Hey Kriz,
I know exactly what you mean about long posts meaning you never catch up on all the feeds. I have a minimum of 200+ through to 1,000+ in my feedreader at any point in time… Occasionally I just flame strike a whole bunch away, then wonder what I have missed.
So in summary…
- I ding’ed 75 lsat weekend… PewPew has furnished me with a custom built level 75 FFB spec that leans dangerously close to the dark side (Frost), so now I have to worry about more Frost talents than I knew existed… Zupa would be laughing from his grave…
- The WoWInsider twinking locust plague has rolled over the blog heading off to greener pastures, leaving the blog relatively unscathed. Apparently Most/All/Some of the twink guide is really outdated… I am guessing because many of the items and enchants are for level 19… which hasn’t been seen by many since Vanilla WoW. Don’t know why Blizzard doesn’t do a new range of gear and enchants for Vanilla… why do they waste their time with WoLK… bring in some Vanilla servers Blizz!
- Apart from that, just the usually silly ideas are being thrown up on the site… I think it is less Mage, less Warlock, more Gnome these days than anything… I fear the great Gnome Gnerf of 3.1 is yet to be announced… when it is, you can be sure to read about it here.
Damn, that’s too many words isn’t it…
Ohh well, doesn’t really matter what I write here about cross dressing Gnome Frost Mage/Death Knights… you wont be reading it anyway…
If you read this far, you might as well consume this quote from PewPew’s latest post. It will make you think…
Tell you what, let’s put spirit on Warrior gear. After all, spirit also provides health regen, and tanks lose lots of health in boss fights so no-one can truthfully say it’s a useless stat. We’d have to lose some strength and stamina to compensate of course, maybe some hit or defence, too but that’s only fair.
Anyone read the above paragraph and not start choking on their cornflakes? It’s absurd isn’t it? Yet when a Mage starts cursing about all the useless crap on gear that he’s forced to equip, it’s just more mage QQ isn’t it?
Gnomer and Out!
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/03/12/short-one-for-kriz/
Honestly, even if it’s a great honor and good fun to stand in the spotlight of WI for a few hours, it won’t give any lasting effect whatsoever. If you expect that you’ll get disappointed. At least that’s my experience.
The people who become regular visitors to blogs like yours and mine are a special kind. The WoW blogosphere is a community that doesn’t fit everyone. WoWInsider is something different. Not a blog, more of a news magazine. In my opinon.
So when there’s a sudden peak I think: “haha, we’ve got visitors today, that’s fun”, but I don’t expect anything at all come out of it.
When I was in WI last weekend I didn’t even bother to mention it on my blog. It didn’t feel quite as big and important anymore. The friendship and thought exchange with my regulars. That’s what counts to me.
@Larisa:
Yes I felt honored, and a little overwhelmed, for a few hours at least. It’s crazy to refresh the stats page and see that the number has jumped by hundreds rather than the usual 1′s. Thankfully I have been around a little while and seen a few bloggers comment on the “flash in the pan” nature of such a link. I think you have commented on it in the past as well.
Actually, one of my 1st responses was to jump on Twitter to announce that I had been WI’d.. my follow up was that it was a shame that it was for the twink guide… which afterall is a very small part of the blog… somewhere between 6-10 posts out of the current 331 post. But that said, most of my posts aren’t “news worthy”.
I like to think that my visitors are special… and not necessarily in a bad way, and it would take a certain kind of “specialness” to be able to handle my comedic sense of humor (that even leaves Dad jokes cringing).
While I haven’t expected anything out of it, I see I have a couple of new subscribers (Welcome folks!). Now 2ish subscribers out of 16897 hits (so let’s call that around 2816 visitors isn’t bad in my opinion. I have probably had a similar number of hits to the twink guides since their creation, and I would be surprised if there were that many of those early explorers that would have subscribed too.
As for mentioning it on the blog… more than anything it was to welcome the few new regulars, and ward off as much “Gnomeaggedon FTL” stuff as possible. As well as to acknowledge the link from Dan.
