Blog review 2

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Busy week on the blog, and very satisfied with the progress, and response, so far. I have had a lot of feedback and it has given me much food for thought.

So far I have been mostly concerned with getting background information on the blog. Particularly how the campaign was developed. I had not realised just how many blog entries there would be, or how difficult it would be to use it as an archive. I have had much good advice, particularly from Clive Smithers, and this has helpled me to think about presentation

During the past week I have been distracted by starting two new blogs. One deals with our life in Spain, and in particular our other love - hill walking. I have started this from when we moved to Spain in 2006, so again a lot of existing material to put on the blog. The other one is a record of our many battlefield holidays. This one is in the form of a diary, and great fun to research amongst diaries and old photographs.

Now I need to consider the best way to go forward in terms of presentation. Should I start a new blog for the 1813 campaign? This seems a good idea, as there will be a lot of entries dealing with different phases of the campaign, and battles within each phase. But then I will have to find a way to cross reference the two. No doubt this can be done, but I am increasingly aware of my lack of knowledge about the mechanics of blogging!

Then there is how best to present the campaign and the battle reports. Reading through the Campaign Diary I am not very pleased with the maps. I have no skill as a map maker, and do not wish to devote the time necessary to produce professional looking maps on the computer, even if I had the ability. They work quite well enough for me, are easy to make, and easy to maintain. But they were not designed to share with others. I am considering how to improve them to make them easier to understand and in particular easier to read. Not sure how this will go, but Jan and I are considering how we could improve the existing ones, or perhaps make new ones.

I am more pleased with the battle reports, but anxious for feed back. There are two ways to approach the battle reports. I could type up long descriptions of each battle, with details of the tactics and rule results. I am afraid that these might be rather boring, or worse difficult to understand. Or I could produce them along the lines of a comic strip, a series of photos with the minumum of text. I have chosen the latter for my first attempt. However some of the feedback has asked for more details of the tactics and how the rules work. I have asked on the forum I use for more feedback.

Finally we have friends visiting today, and staying for four days. So I will have to take a break from the blog - which is probably a good thing! Hopefully when I return there will be lots of feedback and suggestions.

If you have any ideas or suggestions to improve the blog, and in particular the battle reports, now would be a really good time to let me have them.

Thanks for visiting - and come back soon.

Paul