Collaborative Blog?

Fenster

Discuss.

Hosting, domains, etc. won't be too much of a problem. Pick a CMS, come up with a theme and a management system.

Logistical issues aside, what say ye about such?

Ideo

I think its a good idea, a simple way of showcasing the work of some of the people from the forum. Were you thinking of a one photo a day blog? Cos I was! Perhaps we could put everybodies' names in a hat and pull out the names corresponding to dates, then when that round is over and all those people have posted one photo we put everybodies' names back in again and so forth? Just a suggestion!

Placebo

Wont it just turn into boards.ie > photography.

i think if you set it so there a theme, i.e photo a day and discuss the photo with your day. And make sure it doesnt get dominated by a few main people.

Fenster

I don't just have in mind for this to be "photo of the day." Guides, rants and interesting links all have their place.

elven

I like.

Fenster

I should also disclaimer that my suggestion of a blog in no way implies or indicate that I would be responsible for day-to-day running. I simply don't have the time on my part.

rahtkennades

Hi all (I'm being all active today!),

Initially it sounds like a great idea, but I'm kind of with Placebo on this. Isn't it pretty much what this forum is/could be?

Please convince me otherwise!!:)

Cabaal

I';d be happy to host it and provide ftp access for anybody that wants to maintain it, not a big deal with host it for me, I have bandwidth to burn and I also used a few things including cabbage which can be seen in my sig,

Photo of the day or week as well as tutorials etc might be a decent enough idea

rymus

it's been very much done and re-done in the past. It's a good idea, but I can't really see why a group photo blog from a forum would be of major benefit.

It's an interestingly time consuming piece of administration for anyone that should either volunteer or be nominated to run it and until such time as that happens there's no point even thinking about it.

but overall; forum = group blog.

K_user

I think it sounds great, as long as its not just a competitor site to boards.ie.
But isn't it been done already?

And I’m fairly free if someone wants to set up a team of people…

YeahOK

I like the idea. A similar thought struck me the other day. Wouldn't it be great to have a place to put the collective knowledge of the contributors in one place! Kinda like strobist, only strobist for all other areas not light related.

I think this kind of resource has its place outside the forum. It's something I'd be interested in for one.

I think the pic of the day etc. has it's place, it's called flickr or pix.ie.

bradnailer

Who would accept next years blog award:D you'd have to draw straws

CraggyIslander

hmmm, not sure about the blog side of it (maybe thats my web 2.O aversion *achoo*) but do kinda like the idea.

I'd see it a more like a hybrid place: turn some of the threads in the ultimate sticky to proper articles (i.e. sports, wedding, macro, etc). Then have a section on gear (and books) review done by boardsies (could be a sub forum here as well) Add the photo challenge back in and we'd have a cool collaborative (lowish maintenance) site.

Then we can add speakers corner type thing for ramblings on why we photograph / what rules do you break / what is art, etc, etc. (that'd be as close as I'd get to bl0gging tho!)

Dont think it'd be a competitor to boards.ie, just an amalgamation (sp?) of the best threads on here but not presented as threads (if that makes sense :P).

just my tuppence

robinph

Fred C. Dobbs wrote: »

... turn some of the threads in the ultimate sticky to proper articles (i.e. sports, wedding, macro, etc). Then have a section on gear (and books) review done by boardsies ...

There is clearly a bucket load of info in that sticky at the top but that it is links to threads, that then go on the way threads do, does make it a bit of a chore to actually find the useful nuggets of information buried within.

leinsterman

Its not a bad idea ... but as Rymus has said ... it may be a pain for someone to administer ...

... perhaps it would be a nice way to keep up with all of our events and outings... a blog for each event with all the pictures etc ...

jaqian

Fred C. Dobbs wrote: »

turn some of the threads in the ultimate sticky to proper articles (i.e. sports, wedding, macro, etc). Then have a section on gear (and books) review done by boardsies (could be a sub forum here as well) Add the photo challenge back in and we'd have a cool collaborative (lowish maintenance) site.

If you can get someone to administer it, I think it would be a great idea. Make it easier to find articles, reviews etc

Eirebear

Its a nice idea, but notoriously hard to implement.

You need to run something like this with a dedicated team of contributers and administrators, a set idea of what everyone is doing, why, and when.

Basically it needs DIRECTION.
A set of goal and aims, concerning what the blog is dealing with and who it is aiming at.
ALmost like a newspaper or magazine really....thats the only way it could be set apart from the forum.

That is not to say i wouldnt be interested in contributing and helping out...

rymus

Actually... for pure contribution, interaction and ease of administration, I can't for the life of me understand why something as simple as a flickr group or groups wouldnt suffice. You can restrict membership if you wish, impose upload limits, everyone can add and delete photos as they wish and there's even a bulletin board facility should it be needed.

If the argument is that a blog offers a nice clean website instead of a standard flickr template; I know we have a few people around here that are handy with the flickr api and integration into a customised gallery for web display. Best of both worlds and the administration load can be delegated to any number of volunteers.

