Thinking of removing blog functionality

[r-18]

the whole site is more or less my blog.....as much as i'm going to blog at any rate...

[randomredneck]

I barely remember I have a blog thing 90 percent of the time. Seems like something that not a lot of people would miss.

[MOJ]

I warned people that this would happen someday:

[REQUEST] User Ratings

I also tried giving solutions but to no avail. See, people want to read quality material, not just a list of how heavy a person's crap was for the day nor how much it smelled (like many of the blogs currently up on the site). I suggest some drastic measures if people still want to keep the blogs, otherwise removing it would be the best idea (expenses and all that).

[sothis]

Originally Posted by MOJ

I warned people that this would happen someday:

[REQUEST] User Ratings

I also tried giving solutions but to no avail. See, people want to read quality material, not just a list of how heavy a person's crap was for the day nor how much it smelled (like many of the blogs currently up on the site). I suggest some drastic measures if people still want to keep the blogs, otherwise removing it would be the best idea (expenses and all that).

yeah, i do think the user reviews need an overhaul - i'd much prefer to spend my time on that, since reviews directly impact one's choice to watch an anime :)

[Ketsuron]

This came to my attention (Note: this sofar a reply to the initial post, since i haven't read up the follow-ups so far), thus my few cents.

Considering that the Blog feature was added a few years ago, and correlated with the site user amount and my latest Blog entry which has the number 11834, this seems compared quite low.

I would pity removing it since it was not cheap (since custom). But one functionality less, the site might be a bit less attractive compared to competive ones. I guess, a non custom blog system might be an option, maintain wise after all.

As for spammers, well how about setting the standards a bit higher for creating a blog post, comment on users or recommendation for newl registered ones. Additional moderator staff which get notified (several ways how implemented from just notified till sending on moderation queue) via a quick report spam button like on the forum could ease.

As for hello/testing blogs, perhaps a sandbox might be an idea.
As for good blog posts, a suggestion could be earning a badge (might be a showcase point) if liked by a certain amount, just a thought.

As for helpful blogs and such, perhaps a help channel may be a better choice (although that's the forum for...).

As for episode highlight, a discussion with spoilers on the anime entry page might make more sense instead of a list of who added a blog about this series/ova/movie/episode.

As for external blog, well for me, various reasons i could mention, but one is that the content is not necessarily anime related.

More moderator features i would quite welcome.

As for "Leave stuff as-is -" and "Remove the feature",
I would rather vote something between, since it can't be allowed that spammers continue to easily bypass, so i think the setting as it is right now, won't be a favor.
But i would pity to see it completly gone though. Some people might wish an export function, in the case if removed, but i'm not sure how much time you have sothis to implement a feature which is just to be removed anyway.

[Funari]

I like blogs and try to browse them at semi-regular intervals, but... well... yeah, good entries are a definite minority in there. Would still be a bit sad to see them go as a matter of principle since they do have some really good entries in there as well, but if you say they're costly, time-consuming and mostly not used... well, I doubt absolutely anyone would object to you having more time for more-used site features. Would say we can have one function less if that means the remaining ones work better. Yeah, I'd be onboard.

[Tyranid5]

I agree with a lot of what Ketsuron stated above and a lot of points that have been brought up. Too many for me to quote I noticed after i finally got current with the thread.

I think it's a shame that a feature with such significant development and user time invested in it has to be just thrown out. But I agree there are a lotof things that deserve attention over this. And the only ways that I could offer as alternatives sothis has already responded to many such topics like captcha and getting maybe a couple more mods to help out.

I think it's wrong to remove a feature just because of spammers. That doesn't stop the rest of the internet from moving forward, but I do understand that adding captcha, setting a minimum length requirement, maybe just more verification with the actual user registration process would be the most effective ways to stop a few more spammers from getting through but a signifigant amount of time would be needed to be invested.

When I first used the site. I read a lot of blogs, that was about 2 years ago. I would comment on a few blog posts every now and one of the main reasons that I ended up losing interest in the blogs was mostly because there was no way of keeping track of when somebody replied to comments.

If the blog feature really is that big of a load on the site itself then for the good of the rest of the users then i guess there isn't much more that I can say.

[NarkyOtic]

I seldom read blogs, but I do read user reviews (the more the merrier!), and they carry weight on what I choose to watch.

With so many better suggestions and possible future implementations in the works; like the merging of forum and site etc. and all that comes with it, it looks like a far more viable long term plan than simply keeping a feature that few benefit from. It'll be a long haul that sothis will feel more than most of us, so I'd be loath to stand in the way of progress and better utilisation of sothis' time. After all, with a bigger picture starting to form that could be helped by removing blogs, it's a no-brainer from where I'm sitting.

[Menchi]

If by removing it you'll be able to save that money and energy to general site functionality and focus on more important features, for example putting up screenshots & tags for new anime, then YES, do it. I don't know how many here writes or reads the blogs regularly, and if they do, usually they have a blog somewhere else like blogger or wordpress, and they just have a link to it in the signature.

[GodzillaGus]

damn, there are some really good blogs out there. one blog in perticular i would like to see preserved. it's a dragon ball viewing order. Dragon Ball Watching Order! - Blackstorm's Blog - Anime-Planet Of course, Chii's blogs are also gold. if there's any way to preserve the blogs that are useful, then perhaps blogging wont be missed.