Reflections on Blogging

We finished the campaign, which has run from June 2013.   It was a great success in that it provided us with 95 battles to wargame, which was the main objective of the campaign.   It also took up a considerable part of my time throughout the two years that it ran.

However it is the response, or rather lack of response, to the end of the campaign which has caused me to reflect on its impact.   In particular on the 37 players who took part as army commanders.

I posted a short summary of the campaign on my PBEM Napoleonic Campaign forum.   This is the notice board of the campaign which I use to keep players, and any other interested parties, up to date on any changed to the campaign.   I also use it to answer any questions about either the campaign or wargame rules.   I was quite pleased that it has attracted 142 members, including the 37 who took part in the 1814 campaign.   But I was rather disappointed that only one member posted a comment on the two year long campaign.

I also posted a summary on TMP, Lead Adventure Forum, Old School Wargaming and WD3 Wargames Directory.   Not a single comment on any of them.

I have posted on these fora in the past, with the aim of finding players to fill the command posts.   I have always filled the posts, but there has only been a handful of replies to all the posts.

The obvious conclusion is that there is no interest in the campaign.   I am not sure that is really true, because why would 142 people take the trouble to join the campaign forum.

This prompted me to consider the lack of response to the various blogs I write.   At present there are three.   This blog, one about the campaign and another about living in Spain.   The response to all three is minimal, yet the number of hits is quite good.

The first blog was my Living in Spain one.   I started it as a record of the walking we do with our local group, and to keep friends and family in UK up to date with what we are doing. I post one entry each week, often two.   It has had 19,901 individual hits, but not a single comment.   I have had lots of feedback by email and been told how much friends and family look forward to reading it.   But not one comment on the blog.

I started the campaign diary blog about five years ago.  I have posted at least once each week since then, often four or five times.   It has received 46363 individual hits, but (as far as I can remember) not a single comment.  

I started this blog in May 2009.   Since then I have posted at least one entry each week, often more.   In total I have posted 515 posts.  There are 88 members.   The blog has had 116007 individual hits.   There have been 435 comments, including my own replies.

I am one of those strange people who like to record what they are doing.  I have kept a diary for most of my life, and make an entry each day.   So keeping the various blogs is not a problem, indeed I enjoy doing it.   It adds a structure to what I do, and adds an element of discipline to keeping the campaign diary blog.   I run the campaign, and keep the blogs, for my own enjoyment.   But it would be nice to have a little more reaction.

Perhaps its part and parcel of the internet.    I follow a number of blogs, and find that most of them have very few, if any, comments.    There are one or two exceptions, but they are very rare.