Why bother reinventing the wheel when the perfect system is already out there? Or am I just dreaming? Do what many of us have been doing for a long time; Use flickr as the backend for a web gallery...

Hugh_C

Fenster wrote: »

Discuss.

Hosting, domains, etc. won't be too much of a problem. Pick a CMS, come up with a theme and a management system.

Logistical issues aside, what say ye about such?

Isn't that what groups on flickr are? I'm not over-familiar with pix.ie, but I'm sire you could achieve the same thing there too.

Why reinvent the wheel? The resources are already there and what's more, it's FREE!

[EDIT] should have read Rymus first.

rymus

great minds and all that Hugh

440Hz

Nice idea, +1 for the Flickr route though. I'd be up for it, and happy to do some "work" on setting things up too, if needs be.

Dades

I'm confused - there already a boards.ie forum, and a boards.ie Flickr group....

So what's the new concept going to have that doesn't exist already?

Third_Echelon

Dades wrote: »

I'm confused - there already a boards.ie forum, and a boards.ie Flickr group....

So what's the new concept going to have that doesn't exist already?

Yeah, this is what I was kinda thinking.... Aren't all the bases covered already?

rymus

presumably there's going to be synergising. A bit of thinking outside the box. Shifting some paradigms and conceptualising the project.

Either that or someone has too much time on their hands.

Eirebear

rymus wrote: »

presumably there's going to be synergising. A bit of thinking outside the box. Shifting some paradigms and conceptualising the project.

Either that or someone has too much time on their hands.

So were looking for some blue sky thinking here then?

rymus

precisely. I can see you're on the same wavelength here. We don't want to boil the ocean with this venture. Something actionable needs to be brought to the table so the potential end-users can buy-in to the system.

elven

We need to identify the stakeholders and get buy-in.

Damn, you used 'buy-in' already.

The concept of 'strobist, without the artificial lighting' makes sense to me - having it basically as a resource without having to traipse through masses of posts and threads to get to the real jiucy info. But given how many people actually read previous threads or the FAQs I'm inclined to think it would get heavily underused and easily abandoned

I'm not sure how using flickr would be any different to using boards - isn't it meant to be information-based rather than image-based?

440Hz

It might be an idea to work in conjunction with the Flickr group, making use of the "blog this" functionality which is already there. Members of the group who were active on the blog could have access to the relevant login details to set this up. People could add their photo to the Flickr group, and leave it at that if they just want to include the image, or take it a step further and blog the image from the Flickr group if they wish to start a discussion on it. Of course this could be done in the discussion threads on Flickr (not much different to how things happen here), but I guess you have the benefit of the blog for people who just want to check in and have a look, or RSS users etc. There is little setup required for that kind of change.

the_manchine

Not to confuse things but if the idea is to create a kind of "knowledge base" then something like a wiki might work better than a forum.

I've set up both forums and wikis in the past and they're both good, but for different aspects of a given topic/subject

Forums work well for conversations and critiques (as it does here)
Wikis work well as reference tool (discuss on the forum and post the outcome in the wiki for reference)
Flickr for, well, photos

You could have a simple landing page for linking to different areas.

YeahOK

rymus wrote: »

precisely. I can see you're on the same wavelength here. We don't want to boil the ocean with this venture. Something actionable needs to be brought to the table so the potential end-users can buy-in to the system.

Ahhh, it's like I'm in work. Quality corporate BS.

Placebo

I think the blog will only work if we have a theme, what does this blog have to offer the visitors ? why wont they just go and look at flickr? a personal blog is more interesting and its more of an insight into some ones life rather than a blog with random pictures.

Example: if blog is about ireland only, lifestyle in ireland, nights out, scenery, landscape then it might spark interest in sponsors aswell to advertise for tourism, that way it has a purpose for both parties.

I dont see a random photography dump for pictures taking off.

elven

I think it was fairly clear from the start of the thread that a photo blog is incredibly pointless. It's more about a resource...

CraggyIslander

Maybe we should have a poll on this to see what people would want to see on such a site if there were to be one (multiple choice)

blog
articles from threads (i.e wedding, infrared? sports, etc)
where to buy gear (with shop review?)
gear reviews by boardsies
photo challenges
photo a day (random photo from the big pool that is all our flickr accounts)
wiki - area

anything else?

And maybe find out how many people would be willing to contribute

jaqian

So I take it this idea has died a death then?

I think it would have been interesting if we had a wiki knowledge base to keep track of all the usefull tips and tricks posted in Boards but which can be impossible to find again.

Calina

I could probably donate some server space to the cause of a wiki in the next few weeks. Let me (urggh, sorry), think it over. I have server space due to come free in the next month or two as I shift my gallery to clikpic.

Tonight and tomorrow I have house guests so seriously looking at how it might work ain't an option right now.