Forum:Blog vs Forum .. Does one win or do they coexist?

I appreciate the anonymous forum post Forum:MyHome and Wikia's Privacy Policy guiding us to read blogs by users (Wikia staff) ToughPigs and KyleH. At that forum post it was suggested/implied that there might be something to be gained from monitoring certain blogs. The idea of monitoring blog pages is still a little foreign to me so I am asking here to better understand the role we should expect these central forums (Watercooler and Help desk) to play and what role (if any) the blogs by various staff members might play in disseminating information to the users of wikia communities.


 * My knee-jerk reaction is that it seems a little silly to expect that users monitor blogs by all wikia staff because I can name maybe 5 or 6 without effort and I am sure there are at least another 5 or 6 that I have (temporarily) forgotten about. (Sanse, Danny(ToughPigs), Kirkburn, KyleH, Uberfuzzy, Angela)

I'd like to assume that w:c:central:Forum:Index will remain the "go to" page for news and discussion of issues that affect more than one wikia communities. Is that the plan or can we expect some changes in the future? --najevi 07:48, September 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point! I need to monitor this stuff to learn what new "features" are going to cause friction at our wiki, and I don't want to monitor this forum and random blogs. JohnBeckett 08:49, September 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * You don't really have to monitor all the individual user blogs - the staff blog listing linked in the sidebar lists all of them. That said, it takes getting used to and is a bit more work in comparison to only monitoring the forums. -- Porter21 (talk) 10:39, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for drawing my attention to the Wikia Staff blogs link in the sidebar. I would not have looked for it if you hadn't mentioned it. There are not that many staff blogs so I agree it's no big deal to monitor them. What troubles me with using blogs for such announcements is that: In any case I do look forward to receiving word from staff as to how Wikia plans to disseminate/discuss such information in the future. --najevi 11:06, September 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) blog comments cannot be previewed as they are created
 * 2) perhaps as a result they are very brief and tend to lack the substance that I am accustomed to reading (and writing) in forum posts at the Watercooler and at the Help desk
 * 3) one cannot easily quote another comment or respond to another comment as you can with a forum thread
 * 4) to see what changed since you last viewed the blog comments is not as easy as it is with a forum article - forums have the familiar the History and Diff features which apply to comments and not just the original post.
 * 5) Indeed, Blog comments more closely resemble twitter comments. That's cool for social networking but not so cool for information dissemination and serious feedback and/or discussion.
 * I just added a link to Wikia Staff blogs on MediaWiki:Sidebar, so that Monobook users like myself don't miss out. --Michaeldsuarez (Talk) (Deeds) 13:57, September 24, 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi! I totally understand where you're coming from--we haven't exactly been super-clear about where to look for news and information.  In general, we are now using the blogs for official news and announcements.  This is for a number of reasons, but the primary one is so that we can separate, to some degree, the announcement itself from the bug reports and ongoing feedback that comes after any announcement.  For example, if you take a look at the MediaWiki 1.14 upgrade announcement, the feedback section is 4 times the size of the original announcement.  I agree, however, that the forum provides a much better format for bug reports and more in-depth feedback than the blog posts, and the feedback that we get is really important.  Because of that, we plan to continue using the blogs for the actual announcements, but also supplementing those announcements with forum threads in situations where we expect significant feedback or bug reports. --KyleH (talk) 01:14, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Kyle for the clarification. I plan to focus on the potential silver-lining to that particular cloud by reasoning that My perhaps-misguided reservations about using blogs for such announcements is that it leads to gratuitous duplication of content (responses) with one set of content being in an area (the blog space) that is managed by the blog starter. That concern probably stems from my old-fashioned thinking that blogs are an optional part of a wiki environment and not a core part. Maybe in 6 or 12 months time I'll be singing the praises of blogs much as I am now able to advocate SMW now that I've bitten the bullet and can see it's diverse applications.
 * 1) the really important announcements will also get a Watercooler post (just as the recent pair of announcements did)
 * 2) while announcements of less import might go by without such a pointer/link here at the Watercooler
 * 3) the superficial twitter-like comments can accumulate in a blog area away from this forum area
 * 4) the well considered, previewed and even re-edited comments and discussion will continue to take place in the Watercooler forum

I don't mind giving it time for "osmosis". Regards, najevi 03:06, September 25, 2009 (UTC)

Wow that was too easy!
Hey if every blog announcement can be transcluded to the Watercooler in the way I just did above then I am happy that we have the best of both worlds. The blog creator get's the same message out to two places and those who are blog fans get to comment under the blog while those who are forum fans get to comment under a forum thread. --najevi 03:06, September 25, 2009 (UTC)