Hey all,
Without getting into details (in order not to break my Golden rule of Blogging), the ‘big thing’ I was waiting for didn’t pan out.
I’m done with disappointment and I’m moving on to re-organizing my projects.
One of the things I’ll be doing over the next few days is to re-tag my whole blog to make it easier to navigate with the search box.
Also, I want to say that I’m sorry for the delay in the One Sentence NPC contest, my buddy Johnn Four is on vacation and should chime in soon with the winners from the drawing.
It was also brought to my attention that I might be skirting over the the edge of some provisions of the ‘fair use‘ doctrine with the various uncredited images I use to decorate my posts.Mostly that I don’t add value to the ‘borrowed art’ but rather use it as mere decoration.
It seems I’ve got to think about these things as my blog grows and garner’s more attention.
So while I mull over what to do with that (I’ve made a promise not to take any far reaching decisions prior to Gen Con) I’d like to ask you:
- Do the somewhat random images I find on Google Image add anything to my post?
- Would me stopping doing it lower the enjoyment value of the blog
- Should I stick to Creative Common images (which implies more work on my part to hunt down and credit)
- Should I stick with borrowing images from corporate products (book covers, Released art like Wizards’ galleries and so on)
- Do I keep doing the same thing, but make a little extra effort to site the source of the image (and use only 1st source images in that case).
- Am I over thinking this?
I’m also pondering doing a re-design of my site to make it more user-friendly (Bigger Rss buttons, easier Navigation, slight color shift). Now that I’m starting to get regular revenues from this blog, I intend to re-invest some of it into blog development so to speak.
So while I’m thinking about that and since the design has been around for some time now, I’d like to ask if any of you feel there’s something missing from the blog. In the same vein, I’d like to know if some things are annoying and/or unnecessary on the page.
My goal is to keep this blog casual, friendly and welcoming, and I’m not considering those 3 Columns/Square ads themes we see poping up.
Finally, going back to my initial goals of blogging, I had planned to blog for a year and then tackle National Novel Writing Month in November. Since I’ve developed a strong addiction to blogging, I’ve had this idea of creating another blog on chattydm.net. I’d post my daily NanoWriMo and open them up for comments, and critique”
It would also be a window into how an amateur author goes through the process of writing a first novel. Since I don’t have an aspiration to publish it yet, I wouldn’t mind posting it online.
Does that spark any interest in any of you? (Not that the response would influence my decision of doing it, I’m just curious)
I would need the advice on Copyrights about a few issues such as protecting the manuscript, allowing comments w/o getting accused of plagiarism if I get influenced by them and the implication of a possible publication from blog to paper. I trust I can resolve this before November.
That’s it for now, I’ve a few more Blogging/Guest posting/Review projects on the horizon. As usual, I’m not anywhere near running out of Ideas/material yet.
Speaking of Cleaning up, my nice buddies at ZeStuff are having a Clearance Sale.
Here’s what owner Pierre had to say about that:
We’re currently doing a massive clearance sale on ZeStuff where some of the items offered were ridiculously reduced. There’s definitively something in there for everyone. There’s over 20 models of t-shirts at $7.95, books, board games, card games and geek jewelry.
Additionally, until August first, all orders over $50 will be offered 5$ flat group shipping cost. This can be a huge saving for big orders or orders with heavy stuff.
That gives you a few days to save big.
Yes I get a commission for stuff you buy after clicking the ZeStuff links from here, so in essence you’re helping me support the growth of the blog through improvements and Prizes for contests!
Sorry to hear that the thing that didn’t work out didn’t work out. The wonderful thing about the future though is that you never know what it’s going to be like until you get there. I’m sure something will turn up 🙂
Now, on to your questions:
* Yep. Images are good, especially when it’s a longer post. At the same time, I don’t think you need one for every single post, and don’t sweat it if you can’t find something appropriate. It’s what you write that counts, after all – we don’t come here to see other peoples’ art, y’know.
* Nope. Less is more, and an all-text blog does have a certain appeal. If you take the images out of your posts you’ll need to tone down the sidebars and theme too though – if there’s no/fewer images in the posts, what art there is elsewhere can be distracting.
* Creative Commons images are preferrable; it’s less of a headache in the long-term. My own renders are all Creative Commons licensed and free for the taking, and if you want anything creating, just ask!
* Corporate. Ick. Books covers if you’re doing a review, sure, or something that’s directly related to the topic……… otherwise, corporate art looks so…… corporate 🙂
* Give credit where it’s due, and a page link to the original artwork is just polite – and it might even generate more traffic your way too. Which is nice.
* Probably! 🙂
I wouldn’t worry too much about the images… Although they’re sometimes nice to look at, I don’t really think you need them… Of course, most of the images I use on my site I made myself, so there’s no copywrite problems…
My thought would be to simply link back to where you got the image from on the image itself, so that if someone clicks it, they can see the person’s site who made it (at least in theory… I know sometimes you end up with images that aren’t on the site of the person who made it… again, I wouldn’t sweat it…)
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Copyright is one of my pet projects, and I’ve had some concerns with your use of these images as well, but never enough to actually voice them. I’d get rid of them, or use free stuff – either because of a permissive license or because it is old enough to be in the public domain. Note that building a derivative work – a blog page containing text of yours and an image from somebody else – has consequences when it comes to licensing. Some CC lincenses and some GNU licenses require derivatives to have the same license. As I look at your page, I don’t see a CC license. Also, some CC licenses specify a non-commercial condition that no longer is true in your case. So it seems to me right now that you either need to use your own images, or images in the public domain, or images where fair use could in fact apply. In Switzerland there is no such thing as fair use; instead we have a complete list of exceptions. One of them is the rite for citation. Under this exception, you might perhaps use a book cover if you were in fact talking about the book, for example.
