| So I've been thinking that it would be nice for blogs to get a little more work on them, since it has potential for a lot of stuff. -First of all http://myanimelist.net/blog.php there already is a place they come up on so a little shaping up would make it more approachable. There already is the design of featured articles so I don't think it would be that hard changing how that page looks. -This should be given more attention in order to become more like a forum board but for blogs. Now hear me out here, I know there is the featured articles section, but many people have complaints about it, and according to what Xinil said on the featured articles announcement, by the way I'm reading it, seems that users will be able to submit their articles in the future, but not necessarily have them featured. Which is kind of a shame, since even if the people selecting them don't like them, there might be many other users or non users that do. Making the blogs page more of a hangout, will not only benefit people that like to write blogs, articles, or whatever, but it could also benefit the featured articles page, and potentially even MAL all together. Now, of course, just changing the page blogs appear on isn't gonna do that much. There needs to be more effort to see a difference, but there are a few things that could help. For starters, integrating pre made formats as different options on blogs. Lets say I go on to create a new blog entry, and at the start of it a list of options should drop down, with things like; list, article, simple blog, poll, blah blah.. (stuff that people tend to be largely interested in) selecting one of those, could potentially have pre-made formats that everyone can easily use. For example, if I select "list", a check box would come up and ask me to click on the features I'd like my list to have, like thumbnails, clickable names, maybe a small comment lined up, whatever. maybe kinda like this: http://myanimelist.net/featured/1233 but each person would be able to slightly customize the format. I'm talking about basic things here, not anything grant, like special designs or something. accordingly, other options could have similar functions, maybe even integrating things that already exist, like polls. I used the example of a list, because people LOVE lists. No, they don't just love them, they obsess over them. I mean, honestly, who can deny that, this site in itself is a place for people to list anime. And you have seen how persistent people can be about lists, seeing how you increased favorites from 5 to 10 and the "all" limit to 3k. People will stop complaining about longer favorites lists, custom lists, characters, people, anything. Seeing as blogs already have share buttons, they can be easily spread around to other sites, potentially even bringing more people on MAL, I mean, just look at what buzzfeed does. I'm not saying buzzfeed is even a remotely good site, but it is a fact that lists attract people. If it gains popularity, then some stuff will probably end up on featured articles or even google searches, which I'm sure you guys already know if people click them or not. Fortunately blogs already have comments section so a a few design changes could liven it up. Plus it has been a frequently requested feature in featured articles. This is unexplored potential right there. There literally is no place on MAL right now where someone can publicize their list of lets say, favorite voice actors, and have people comment on it. Listing threads are forbidden, and the whole blogs design is really not helping imo. This could also potentially create an alternative to forum threads, for people that are interested in something different. Lets take this club for example, which btw I saw that MAL has taken an interest in. http://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=70184 these are perfectly good articles that are hard to get publicity, and attract users, As they are it is hard to attract people, since the only non club area the threads come up are the recent threads and that is only once every blue moon. Even if they were currently publicized as blogs, they would die out withing a few hours, because the blogs page isn't easy enough to attract users to check stuff like this. However if it was redesigned, put in a more obvious "place" on MAL and given a few features like "popular user articles/lists/polls" or "popular writers/clubs" recently posted/bookmarked/favorited, whatever. Basically things to keep it interesting and get the place going. Clubs could potentially post their articles as blogs. This could in the future create different communities of clubs that post blogs, on behalf of their users, potentially creating a variety of daily content that is managed by the users for the users. BUT, none of this will happen, as long as the blogs page continues to be as plain as it is. Private entries should not appear, people should be asked at the competition of their blog if they want to publicize it, clubs should have the option to post things as clubs and not as users. Users should continue to be able to comment on entries, bookmarking/favoriting/ liking or some other kind form of approval from users should be implemented and imo, there should be "tags" to select in order to know what kind of content the article/list/poll/whatever is about, Should work as searching, because blog boards would be hard to make I assume. In conclusion, I think that blogs can be way more than what they currently are, and it's an option worth looking into. |
EucliMar 12, 2016 9:52 AM
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| bump for feedback |
