Well, we were discussing this over in Observatory recently, but not everyone follows that part of the forum, so I'm making a quick (14-day auto-expiry) announcement to let the rest of you know:
If you're interested in it, you can now run your own blog-type topics on ARM, under the Members and Community section.
To answer the most obvious question: Why would you make a topic like that if you already have a regular blog?
Well, many people's blogs barely have any visitors or comments. And also, they don't get much attention from ARM members (they have to remember to go and visit your webpage), whereas ARM topic updates can be easier for members to follow, if they're already regulars here. And it can be more fun to chat to ARM members you've chatted to and seen around before, rather than random strangers you've never seen before and don't know much about.
In a way, you can consider it to be a bit like the "interviews" topics, except reversed - instead of waiting for questions, you can post random diary things there, or your thoughts, and then other members can comment there and you can chat there between your updates.
Of course, this would still be moderated - similar to the rest of the forum. And if you do have something that's deeply troubling you or is highly personal, or if you need to rant a bit and let off steam, please post that in a Dive Therapy topic instead, rather than scaring off members from your blog topic, or from that entire part of the forum.
And of course - you're still welcome (and encouraged to) start new regular (non-diary) topics if there's something of general interest, or to participate in existing topics, rather than only ever chatting in your blog topic and nowhere else in the forum.
I'd say - in your blog topic - put down random thoughts or diary type things or walls of text, or photos and artwork and stuff that wouldn't fit very well into other parts of the forum, but which still interest you.
And also that topic becomes one where you can have chats with other members about your life and interests, if you write about something that interests them, or if they're interested in you, but don't know what to chat to you about or ask you in your interview topic, for instance.
Anyway, here's how it works for now:
1. Make a new topic in Members and Community, with a topic like "Shao Kahn's ARM diary" (just put your nick in there, and the fact that it's a diary/blog type thing). There's already some blog topics in that forum, if need some ideas for what kind of title to use.
2. In the first post, introduce yourself - write up a quick profile, so people can learn a bit more about you and your interests. You can check some of the existing blog topics in members and community, to get an idea of this. There's no specific format you need to follow here - you can add just about whatever details you feel like. But if it's easier, you can just follow one of the existing topic intro layouts, and update it later.
3. And then from the second post onwards, you start with any diary/blog type entries. Like if you have something on your mind, or something interesting happened today. It doesn't have to be a wall of text, but longer posts can be interesting too.
4. After that, other members can start chatting to you in there about what you posted, and you can also post further blog/diary entries when you feel like it.
For now it's fine to just post topics like this under Members and Community, but if we get a few more of them, we'll likely make a sub-section, similar to the Interviews.
Anyway - why delay - start your own blog topic over there today
