Blaugust 2023
It is a fact of life, like death and taxes, that our passion for our hobbies will wax and wane overtime. All too often, the realities of daily life just get in the way. The enthusiasm you have in the morning for a great idea, may vanish by the evening when we finally have time to do it. Furthermore, if you do something often enough, sooner or later you’ll either want to (or need to) take a break. Regardless of how much you may love that particular pastime. Hobbies take time, energy and discipline. Sadly, not only can these factors take a toll upon your ongoing participation but they can also potentially stop you from even starting. I suspect that I am preaching to the proverbial choir and that many of those reading this will have experienced both scenarios. You’ve either struggled to sustain a “passion project” and have burned out, or you’ve fallen at the very first hurdle and not progressed beyond your initial excitement to try something new.
It is a fact of life, like death and taxes, that our passion for our hobbies will wax and wane overtime. All too often, the realities of daily life just get in the way. The enthusiasm you have in the morning for a great idea, may vanish by the evening when we finally have time to do it. Furthermore, if you do something often enough, sooner or later you’ll either want to (or need to) take a break. Regardless of how much you may love that particular pastime. Hobbies take time, energy and discipline. Sadly, not only can these factors take a toll upon your ongoing participation but they can also potentially stop you from even starting. I suspect that I am preaching to the proverbial choir and that many of those reading this will have experienced both scenarios. You’ve either struggled to sustain a “passion project” and have burned out, or you’ve fallen at the very first hurdle and not progressed beyond your initial excitement to try something new.
I fall into the former category. I’ve been blogging for over two decades and I slowly ground to a halt last September. I tried to jump start my “writing mojo” in April this year but it was short lived. Rather than playing amateur psychologist, let it suffice to say that motivation is a factor. Fortunately, Blaugust 2023: Festival of Blogging is fast approaching (it starts in August). This yearly, community driven, online event is an invaluable wellspring of support, advice, camaraderie and enjoyment. Organised and overseen by Belghast from the Tales of the Aggronaut blog, Blaugust “is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focuses on blogging and other serialised content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a result”.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, actually it was quite shit”.
Hence, I have signed up for Blaugust 2023: Festival of Blogging as I find that the event is excellent for motivating me and focusing my energy. I would urge anyone who has blogged previously and wishes to resume their writing to read Bel’s post and come and join us on Discord. The same goes for anyone who is new to blogging or any other type of online content creation. You’ll find help and advice for all kinds of activities be it streaming, podcasting, blogging or vlogging. Being part of a community where you know that friends and colleagues will view your content and give you positive, constructive feedback can be a major boost when you are learning the ropes. As for me, I just need a proverbial kick up the arse to get blogging again. I enjoy writing for a multitude of reasons but the most fundamental one is that it makes me happy. Time to get back in the saddle.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Thoughts on Blogging Part 18
As a blogger we are often told by our peers not to obsess over website traffic and statistics in general. There is a degree of sense in this. We should be primarily focused on writing, maintaining an equitable schedule and staying motivated. Stats can have a negative effect on the latter. However, one cannot ignore the subject either. As a writer, at some point you do want people to actually read your material, or else what is the point? I have therefore always kept an eye on traffic and have attempted to grow my readership overtime. The results have been varied. In my experience, you do slowly build up an audience by being persistent with your writing. But you also have to promote your work, which is a job in itself. It’s also something that not everyone is comfortable with. “Therein lies the rub” as the expression goes. How do you attract readers without compromising your own standards?
As a blogger we are often told by our peers not to obsess over website traffic and statistics in general. There is a degree of sense in this. We should be primarily focused on writing, maintaining an equitable schedule and staying motivated. Stats can have a negative effect on the latter. However, one cannot ignore the subject either. As a writer, at some point you do want people to actually read your material, or else what is the point? I have therefore always kept an eye on traffic and have attempted to grow my readership overtime. The results have been varied. In my experience, you do slowly build up an audience by being persistent with your writing. But you also have to promote your work, which is a job in itself. It’s also something that not everyone is comfortable with. “Therein lies the rub” as the expression goes. How do you attract readers without compromising your own standards?
No doubt the following anecdote will not come as a surprise to others, but it caught me unaware. I have been on a writing hiatus since last September and only post content about two times a month on my blog. However, I recently decided to write a humorous piece about Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 DMZ, as I’ve been playing the game a lot lately. Due to the niche nature of the post, I chose to publish it on the DMZ subreddit, rather than my own blog. But in every other respect I treated it as I would a regular post. To cut a long story short, when you post on reddit you can find statistics at the footer showing how well it has performed. Only the author and the moderators can see this data. This particular post was viewed 32,500 times in approximately 36 hours. To put that into perspective that’s the equivalent of a quarter of my yearly traffic for my entire blog in just one and half days. A single post on Contains Moderate Peril never garners such traffic.
Now it is important to maintain a degree of perspective with regard to this. The DMZ subreddit has over 44,000 subscribers which is a substantial audience to begin with. Any post that touches on a popular talking point about the game will gain as much traction with the subreddits readership. But what this subreddit or any other potentially offers to writers, is an opportunity to raise their profile. A chance to build brand recognition. Yes I know that’s an appalling term that may make some of you shudder but that’s ultimately a big part of blogging. Often your readers not only visit your blog for your work but because they relate to you on some level. Hence a presence across multiple platforms, using a universal brand or handle, is a great way to build an online identity and increase awareness, directly or indirectly, of your writing.
Like many suggestions associated with blogging, this one means essentially more work. But that is the nature of the beast. Answering comments on your blog, so readers feel involved and want to come back is more work (something I always fail to do). Streaming, producing videos or a podcast as well as writing regularly is more work. Leaving comments on a popular website, forum or discord is more work. Posting material on a subreddit is exactly the same. However, if your motivation to write is wavering because you feel that you are spitting in the wind, then it can be very uplifting to get some traction elsewhere. It also serves as a timely reminder that if you want to succeed as a writer and build an audience, then you have to step outside of your comfort zone and “sell yourself”. And if you’re not writing at all, as I am at present, then you’ll get nowhere.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
Back in March 2019 I wrote a blog post about the operating costs of running this website. I went into detail with regard to hosting and domain costs, as well as the other software and hardware used to write posts and at that point produce a podcast. Let it suffice to say that five years on, those costs have all increased. If we’re just looking at maintaining a blog simply in terms of hosting and the domain registration, it costs about £20 a month to run Contains Moderate Peril. Theoretically, if I want to reduce those costs I could dispense with a specific domain name and use a free blogging service. However, I feel that such a compromise comes with its own set of problems, such as advertising and a lack of control (to a degree) over your content. I therefore choose to pay to mitigate these concerns. If I then wish to do more, such as produce a podcast, create videos for YouTube or live stream, then those costs increase.
When you initially start blogging, your aspirations tend to be very straightforward. Choose a title, find a niche and get into the habit of writing. Simple tasks that can still take a while to master. Once your blog is established and has endured for a while, you may not have any further long term goals other than to just keep going. However, if you feel that you want to achieve more then you have to tackle a new set of problems. There is a great deal of “advice” in the public domain about growing and monetising your blog. A lot of it is questionable but there are some approaches that do work. However, these require you to write to a specific process, chasing the ever changing whims of your potential readership. You have to compromise. And for many bloggers, that is the deal breaker.
I spent some time in July, making some changes to Contains Moderate Peril. I replaced the branding and made some alterations to the “about” page to ensure that it was up to date and relevant. Not that anyone reads it as I still regularly receive enquiries about guest posts. Something I no longer do. Today, I made some further changes as it is my long term goal to grow the audience for this site. Hence I want to try and make it easier for visitors to find the content they seek and offer them related material. To facilitate this, I have added some additional menu options to the blog homepage. These act as filters, presenting specifically themed content for readers. Hence there is a “movie” button that lists all film reviews and similarly one for “video games”. There are also links for two specific video games, The Lord of the Rings Online and Star trek Online, as website statistics show that these are popular subjects.
I’ve been writing online for 17 years. During that time a modest audience has read my posts and occasionally commented on them, which is the accepted dynamic of blogging. Some of my posts are ephemeral. Others, such as film reviews, have greater longevity. Naturally I want people to read my output and I’ve noticed that the film reviews seem to generate a fair amount of traffic. After consulting my website analytics package, it would appear that the majority of readers find my reviews by searching Google. Promoting my writing via social media does very little. Another issue is that readers tend to read the post they found via their search and then leave. Despite there being links at the bottom of the post to similar material. Currently, my blog does not have an effective means of searching older posts. The landing page has only 20 posts listed. There are approximately 2,500 archived.
As a blogger we are often told by our peers not to obsess over website traffic and statistics in general. There is a degree of sense in this. We should be primarily focused on writing, maintaining an equitable schedule and staying motivated. Stats can have a negative effect on the latter. However, one cannot ignore the subject either. As a writer, at some point you do want people to actually read your material, or else what is the point? I have therefore always kept an eye on traffic and have attempted to grow my readership overtime. The results have been varied. In my experience, you do slowly build up an audience by being persistent with your writing. But you also have to promote your work, which is a job in itself. It’s also something that not everyone is comfortable with. “Therein lies the rub” as the expression goes. How do you attract readers without compromising your own standards?
I was sitting in my office over the weekend, half-heartedly typing up a blog post about table manners and dining etiquette, when I paused and lapsed into a state of self examination and introspection.
“Isn’t Contains Moderate Peril supposed to be about gaming, movies and popular culture”? “Yes”, I replied to myself via my inner monologue.
“So what the hell am I doing writing about table manners, then?” my inner contrarian retorted.
“Well it is part of our culture, although I wouldn’t argue that it is a defining aspect of the zeitgeist at present” my conciliatory alter ego responded.
“Frankly, I’m getting bored with all of this per se” a third voice stated. It was at this point, I stopped arguing with various facets of my id and went to the pub.
March has been a challenging month for several reasons and as a result I’ve written very little. Furthermore, the recently revived podcast has also ground to a halt after just six episodes due to scheduling issues that are beyond myself and Brian’s control. At the end of February, Google made changes to their search algorithm which have had a major impact upon traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. Visits are down by over 20%. I’ll make no bones about the fact that this has really pissed me off. Several years of growth has been unceremoniously swept away at the drop of a hat. So all this, plus the rapidly changing situation regarding my Mother’s care, has found me ill disposed towards writing. To be clear, I’m not talking about writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas and a folder full of draft posts. I just haven’t wanted to write because I feel that I’m just spitting in the wind.
