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) 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)