Hello everyone, I was a few days on vacation. I came back home today and of course I took a visit to mx pretty soon, especially to the new blogs I directly saw on the right site of the front page.

Sadly I found blogs like this, this and this. Blogs like those make me feel sick. Really.

I once wrote a blog about the problem that many people only use the blogs to advertise their own tracks. I hoped by writing the blog I would change people's minds, but obviously it doesn't.

When you use blogs to advertise your contests on your own maps... I don't mind, but really... there's a Projects & Competitions-Forum you can use for this. Don't want to tell my opinion once again, you can read my blog instead, but... please stop abusing the blog feature to push your own tracks and don't even write a single sentence about it.

That's why this goes to everyone, but especially to the mx-team. How about a rule to forbid people advertising their own tracks by using the blog feature? I would like to hear some opinions.

I would support the rule, I have thought about it for a while.

We should disallow
o Here is my new track blogs
o Coppers Contest blogs

We can make it alittle bit retrospective for the purpose of tidy up.

What is the blog for. becouse we have everything in the forum already.
Its like saying to someone where do you want your track. ? At page 10 or at front page. ?

So i can post a comment on all blogs and tell them there already is a forum for this, and
give them the link, if i want to play a cop.

Not sure what the blog is about really . seems to me that its only allowed to review each other tracks then. ?

The only blogs as i can see it is "Arzgaa random track" and my 2 that is allowed then , so everyone should do like us then. ? or maybe not becouse there is a "reccomend a track" thread in forum. ?

Give me a list what is allowed in the blog exception already exist in forum threads.

As Mra sad "we should disallow coppers contests in blogs, as there is a place for it on the forum"
I Repeat...
as there is a place for it (Same goes for anything)

This is a big debate almost as big as the award system. But nothing happend with that. Very disipointed that we didnt got any rating system, anyway this is not about that.

WHAT IS THE BLOG FOR. ???

SPIDER..

I'd support that rule. And to be honest, I also have no clue what the blogs are for.

This is what I think the blogs are for:

- Canyon: An Acquired Taste?
- Styles and Modes of TrackMania
- A word about collaborative tracks
- Remixing
- The process of making a screenshot
- TM: Relaxing entertainment?

This is just blogs who was on top of my head, I'm sure there are a lot more out there.
I fully support your suggestions kruemelyeti and MrA.

I think flexibility is a good thing... I kind of felt a little guilty here, but by thinking about it for a while, i was thinking; can agree in a limitation, like the blogs linked to here, that really are not telling anything, and there is nothing special, new, innovative or something else that differs from all other tracks. It just makes people stop reading the blogs anyway....

In the case of my own two blogs, I felt it was something new about it and choose to use the blog to tell about it. I think also moderator could be active in deleting blogs, or at first write a warning, that are not standing up to the standard set by site owner or moderators or the communities wish for a blog entry. But with a note to the author about the reason. In that way it will slowly grow in the right direction i guess... After all, what else then tracks is this site for? Could tell my life story, politic or religious view there, which i guess would be boring for most people here...

The interview there was interesting for me, so I personally wish for more of that kind of stuff...
Another feature i would like to see there is the name of the author. Its like tracks... when u see the name of the author is one of ur favorites, then u will give it a shot. So also about the blog entries i guess...

I have to say, "I could have have told you before, I knew that this would happen".
I didn't see any use in blogs when they were announced. Everything written in the blogs could also find it's place in the forums (from Track Review to the off-topic section).
But now we have them.
And I am against limiting the blogs.
By this discussion the people will know, that it is not polite (missing the right english word here) to simply advertise tracks in the blogs. Maybe this will prevent some people to do so.

If I see a blog, where only a tracklink or a competition is posted, without a descent amount of letters, I just click back in my browser. Ignoring the blog. Cased closed. How simple is that?

The main reason why I am against limiting the blogs, because I am against censorship in general. When you censor fundamental game-related issues (new tracks), what will be next? And most important: Who has the right to decide what should be censored?

(In germany we have a phrase (related to the Nazi-Regime): "Wehret den Anfängen!" Leo-translation: "Nip things in the bud!" It means, that some developments, that do not seem problematic at beginning, should be stopped before they deploy into a bad way and get a life of their own.) Maybe this was a bit much...

Hans Holo

Hans Holo says:
By this discussion the people will know, that it is not polite (missing the right english word here) to simply advertise tracks in the blogs. Maybe this will prevent some people to do so.

The problem is that most people who write such blogs do not visit the forum (at least I think so). That's also the reason why I decided to write a blog about this issue and not a forum post. Because I thought people who write blogs also read blogs. Sadly most of them obviously doesn't.

Hans Holo says:
If I see a blog, where only a tracklink or a competition is posted, without a descent amount of letters, I just click back in my browser. Ignoring the blog. Cased closed. How simple is that?

Of course ignoring the blog is the natural and also right thing to do in my view. The problem I see is that those "self-advertising"-blogs will become more and more in the future, because others want to compete. For new players (there will be quite a few with Shootmania) it will be normal to "write" *cough cough* a blog when they upload a new track.

That's why people will lose interest in reading blogs at all. Because 99% of the blogs will be self-advertising-blogs and people are too lazy to search for the "real" ones. They just will be missed, you spend 2 hours on writing a blog and a few hours later you can't see it anymore on the front page, because some selfish players have to inform everyone about their new tracks.

I'm afraid you are right, that people will lose interest in reading the blogs at all.

I dont think its cesnsorship, we are not wanting to prevent content, just not have it there, its a bit different.... but perhaps not a good idea of mine to open that kind of debate...

In a slightly ammusing way, such an article would be better on the blog than on the forum, so talking about it here would break my own rules ...