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[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I'm currently unsure what to do with regards to my blog. 

I use Livejournal as my blog.  I have done for the past seven years, and I don't have any real plans to change that.  However, I feel 'out of the loop' because Livejournal doesn't have an effective system for non-registered users to post comments. (You can allow anonymous comments, but it doesn't ask the poster for a name or email so they tend to read as purely anonymous, which is no good)

So, I'm considering making a game development focused blog which will mirror my gamedev posts from Livejournal, but have its own commenting system available.  This seems like a good solution, right?

However, what about the rest of my blog? Should I avoid putting anything art, music, or comic related in this blog because it is focused on games development?  Should I keep my personal blog entries off it for the same reason?

I realise that when people read a blog it is often for a specific purpose. For example, if someone makes a game, you want to follow their development of new games, but do you necessarily want to hear about their day to day activities?

So, the question is... is it necessary to keep multiple blogs, or do tags suffice for filtering content? Is it 'unprofessional' to have personal, non-project related posts on a blog? Do you tend to tune out if the blog content changes pace in this manner?

(  Here is my blog,  and here is my current homepage, which is out of date and has no mention of games)

I'm somewhat at a loss as to where I should go with these, and I'd like to know your thoughts, especially from those of you whom have a selection of game developer blogs on the RSS readers. Opinions please! 

[increpare]

several blog systems have options where you can subscribe to feeds contain posts with only a certain tag, so as long as you can figure out how to do that, and are a diligent tagger, you won't need to worry too much about what content not to include maybe?

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

True, and livejournal has that too.  I think some people subscribed to 'tumbledrop' blog specifically.  However, that is limited to savvy followers only.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I use LJ as well. I friended you.

However, I don't consider LJ to be a blog. It's primarily for journaling, which is distinct. Journaling is more when you write for your own benefit, to clarify things for yourself, and to figure out personal problems about your life, whereas blogging is more where you write for other people, content which would be valuable to others. I also have a blog too, separate, on my own site. I use one for blogging and the other for journaling, and it helps to keep them separate like that.

mine if anyone wants to check them out:

http://rinku.livejournal.com
http://studioeres.com/games/blog

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I should also note that I had the same problem as you did a few months ago, then I decided to start that blog for game design stuff and keep LJ just for personal stuff and stuff only my friends would care about. A good criteria I use is: would anyone beyond my circle of friends actually care about this entry? If yes, I put it in the blog, if no, I put it in my LJ.

[dmoonfire]

http://d.moonfire.us/blog/
http://dmoonfire.livejournal.com/

I'm terrible at keeping things separate. I have a blog and I use ljxp to mirror it to my LiveJournal, but I talk about everything: life, writing, and games. It seems like there is a general belief that you should keep everything distinctly separate, you know a writing blog, a gaming blog, a programming plog, and a "42" (life, universe, everything) blog, but I don't like separating my life out that way. I write games that use my novel worlds and crap in my life affects how I write and my self-imposed deadlines.

I do try to tag my stuff though, mainly so people could use an RSS feed to listen to it (very few do, which is also the issue). I know that it will cause problems with getting published in the future, because it is all mixed up, but its frustrating to compartmentalize your life.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think it's incorrect and kind of insulting to say that separating one's writing into different categories for different audiences is equivalent to "compartmentalizing your life". Is it compartmentalizing your life to be formal at funerals or business meetings or fancy dinners and informal at when you're hanging around with friends or family? Is it compartmentalizing your life to make sexual jokes when among adults and not to do that when among children? Those are basically the same kind of thing.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

One thing I'm seriously considering is using a system such as 'Intense Debate' to handle my comments. I've seen a lot of Wordpress users get spammed up like crazy, and I'm worried about having to maintain a set of comments on my own server.  It would also mean I can build my blog any way I see fit, so long as it supports RSS.

How do you find maintaining your comments? Ever suffer from spam?

I think it's a valid point about keeping your personal life on your LJ, and keeping it off your other pages.  I could probably still include my work specific entries on my livejournal. It would feel less weird for people whom are interested in my work, but not in me, so to speak.

So on the other issue - where do you stand with regards to content? If I post nothing but comic artwork for two months, and nothing but game development talk for two months, would that be too peculiar for you to follow?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

No real problems with spam so far. I think I get one spam comment on LJ every few months or so, and none on my new blog so far. Spam on my forum is a much bigger issue, but even there I only get one every week or so.