At the time of writing we are halfway through the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event. Whenever the subject of personal blogging is raised, there are those who immediately declare that “blogging is dead”. According to Google, out of 1.7 billion websites that currently exist worldwide, 500 million or so of those are blogs of some kind. These generate over 2 million blog posts daily. So I wouldn’t say that blogging per se is done and dusted. However it certainly has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. At the start of the current century blogging was a novel activity providing the means of keeping a personal journal online. Inevitably, popularity and ubiquity led to commercialisation and a necessity to monetise. There was a period of time when clicks, traffic and advertising could generate popularity as well as an income. But other forms of social media offering greater immediacy eventually usurped this potential. Now blogging is seen as more of a niche market activity or corporate tool.
By the time that August rolls around this year, I will have been actively blogging and generally sharing my writing online for 14 years. Prior to that, back in the eighties, I was involved in the production of several fanzines. That was indeed a labour of love and although I was happy to write the content, the work involved in physically creating the actual pages was tough. The printing costs were also an early lesson in how writing is not an immediate path to fame and fortune. All things considered, writing has been a major aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. I used to enjoy writing stories as a child and then as I got older I discovered the pleasure of a well constructed essay. I was fortunate to have three very good English teachers during my time at school, who were passionate about their job and very encouraging.
I mentioned not so long ago the possibility of a website revamp. I was concerned that the general layout of the blog was not optimal and that readers couldn’t easily find old material. In the past I even went as far as to write a guide to navigating through Contains Moderate Peril and using the categories to find old posts. Well I got a few emails and Twitter DMs about this and it would appear that folk like things just as they are. So I have reviewed my position and decided to leave things as they are at present. I did a little digging though my website stats, both from Squarespace and Google Analytics and it would appear the summary blocks at the bottom of each post are used and that the bounce rate for my site is not exactly as it first appears. Seems that readers do peruse other articles and the search facility is being used more often, especially for finding film reviews. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Due to the ongoing Global Pandemic, many people are now finding themselves working from home or having to stay in for health or childcare reasons. Hence there has been a marked increase in online leisure activities. Steam has been hit by a record number of concurrent users and Netflix and Amazon prime have both seen an increased demand upon their respective streaming services. If you’re not commuting then you are freeing up a substantial amount of hours each week. This potential abundance of “free time” along with a practical need to channel your energy into something to prevent yourself from going “stir crazy”, presents some interesting opportunities. Many people who have previously expressed an interest in writing and content creation now have the leeway to do so. Naturally, as a writing enthusiast and a long time blogger, I am happy to encourage such activities.
The New Year is often a time for revised plans, renewed ambitions and a desire to get back on the proverbial horse when it comes to content creation. More often than not, many of these lofty ambitions wither on the vine or fall victim to our propensity for indolence. Which is why I think it is prudent to ensure that any goals that you set for yourself are realistic and attainable. If for example, you have just started blogging, then it is wiser to focus on developing and maintaining a writing schedule, rather than trying to get a million page views in your first month. Impossible goals lead to disappointment which can then crush your optimism. Measured, targeted achievements, obtained over a credible time period may not seem so satisfying but they get the job done. Which is why I have given a great deal of thought to my own blogging goals for 2020. I am not going to alter or replace the blog template, nor am I going to embark upon too many side projects such a streaming or creating video content. Although I’d like to do such things I cannot sustain them or cope with the volume of work they will create. This year I am just going to try to create as much written content as possible and focus on expanding brand awareness.
The end of Blaugust Festival of Blogging 2019 presents the perfect opportunity to write another entry in my “Thoughts on Blogging” series. According to the Blaugust schedule this is the “lessoned learned week”, although I’m not too keen on that specific phrase. It sounds too much like the sort of bogus, sombre platitudes that politicians trot out in the wake of some national tragedy. But such is the nature of semantics and such is the curious fashion in which my mind works. So rather than worry of the wording, I’ll just simply reflect upon the past month and consider what it means for my writing, both present and future. Because I do believe that over the last month, I have had a minor epiphany with regard to my relationship with blogging.
The last three months have been problematic from a writing perspective and my productivity and motivation have both suffered. I struggle to find appropriate time to sit down and apply myself to writing and when I do, I seldom have the correct mindset to stay focused for long. Yet due to the back catalogue of content available on Contains Moderate Peril, there is still regular traffic coming to the site. Ironically, despite my low productivity, I have started receiving an increase in blog related marketing and have received numerous emails regarding “collaboration”, “featured posts” and “SEO optimisation”. All of which I have no interest in. However, the point remains, I’m not writing as much as I used to and I miss it. The same can be said for podcasting but that’s a tougher problem to fix. It is more labour intensive than writing, so the logical thing to do is to focus on the former and not the latter to fix.
I wasn’t expecting to write another entry in the Thoughts on Blogging series so soon, but something came up that grabbed my attention and got me thinking. A simple question that’s often asked about blogging and one that has many layers to it, as well as numerous answers. A new blogger who recently joined the Blaugust discord server asked for help “getting traffic to their blog”. An enquiry that gave me (and possibly others) pause for thought. Because we all to a degree want to attract traffic to our blogs. But I also think bloggers are too coy about this this subject. We’ll say things like “I write for myself” or “it’s not about the numbers” and although I agree with these points, building an audience is important. Let’s be honest, it can be somewhat disheartening after writing a lengthy post about a subject close to you heart, for it to fall flat and not attract any traffic. As discussed before, often it is the casual blog posts written in a hurry, that can be the most popular and the articles you’re most proud of can go unnoticed. So let us be honest. I think most bloggers want to grow an audience and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that it provides.
I decided to take a short break from blogging last week. I have a lot on at present and the only time I’ve had available to write has been in the late evening. I prefer to write in the morning as I’m more focused and motivated. Plus I haven’t really had a lot of positive things to say of late about the two primary subjects of this website. Broadly speaking there’s not a lot of going on in the video games industry that enthuses me. Similarly, the current crop of film releases have hardly distinguished themselves. At present when I do get writing ideas, they tend to be obscure niche market subjects or commentary on social issues. For example, I’m thinking of writing a post about my continuing enjoyment of the Japanese TV show Takeshi’s Castle. I’m also forming my thoughts for an article about how society’s relationship with wildlife may be “broken”. Stuff that is interesting to me but may not be ideal material for readers of Contains Moderate Peril.
As January comes to an end, I am pleased that I have so far managed to maintain a daily writing schedule. I hope that I can continue in this vein throughout February. As ever the actual process of sitting and writing has proven a somewhat mixed bag so far this year. Some days the word simply spill out of me and a blog post potentially writes itself. On others, composing just three coherent paragraphs is like pulling teeth and much time is spent procrastinating and getting side tracked. But a mixture of self-discipline and a degree of pride have helped oil the creative wheels and kept the content flowing. Whether any of it is any good is for others to decided. However, it was nice to find one of my posts quoted in an article over at Massively Overpowered. It means that at least someone is reading my work and pondering upon the points therein. Writing is after all a means of communication and sharing ideas so it is rewarding to know that you’re not just yelling into the wind all the time.
This week, a rather high profile sub-reddit associated with the Star Trek Online community, changed its status to “private” as a means of protesting against the state of the game and the way developers Cryptic are handling things. That matter was surprisingly resolved within 24 hours after an olive branch was extended from the STO community manager on reddit. However, it is not the protest itself nor the state of the game that I wish to focus upon, but the importance of /r/stobuilds as a shared community resource. A lot of STO players enjoy optimising their builds and tweaking their loadout and this site it the place to go to share such information. There is also a group of hardcore players that dig deep into the games data and comprehensively crunch number and generate useful information. Hence if a resource such as this was taken offline for longer period of time, it would have a tangible impact upon players and the wider community.
Spending time in the company of others who have similar interests and passions can be an invaluable shot in the arm and a great source of motivation. For example, I recently joined a Facebook group associated with The Evolution of Horror Podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to pick over the bones of a movie such as The Wicker Man and explore its finer points. You don’t have to adjust your level of conversation for fear of boring people, or dial back your enthusiasm due to concerns of being labelled a nerd or fanboy. Finding these online havens where you feel comfortable are invaluable, regardless of whether your passion is sport, knitting, Lepidoptery or Phrenology. Remember this point. I shall be returning to it shortly.
I read a post over at Tobold’s Blog recently that got me thinking about blogging, popularity, and the ebb and flow of our passions. The reason being is that Tobold, like many other long-term bloggers, has seen a decline in his audience over recent years. He certainly wasn’t carping about it, just simply observing the correlation between reducing your written output, the decline in popularity of his original subject matter and the number of visitors coming to his site. He also made a keen observation that blogging is not necessarily “where it’s at” with regard to cultivating an audience. If you are producing content specifically to grow and maintain a following, then You Tube and Twitch are better platforms for that. Especially if your content is part of the wider gaming scene. For better or for worse, I now associate gaming commentary with visual mediums rather than blogging. Yes, there is still long from criticism being produced but it’s aimed at a niche gaming audience. One that I would guess is older.
I usually write a post early on in the New Year in which I list the various goals I’m focusing on over the next twelve months. To date I have not done this because I am still trying to work out what I can and cannot accommodate within my current schedule. As a carer I’m kept very busy, but my weekly routine does offers windows of opportunity for writing. However, free time is a finite commodity, so I have to really cut my proverbial coat according to my cloth this year. Therefore, I’ve decided to pursue the following projects. I will continue to regularly post on Contains Moderate Peril as I enjoy having my own platform and certainly feel that I still have a lot to write about. Also, the audience is steadily growing, and I think it would be counter productive to fly in the face of such a development. I was also given the opportunity to write for MMOGames recently and have decided to accept this invitation. Writing to deadlines and deferring to editors, is an invaluable learning experience. Plus, it presents my writing to a wider audience which is great for brand awareness and other awful marketing terms.
There wasn’t a Newbie Blogger Initiative this year and I was saddened by that. I’ll make no bones about the fact that I liked this yearly event and the way for a few months after it, you’d see a lot of interesting new blogs spring up, filled with optimism and passion. But, what’s done is done, and life goes on. It’s up to others to pick up that particular torch and run with it, if they wish to see the event to return. I also miss a lot of my colleagues and peers’ blogs and the comradery that stemmed from the associated community. Again, this is a natural and inevitable attrition process, caused by that thing known as “life”. So, to combat my current melancholic malaise, I thought I’d collate a few of my thoughts about writing online and set them down in a semi-regular post, the same way as I do about podcasting.
