Blog Management

[Como]

Maybe I am missing something, but it appears that each new blogger creates another entry in the ACP blog area:

ACP -> Community -> Blogs -> Blogs

I am intending to allow all members (perhaps not very new or low-post count members) to create a blog. But each new blog will create an entry in the ACP. We could easily end up with hundreds or even thousands or blogs and categories. I am not sure how we are supposed to reasonably manage that many entries. Does anyone have suggestions or workarounds, or perhaps reassurance (that I have misunderstood something)?

Or maybe there is a helpful application or plugin I have failed to locate?

Thanks.

[Jim M]

In ACP -> Community -> Blogs -> Blogs, this would create Categories and under those Categories would be the Blogs themselves. To create a blog entry, you would go on the front-end.

You can, of course, restrict members from creating blogs if you don't want them to.

 

[Como]

Hi Jim,

Well, we are intending to allow most members to create blogs if they so wish.* And, unless I am mistaken, there is no way to restrict members from creating categories. Given those two constraints, is there a practical way to manage (potentially) thousands of blogs and categories?

* We are in the middle of migrating platforms. On our SMF forum, members have their own personal threads (more than 2,000 of them), which are very popular. IPS Blogs are intended to replace those very limited thread-blogs. But we did not anticipate this logjam in the back-end.

[Jim M]

28 minutes ago, Como said:

And, unless I am mistaken, there is no way to restrict members from creating categories.

Members can only create categories within their blogs, they cannot create master categories that you see in the ACP.

29 minutes ago, Como said:

Given those two constraints, is there a practical way to manage (potentially) thousands of blogs and categories?

Moderation and guidance just like anything 🙂 . You may have a rouge few who want to create a lot of blogs and sub-categories beyond your intentions. I would say most will fall in line with and just moderate as you see fit.

[Como]

1 hour ago, Jim M said:

Members can only create categories within their blogs, they cannot create master categories that you see in the ACP.

Moderation and guidance just like anything 🙂 . You may have a rouge few who want to create a lot of blogs and sub-categories beyond your intentions. I would say most will fall in line with and just moderate as you see fit.

On categories: I see, I think. But this still leave the problem of en entry for every blogger. I am not sure how we will manage that if there are hundreds or thousands of them.

Moderation is not the issue - it is the potential number of blogs.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Como

[Marc Stridgen]

11 hours ago, Como said:

On categories: I see, I think. But this still leave the problem of en entry for every blogger. I am not sure how we will manage that if there are hundreds or thousands of them.

Moderation is not the issue - it is the potential number of blogs.

As blogs are individual in nature, that would tend to be the case. The only way around that would be to create a group blog in the admin CP. It may also be worth considering pages as an alternative

[Como]

Hi Mark,

I will look at at creating a group blog - but I am unsure what that really means. But, presumably, it will operate counter to our intention to allow members to operate their own blogs with their own list list and history.

Yes, we are looking at Pages too. But it appears to be quite a steep learning curve.

Thanks.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Como

[Marc Stridgen]

The problem you have here, is your aims appear to be contradictory. You would like the users to be able to set up blogs, but also not end up with hundreds or thousands of blogs

[Como]

I appreciate the responses, Marc (and Jim), but that's not really the problem. The problem is that managing hundreds of blogs (or more) in the ACP is impractical because of the way it operates and is organised. Unless I am missing something, there is no ability to filter or search for bloggers in the ACP list. To be frank, that seems like a rather large oversight. I, surely, cannot be the only person who seeks to have a large number of bloggers.

If I can manage to set up some form blogging for members through Pages, I do not yet know if they will be organised better in the ACP either. Will I end up in a similar position?

[Marc Stridgen]

At present, you can only search for specific blogs within the ACP. I can only suggest adding to the feedback area that which you would like to see appear there. 

[Como]

Actually, I missed the search box until now. That helps.

I think I will still investigate using Pages.

Thanks.

