What is this section meant to be about?

[DillyTante]

You know, I'm finding that I rarely use this bloggers section anymore because I don't really know the point of it.

Is it somewhere where we discuss blogging related issues, e.g. Technical, writing, ideas etc. Is it where we share our latest blog posts? We do that on one thread and it's not very interactive, I feel that people post and run and don't read other people's posts. Some people post separately when they post but if we all did that the place would be over run and you'd never really see anything.

This isn't supposed to be where we share other people's blogs, though I'm not sure where on MN we'd do that then if not for the bloggers section.

There are a lot of people who just come on this section and never go on the rest of MN, just treat it as if it is it's own little chat forum. But that never goes down well on MN, for good reason, you never really get a feel for the ethos of the place, and it feels like you just don't care about MN enough. So then I get irrationally angry at people who post random questions that are nothing to do with blogging and would be better on the Relationship or Education (etc) sections.

So what is this space meant to be all about? What do YOU want from it, how can we make it better, because I mostly find it quite slow & boring ATM but I'd like to hang around here a bit more.

[Craftsonsea]

Ok, so I'm going to turn this on it's head and say what as bloggers are we doing to make this into a good network? I'm on a few networks and I can honestly say that the blogs I find through here are the ones I like best, BUT it's also the network that seems to be the slowest in terms of what's happening on the threads etc. When I first started blogging I found it harder to get my first 10 followers on twitter than my first 100 so things like the 'lets all follow each other' on Britmums were a lifesaver to keep me going when I wasn't sure if blogging was for me. No one wants followers for the sake of stats, we all want to engage with people and blogs that we find interesting but on the other hand we all could do with getting our stuff out there a bit more and as we can't / don't link to our blogs other than dump and run that's really hard. I would like to read the blogs of a few people on this thread but I don't know what they are! Anyway, I'm going to start an Introduce Yourself style thread as the proper mn blog list is too big for me. I figure that way if some of you add your details I can actually find some more blogs that I'll like!

[MmeLindor]

Good point, Craftonsea. I do the dump and run thread but I don't like it really.

We had a chat thread for a while but it seems to have died.

[Craftsonsea]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the best way to do this is, but I tweeted last night about a craft event I'm looking to run in Southend and suddenly found 4 brilliant local bloggers that I didn't know existed. Just figure as much as I want mumsnet to Do Stuff To Help Us we also need to try and do the stuff ourselves.

[MmeGuillotine]

I used to live in Southend. :)

I don't actually expect this network to boost my page views or anything like that - I'd just like it to be a nice place to chat and hang out with other bloggers.

What we really need are some really meaty topics to chat about on here - at the moment it feels like most of the new posts in this bit are from non bloggers who have ended up here by accident and want to know if we think they might be pregnant etc. (How do they manage that by the way? It's rather perplexing.)

Considering how many members the Mumsnet blogging network has, it feels like maybe 99% don't actually contribute anything to it. Perhaps we should be looking at ways to turn that around? Maybe by involving people a bit more.

[Craftsonsea]

Before I carry on with the sensible stuff, ARGH! MmeG have just realised that I think you know my brother!!! Friend Mel Wilde introduced me to your blog saying my brother introduced her to it. Didn't realise you actually lived here, presumed this was an internet thing. By all accounts, mumsnet is a small world Anyway, yeah, I think we need more meaty stuff too. Bit lost on actual ideas though...

[MmeGuillotine]

Wow, I think I need to know who your brother is! I 'met' Mrs Wilde on Live Journal many many moons ago but can't remember how. It was after I'd moved away from Southend though (I grew up in Colchester so am a not so secret Essex Girl) Wait, you don't have two brothers with the surname W do you?!

[Craftsonsea]

No not me! It's Lee Brown though could have been Arty Smokes if on Live Journal. Did you used to go to the SunRooms? Coulda been there too. (Apologies for hijacking the thread!)

[MmeLindor]

I think that's what MNHQ are trying to do by having discussions on news articles on Bloggers network.

I've joined in a few times if I've something to say on the subject.

I guess that the problem is that the MNetters who are bloggers are v diverse so not much scope for hooking up -those I like to chat to such as MmeG, Stitch, Dilly and pavlov often blog about topics that aren't really of great interest to me personally.

I'm not a crafter or a historian, and while there are sometimes posts that I enjoy - like MmeG's 'what would Hilary mantel do' or Dilly's Twitter post - I don't think we could work together on a blog hop very often, for example.

Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble. Am on phone cause kids at home with lurgy and keep getting interrupted.

[MmeGuillotine]

Craft, oh, yes, Lee. We er don't get on. ;)

I used to go to the Sun Rooms all the time when I lived in Westcliff! I really liked living in Southend - it gets slagged off quite a bit but I thought it was a great place to live. :D

[MmeGuillotine]

I don't join in with the current affairs discussions on here as I don't read or watch anything to do with the news so don't have any thing to say really. I'd join in if we had more general discussions though, not just about history or whatever! :)

I think the diversity here is both a strength and a weakness in that we get to see all sorts of different blogs and learn from different types of bloggers but at the same time there's no cohesive identity to hang blog hops, campaigns etc on or at least not in a way that would involve pretty much everyone here.

It would be nice if we could have a more chatty ambience here but if one of us had something to say we'd post it on the actual Chat section I expect as it gets a higher traffic. It's a bit of a vicious circle really.

Maybe what we could do is a group of us get together and kick start things by starting regular threads about the interesting topics that we really want to talk about - for instance everyone loves chatting about trolls or we could share our shameful first ever blog posts (or maybe not - eek) or SOMETHING, I dunno.

Or just share day to day triumphs and disasters on our blogs - right now we are encouraged to post our latest post and then run off but there seems to be a general frowning on starting a whole new post to talk about something related to your blog (well, that's how it seems to me anyway) but how about we get over that and try to post a bit more generally about how things are going?

[MmeLindor]

Yes, I like that idea, Mme.

I guess it's up to us to utilize the network

[MmeGuillotine]

Some of us should form a quiche and put our heads together to coordinate so that we spread the topics out a bit.

[MmeLindor]

Maybe we could start by thinking of a couple of topics that we could share.

[Craftsonsea]

I like that idea too no idea what the topics should be but I like the idea of it

[PetiteRaleuse]

Hello. I used to pretty much only hang out on the bloggers' section but have only just started looking through the threads on this section today and this one has been gong on since SEPTEMBER and I hadn't picked up on it

I used to really enjoy the weekly thread about posts, we chatted too, but now it is very much post and run and I have fewer and fewer hits from that thread, whereas it used to be a significant source of hits back when we'd all chat on there.

I thought there would be some kind of visible difference after the Blog event in November, but it seems to have gone quiet again. I think the blog prompts are a good idea - I have used them from time to time but not becessarily linked to them on the thread.

My blog was put on a bit of a break the last few months but I am coming back to it now, and of course going back to reading others. I'd love to join in with whatever you come up with.