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Screw em all chatty! Go to stick drawings, it’s a good minimalist contrast. lol.
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Flickr has a search for just Creative Commons images. Just FYI. It’s in the advanced search options at the bottom.
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answers, in order
– Yes
– Yes. Appropriate thumbnail images can add a lot to a post. That said, no, not every post needs an image.
– If you can find good ones, sure
– That’s good too
– This is my preference, as this is both fair to the artist (by generating extra traffic for them) and useful to you. Few people will have an issue with you using a small version of their picture, when proper sourcing is done.
– Yes. Definitely.
With regard to your planned site re-design:
I think the “Easier navigation” is a good idea, it’s the color scheme tweaking that scares me! It’s very pleasing to look at your site the way it is now, with the whole beige-on-brown look. I also like how the majority of space is devoted to content and not ads.
It’s your blog, so I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do- just thought I’d put in my two cents.
For the pictures thing it’s probably best to just resolve to do it safely and just resolve to not spend too much time trying to track down images. It’s not that you’re likely to get sued but but it is possible and if you are I’m certain you’ll want to kick yourself. I don’t know that it would produce the specifically relevant type of picture you tend to come up with but try a few searches on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page if you need some free pics.
As far as rearranging the site goes I can only think of one thing to say. Your current design seems mostly workable but if any of the links at the bottom of the page are important (I remember the “Login” link being hard to find at first due to this), move them up to the top. When I look at your page I tend to pay attention to whatever article I’m reading and the stuff near the top of the page. I think most other people would too.
I like the idea of the nanowrimo thing. I keep wanting to participate in that but I’m always thinking of some excuse not to. 🙂
NaNoWriMo is a very cool thing to do, even if you don’t plan on publishing. I have done it for the past two years, and this will be the first where I am going to regularly post it on a section of The Scoundrels (which I hope to have re-designed by then, as I need to do something with it, badly).
I generally wouldn’t worry about the use of images unless the owner contacts you regarding the use, though on the safe side I would include Creative Commons in my search criteria. I myself do not use many images in my posts, but have been doing quite a bit thinking about the issue in general.
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@Lanir –
Nothing at the bottom of the page is important. The login link is actually meant to be out of the way, since most people don’t use it. (Me, you, and Phil, primarily. Most of the others who made accounts don’t actually comment much.)
I’m not even sure that account registration was meant to be open (it doesn’t actually get you much anyways, not even email updates or anything). We just saw, one day, that a few of you had made accounts. Half the registered accounts are spambots, as well. Which is dangerous, since they can use that to bypass captcha, meaning we need to have Akismet active for them.
Thanks you all for your opinions and Advice on copyright. I will take them into account.
I just read the primer on Creative Common and I most definitively will consider releasing the content of this blog under Attribution non-commercial.
Non-commercial, does that prevent ad revenues on blog that link or copy a small part of my work? I wouldn’t want that.
(I would want to legally prevent blog bots stealing my content wholescale though)
As for derivative, I want to allow people to use my ideas and expand on them on their websites and possibly include my work (or derivatives) in freely available documents (or commercial documents if I’m contacted to discuss it).
I’m not sure I’d impose Share Alike as this sounds more like forcing the Creative Common License on others.
Any suggestions?
stock.xchng is my source for post images. I used them for a long time on TT and I use them now for GS, and I rarely have trouble finding an image I like for a post.
Their basic license allows exactly the kind of usage you need, although it’s not the only license images can be flagged with. I make sure to only grab the ones with the basic license, and call it good.
I usually don’t post images myself, unless they are pictures taken by myself. But thats for a personal blog and personal photography is included.
I would only really look for photos being needed if its a long post or something that is difficult to explain without some sorta picture.
Actually, the BY-NC-SA license is quite nice if you like to keep track of who uses your stuff in what way. That’s pretty useful if you want to build a community around your licensed work, or keep it somewhat together in another way. I don’t think it would work well for you though, because it’s too restrictive. The stock.xchng license looks far better here.
As for images, I agree with the others. I’ve had a bit of the same problem, so I eventually decided to post no images at all, thus I’m curious about what you eventually decide on.
I will also answer questions from my perspective.
1. Not for me. I read at work and usually scroll quickly by images anyway. Although they do sometimes add to comments and discussion, like the hook horror/bullette thing.
2. Not for me. Images add a bit of spice, sure, but I wouldn’t miss it.
3. Meh. Corporations don’t usually waste money suing people, so long as you aren’t republishing the art in some form that is being directly sold, blog-advertising revenue aside. Especially since most of the corporations you are dealing with are American in origin, which would entail the mess of international copyright. The most you’ll get is a curt cease-and-desist order.
4. This is arguably more illegal, and more likely to raise crap. I would avoid. Also you end up annoying all the grognards that get angry over new art.
5. Making the effort to source images isn’t a bad idea, but the internet being what it is, it’s difficult to pull off.
6. Probably. You aren’t likely to get outright sued, and I don’t think it would affect things that much one way or the other.
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