Monday, February 13, 2006

BLOGDRAMA!

According to a new thread at ENWorld it seems someone at RPGShop kinda screwed up. They took a list of game designer blogs from the supposedly confidential "cool game designers only" forum at RPGnow and sent the list out in their February 9th newsletter. I usually trash the newsletter without reading it, but since I use Gmail I was able to retrieve the list:

Highmoon: http://dmperez.blogspot.com
Gareth-Michael Skarka: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gmskarka
Chris Pramas: http://www.livejournal.com/users/freeport-pirate
Nicole Lindroos: http://www.livejournal.com/users/iamnikchick
Bret Boyd: http://dmbretb.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Deborah Balsam: http://dogsoul.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Ari Marmell: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mouseferatu
Erik Mona: http://www.superunicorn.com/erik/atom.xml
Mike Mearls: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mearls
James Maliszewski: http://www.livejournal.com/users/maliszew
M. Jason Parent: http://www.livejournal.com/users/d20hound
Rob Schwalb: http://www.livejournal.com/users/roninevil
Steve Kenson: http://www.livejournal.com/users/xomec
Chad Underkoffler: http://chadu.livejournal.com
Andrew Kenrick: http://littlestkobold.livejournal.com
Keith Taylor: http://93gamesstudio.com/blog1.htm
Lisa Hartjes: http://www.lisahartjes.com/ http://www.hartfeltproductions.com/
Preston P. DuBose: http://flametoad.com
Silven Publishing Team: http://silvenpublishing.blogspot.com/
Sir Clay: http://www.livejournal.com/users/sirclay

Some people on the above list are annoyed that their WORLD WIDE WEB page has been publicized. Mike Mearls puts that annoyance, and blogging in general, in persepective:
I think blogs are kind of funny. They really bring out the drama queen in people (ZOMG I HAD THE MOST TRYING TIME SHOPPING AT BEST BUY TODAY!@!@!). On one hand, it seems like people blog for attention. On the other hand, they want a blog to be private enough that they can be drama queens without embarrassing themselves.

I think it was Mr. Goetz, my high school Social Studies teacher, that used to say "Don't write down anything you wouldn't want your mom to read." Considering that my mom has read this blog at least once, that was pretty good advice.

This whole development is pretty timely, since just last week we were discussing over at RPGPundit how many game designers have blogs that are as exciting as watching the corn grow.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:11 PM

    Hey, that's not a bad list, thought. So are you disappointed you didn't make the cut, Jeff?

    For my own part, I know that both my parents have read my website on occassion and my father in law (secretly-- so he thinks) reads it every day. You just have to be careful about what you're putting out the whole world.

    Not that I let that stop me from having an entire series of inappropriate questions for people to answer. But I have no shame.

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  2. "So are you disappointed you didn't make the cut, Jeff?"

    Nah. The list was of game designer blogs. I'm just one of the schnooks that buys and plays the games.

    Now if the list had been promoted as the Best Gamer Blogs then of course I would have been deeply disappointed to have been overlooked. ;)

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  3. Anonymous9:26 AM

    The issue at hand was that it was a list published from a private and confidential source. I try to keep my gaming journal seperate from my "other life concerns" journal, and having my "other life concerns" journal link mass published like that was disconcerting when they could have published the link to my gaming journal instead.

    It is just generally rude to take a post from a private message area you run (where we have been told repeatedly that the posts are to remain confidential) and publish it to a newsletter.

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  4. Your non-gaming blog is listed under "d20hound"? I can see why that might couse some confusion.

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