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| I just want a convenient system for tracking blog comments. Right now I have to bookmark the blogs I commented on and keep revisiting them in hope for a response. And it would be nice to have more than 10 categories because that's not so much. And to be able to relate posts to manga, not only anime. In that AMA thing Xinil told me that he's interested in improving blogs. But I guess at the moment it's far from being a top priority. I will soon have 300 blog posts. I wonder what's the record here on MAL. |
kuchitsu said: I just want a convenient system for tracking blog comments. its been added days ago here http://myanimelist.net/notifications if you do not receive any blog comments notification then edit the notification settings on the upper right side as for the topic what i like to personally add to the blogs here is the ability to follow other users blogs and add it to the notification system if ever there is a new blog entry of the blogs i followed |
| I receive notifications about comments in my blogs, but if I comment on someone's blog and they respond I don't receive anything I think. Or does it work both ways now? Following people would be cool too, yeah. |
kuchitsuMar 12, 2016 2:57 PM
Jotchino said: @j0x i beliele your idea could be realy usefull and not only for blogs, it could be usefull for featured articles as well. yep, but im not sure how following featured articles will work though kuchitsu said: I receive notifications about comments in my blogs, but if I comment on someone's blog and they respond I don't receive anything I think. Or does it work both ways now? ah thats what you meant, well i got no idea about that one |
| Bumping again, Having users add things that they also want is pretty nice, but I still haven't got any feedback :P |
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| Most of my blog entries are for myself, but there are a few that are meant to be viewed by other people. I even have a few that I only made to be linked to in my "about me". It would be nice to have a blog discovery page instead of only showing the most recent ones. People are even told by the mods to use blogs for things like listing their waifus if they have more than 10, so a "top blogs" would be a good idea to sort those types out. |
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| @zombie_pegasus Yeah that's why I said publication should be optional. It will definitely clear up the blogs page too. The discovery page you mention, could easily be a part of the blogs home page depending on how it changes. |
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| buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump |
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| What I would like to see is a button to back up your blog, similarly to how you can export (import? I always confuse these words) your lists. Right now I have to do it manually. |
| Currently there is so little incentive to visit the blog section. Like half of the blogs are set to private, but still clog up the public section. A good amount them are just simple listings or a few pictures with no text, and then you have blogs that are nothing more than one or two liners. |
| A lot of people use tumblr to share their anime enthusiasm. If MAL's blogs would be half what tumblr offers it would pretty much become a full-fledged powerhouse in my eyes. |
| I recently got back into using the Blog function and I'm sad that essentially nothing has really improved on the Blogs page. I actually wrote a blog post about MAL blogs back in November 2010, and yeah, basically nothing has changed. It would be cool if there were more features when you create blogs, but the Blogs page is what is in the most critical need of being fixed right now. The main things I'd like to see: -Almost don't know where to start with the Blogs page, but setting it up at least as well as the Forums page and letting them be searchable would be a start. -Make tags matter on a global site level. -Have more "Relation" options than just Anime. At the very least, there should be Manga, Characters, and People relation options. I don't think it would hurt to have Club and User relations as well (like tagging friends).... -And that brings me to notifications. The person who wrote the blog should be able to be notified if someone comments on his blog. A user should be notified if they are listed as a Relation, and blogs should be listed on the pages of things (anime, manga, characters, people) that are listed as Relations. So yeah, that's just a few quick things. I really hope things can be improved soon, but next to nothing has been done for the past five years, so I don't have very high hopes. |
 My Collection: Anime/Animation | My Manga and Such | Figures My Top 100 Anime/Manga Series |
| buuuuump |
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| Your template idea is excellent - MAL's BBcode is pretty limited, and I'd love to make lists and write posts that look nice (and perhaps 'a x favourites list' thread would stop showing up in the suggestions board every three days). I also agree that the blogs page is currently terrible. The page is always clogged with private entries and things the poster doesn't really mean for anyone else to see - like sign-ups to challenges. An option to publicise would be handy - I doubt anyone wants to see a list of my milestones, but maybe they'd be interested in the free icons I made. I feel like MAL puts much more stock into certain features than others, improvement to blogs seems long overdue. |
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