So old school blogger Cyclopeatron has gotten into this groove where every month he posts lists of the most-followed and fastest-growing OSR bloggers. His data is limited to blogger.com accounts, but it's still interesting info. You can see his March numbers here and here. I'll straight up admit that I like to check his numbers to see if I have a chance of catching up with Jamie Mal or Zak. Grognardia really ought to get some sort of shiny award for being number one on the list without pictures of naked ladies, but DnD With Porn Stars clearly offers an amazing amount of high quality non-naked-lady content as well.
Anyhoo, I just wanted to point out something that we should all be doing with Cyclopeatron's posts. Every blogger started out with zero regular readers, therefore being on the bottom of Cyclopeatron's lists doesn't necessarily have anything to do with quality. So do yourself a favor and poke around the bottom quarter or so of the entries. If you see something you like, let the writer know. And if you have a blog of your own, share a link. If the stuff there looks good but there haven't been any updates in a while, leave a comment (or send an email if an addy is handy on the blog) saying something like "Just found you blog and I like it. Please post some more!" The distributed metamind of the OSR will only improve by these efforts. And you just may be the person who discovers the next great talent in the scene.
PoP!
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I have drawn three pieces today, and this -- with no hint of irony or
self-deprecation -- is the best of them all.
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Posts
That's another great idea Jeff!
ReplyDeleteI have to say Cyclopeatrons blog rankings makes me seriously consider transfering my blog from wordpress over to blogger. Iève been wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can get more trafic to my own blog at http://zombiecowboy.type-100.com/. But as the list and you point out there are a metric ton of awesome blogs out there and only so much time to read them all!
ReplyDeleteIf it's any consolation Jeff, you're the highest-ranked blogger who isn't also publishing something (not counting Fight On articles and PDF freebies, of course). You're the most popular "for love" blog out there!
ReplyDeleteGreat reminder on the newbie blogs - I'll have to check some out today.
Great idea and I'm all for it but its sad there's no love for us non-OSR bloggers.
ReplyDeleteTrying to find blogs with content on Mutants & Masterminds, Star Trek or new school games is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Trying to find D&D content is like trying to find sand at the beach.
No consolation is necessary. I'm not over here weeping and gnashing my teeth at Jamie Mal and Zak S. Those guys do good work in high quantity and have rightly earned their top spots. I just like have something to shoot for, even if I never do quite reach it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I will totally sell you something if you want to buy it, I just don't consider it a big deal:
http://www.lulu.com/retrostupid
It seems like just yesterday I had 0 followers and was wondering if ANYONE would EVER read my blog.
ReplyDeleteRe: D&D with Porn Stars and content.
ReplyDeleteIt truly is the Playboy of the OSR. He might hook us in with the pictures but we do read the articles.
In fact, I'd really like to see more of the rules for AD&D20.
And something to. I see the followers being an indication of more than just those that sign up. Many people visit who just read stuff so a x10 is probably at play here. 30 followers may well be 300 readers and that's not bad :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool list - thanks, Jeff. I've never seen that list before and will definitely be checking out a bunch of those blogs.
ReplyDelete@Barking Alien - not sure if this counts for you, but I blog about a variety of "geek" stuff, including my new-school Pathfinder game, and I've also been posting a bunch of encounters recently for Mutant Future, although I guess that technically is an OSR type game.
I don't play Star Trek or Mutants & Masterminds, but you might find something that you like.
http://daddyrolleda1.blogspot.com/
And, I'm sure you've seen it, but just in case, the blog "The Other Side" often posts super-hero stats for various systems, including Mutants & Masterminds (at least, I think it's M&M... I'm going by memory because I'm really lazy right now to go check his site!).
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/
I'm still stunned that :
ReplyDeleteI GOT on the list. I've told those needing to know repeatedly that I'm not OSR...but apparently "hanging out with" them counts... (I post comments on a veritable bunch load)
I STAY on the list. I keep wondering if he'll read my blog and go... "nah, never mind".
I continue to GROW. I keep getting readers and wondering where the heck they hear of me from. (Apparently from other blogs or the many guest articles I write...)
All of this to say that poking around blogs you are not familiar with might actually work in finding new stuff to read and growing new readers- because it happens to me a lot.
Barking Alien: I've actually put a lot of thought into doing a non-OSR ring/listing for the folks like me that just don't "do" D&D... the problem is knowing where to start.
Thanks for the kind words about my blogometrics exercises! Your post demonstrates that the blog lists are having the effect I desired: highlighting blogs people may have not heard of before. I never specifically intended for these lists to encourage a follower gain competition - but I guess this inevitable given that we are gamers!
ReplyDeleteAlso your advice to give positive feedback to new bloggers particularly hits home for me. It was a comment you left on one of my early posts that encouraged me to be more active and to focus my blog on roleplaying.
@Jason - I run a separate wordpress blog for non-gaming stuff, and I can tell you that I generally like blogger.com (what I use for Cyclopeatron) better. Overall, blogger.com is just a lot cleaner, easier, and has better-developed social networking options like following. On the downside, blogger.com is less customizable, but I don't really care about that for what I do.
Thanks Jeff. It's a good idea because it's a classy and gracious idea. That's what I aspire towards in between my bouts of rant and inanity.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, Jeff. I do love Cyclopetron's blog and the fact he takes so much time to rank old school blogs such as my own is wonderful.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we could have a newbie of the week or something?
"Just found you blog and I like it. Please post some more!"
ReplyDeleteThere is no better motivation to continuing work with the blog / game than words like this, so I agree in 100%
Good idea. Just because there are a metric ton of blogs out there doesn't mean you can't give encouragement to someone else. I'm continually finding new blogs on people's list that I didn't know about. If I find something I like on that blog, I click the "Follow Button."
ReplyDeleteI'm always wondering if I'm doing something wrong -- I have a mere 15 Followers. Now I am grateful to every single one of 'em, and love to see comments, I'd love to have more. Love to know that what I say and do matters to someone other than myself. That is, I think, a concept that most people can wrap their heads around.
I am rediscovering Roleplaying after many many years away and in the process of deciding what game to play to designing my campaign the OSR bloggers have been very inspirational as well as motivational. In addition to running a LL campaign I've decided to blog about it. I only have 2 posts but here it is.
ReplyDeletehttp://fullcustomcampaign.blogspot.com/