It's hard to make generalizations about content based on one person's tastes. I read LJ's / blogs that interest me. I don't read the ones that don't. It's hard for me to explain how I distinguish between the two. Here's a list of the blogs I enjoy reading regularly (besides my LJ friends list) -- you can search them up in Google and see why, if interested.

history news network
paleo future
paul graham's blog
steve pavlina's blog
the IDIOT / saltypig's blog
this rocketship will crash / miracle jones' blog
auntie pixelante
jon blow's blog
cactus's new blog
derek yu's blog
game politics
tim w's blog / indiegames.com blog
tigsource blog
play this thing
grand text auto
j force games blog
patrick dugan's blog / king lud ic
mersey remakes / oddbob's blog
tale of tales blog
cliffski's blog

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I could also make a list of blogs I used to read but don't read as often now, if you want to get a good idea of why someone might stop reading one, but I think that'd be a fairly negative list to write and I wouldn't want to insult anyone who happens to be on it.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I just took a quick look at your LJ, Rinku, and stumbled across some weird anonymous comment. The anonymous comment system irritates me, it is either used by jerks or by people who don't understand that they sound like jerks unless there's some context as to whom the comment is coming from.  I considered re-enabling it a couple of days ago, but quickly remembered why.

My LJ isn't the most personal thing, really. If you read it you'll see that most of my thoughts tend to be about work anyway, and anything else is kept in 'friends only' entries.

So, I'm veering towards the idea of having a 'blog' which will be 'most' of my LJ entries, and my LJ which will be all of them. I figure this will be easier to keep up to date.

Of course, now I have the even bigger problem of what to have as a homepage.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Sometimes I have anonymous comments off, but a lot of people read my LJ who do not have LJ's themselves, and I like their comments more than I mind the occasional rude anonymous comment. It's the internet, you're always going to get anonymous jerks saying stuff (just today I got a typical "do you ever get laid??" comment for instance), you learn not to mind it after a while.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Of course, now I have the even bigger problem of what to have as a homepage.

Well, currently I have a blog, DeviantArt account, and YouTube page, and I've connected those all with my blog as the home page, since it's the most encompassing and follows basically everything I do. That being said, your plan is to have a blog for mostly everything and a journal for everything, which makes it more confusing.

Google has some sort of webpage thing. You could do a quick homepage from there with some short links and descriptions maybe.

Or, you could have the blog as your homepage and have a link for "More In-Depth Posts" or something akin to that which links to your journal.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Google has some sort of webpage thing. You could do a quick homepage from there with some short links and descriptions maybe.

I already have a homepage, as mentioned - is here: http://www.deadpanda.com
I intend to fix it up to somehow encompass games as well, but it's a matter of balancing a content. I know how to make websites, it's just a matter of design and content rather than a technical problem

In general I agree, it's important not to spread yourself too thinly but it can be useful to separate your personal stuff from your 'project/output' stuff.

[jeb]

Hey dock, off-topic but... Maybe you'll like the works of a friend of mine: Åsa Ekström

[Core Xii]

I realise that when people read a blog it is often for a specific purpose. For example, if someone makes a game, you want to follow their development of new games, but do you necessarily want to hear about their day to day activities?

It depends. If you can provide the option to filter specific kinds of posts, implement it. If you can't, you can mix them, but keep it interesting. I couldn't care less about reading about, say, your dog. On the other hand, if you stumble upon some interesting thing that's at least remotely related to my interests, it's cool.

I don't mind manually filtering out a few posts now and then. I just read the headline and if it doesn't interest me, click that button on Google Reader that takes me to the next. I do it all the time with feeds like Joystiq that are flooded with uninteresting crap like figures of japanese hardware sales.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

One point about posting identical posts in two places is how Google works: it penalizes sites which duplicate most of their content from other sites, so you may want to be wary of that if you have one blog for all of your entries and another blog for a selection of those entries. That may not matter to you too much, but it would mean that it'd be harder to get traffic from Google and other search engines.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Yeah, I know that about google, but I'm not too worried about that - I already have that with my journal on my homepage and that hasn't caused me any trouble thus far. Thanks for the tip though.

It sounds as though I don't have too much to worry about, hopefully my blog contents will be as interesting as any other game developer. Hmm hmm!

[agj]

Duplicating entries seems to me like a waste of time. Just make a single blog, use categories for different content, and structure the site like each category is a different blog.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Duplicating entries seems to me like a waste of time. Just make a single blog, use categories for different content, and structure the site like each category is a different blog.

I have a livejournal, and a large network of 'friends' on there whom can read my private entries.

I also want to allow people to follow my blog and be able to comment without a livejournal account.

I can't really do that with a single blog, right?