A Year in Blogging
So far I have written 135 blog posts in 2022. Not much compared to previous years, but frankly I’ve become a little despondent with writing in recent months (I shall expand more upon that in a moment). Hence, since October I have been enjoying a break from regular blogging. I have written sparingly and pursued other leisure activities. Given that my post output has gone down, it would be logical to assume that there has been a commensurate drop in web traffic to Contains Moderate Peril, but this is not the case. Overall, my monthly statistics have remained the same, proving once again that most of my readership find my written content via Google searches, rather than reading new material on a daily basis. This has given me much food for thought and added to my ongoing reflection upon my writing activities.
So far I have written 135 blog posts in 2022. Not much compared to previous years, but frankly I’ve become a little despondent with writing in recent months (I shall expand more upon that in a moment). Hence, since October I have been enjoying a break from regular blogging. I have written sparingly and pursued other leisure activities. Given that my post output has gone down, it would be logical to assume that there has been a commensurate drop in web traffic to Contains Moderate Peril, but this is not the case. Overall, my monthly statistics have remained the same, proving once again that most of my readership find my written content via Google searches, rather than reading new material on a daily basis. This has given me much food for thought and added to my ongoing reflection upon my writing activities.
Bloggers write for different reasons and their motivations are equally diverse. I write primarily for myself but I see no shame in wanting others to read it too. Afterall, the medium is a form of communication and that process is a much more enjoyable experience if it is multilateral. It’s the same with podcasting. It all seems a waste of time if you script, record and edit a show and no one listens to it. So it may be unfashionable to say so but one of the reasons I have become fed up with blogging after 15 years is because I do feel at times that I’m just spitting in the wind. Am I talking about internet fame and fortune? No. As a wise man once said “Fame, it’s an empty purse. Count it, go broke. Eat it, go hungry. Seek it, go mad”. What I am referring to is building a healthy audience and contributing to a community. I used to feel that was the case about a decade ago. It just doesn’t quite feel that way anymore.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. I happily wrote continuously for a month during this year’s Blaugust event. Which sheds some insight into my personal psychology. I will happily fail to meet my own targets and goals, but when I make a commitment to a third party I cannot break it. It’s funny how I’m socially conditioned this way but that is another blog post entirely. Back to the matter in hand, I am currently considering a staged return to writing. This time of year makes it a lot easier because I can write a lot of pieces that are all variations of “a year in (insert subject matter here)”. I am also ruminating upon a new project. Something I can channel my energies into. Perhaps it is time to step outside of my normal comfort zone of writing and podcasting and do something different. We shall see. The New Year is fast approaching.
I don’t really celebrate New Year’s Eve anymore. By that I mean, I don’t go to the pub or any other social gatherings. Nor do we have guests ourselves. Mrs P often doesn’t stay up to midnight. Mainly because she tends to go to bed relatively early, by default. One year changing to another seems a somewhat arbitrary excuse for a celebration to me. However, I realise that New Year is a big deal for some. I used to work with someone who said, very philosophically, that Christmas was for the children and New Year was for the adults. He was of Scottish antecedents and so New Year’s Eve was of more cultural significance to him. Also if you’ve had a difficult, problematic or traumatic 2025, then I fully understand that you may well be happy to see the back of 2025 and look to 2026 to be a significantly better year. Or at least, not to be as shit.
I have not watched as much TV as I usually do, this year. Mainly because I have become a little weary of the ways contemporary TV is produced, especially with regards to streaming shows. Due to the costs, shows such as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds only have 10 episodes per season. Simply put, the season begins to hit its stride and then is abruptly over. This problem (if you see it as such) is then further compounded by there being a significant wait between seasons. In the case of STSNW it was two years between season two and season three. Not all shows fall foul of this. Apple TV produces two seasons of the excellent espionage drama Slow Horses at a time, ensuring a prompt release schedule. However, even this has issues. Due to the complexity of the plots of many contemporary TV shows, something that is a marketing point, some viewers cannot remember the plot after a twelve month hiatus. Network TV shows seldom have these issues with each season being 20 plus episodes long and story arcs that are seldom as complex.
It is customary in a post such as this to list the various games that I’ve played over the last twelve months and share my thoughts on them. Wider analysis of the video game industry is also de rigeur. Unfortunately, I don’t really feel disposed to do either of those two things. My thoughts on the games I’ve played have already been published and can easily be accessed via the links at the bottom of this post. As for the video game industry, it suffers the same flaws as music, TV and cinema. There is creativity and innovation out there but it is often drowned out by mainstream products which are demonstrably inferior due to their inherent mediocrity. As for the business side of things, we once again clearly see the failings of the corporate management class. Sadly, they do not face the consequences of the mistakes that they make.
I began 2025 with a fairly strong writing streak, publishing posts about games, technology and even air fryers. Sadly, this burst of enthusiasm gradually tailed off between April and June. I can’t even recollect if there was any particular “real world” reason for this or whether it was just a case of I wasn’t especially motivated. Fortunately, I started writing again in July in preparation for Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and subsequently wrote throughout the entirety of August. Revamping my blog in September and moving it to the latest version of Squarespace proved a positive move and since then I have kept up a writing schedule of posting to Contains Moderate Peril every second day. At present I have a lot of draft posts pending and I am not struggling to come up with ideas and write in general. I intend to nurture this positive approach and see if I can build upon it in 2026.
Looking back at my various posts regarding “technology” this year, a recurring theme has been my ongoing attempts to replace certain mainstream products with alternatives that do the job in-hand better, don’t require constant updates, aren’t bloated by superfluous functionality and are more cost effective or even ethical. Needless to say, this has proven quite hard. Hence I was unable to find a suitable replacement email client for Microsoft Outlook and end my subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal. The main problem is that most alternative software won’t support my email archive due to differences in the mailbox format. One possible work around is to install an older and therefore, non-subscription version of Outlook but this raises support and compatibility issues. It would be a lot easier to divest myself of a lot of mainstream software if I was starting from scratch.
I created a Bluesky account a little over a year ago. I was initially somewhat sceptical of adopting a third social media messaging platform, because I had become quite comfortable using Mastodon as a replacement for Twitter/X. However, certain individuals that I wished to continue to follow were migrating to Bluesky, so I followed suit. It has always been my long term goal to pick one of these two newer services and make it my sole point of presence in social media terms. So far that hasn’t happened. Hence a year on I find myself juggling three such platforms. Twitter/X, Mastodon and Bluesky. I post links to my blog posts on all of these services. To be honest none of them generate any tangible traffic but this is how you promoted your website or blog 15 years ago and old habits die hard.
In my teenage years, there was a social obligation to go out on New Year’s Eve. This often meant congregating in some dismal pub, queuing at the bar for 30 minutes to get a drink, then trying to find a corner where you could stand and struggle to have a conversation with your friends, above the noise of the crowd. The evening was dull, noisy and often ended in a fight. Then, around 1:00 AM we were summarily turfed out into the street and had to make our way home. Buses always run at this time of year to serve a public need but the “drunk express” was never a pleasant means of transportation. Quite frankly the whole experience was shit but the hubris of youth meant we deluded ourselves that we were having a good time. If someone suggested something similar today, I would laugh in their face. I am happy to spend New Year’s Eve indoors and away from it all.
It is customary for me to write an end of year summary of my gaming activities but I suspect that on this occasion it will be somewhat short. For me, 2024 has really hammered home the notion of the ephemeral nature of video games as well as their commercial ubiquity. The moment a game fails to satisfy for whatever reason, rather than complain or worry about it, I just move on to something else. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of games out there. I have a substantial back catalogue of games that Epic and Amazon prime regularly giveaway. I have bought numerous discounted bundles in the past, in the pious hope that I’ll play one of the games included, at some point in the future. Games may well be enjoyable and engaging but many are also disposable. That’s not to say they’re bad. While playing them you are indeed “entertained”. However, when you’re “done”, it’s amazing how you quickly find another and forget what you were previously playing.
The last time I wrote A Year in Movies post was back in 2020. That was naturally an unusual year and it certainly had a radical impact upon the film industry and the way new movies are distributed. In many ways the pandemic accelerated the inevitable move towards cross platform, same day releases. 4 years on and it is quite usual for films to have a short cinema release before becoming available on streaming media. They often appear on physical media at the same time. Effectively you can go to the cinema, or simply watch at home on the platform of your choice if you prefer. Rent, buy or subscribe, the film studios still get their pound of flesh and everyone is happy. Sometimes if a film has failed to gain sufficient traction at the cinema, its release will be cut short and it will go to streaming even quicker. Direct to video from the eighties and nineties has been superseded with direct to streaming.
It is fair to say that we live in an age where we do not lack quality TV. There are numerous shows that have garnered critical acclaim or a strong word of mouth following that are deemed “must see” viewing. No doubt you, like myself, have a long “to do” list of programs that you need to “get round to watching” on top of those shows which are staples of your viewing regime. If you didn’t have enough programmes already to catch up with, we all have friends and family telling us about a “great show” that’s on a platform we don’t subscribe to, that we really need to see. It is quite extraordinary and a far cry from my youth when the UK simply had three terrestrial channels until satellite TV became popular in the late eighties. To paraphrase the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan “we’ve never had it so good”.
This post is not intended to be a comprehensive review of music per se in 2024. It is simply a few thoughts on what I’ve been listening to over the course of the year and my ever changing relationship with the Terpsichorean muse. As a man in his fifties who has always enjoyed multiple genres of music and it is a comforting presence in day-to-day life. Up to a year ago, I relied upon my own music collection on my PC as the source of music to which I listened. Yet, this meant that I was somewhat locked into my own existing tastes and there was limited scope for me to find new material. This changed last December when I started subscribing to Spotify and since then it has become my primary source of music. It caters to my tastes, which at times are quite niche and it gently introduces me to new material without being too invasive. This has proven most beneficial.