[Como]

To add, search is just for the title. So, if I do not know the title of the blog, that's not useful.

And, I just realised that bloggers can create multiple blogs (and I do not mean multiple entries for a blog). I am no blogger - so maybe I have unreasonable expectations - but I find the UI unintuitive.

Well, we are not quite live yet. But we cannot launch with blogs for members - it will have to be dropped. The UI is too confusing, and members will have options which make no sense for us. One member, one blog - is this not possible?

Edited July 19, 2023 by Como

[Jim M]

1 hour ago, Como said:

So, if I do not know the title of the blog, that's not useful.

You either would know the name of the blog or the user/author.

Then if you know the user, you can just go to their profile and see their blogs there.

If you don't know any of these, well, I'm afraid, we can't really help you find something which is completely unknown 🙂 .

[Markus Jung]

6 hours ago, Como said:

The problem is that managing hundreds of blogs (or more) in the ACP is impractical because of the way it operates and is organised.

What do you mean by “managing”? On my site there are 1500+ Blogs, but I don't have to manage a lot. I have set up categories for the blogs and move new blogs to the right one, if the blogger does not do that himself correctly. The blog owners can moderate their blog comments etc. themselves. 

More of an issue are the categories of an individual blog, as many users create a new one for every entry. 

And I like it that one user can have more than one blog. 

[Como]

3 hours ago, Jim M said:

You either would know the name of the blog or the user/author.

Then if you know the user, you can just go to their profile and see their blogs there.

If you don't know any of these, well, I'm afraid, we can't really help you find something which is completely unknown 🙂 .

Certainly, I may be missing stuff. I've not yet seen the blog system in proper action. I need it to operate in a very simple way, and for it to be simple for members. One member, one blog. But this does not seem possible - bloggers can create as many blogs at they wish.

Looking at the list of test blogs in ACP, I am rather at a loss as to the utility of that list (for me). But I assume it is there for good reason. The Guide information is a bit thin, and I note that the 'Tips & Case Studies' section is empty.

I am not meaning to complain. I'm expect that Blogs work very well in certain situations. I'm just trying to work out how I can make them work for me, in an environment where all members are encouraged to start a personal blog, with as little friction as possible and with a simple UI (with minimal options).

[Como]

3 hours ago, Markus Jung said:

What do you mean by “managing”? On my site there are 1500+ Blogs, but I don't have to manage a lot. I have set up categories for the blogs and move new blogs to the right one, if the blogger does not do that himself correctly. The blog owners can moderate their blog comments etc. themselves. 

More of an issue are the categories of an individual blog, as many users create a new one for every entry. 

And I like it that one user can have more than one blog. 

I am coming at this with no experience of managing a IPS forum, and no experience of managing a multi-user blogging environment. I was just expecting something more straightforward for a community where ordinary members are free to start blogs. This feels messy and confusing (both for admins and members).

Yes, I had noticed that members can create categories on the fly, and are practically encouraged to do so.

Multiple blogs will not well for us. And I see no utility (for us) in having a sea of categories. I might have to have someone create a solution for us based on Pages - I'm not confident I could do it myself.

I appreciate the responses everyone. It seems I am trying to fit a square peg into a round whole.

[Markus Jung]

9 hours ago, Como said:

One member, one blog. But this does not seem possible

It is. In the group settings:

[Como]

Well, thank you for that, @Markus Jung Another setting I missed. This (along with the ability to search blog titles in ACP) helps move the needle to making Blogs acceptable enough for us to use.

I think we will still investigate creating something using Pages, but we can try out Blogs in the meantime and see how it goes.

Thank you all for your patience.

[Como]

Hi,

Is there a way to allow bloggers to delete comments, but not edit them? This would be sensible permission granularity.

Or an app which would achieve this? My searches turned up none which appear potentially helpful.

[Marc Stridgen]

Unfortunately not. You can have people able to moderate their own blog, but there is no way in which allow only delete and not edit.