(Yet) Another C-Blog about the changes to C-Blogs

Why hello there, most of you will have never read anything by me, if you have (and remember) then thanks, it actually does mean quite a lot to me, but you see it seems I and others like me are no longer welcome in the Destructoid community blogs. My recent blog about why I don’t really see all the fuss about Dark Souls was my first blog in around 5 months, in effect it was probably even longer since my last real blog considering that that one was just a picture of some sold out new 3ds plates and the words “oh dear”. Like many of you, I have things to do in real life and can’t reliably set aside time to do extended writing on what is essentially a hobby. Although I’m currently writing a blog about Radiant Historia and why I think it’s great, it’s highly likely that I’ll go quiet on the blogging side of things for a few months again as I’m going to be writing a research proposal, applying for a couple of taught MAs as back up and also getting a job to fund them. Because of my infrequent posts, and likely also due to their fairly inconsistent tone and quality I am yet to gain any followers and with proposed (upcoming?) changes to the site this is a bad thing apparently.

Firstly, I want to say why the hell do I have to scroll through the replies to other peoples C-blogs to find out the exact nature of the changes? If they’ve been put anywhere on the site I certainly haven’t seen them. And this is someone who checks the C-blogs every couple of days- even during my 5-month hiatus. This just isn’t acceptable for major changes to the entire nature of the COMMUNITY  blogs. Secondly, as I have stated in comments on other blogs, these changes are absolute bollocks and will do nothing to make the C-blogs more accessible or inclusive, because they were already plenty accessible- and were in fact positively welcoming.

I’ve read the site for years and made an account last November- my first blog was in January and was about Animal Crossing, I had lots of lovely replies (including one from site higher up Mr J. Holmes- what has happened to him while we’re on it?) but I think the reply which encapsulates this community was on my third post. Cast your mind back to January and you will remember there was a large number of Fetish blogs being writ, I thought of an idea which made me chuckle (write a fetish blog in the persona of my altar ego retired army general and Gloucestershire gentleman Rt. Hon. Gen. Sir Henry Bumbletrousers Esq.) so I thought I’d write my own. I jokingly said something along the lines of myself judging my societal value by the amount of traffic my Dtoid posts got so I had jumped on the band wagon, and I got this reply from Luckrequired:

"Don't judge your work and own worth on the amount of traffic your blogs get. That's dumb. This isn't a high school popularity contest. Just express yourself and you'll be fine. Welcome aboard. Nice boots."

Comments such as these and members like DreamWeaver in particular made me feel extremely welcome, this was not a community which needed any changes. But these changes WILL turn the blogs into a popularity contest.

At the moment there is a small amount of competition in the form of the re-caps, however there it feels friendly. Leader boards are never friendly. And with the new link between followers and upvoting (and DOWNVOTING!?) the environment is set to become even more exclusive and competitive. Upvotes will no longer mean that this many people liked your blog, but rather, well, what will it mean? Potentially 15 people? Or just one person with 15 followers? Or 100 people but someone with 85 followers then didn’t like it? So should I write what I want to write about and see who agrees or just write to appeal to those with the most followers?  Especially worrying is that this will give more established members the power to down vote and essentially bury blogs they dislike whilst promoting the blogs of friends and things they do like. That doesn’t sound very inclusive does it?

I’m extremely introverted, I have worried very little about following and followers since A) I visit the C-blogs so regularly that I find everything I want to read anyway and B) as weird as it sounds I don’t want people to feel like they should follow me in a sort of thank you gesture. These changes will not only make upvoting pointless but also following, as if you want to help someone out, you will basically need to follow them so they can get their voices heard on the site (and I think that the Dtoid community is nice enough that they would).

I’m going to end things here as it may descend into rant territory and I dislike being overly wordy. But as I commented on Zetta’s blog, if you want to see an exodus of Bloggers in the same way as you did the forums, I think you are going the right way about it.          

EDIT: ALSO SPECIAL GIVE AWAY. LIMITED TIME ONLY. I HAVE MINT PAL COPIES OF PATH OF RADIANCE AND RADIANT DAWN, WILL GIVE TO MILLIONTH FOLLOWER.

LOOK WHO CAME:

Cynric Cyning   

Zombie Orwell   34

Luna Sy   33

Jinx 01   26

OverlordZetta   17

Dango    15

Matt I Guess   6

Forsakeneyes   5

TheLimoMaker   4

Fuzunga   3

ooktar   2

James Internet Ego   2

KeithTheGeek   1

Arm Length Interviews   1

Robo Panda Z   1