This is my third attempt at writing this post. The first was a little too philosophical, tackling the nature of adult life and how it is a far cry from the childish notions I had about being a “grown up” when I was seven. The second was just a list of the various shit that has gone down in my life over the last twelve months and it felt far too much like whinging. Hopefully this one is more succinct and even handed. 2022 was not a good year, personally speaking. My family and I experienced a lot of health issues and my mother died after a rapid decline. Hence there has been a lot of stress and anxiety which has left me feeling tired and somewhat jaded. Due to the subsequent changes in my personal circumstances, I now find myself at somewhat of a “loose end”. I feel the need to channel my energies into something but I’m not sure exactly what at present.
So far I have written 135 blog posts in 2022. Not much compared to previous years, but frankly I’ve become a little despondent with writing in recent months (I shall expand more upon that in a moment). Hence, since October I have been enjoying a break from regular blogging. I have written sparingly and pursued other leisure activities. Given that my post output has gone down, it would be logical to assume that there has been a commensurate drop in web traffic to Contains Moderate Peril, but this is not the case. Overall, my monthly statistics have remained the same, proving once again that most of my readership find my written content via Google searches, rather than reading new material on a daily basis. This has given me much food for thought and added to my ongoing reflection upon my writing activities.
When I wrote Goodbye 2020 a year ago, I endeavoured to be philosophical and sanguine in my approach. It was a challenging year for all of us and for me it was further compounded by a bereavement. However, I strove to keep matters in perspective and tried to look at things in a broader context. I cannot be as even handed this time. 2021 has been a very difficult year for myself and my family and I will be glad to see the back of it. Nationally speaking, things haven’t been much better. I feel that we’ve squandered the initial progress that the COVID-19 vaccines offered. Obviously, I cannot do anything about the problems that the UK faces in 2022. However, I certainly intend to address some of the issues that I and my immediate family are facing. I am going to tackle some specific problems that need to be laid to rest and set myself some tangible goals to achieve. 2022 isn’t going to be something that just happens and I passively sit back and watch.
Getting older does have a few benefits. One of them, if you are fortunate enough to embrace the concept, is a degree of self awareness and the ability to be honest with yourself. Over the years I have tried to adjust my technological habits but ultimately I am a creature of habit. My use of technology and consumption of content has been determined by the decades I grew up in. Therefore, I am a PC user and prefer to sit in my office where I write, play games and peruse the internet. I have my desk set up in a way that suits my needs and I can go about my business in comfort. When away from my office, I rely heavily on my phone as an alternative platform. In some instances phone based apps offer a superior experience to the desktop or browser based PC alternatives. Banking being one example. For better or for worse this is how I do things and I am comfortable with these choices.
Usually in a post such as this, my primary focus would be writing about the games that I’ve played over the last twelve month and what it was about them that I specifically enjoyed. However, this year I feel that I must address the wider issues that have dominated the news regarding the video games industry. Simply put, several very high profile and successful triple A video game companies have been beset by scandals over the last twelve months. And these have been of such a nature that they have finally laid to rest the myth that some still cling to, that working “in video games” is somehow different from working in more traditional industries because it’s “cool”. It turns out that it has all the same failings as TV, music and film. The people at the top are abusive and broken and maltreat those at the coalface who do all the real work for precious little reward.
I can’t speak for others but my relationship with social media has certainly changed over the last two years. Whenever new internet technologies emerge, there is a brief period when it feels like some sort of new frontier. Often such innovations become a means of empowering the marginalised and the voiceless. For a while new platforms can even be a force for good. But eventually commercial interests creep in along with rules and regulations. Hence, it all inevitably takes a turn for the worst. The frontier is finally tamed and ends up being just another corporate space. Social media is certainly not a forum for discussing social issues or politics, instead being a medium for tribalism and rancour. Because of these factors and others, I have moderated my use of social media and it has proven extremely beneficial to my state of mind.
A very wise Vulcan once said “change is the essential process of all existence”. 2020 has demonstrated that unequivocally. How our privileged, pampered lives have altered over the last twelve months. We’ve had to stay at home, curtail our social interactions and reflect upon the meaning of existence. I appreciate that things are relative, so it’s not helpful to compare the concerns that discombobulate people today with the realities that folk had to endure during World War II for example. I won’t trivialise the sense of isolation and desperation some folk have felt over the lockdown. From my own perspective, my life as a carer is regimented and focused, so 2020 hasn’t really “cramped my style” to use an old fashioned phrase. However, several things happened over the course of the year that have had an impact upon myself and my family.
Let it suffice to say that due to current “circumstances”, Mrs P and I have watched a lot more TV this year. However, rather than just reiterate what we’ve viewed, which is already covered in my recurring blog post The Idiot Box, I thought I’d take the time to reflect upon some wider issues. TV has become a major source not only of entertainment but psychological support during this year’s social restrictions. The closure of cinemas for the majority of the past twelve months has meant that TV has had little or no competition. Furthermore, many of the films that may well have drawn audiences away, have come to the smaller screens a lot quicker. Never has so much TV been voraciously consumed. There’s also been a degree of nostalgia as viewers have watched popular shows at broadly similar times, reviving that sense of a shared experience that was so common in the seventies and eighties. However, the pandemic has also caused a slow down in TV production. Will the shortage of new content that many have predicted finally manifest itself next year?
In 2019, I went to the cinema just once to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I didn’t write a summary of the films I’d seen throughout that year, as I felt that mainstream releases had become far too formulaic and dull. 2020 has done little to change my perspective. The global pandemic has meant that Cinemas have spent most of the time closed and therefore many of this year’s major film releases have ended up on video on demand services. A few titles remain indefinitely postponed, such as the latest Bond movie No Time to Die, while Sony Pictures wait to see if “normality” resumes. But a film that is sitting on the shelf is not a film making money. Hence, Warner Bros. have announced that all their major releases for 2021 will be across multiple platforms simultaneously, thus ensuring a broader flow of revenue. This has not pleased director’s such as Christopher Nolan who argue passionately regarding the merits of cinema. But I doubt Mr. Nolan has ever had to endure an out of focus screening in the wrong aspect ratio at Cineworld, Rochester, where audiences talk and mess with their phones continuously.
Retrospective posts such as this can be a sprawling mess. There is also potential to cover the same old ground that I’ve covered in my monthly summaries “A Month in Gaming”. So I’ll try to be as succinct as I can. Firstly I won’t dwell too much on the iniquities of the video game industry as I’ve covered that elsewhere. Let it suffice to say that the notion of the “rock star developer” and the ethical publisher have proven false. Buying a triple A mainstream game is as morally compromised as buying a pair of jeans made by child labour. But let’s not get caught up in ethics. That’s another post. The pandemic meant that I, like many others, had far more leisure time this year and hence I spent that time gaming. It’s been a good year for video games publishers and the revenue has rolled in. Have I had fun while playing more games? Yes. The games have proven engaging and they also provide a lot to write about, so it’s a win, win scenario from my perspective.
In my lifetime technology has always been promoted as something that improves our lives, especially at a domestic level. The VCR in the eighties is a prime example of this. It liberated us from having to watch TV at a specific time and place. Then there the personal computer, which brought into our own homes tools, that until that point, had been exclusive to the office. And for all the ill that it brings, the internet has certainly made the world demonstrably smaller. It’s revolutionised shopping and has improved the administration of services. So overall, I still feel that technology is a force for good. However there have been changes. In recent years technology on a domestic level has ceased to be quite as transformative and become more of a disposable commodity. Tech is now a fashion accessory, with a distinct lifecycle and upgrade treadmill. It is fast becoming just another form of superfluous crap to fill your home with.
Despite the tumultuous events of the last twelve months and the accompanying emotional fallout that has followed in their wake, I’ve managed to keep writing throughout 2020. My output has been somewhat inconsistent this year and I’ve noticed some changes in what I write about. This is inevitable as one’s tastes and focus changes naturally change over time. I’m finding it tougher to write enthusiastically about the video games industry per se, as it has hardly covered itself in glory this year. However, I still enjoy writing film reviews although I haven’t set foot inside a cinema for over a year. I suspect that this will remain the case for much of 2021. My writing has broadened in its scope and I find myself writing social commentary about various aspects of life, rather than just posting articles about my hobbies. Sharing my thoughts on the pandemic itself and “caring for the elderly” has proven very cathartic. But as I’ve stated many times before, writing is one of the ways in which I make sense of the world around me.
Last year I tried to write a measured and balanced post about the passing of the year. Sadly this time round my attitude toward the departing 12-month period is somewhat binary. Yes there were a couple of highlights to 2019 but most of it was an uphill struggle and therefore not worth celebrating. It can frankly sod off and won’t be missed. The two high points were my son’s wedding in August and my renewed enthusiasm for blogging that came about due to the Blaugust writing event. But overall 2019 was a repetitive and somewhat depressing grind having to continuously deal with multiple family illnesses, numerous hospital visits and then at the end of the year a bereavement. Yes, these are things that happened to us all eventually and there is no escaping them but I appear to be trapped in this facet of the “circle of life”. Furthermore, until certain situations resolve themselves, I cannot make or implement any long-term plans. 2019 has been in many ways about just treading water.
Life is often cyclical, if you don’t believe me go watch The Lion King. I started 2018 playing The Lord of the Rings Online and by writing a post about how gamers collectively seem to repeat the same mistakes. And as the year and indeed the decade ends, I find myself once again playing the Yule Festival in LOTRO and reflecting upon how some games that garnered criticism over their egregious business models, have ended up as huge hits. It would appear that gamers are their own worst enemy. I shall leave the psychological analysis of paradox to others. From my perspective, irrespective of the iniquities of the video game industry and certain quarters of the gaming community, it has been a good year, gaming wise. I have enjoyed my time playing MMOs such as Star Trek Online, The Elder Scrolls Online and the aforementioned LOTRO. These and other titles have entertained me, provided me with an opportunity to unwind as well as affording me some much-needed social interaction. I particularly enjoy Wednesday evenings when I log into my Discord server and then chat and play collaboratively with longstanding gaming friends.
One of the benefits that comes with age (for some people at least), if the gift of realistic expectations. Having reached 51 years, I no longer harbour thoughts that each year will be a rollercoaster ride of excitement, mirth and personal gain. Nor do I count on the stars aligning so that I make my fortune and retire peacefully to the Cayman Islands, to live the life of a tax exile. If New Year’s Eve rolls round and no one has died, I’m not looking at being tried for murder and there’s still gin in the drinks cabinet, then I usually deem the previous twelve months an acceptable year. However, despite even these fairly lose and undemanding criteria I feel compelled to say that 2018 was bollocks and that I won’t be sad to see the back of it.
