. It’s up to people to either accept or reject what I’ve written. It doesn’t matter to me what they do. I’ve been asked countless times how I do it, what’s my secret and so forth. Well, it’s out there now and maybe someone can get something out of it.
Reply
thank you for witing this Kadomi! I agree with you completely, as one of the more journaly type blogs, Matt’s post didn’t really bother me, since he pointed out from the start his target audience. The second one though…yeah, a bit hurtful, even though I shouldn’t take it personally, I kinda do ya know? I approach blogging “the old way” the original format was as a journal, it’s branched out tremendously over the years, but I stick with my roots. 400ish readers seem to approve so must be doing something right…lol
Reply
admin Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I am pretty sure she didn’t mean to sound so…well, condescending in a way, of journal bloggers, but I also felt it a little bit. It stung.
No one ever prods me for more theorycraft, people usually prod me for more updates what I have been up to in-game, so journal-blogging definitely has its readers.
Reply
lol oops put the wrong link in my name!
Reply
At WoWenomics we try to take a completely different approach towards blogging than what we see from many of my peers. For the most part, we will link any blog or site on our resources page or mention any other blog (no matter how big or small) in our weekly roundup and send them traffic if the content is good (we will, in fact, be linking to this post in our weekly Saturday roundup this weekend).
What we’ve found, however, is that many of the more established blogs are hesitant to link to the little guys or blogs that they (I guess) feel might be competetors. This is probably to protect their own business interests but it sure does seem personal at times as well.
Ultimately, it would seem that there is more to be gained by sharing other perspectives with your readers than there is to be taken away. Thank you for pointing this out in your post.
Jederus´s last blog post..The Top Ten Types of WoW Gold Makers
Reply
admin Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Thanks for the link in advance. I actually read your blog as a feed, as gold-making is one of my side-interests.
I’ve always tried to link to any good warrior blogs I come across, and have a fairly extensive blogroll (that is in dire need of updating). CommentLuv is a must for me as plugin, because often, posts of my commenters will draw me to their blogs.
WoW blogs should be diverse, from the educating to the entertaining to the aggravating. Thanks for your feedback!
Reply
[...] Destructive Reach say never mind all those silly rules and do your own thing. We tend to agree with our favorite female tank in thinking that the key to success is somewhere in the middle. Finally, if you’re blogging on [...]