One think that struck me about the commenter (or lack thereof), was that there was one positive (if correcting… in a nice way, thanks Drayner!) comment left on my site, a couple of negative (in the sense that they pointed out a supposed deficiency in the guide, without offering either examples or recommended solutions), and another 2 were left on WI site (a bit generic “it’s severely outdated”, but at least offering something in return)… but no mention on my blog.
All up, happy to have been linked, happy to have picked up a couple of new regulars, unhappy that my blog stats are now skewed (20% of my all time hits have come this week).. but I can live with that.
PS: Kriz, if you have read all the comments as well… then you have too much time on your hands…
[...] was reminding me on my place in the WoW blogging community (in a nice way) in a comment to my post a short one to Kriz (which wasn’t in anyway short…). I in turn responded [...]
Congrats on the link. I remember seeing that article. I really liked it a lot.
On my other websites personal and business related I get linked to and do link to others a lot. Those are heavily trafficked websites and at times I gain a few new subscribers and those I link to do as well. There’s much more going on there than a Gaming Diva but I like my newest baby too. The majority of your readers won’t comment.
Now that I think of it, I’ve been blogging in some form for over five years. I’ve been active on the net since the mid 90′s. I still see my user names popping up from some website archives. I stopped checking my traffic stats a few years ago. I do occasionally check to see what brings people to my websites and will write about some of those topics. However my traffic number just doesn’t matter to me anymore. I felt the same way even when my larger websites were small as my newest baby, Gaming Diva. Interacting with my readers via posts/email and basically writing what interests me or what I think might interest my readers.
I tend to comment at websites where the blogger interacts with their commentators. They got their own little community going on. I like that.
/bow Diva of Gaming.
The wow & kids one… I liked it too.. find myself going back and thinking of more.. will post once the juices start flowing properly.
Linkage has always been nice, and I am aware (I guess the twink guides have really reinforced this) that the majority of people drop in, look at one, maybe two things, then head off.
So I am always appreciative of the odd comment, especially from the new reader. I think bloggers do a lot to both support each other’s enthusiasm (as well as, to some extent, draw attention to their own work), but I especially love it when there is a comment “out of the blue”, from an otherwise stranger.. especially when it one of those “long time reader, 1st time commenter” situations.
The stats grabbed me, madly, for the 1st month or so. Had to check every 15 minutes. That grew old pretty quick, and now 1/2 the fun is checking in hours down the track to see if there is a comment. One failing I think with WP’s basic “phone” m.page is that is shows you page view numbers for yesterday and today… all well and good, but I would rather know if there were comments.
Hits = relax, go back to work.
Comments = ohhh curious now… must check it out and respond. I just love it on those rare occasions where a conversation is being struck up via the comments, basically real time.
That said.. the 2 instances of WI linkage were… scary isn’t quite the right word… but it isn’t coming to me right now.
1st morning, I woke up and had a quick look at the stats on my phone.
2,000ish views… Mmm somethings wrong with the stats (/shakes phone and tries again),
3,000ish views… ahhhh WI must have linked….
To be in a situation where refreshing the stats would show a jump of 100 views, rather than the usual 1-2 over an hour was just freaky… (Most views occur while I am sleeping)
2nd linkage I looked and knew what was happening… so was really only curious what it was that got linked and if there were comments.
(Remember at the time of this post, the 2nd link hadn’t been made… I was still riding on twink guides and some trackbacks from a month-ish old link to The Druid Team)
Still I have heard it said many times before… you can’t predict the posts that are going to get attention. The Kids & WoW one was very quickly thrown together on the train on the way to work, another 5 minutes of editing and up it went… I definitely didn’t expect this result.
I am happy with the stats… but happier with the couple of new readers… which I hope is more than a couple…
I agree with you it can be addictive. When I first started using stats I watched them religiously too. Yep, I like the out of the blue comments also. On my other websites I’ve had people follow me for a few years before ever making a single comment. Linkage is great, people can search the web, find the article on WOWInsider and come to your website months afterwards.
I know when I have received links from websites linking to an informative article I have always gone back and edited it to included a..”If you like this post you might like… and linked posts that were similar in nature. I’ve received additional comments on the other posts because of it and gained a few additional followers to.