I did not manage to maintain my writing schedule this year and have not posted everyday as I would’ve liked. I have produced over two hundred and seventy posts but still feel I could have done more. Blaugust was a welcome burst of enthusiasm that I managed to sustain for September and October, but I lost momentum in the run up to Christmas. At least I know what the root cause is which puts me a step nearer to resolving it. Having written several posts in the past about “writers block” and the other perennial excuse of not having anything to write about, I seem to have squarely fallen into both those traps. At present I find that motivating myself is the key problem. If I haven’t started writing something by midday, then it more than often gets left for the day. If I intend to escape this malaise, then I shall have to establish a far stricter writing schedule for 2019 and endeavour to do my writing first thing in the morning, when I am most focused.
Throughout my adult life I have always gone to the cinema as a leisure activity. 2018 has been of note in this regard as it’s the year I’ve been to the cinema the least. I have visited my local multiplex just three times over the last twelve months. It’s not that good quality movies are not made anymore. Far from it. It’s just that they don’t always get released theatrically. Furthermore, the cost to entertainment ratio has simply become too much of a gamble. Standard tickets are priced between £12 to £15 locally and I resent such an outlay for a film that may only be adequate or worse. Perhaps my outlook on pricing is unreasonable but I am not going to pay such money for mediocre entertainment. I don’t expect every movie I see to be a cinematic milestone or genre classic but nor do I expect it to be an exercise in indifference. If I had paid such ticket prices to see The Predator or Death Wish at my local Cineworld, then I would have been singularly annoyed. Mercifully I saw them both at home and therefore at a much lower cost.
"I Feel I Need a Holiday"
According to Spock “change is the essential process of all existence”. I have certainly faced my share this year. The death of my mother in August after decades of declining health didn’t come as a shock, but was no less upsetting. In the immediate aftermath, I had to deal with the practicalities of arranging a funeral, engaging a solicitor to settle my mother’s estate and then determine whether I should return to full time employment or retire. After much deliberation, I chose the latter. Now that the most pressing needs have been addressed, I find myself coming to terms with my own grief, while considering my future. I am very tired, both physically and mentally. I am still waiting for the cardiologist that I saw recently to make their pronouncement on my health. However, I do feel somewhat refreshed after my recent 3 day break on the Isle of Wight. I am also thinking about moving, as well as returning to education and pursuing a qualification. I will be 55 in December and feel that I am at a major crossroads in my life.
According to Spock “change is the essential process of all existence”. I have certainly faced my share this year. The death of my mother in August after decades of declining health didn’t come as a shock, but was no less upsetting. In the immediate aftermath, I had to deal with the practicalities of arranging a funeral, engaging a solicitor to settle my mother’s estate and then determine whether I should return to full time employment or retire. After much deliberation, I chose the latter. Now that the most pressing needs have been addressed, I find myself coming to terms with my own grief, while considering my future. I am very tired, both physically and mentally. I am still waiting for the cardiologist that I saw recently to make their pronouncement on my health. However, I do feel somewhat refreshed after my recent 3 day break on the Isle of Wight. I am also thinking about moving, as well as returning to education and pursuing a qualification. I will be 55 in December and feel that I am at a major crossroads in my life.
However, I am not especially enthusiastic about writing at present. At least not about the normal things I blog about. I still take pleasure in video games and films, but I now view them from a different perspective and their importance has changed. Furthermore, after 15 years of blogging and a dozen spent podcasting, I feel somewhat spent creatively. It takes quite a lot of focus, energy and brio to consistently produce content on any platform and then there’s the actual work that has to be done. At present I don’t have the stamina required nor the time. The latter is a finite commodity in everyone’s life and I am currently using my allowance to do other things. And so to quote Bilbo Baggins, “I feel I need a holiday” and am taking one. This is the first post I’ve written for a fortnight and it is mainly due to the fact that I feel obliged to let the few hundred daily readers that I haven’t totally abandoned Contains Moderate Peril.
Abandon Blog?
I’ve learned from past mistakes and changes in my relationship with writing, so I am not going to close the website or do anything rash. I did that once before in 2015 when I was suffering from burnout and I ended up bitterly regretting the decision when I had a change of heart. Having to start from scratch again, a few months later, was hard work. So in the meantime, I will continue to pay the operating costs and effectively just leave Contains Moderate Peril to lie fallow, so to speak. I may well publish the occasional post, when the fancy takes me but I certainly won’t be maintaining any sort of regular schedule. As and when I do write something, they may well be very niche market posts, mainly about the things that are bugging me at present. Beyond that, all bets are off. It very much is a question of wait and see. Perhaps this is just a hiatus. Perhaps it’s time to call it a day.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Time For a Change?
The Blaugust 2022 blogging event is entering its final week and the writing theme for this climatic period is “lessons learned”. According to the event schedule “this week is a reminder that the goal of Blaugust is to refresh the content creators out there for the coming year, and not to burn them out in the process. Some folks are going to cross the finish line and immediately go dormant and others will want to process their thoughts about the proceedings. This space is reserved as a bit of a cooldown lap so that you can share your own experiences”. For me Blaugust has not only reinvigorated my enthusiasm for blogging it has also improved my writing schedule. Furthermore it has given me an opportunity to consider some potential changes to Contains Moderate Peril. Changes that I now need to decide whether to implement or not.
Someone is not good at Scrabble
The Blaugust 2022 blogging event is entering its final week and the writing theme for this climatic period is “lessons learned”. According to the event schedule “this week is a reminder that the goal of Blaugust is to refresh the content creators out there for the coming year, and not to burn them out in the process. Some folks are going to cross the finish line and immediately go dormant and others will want to process their thoughts about the proceedings. This space is reserved as a bit of a cooldown lap so that you can share your own experiences”. For me Blaugust has not only reinvigorated my enthusiasm for blogging it has also improved my writing schedule. Furthermore it has given me an opportunity to consider some potential changes to Contains Moderate Peril. Changes that I now need to decide whether to implement or not.
Within a few years of starting blogging, I found writing about one subject extremely limiting. So I opted for a so-called “variety” blog to allow me to pursue a broader range of subjects. This has served me well for many years but I am now finding as I get older that I am not quite so enthusiastic about certain subjects. My interest in gaming is not as strong as it used to be and I find it difficult to wax lyrical about many aspects of the industry. I prefer writing social commentary, discussing the major social and political talking points of the day. I also still have a passion for films and can happily write film reviews or longform articles about aspects of filmmaking, till the cows come home. It is this change of focus that has got me thinking whether I should run two separate blogs? Or alternatively put all my energy into one online project and focus solely upon that.
Change can be very tempting at times. As can planning for change. As someone who considers themselves organised I love to draw up a plan and prepare everything required for it. Implementing it is another matter altogether (insert Airplane gag here). Preparation can be fun. Actually “doing” is not so enjoyable. So setting up another separate blog sounds initially like a good idea. I get to choose a new blog template and tinker with the look and feel of the site. I can also hire someone from Fiverr to design new logos and branding. But upon mature reflection, the realities of maintaining two different websites also means twice as much work and possibly producing half as much output. It also means incurring further expense which is something I am cautious about in the current economic climate.
As ever in life the most pragmatic solution is to compromise. Rather than relocate specific blog posts to an alternative site, perhaps simply segregating them on the existing blog is a better alternative. I shall investigate to see if it is possible to have a submenu under the blog button on the top toolbar of Contains Moderate Peril, so those who want to read only movie related content can do so. Vice versa with games and any other relevant category. I’m sure the template can be structured in such a fashion to make this possible. Maybe then, someone who is visiting the site to read a film review may investigate further if only shown material of a similar nature? And somewhere in the back of my mind there’s another voice reminding me of a very old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. These changes I’m pondering have not been requested by any readers. Perhaps I should just leave well alone and move on.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Motivation and Being Realistic About What You Can Achieve
I’ve written posts in the past that take quite a “scorched earth” approach to the subject of motivation and maintaining a regular writing schedule. You can come at this subject from numerous angles, offering advice couched in psychology, gentle encouragement or cold hard logic. However, I find that blogging comes down to one thing and one thing only. If you want to do it, you’ll find a way. And believe me, I don’t say this out of some misguided sense of superiority or smugness. I have skipped numerous days of blogging because I chose not to. I wasn’t too busy or strapped for ideas. I just couldn’t be bothered or wanted to spend my time on something else. That’s not to say that the encouragement of others and events such a Blaugust don’t have any impact upon people’s writing output. I believe they do. But the biggest factor determining when you do and do not write is you.
Does this include arson, genocide and making another Air Bud movie?
I’ve written posts in the past that take quite a “scorched earth” approach to the subject of motivation and maintaining a regular writing schedule. You can come at this subject from numerous angles, offering advice couched in psychology, gentle encouragement or cold hard logic. However, I find that blogging comes down to one thing and one thing only. If you want to do it, you’ll find a way. And believe me, I don’t say this out of some misguided sense of superiority or smugness. I have skipped numerous days of blogging because I chose not to. I wasn’t too busy or strapped for ideas. I just couldn’t be bothered or wanted to spend my time on something else. That’s not to say that the encouragement of others and events such a Blaugust don’t have any impact upon people’s writing output. I believe they do. But the biggest factor determining when you do and do not write is you.
However, there are some things we can do to make writing on the days when we’re not that motivated a lot easier. I find that there are certain types of blog posts that are easier to write than others and that sitting down and producing one of these doesn’t present as much of a struggle as more complicated think pieces. Film reviews are one example. I have a longstanding and abiding passion for films and the wider industry and feel I have some knowledge of the subject. As writers we’re always told “write about what you know” and there is wisdom in these words. Hence, a film review is something I feel comfortable writing. It also helps that such posts usually have a standard structure to them, affording them a very procedural quality when it comes to sitting down and writing. If you’re at all interested, here’s a link to how I write reviews.
