What is the EVE Blog Pack? What is its purpose? What functions does it serve? Are those still valid today? Which blogs should, and should not be part of it? Who currently maintains the Pack? Who should?
All these questions are valid. All deserve an answer.
This got me thinking.
The Blog Pack saw the day back in June of 2008. At the time, there were less than 40 blogs dealing with EVE Online. Yes, that's right less than 40 blogs. Of those, there were 17 blogs that only focused on EVE. Back then, there wasn't any of the cohesiveness and daily interaction there is today within our blogging community. Nobody who's blog I followed was on Twitter - hell, I had just joined Twitter! There wasn't the sense of belonging there is within the EVE Blogging Community today. We were at its Dawn.
That's how, after
reading about the concept of a Blog Pack, I decided to step-up and create our very own group of elite EVE Bloggers. We would be the lighthouse for other EVE players, those of us who wanted to put in writing their adventures, their ideas, their advice about our beloved virtual world.
And it worked! The community started to grow. Soon we were 50, then 100, then 200 EVE Bloggers! It kept growing.
And as the blogging community grew, so did the Blog Pack. Going from 18 blogs, to 20, then to 30 and
last time to 40 blogs! The original 18 blogs (including mine) were all chosen and picked by me. As the Pack grew, I started to ask for help from within the Community as to which blogs they deemed worthy of the Pack.
Early on, I decided to put some
rules of conduct for the Pack Members, and though at first everyone got on the band wagon, over time the enforcement of these rules wasn't as thorough as it should have been. And that's mostly my fault I'll admit. Having said that, most of the current members of the Blog Pack today keep an active blog.
Which is why I decided to keep the Pack going.
Originally, I had
wanted to narrow the Pack back down to 20 members, not for lack of time on my part, but more to create a sense of an elite. And that's where I may have erred. When I asked for your input, I wasn't trying to get a popularity contest going, so that the "most popular" blogs got picked. My intention was to take the pulse of the Community, see which blogs were being suggested, and then choose 30 or 40 amongst those, which would then be narrowed down by you.
In the end, I wanted the community to have its say in some way. But all it did was split it into 2 camps - those who wanted the "Community to decide" and those who were against what was coined the "popularity contest". In trying to please everyone, I was pleasing no one. Not even myself.
And so I've decided to go back to my original modus operandi. I'll go through the blogs that are currently in the Blog Pack, remove those who are outdated, or have requested to be taken out, then pick from the blogs you suggested the ones that I deem well written, well structured and useful to the Community. In all, the Pack will have
50 members. That's right, not the 20 I had previously indicated, but 50. On that,
@RocWeiler was right, the Pack should grow, not diminish.
The Capsuleer Dev team was kind enough to include the Blog Pack within the app early on. Back then, it was a WIN-WIN situation. I'm still very proud to know that the Pack is being fed into the app and that bloggers get noticed that way. As long as this arrangement is mutually beneficial, I don't see why we shouldn't continue to work together. If however this were to change, if the Devs decided to put together their own listing of EVE Bloggers, then I would certainly look back, cherish our accomplishments, and wish them good luck!
In the end the EVE Blog Pack is a group of good bloggers that I, has a player, has a blogger and as a member of this healthy and strong gaming community, deem worthy of my time. I can't read through 500 blogs on a daily basis, but I can through 50. Well I try anyways!
But it should not stop with me. The EVE Blog Pack is a group of 50 EVE blogs of my choosing. There is nothing stopping you from creating your own. I'd actually love to see what you can come up with! I've got a few ideas myself!
...
In the last 2 years the EVE Blogging Community has matured and grown beyond the means or control of any one individual. My goals were never to oversee that Community. I wanted it to grow and did everything in power to help nurture it. Along the way I've made some new friends, some of which have come and gone as active members of the Community. Today the Community is a successful, highly involved group of players, some of which blog, and even podcast about our experiences while we play the game we love (well I do try when I can!).
I look forward to its continued growth!
Additional Reading:
In an effort to show transparency, I've listed below the blog post that were written in response to
@RocWeiler's original post.
