Scoping the Blog - Specific Content and People

Question

My last meta post on this subject showed that our community is interested in having a blog. The purpose of this post is to add some more scope before I create it.

Related: Worldbuilding Blog - Specific article ideas - this post contains some article and content ideas.

In this post, I aim to come up with some of these:

• Specific article/content ideas.
• Content you would be willing to write - I am now looking for contributors.
• Timelines - how often should we post to the blog? My initial thought is a post a week. Is that too much or not enough?

Answer 1

I would be interested in one of the ideas from the last post: community interviews.

One possibility would be interviews. Maybe once a month a community member gets interviewed about what brings them to worldbuilding, what they are interested in, etc.

Interviewees could be high rep users (both long term and newcomers with a high impact on arrival), moderators, etc.

I would be happy to conduct interviews and write them up into articles.

Posts of this nature might come about perhaps, as the linked post says, once a month. I think they should be rarer posts.

We could alternatively run a content cycle: have a number of types of post, and put up a new one each week (so if we have types A to D, then posting one a week we'd go a month between two posts of the same type).

As I said in the question, I think a post a week is a good timescale. Perhaps two, if we want to do a quick "Question of the Week"-type feature.

In terms of regular contribution, I would also be willing to write a QotW style post each week.

Answer 2

First a general comment. I like this idea and would be happy to help. We have an insane range of people here and it is a very entertaining community. That should make for good blogging.

So. Here are the areas I feel I can contribute.

1. My specialty (academically) lies in international relations and philosophy (how in the world did I end up working in IT?)

2. Culture and civilization: Its one thing to have this great idea for a secret society or individual character, its another to weave that organization or person, into a greater cultural fabric.

3. I have also studied world religions to a decent extent and would be willing to write on religion topics.

Additional Notes

• Two person entries. Show how two specialties can blend together to form a more engaging world. For example magic and physics (the whole conservation of energy thing)

• Point/Counter-Point entries. We disagree around here...generally in a tactful manner. Find points of contention on a topic and have an entry that represents both views.

Answer 3

Personally, I would be interested as well. There are a lot of subjects I'm interested in. A couple of years ago, I started to do maps and I came to learn all sort of things. I took a particular interest in the climates because I think they are really important and it's almost mandatory for me to get them right. They are hard to change and and will have a major impact on the people living in this area.

• So there the climates: how can we explain them, make easy to understand with minimal inconsistency? Without a powerful dedicated computer, it's not possible to do accurately but we could still have something good.
• Geography: we have several topics on the Cartographer Guild with what/what not to do on maps. Examples include how to place mountains, deserts and rivers. It look simple but most novice get so many things wrong. Other might simply emulate Earth without knowing what the are doing.
• Economy: I find this topic interesting and I think we could develop on some topics such as: international trade, currencies, domestic production/trade: how much food does a farmer produce? how much money does the average commoner ears in a year? how many jewellers does my 25 000 citizen city have ... things like that.
• Politics: That's my specialty (similar to James). Designing intricated worlds is important in worldbuilding and story telling. It's what makes countries interesting to me (with the culture). This would include not only the central power but all the ramifications (if it's a feudal system) and other organizations (military orders, religious groups, mage organizations, merchant guilds. It would also include how the states interact with each other. There are plenty of theories about that. We could explain the different political regime, the different ''theories'' in international relations maybe (example: mercantilism, liberalism, imperialism, real politik, social darwinism...)

Answer 4

My thought process:

My first thought was, "Hey, I should do something science-y!" The problem there, though, is that "science" is way too broad. I was implying to myself that I would restrict it to natural sciences, but again, that's way too broad. There's a reason there isn't just one giant Stack Exchange site for science. Also, I'm not knowledgeable in all areas of science, so it would be kind of inefficient to write up science posts and then not cover a good chunk of science.

So my thoughts shifted to physics and astronomy, the things I know best. Actually, perhaps I should stick to astronomy. I could answer a good portion of the physics questions raised on Worldbuilding - and in world building scenarios - but those questions are (no offense) pretty basic; blog posts about physics should be in-depth and come from someone with an in-depth knowledge of physics. Also, I'll be frank: Many of the physics questions here are speculative, in part because people like speculative stuff. I think that it would be tough to write realistic posts that would still engage people.

Okay, but what specific bits about astronomy could I focus on? I can't just do post after post on various planetary systems. I already answer a lot of questions about various scenarios, and I have to say, it's getting to be a bit mundane. Again, I don't want to offend anyone, but a lot of the stuff is kind of basic and repetitive.

So what I'm thinking of is something in-depth - perhaps a masterclass-type-thing in astronomy for people trying to learn how to figure out what will realistically happen in a certain scenario. I wouldn't go over any specific topic that could be used in building a specific world, but I'd go over the principles of something - the tools and building blocks of astronomy.

Some ideas:

• Extreme Bombardment: How to calculate and control the amount of collisions a planet will undergo, and just how much is too much for life on it.
• Hydrogen, Helium and Heat: Strange things that can happen when a planetary system wanders through a gas cloud.
• Alternative Energy: How to provide astronomical sources of heat and/or light to planets and other bodies - no stars allowed.
• How to Make a Stellar System (Without Really Trying): Galaxy collisions and the incredible things that can happen afterwards.

I would not shy away from math, and I would use calculus, if necessary, but I promise to keep it to a minimum. I would try to focus on planetary and stellar systems (and then on cool things that can influence habitability), but I'd love to branch out more - I gave some more expansive ideas already.

I could find the time to do this perhaps once every week or two. It would take some time to write up, although that depends on how long the post would be.

Answer 5

I can do religion and classical anthropology. Happy to help.

Answer 6

I would love to contribute, but without any real area of specialty I'm not sure if I could come up with anything good. However, as I said in the last meta post about this, I'd like to see people talk about their reasons behind worldbuilding. You know, not so much how the world was built, but why it was built. I find that the question of why is very important, and would like to show people how the best stories usually come about not because someone wanted a good story, but because there was something else they wanted to explore, and a story came out of it. For example, Tolkien used to say he created Middle-Earth as a way to play around with languages.

I just realized this perhaps should have gone into the other blog question. But I would still like to volunteer to write stuff.

Answer 7

Count me in. As to the content, I dunno, have been swamped all this month, so I can't catch up with the entire discussion here.

If we stick w/ non-fictional issues, I could do future economics posts, elaborating on the Kardashev scales, investigating the economics of space colonization, etc. As to my out-of-WB knowledge set: I'm a PhD in political science methodology (as in Bayesian stats and stuff) and work in business intelligence/big data analytics.

If we do creative stuff instead, maybe a chunk of Alice and Rynn's adventures, one every month or so?