I said Magnum Opus not magnificent Octopus
Something that regularly comes up in blogging circles is that it is often the spur of the moment posts that can sometimes get the most traction. Conversely, the post that one labours over, conducting research and continuously revising, is usually the one that goes unnoticed. All of which reinforces the argument that it is best to write with no expectations about the wider outcome. Hence, if you’re running low on enthusiasm, don’t make matters worse by seeking to write your magnum opus, instead just focus on writing something that you find enjoyable. IE Whatever is your equivalent of writing a film review. This is why stream of consciousness and personal blogs have an advantage, insofar as even if you’ve had an uneventful day, it can at least be catalogued and explored as to why it was so.
An event such as Blaugust treats blogging as a hobby and not a job. It’s an important distinction. If you choose the option to make it a more formal undertaking, then adopting a more business-like mindset will inevitably make you more productive. However, the trade off is replacing casual spontaneity with structure and discipline and that can sometimes kill the joy. Ultimately with a hobby and pastime such as blogging, you find the level that suits you. If you are honest with yourself, you can usually determine that quite early on. You know exactly how much leisure time you have and what you can reasonably expect with regard to written output. Blaugust may well boost that to a degree but I think it does a better job of just focusing bloggers and keeping them engaged. Trying to sustain something that you know you cannot necessarily do is counterproductive. Which is why there’s sense in the phrase “you do you”.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
I am intrigued by the growth of the IndieWeb, owning your domain and static websites. I certainly agree with the notion of not relying on big corporations and I have an ongoing project to divest my dependency on software produced by major market players. However, although I own my own domain, my website is hosted by Squarespace. I’ve not really had any problems with them over the last 11 years and I would describe our business relationship as equitable. However, the monthly subscription price has increased over time and is likely to keep on doing so. It has crossed my mind as to whether there is a suitable alternative. However, if I were to migrate Contains Moderate Peril elsewhere I suspect it would be logistically complex and problematic.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
For the last few months I have being using Google Gemini. I subscribed so I could access a wider spectrum of services and evaluate it effectively. I also wanted to dispel some of the hysteria that accompanies any conversation about Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. The results were initially interesting and Google Gemini proved useful when researching material for blog posts. It is good at providing summaries about well documented subjects. I wrote a post about food banks recently and it distilled a lot of data into a manageable amount, which was ideal for my article. Google Gemini has also produced some visual basic scripting and simple batch files that have allowed me to automate processes on my PC. Such as changing the default monitor, or screen resolution at the click of an icon. However, I found this AI struggled with in-depth software troubleshooting and that its ability to create images varies greatly depending on the subject.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
You Are Your Own Brand
I’m sure I’ve written directly or indirectly about this subject in the past but some things bear repeating, so here goes. You are your own brand when it comes to blogging, streaming or podcasting (other forms of content creation are available). It doesn’t matter if you write exclusively about some niche market subject or produce videos solely about a single aspect of fandom, your personality will inevitably bleed through into the content you post and your audience will sooner or later pick up upon it. Humans are social creatures and we are naturally curious about each other. I certainly am. I follow numerous blogs and a substantial part of their appeal is their individual and unique styles and personalities. I will happily read blog posts or watch videos about subjects I’m not especially interested in because I like the content creator and the way they express themselves.
A joke about brands
I’m sure I’ve written directly or indirectly about this subject in the past but some things bear repeating, so here goes. You are your own brand when it comes to blogging, streaming or podcasting (other forms of content creation are available). It doesn’t matter if you write exclusively about some niche market subject or produce videos solely about a single aspect of fandom, your personality will inevitably bleed through into the content you post and your audience will sooner or later pick up upon it. Humans are social creatures and we are naturally curious about each other. I certainly am. I follow numerous blogs and a substantial part of their appeal is their individual and unique styles and personalities. I will happily read blog posts or watch videos about subjects I’m not especially interested in because I like the content creator and the way they express themselves.
Globalisation and the internet tend to make us think that we’re all broadly living the same life and to a degree that is true. We all go to school or hold down a job, have family and friends and eat, drink and sleep. What I love about blogs is the way a simple post can inadvertently highlight regional, social and cultural differences. This can be innocuous as a brand or product that there is no direct equivalent where I live in the UK, to the complexities of local government, social etiquette and the tumultuous waters of national politics. These are the things that make you blog engaging and give it a distinct personality. It can lead to comments, conversation and friendships. You have to be an especially anodyne writer to remove all traces of nuance from your prose. Why would you want to do that anyway?
A branding iron
On a less light-hearted note, often a blog can be an invaluable source of insight into the daily struggles that many face. It comes as no surprise to me that numerous bloggers have personal issues, difficult circumstances and family problems that they’re dealing with on a daily basis. Often a blog provides a platform for some self-therapy and catharsis. A means to clarify one’s thoughts, decompress and try and rationalise what is going on in life. Furthermore, sometimes a supportive comment left can make the difference between someone having a bad day or getting through it. I believe that it is important to be aware of each other’s life and that it’s not all one, happy and level playing field. What is normal and everyday for me is not the default for everyone else.
So despite what you may think, your blog is a window into you as a writer, even if you reveal very little about what you do, where you live and your own personal life. You end up with an online persona that may be a true reflection of you, or a stylised caricature. You can if you see fit, curate and control this to a degree. So do not underestimate the significance of this. You are your own brand and it can serve you well. A question that has been raised during many previous Blaugust Festival is “I want to write about something different but I’m not sure if readers will like it”. This usually stems from someone writing about a single subject or a specific aspect of fandom and then finding that they want to spread their wings and try something else. The good news is that you can. Not all but the majority of your readership will read posts that are different from your regular content. Again this comes down to the fact that they’re invested in you and your style of writing.
A popular brand
Naturally, there is an element of caution associated with the notion that you are your own brand, as much as all the positive aspects. Some bloggers find themselves producing other online content as well and end up maintaining a sense of brand continuity. For example, there was a time when Contain Moderate Peril produced daily posts throughout the year, along with a weekly podcast. In such circumstances, always think about how you express and conduct yourself online. Especially if you are trying to generate revenue from your material. Be mindful of associations and affiliations because mud can stick. But these are just common sense considerations. Overall, there are more upsides to being your own brand than downsides. I certainly enjoy the more personal rapport I’ve built up with those who read my musings, over the last decade or so. Hopefully the fact that you’re not just perceived as a faceless blogger will help encourage you with your writing.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Draft Posts
If you write in any sort of capacity, you will no doubt have a virtual folder somewhere that is filled with draft posts. Posts containing ideas that either ran out of steam or never quite coalesced to your satisfaction. Such posts may be just a few words long or a fully developed article. A list of bullet points, a lone paragraph devoid of context or an unedited stream of consciousness. Yet whatever the posts format it remains incomplete or unpublished. Sometimes the reason for abandonment is clear. The premise was wrong, the moment has passed and things have moved on. Perhaps the subject has been sufficiently elsewhere. Hence these posts languish in blogging purgatory. Undeveloped but conspicuously not deleted. Who knows, maybe you’ll return to one or two of them some day. Sadly, the reality is quite different. Once a post is consigned to the draft folder, it seldom escapes. Just like people from poverty.
If you write in any sort of capacity, you will no doubt have a virtual folder somewhere that is filled with draft posts. Posts containing ideas that either ran out of steam or never quite coalesced to your satisfaction. Such posts may be just a few words long or a fully developed article. A list of bullet points, a lone paragraph devoid of context or an unedited stream of consciousness. Yet whatever the posts format it remains incomplete or unpublished. Sometimes the reason for abandonment is clear. The premise was wrong, the moment has passed and things have moved on. Perhaps the subject has been sufficiently elsewhere. Hence these posts languish in blogging purgatory. Undeveloped but conspicuously not deleted. Who knows, maybe you’ll return to one or two of them some day. Sadly, the reality is quite different. Once a post is consigned to the draft folder, it seldom escapes. Just like people from poverty.
Such is the unspoken law of draft posts. And like so many informal and nebulous “rules” it’s bullshit. Sure I have some posts in my drafts folder that match what I have just described but that is not the majority of them. The bulk are film reviews, think pieces about gaming and its associated culture, as well as one off articles that took my fancy at the time and may well do so again. Your draft post folder is not the same as the recycle bin on your PCs desktop. A draft post is not exclusively a failed post (although it can be). Often it is just work in progress that has been temporarily delayed because something more pressing came up. Some blog posts are time sensitive and need to be written and published while a talking point is still relevant. Gaming culture is very fast moving, hence you may give such posts priority. A review or a stand alone longform article has no such restrictions and can be set aside to be returned to at a later date.
The reason so many bloggers effectively write off any post that has lingered in the draft folder too long is because we’re conditioned to do so by blogging culture. It’s all part of the ephemeral, disposable mindset and culture that runs through the internet like shit marbling in a rancid block of cheese. However, rather than seeing a draft post folder as the Phantom Zone for blog posts, why not consider it an ideas repository. A creativity bank in which potential material is stored, which can be accessed on those occasional days when you’re shit out of ideas. I currently have 138 draft posts waiting to be used. Not all will necessarily be published but many will eventually see the light of day. The film reviews have no expiry date. Some of the more specific pieces may be repurposed into content for other posts. Nothing goes to waste.
The modern computer tools we use for writing make the process very easy. You can type or speak directly into your phone or tablet or sit for 10 minutes while you have a sandwich and quickly type your ideas into Google Docs. It’s a far cry from writing longhand on paper, or typing away on a manual typewriter. However, because we can revise, edit and start again so easily we have possibly lost sight of the fact that everything written down has potential use. Technology provides convenience and convenience is often synonymous with disposability. But that is not the case. As a writer the fundamental starting point is to get your ideas out of your head and onto the virtual page. Once you’ve done that, waste nothing. What doesn’t work today, may work tomorrow. Therefore, don’t squander ideas, first draft or your miscellaneous notes. Change the relationship you have with your draft posts folder. It is your ally.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Getting Your Writing Environment Right
For my first post of Blaugust 2022 I am returning to the subject of your writing environment, as I believe it has a significant bearing upon one’s writing (or whatever other content that you create). This is the third time I’ve tackled the subject. I initially wrote about my new desk in 2016, when I first tried to set up the spare bedroom as my office. This plan was partially thwarted by the arrival of my twin granddaughters, who needed to use the bedroom when they stayed overnight, resulting in a logistical compromise. I published a second post four years later and by that time the children’s cots had been replaced by a single spare bed allowing me to use the room as a proper office. As of today, my desk is now pretty much how I want it and provides a suitable environment for me to write and conduct research. It also accommodates a lot of my leisure activities as I am a PC gamer.
For my first post of Blaugust 2022 I am returning to the subject of your writing environment, as I believe it has a significant bearing upon one’s writing (or whatever other content that you create). This is the third time I’ve tackled the subject. I initially wrote about my new desk in 2016, when I first tried to set up the spare bedroom as my office. This plan was partially thwarted by the arrival of my twin granddaughters, who needed to use the bedroom when they stayed overnight, resulting in a logistical compromise. I published a second post four years later and by that time the children’s cots had been replaced by a single spare bed allowing me to use the room as a proper office. As of today, my desk is now pretty much how I want it and provides a suitable environment for me to write and conduct research. It also accommodates a lot of my leisure activities as I am a PC gamer.
However, not everyone has the luxury of a desk or spare room that doubles for a home office. Often we have to use the environment that is immediately available to us, rather than the one we would like to have. So for practical reasons, needs must when the devil drives as the expression goes. Therefore, if using a laptop on the kitchen table is the only practical work space you have access to, then it will have to suffice. Fortunately, there are still a lot of things that you can do to improve your immediate writing environment, allowing you to focus on the task in hand. You don’t even have to spend any money if you don’t want to. Here are a few simple and straightforward ideas and working practices that, if sensibly applied, can improve your working environment.
Eliminate noise and other distractions. Find a place to write where you can control the environment, especially with regard to noise and other day to day distractions. Some people like to write with the TV on in the background or while listening to music. That’s fine but it is preferable to be able to manage such things, rather than have them inflicted upon you. The ability to be able to pull the curtain or blinds can be invaluable. Especially if like me, you find your attention wandering to events outside. Close the door if necessary so that others know that you’re busy. You may also wish to keep your pets out although this is often a losing battle.
Lighting. I like writing in a well illuminated room and favour LED bulbs of about 1600 lumens (the equivalent of 100 Watts). My office window looks North so doesn’t directly face the sun. This does have some advantages regarding light reflecting onto my monitors. It helps if you take some time to consider where you place your laptop or computer screens in your writing environment, to ensure you have sufficient light and minimal shadows.
Ergonomics. If you’re writing, streaming or working on your laptop or PC, you're going to spend a fair amount of time sitting down. Ensuring that the desk, table or worksurface you’re sitting at is an appropriate height is important to avoid back and neck strain. The chair that you're sitting on needs to be suitable for the job. Office chairs are best. Avoid stools and anything that doesn’t offer upper body support. The addition of a humble cushion can make a world of difference, as can wrist rests. Remember to take a break every hour and ensure that you have a drink to hand. If you have the budget for a computer chair then invest in something suitable. If you’re budget conscious, charity shops seem to have a lot of home office furniture these days.
Temperature and ventilation. Everyone has a preferred temperature. One where you feel relaxed and comfortable. A writing environment that is excessively hot or cold is just another excuse not to write. However a fan, open window or a closed door can make a lot of difference. It is also worth remembering that a PC and other electrical equipment produce a lot of heat which can raise the temperature in a room. Do what you can to manage these.
The right tool for the job. This is a mantra that I feel is pertinent to most situations. Often the key to a successful outcome is using the right tool for the job. Cheap screws will strip, cheap clothes fall apart and cheap PC peripherals and associated equipment will fail or produce inferior results. Do what you can within your budget to get the right tools for what you’re doing. Sometimes the top of the range is not required and there are good mid-range alternatives. Also, don’t get by with jury-rigged solutions. If you can’t reach your laptop properly, don’t precariously balance it on a stack of books. Invest in a stand that can be adjusted. Writing regularly becomes a lot easier if the means to do so are efficient and accessible. A problematic mouse or a monitor that has a tricky HDMI cable can all potentially turn an agreeable experience into a chore.
With regard to my own writing environment, I have discovered that I feel the same way about my desk as I do about internet bandwidth. You always want more capacity. I recently replaced my ageing speaker set up with a convenient soundbar in an attempt to free up more deskspace and reduce excessive cabling. Yet even after removing a cup full of pens, an in tray and various other bric-a-brac I still have insufficient room to work. So I now find myself looking at office furniture online and daydreaming about expanding my office empire. However, despite some minor niggles, I do enjoy my home office and find that it meets my needs with regard to writing. Ultimately, this is what you need from your writing environment. A space where you feel comfortable and can concentrate on getting your thoughts written down. Get that right and you’re more likely to write regularly and confidently.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Get Ready For Blaugust 2022
Yes, it's that time of year again. When our community of bloggers, streamers and podcasters come together for Blaugust 2022. The event is intended to celebrate independent content creators and their work, as well as encouraging those who are new or and returning to the field. Blaugust 2022 is all about offering a helping hand, sharing each other’s work and having fun. It is an event I participate in every year and one that I find personally very beneficial. It is a great way to meet and support new writers and make friends. I also find that Blaugust is key to revitalising my own enthusiasm for writing, which flags from time to time. I’ve been blogging in some shape or form for over 15 years and like any hobby, my relationship with it ebbs and flows. At present I’m not writing as much as usual and finding it harder to find subjects I wish to explore.
Yes, it's that time of year again. When our community of bloggers, streamers and podcasters come together for Blaugust 2022. The event is intended to celebrate independent content creators and their work, as well as encouraging those who are new or and returning to the field. Blaugust 2022 is all about offering a helping hand, sharing each other’s work and having fun. It is an event I participate in every year and one that I find personally very beneficial. It is a great way to meet and support new writers and make friends. I also find that Blaugust is key to revitalising my own enthusiasm for writing, which flags from time to time. I’ve been blogging in some shape or form for over 15 years and like any hobby, my relationship with it ebbs and flows. At present I’m not writing as much as usual and finding it harder to find subjects I wish to explore.
The last few years have been tough economically, politically and socially. The pandemic compounded these issues further hence many people currently feel that they’re struggling up a hill, rather than riding along on the crest of a wave. My enthusiasm for many of my hobbies and interests is somewhat low at present. I am far from impressed with mainstream filmmaking and frequently struggle to find anything that is more than adequate. TV offers a lot of choice but I prefer self contained stories that have endings, rather than shows that just run and run. Politics and social issues are partisan and acrimonious, as is the public discourse associated with them. Hence writing about such things is not particularly desirable at present. Constructive criticism can be valid but a continuous diet material that is essentially negative is exhausting. Hence, I need to broaden what I write about.
Blaugust provides helpful advice
Fortunately, Blaugust 2022 provides a useful vehicle for such change. Firstly, the event offers some writing prompts which are always useful if you’re coming up short on ideas. Replying and engaging with other writer’s posts is also another useful source of inspiration. As I’ve stated in the past, I’m a sucker for internet questionnaires. I always enjoy the challenge of answering some thoughtful (or frivolous) questions. If you don’t want to answer any questions you can always set some instead. As someone who writes, streams or podcasts, you have far more freedom to explore a range of subjects than you imagine. Especially if you’re not exclusively wedded to one game or particular subject. Your audience follows you often because of your personality and they will give you a lot more leeway than you imagine. I read a lot of blogs that discuss subjects that I’m not that interested in but I like the way the author thinks and expresses themselves.
So with all this in mind, I’m hoping to get back into my writing groove and see if I can blog everyday for the entirety of August. I am looking forward to reading new blogs and possibly seeing some former bloggers return to the fold. If you’re interested in participating in Blaugust 2022 then please read Belghast’s post which tells you everything you need to know about the event. Bel is the Shaolin Master of the event and an integral part of the social glue that keeps it going. There’s a FAQ that explains the purpose of this yearly event, details of where to sign up, the month’s schedule and a lot of useful resources. There’s also a Discord server that is very friendly. And remember, Blaugust is about having fun and participating. There are no “rules” and the event schedule and writing prompts are for guidance only. If you want to take part you’re welcome to do so in any manner that makes you happy.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Thoughts on Blogging Part 17
I was sitting in my office over the weekend, half-heartedly typing up a blog post about table manners and dining etiquette, when I paused and lapsed into a state of self examination and introspection.
“Isn’t Contains Moderate Peril supposed to be about gaming, movies and popular culture”? “Yes”, I replied to myself via my inner monologue.
“So what the hell am I doing writing about table manners, then?” my inner contrarian retorted.
“Well it is part of our culture, although I wouldn’t argue that it is a defining aspect of the zeitgeist at present” my conciliatory alter ego responded.
“Frankly, I’m getting bored with all of this per se” a third voice stated. It was at this point, I stopped arguing with various facets of my id and went to the pub.
I am currently having a R.J. MacReady moment
I was sitting in my office over the weekend, half-heartedly typing up a blog post about table manners and dining etiquette, when I paused and lapsed into a state of self examination and introspection.
“Isn’t Contains Moderate Peril supposed to be about gaming, movies and popular culture”? “Yes”, I replied to myself via my inner monologue.
“So what the hell am I doing writing about table manners, then?” my inner contrarian retorted.
“Well it is part of our culture, although I wouldn’t argue that it is a defining aspect of the zeitgeist at present” my conciliatory alter ego responded.
“Frankly, I’m getting bored with all of this per se” a third voice stated. It was at this point, I stopped arguing with various facets of my id and went to the pub.
While consuming a chilled libation I reflected upon these matters and contemplated the wider issue underpinning them. Does collating my thoughts for a blog post help me understand a subject better. Does writing allow me to make sense of the world and the human condition? Does maintaining a blog make me happy and provide a sense of purpose? The fact that I am writing this blog post surely indicates that the answer to these three questions is not “no”. However, it wasn’t a resounding “yes” either. If there is a single word that summarises my current emotional, philosophical and political disposition at present it is “ambivalence”. I have mixed feelings about a lot of things. Video games, the industry that creates them, film and TV, popular culture, contemporary politics, the state of the world, the rest of my life.
The pleasures of working working in retail
I have recently realised that I am at a crossroads in my life. After speaking to a financial advisor, I have decided that I won’t be returning to the job market. I am going to retire. Working part time may well improve my finances but I don’t believe it would improve the quality of my life. Work means directly or indirectly accepting a degree of bullshit into your life. This may be a problematic boss or problematic colleagues. Then there’s issues such as leave versus staffing schedules, potential stress (especially if dealing with the public) and lines of demarcation. I’m used to working within the parameters of a clearly defined contract. Yet working culture now seems to permeate one’s life outside of office hours. That is not for me. Plus, I’d be a square peg in a round hole in the modern work environment. A job is a quid pro quo; a means to make money. I have no interest in an employer's vision and how I can contribute to that.
Thus, as I am part of the “great resignation” and am not going back to work. I am focused upon what I intend to do with the years that I hopefully have left. Fortunately, I am never at a loose end and still have lots of interests. Mrs P and I also have numerous activities that we wish to do together. We also realise that we’re very fortunate to be in such a position. However, we have to temper our plans according to our finances, age and health. Hence, if something isn’t positively contributing to the quality of our lives, then it may well need to go. Which brings me back to my penchant for writing. It was once a career goal, then a form of therapy, now it is a hobby (possibly even an indulgence). And hobbies have an arc of their own. For the present, Contains Moderate Peril is going through a quiet patch because so am I. When I next become enthusiastic about something, the blog may well pick up.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
Back in March 2019 I wrote a blog post about the operating costs of running this website. I went into detail with regard to hosting and domain costs, as well as the other software and hardware used to write posts and at that point produce a podcast. Let it suffice to say that five years on, those costs have all increased. If we’re just looking at maintaining a blog simply in terms of hosting and the domain registration, it costs about £20 a month to run Contains Moderate Peril. Theoretically, if I want to reduce those costs I could dispense with a specific domain name and use a free blogging service. However, I feel that such a compromise comes with its own set of problems, such as advertising and a lack of control (to a degree) over your content. I therefore choose to pay to mitigate these concerns. If I then wish to do more, such as produce a podcast, create videos for YouTube or live stream, then those costs increase.
When you initially start blogging, your aspirations tend to be very straightforward. Choose a title, find a niche and get into the habit of writing. Simple tasks that can still take a while to master. Once your blog is established and has endured for a while, you may not have any further long term goals other than to just keep going. However, if you feel that you want to achieve more then you have to tackle a new set of problems. There is a great deal of “advice” in the public domain about growing and monetising your blog. A lot of it is questionable but there are some approaches that do work. However, these require you to write to a specific process, chasing the ever changing whims of your potential readership. You have to compromise. And for many bloggers, that is the deal breaker.
I spent some time in July, making some changes to Contains Moderate Peril. I replaced the branding and made some alterations to the “about” page to ensure that it was up to date and relevant. Not that anyone reads it as I still regularly receive enquiries about guest posts. Something I no longer do. Today, I made some further changes as it is my long term goal to grow the audience for this site. Hence I want to try and make it easier for visitors to find the content they seek and offer them related material. To facilitate this, I have added some additional menu options to the blog homepage. These act as filters, presenting specifically themed content for readers. Hence there is a “movie” button that lists all film reviews and similarly one for “video games”. There are also links for two specific video games, The Lord of the Rings Online and Star trek Online, as website statistics show that these are popular subjects.
I’ve been writing online for 17 years. During that time a modest audience has read my posts and occasionally commented on them, which is the accepted dynamic of blogging. Some of my posts are ephemeral. Others, such as film reviews, have greater longevity. Naturally I want people to read my output and I’ve noticed that the film reviews seem to generate a fair amount of traffic. After consulting my website analytics package, it would appear that the majority of readers find my reviews by searching Google. Promoting my writing via social media does very little. Another issue is that readers tend to read the post they found via their search and then leave. Despite there being links at the bottom of the post to similar material. Currently, my blog does not have an effective means of searching older posts. The landing page has only 20 posts listed. There are approximately 2,500 archived.
As a blogger we are often told by our peers not to obsess over website traffic and statistics in general. There is a degree of sense in this. We should be primarily focused on writing, maintaining an equitable schedule and staying motivated. Stats can have a negative effect on the latter. However, one cannot ignore the subject either. As a writer, at some point you do want people to actually read your material, or else what is the point? I have therefore always kept an eye on traffic and have attempted to grow my readership overtime. The results have been varied. In my experience, you do slowly build up an audience by being persistent with your writing. But you also have to promote your work, which is a job in itself. It’s also something that not everyone is comfortable with. “Therein lies the rub” as the expression goes. How do you attract readers without compromising your own standards?
I was sitting in my office over the weekend, half-heartedly typing up a blog post about table manners and dining etiquette, when I paused and lapsed into a state of self examination and introspection.
“Isn’t Contains Moderate Peril supposed to be about gaming, movies and popular culture”? “Yes”, I replied to myself via my inner monologue.
“So what the hell am I doing writing about table manners, then?” my inner contrarian retorted.
“Well it is part of our culture, although I wouldn’t argue that it is a defining aspect of the zeitgeist at present” my conciliatory alter ego responded.
“Frankly, I’m getting bored with all of this per se” a third voice stated. It was at this point, I stopped arguing with various facets of my id and went to the pub.
March has been a challenging month for several reasons and as a result I’ve written very little. Furthermore, the recently revived podcast has also ground to a halt after just six episodes due to scheduling issues that are beyond myself and Brian’s control. At the end of February, Google made changes to their search algorithm which have had a major impact upon traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. Visits are down by over 20%. I’ll make no bones about the fact that this has really pissed me off. Several years of growth has been unceremoniously swept away at the drop of a hat. So all this, plus the rapidly changing situation regarding my Mother’s care, has found me ill disposed towards writing. To be clear, I’m not talking about writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas and a folder full of draft posts. I just haven’t wanted to write because I feel that I’m just spitting in the wind.
At the time of writing we are halfway through the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event. Whenever the subject of personal blogging is raised, there are those who immediately declare that “blogging is dead”. According to Google, out of 1.7 billion websites that currently exist worldwide, 500 million or so of those are blogs of some kind. These generate over 2 million blog posts daily. So I wouldn’t say that blogging per se is done and dusted. However it certainly has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. At the start of the current century blogging was a novel activity providing the means of keeping a personal journal online. Inevitably, popularity and ubiquity led to commercialisation and a necessity to monetise. There was a period of time when clicks, traffic and advertising could generate popularity as well as an income. But other forms of social media offering greater immediacy eventually usurped this potential. Now blogging is seen as more of a niche market activity or corporate tool.
By the time that August rolls around this year, I will have been actively blogging and generally sharing my writing online for 14 years. Prior to that, back in the eighties, I was involved in the production of several fanzines. That was indeed a labour of love and although I was happy to write the content, the work involved in physically creating the actual pages was tough. The printing costs were also an early lesson in how writing is not an immediate path to fame and fortune. All things considered, writing has been a major aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. I used to enjoy writing stories as a child and then as I got older I discovered the pleasure of a well constructed essay. I was fortunate to have three very good English teachers during my time at school, who were passionate about their job and very encouraging.
I mentioned not so long ago the possibility of a website revamp. I was concerned that the general layout of the blog was not optimal and that readers couldn’t easily find old material. In the past I even went as far as to write a guide to navigating through Contains Moderate Peril and using the categories to find old posts. Well I got a few emails and Twitter DMs about this and it would appear that folk like things just as they are. So I have reviewed my position and decided to leave things as they are at present. I did a little digging though my website stats, both from Squarespace and Google Analytics and it would appear the summary blocks at the bottom of each post are used and that the bounce rate for my site is not exactly as it first appears. Seems that readers do peruse other articles and the search facility is being used more often, especially for finding film reviews. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Due to the ongoing Global Pandemic, many people are now finding themselves working from home or having to stay in for health or childcare reasons. Hence there has been a marked increase in online leisure activities. Steam has been hit by a record number of concurrent users and Netflix and Amazon prime have both seen an increased demand upon their respective streaming services. If you’re not commuting then you are freeing up a substantial amount of hours each week. This potential abundance of “free time” along with a practical need to channel your energy into something to prevent yourself from going “stir crazy”, presents some interesting opportunities. Many people who have previously expressed an interest in writing and content creation now have the leeway to do so. Naturally, as a writing enthusiast and a long time blogger, I am happy to encourage such activities.
The New Year is often a time for revised plans, renewed ambitions and a desire to get back on the proverbial horse when it comes to content creation. More often than not, many of these lofty ambitions wither on the vine or fall victim to our propensity for indolence. Which is why I think it is prudent to ensure that any goals that you set for yourself are realistic and attainable. If for example, you have just started blogging, then it is wiser to focus on developing and maintaining a writing schedule, rather than trying to get a million page views in your first month. Impossible goals lead to disappointment which can then crush your optimism. Measured, targeted achievements, obtained over a credible time period may not seem so satisfying but they get the job done. Which is why I have given a great deal of thought to my own blogging goals for 2020. I am not going to alter or replace the blog template, nor am I going to embark upon too many side projects such a streaming or creating video content. Although I’d like to do such things I cannot sustain them or cope with the volume of work they will create. This year I am just going to try to create as much written content as possible and focus on expanding brand awareness.
The end of Blaugust Festival of Blogging 2019 presents the perfect opportunity to write another entry in my “Thoughts on Blogging” series. According to the Blaugust schedule this is the “lessoned learned week”, although I’m not too keen on that specific phrase. It sounds too much like the sort of bogus, sombre platitudes that politicians trot out in the wake of some national tragedy. But such is the nature of semantics and such is the curious fashion in which my mind works. So rather than worry of the wording, I’ll just simply reflect upon the past month and consider what it means for my writing, both present and future. Because I do believe that over the last month, I have had a minor epiphany with regard to my relationship with blogging.
The last three months have been problematic from a writing perspective and my productivity and motivation have both suffered. I struggle to find appropriate time to sit down and apply myself to writing and when I do, I seldom have the correct mindset to stay focused for long. Yet due to the back catalogue of content available on Contains Moderate Peril, there is still regular traffic coming to the site. Ironically, despite my low productivity, I have started receiving an increase in blog related marketing and have received numerous emails regarding “collaboration”, “featured posts” and “SEO optimisation”. All of which I have no interest in. However, the point remains, I’m not writing as much as I used to and I miss it. The same can be said for podcasting but that’s a tougher problem to fix. It is more labour intensive than writing, so the logical thing to do is to focus on the former and not the latter to fix.
I wasn’t expecting to write another entry in the Thoughts on Blogging series so soon, but something came up that grabbed my attention and got me thinking. A simple question that’s often asked about blogging and one that has many layers to it, as well as numerous answers. A new blogger who recently joined the Blaugust discord server asked for help “getting traffic to their blog”. An enquiry that gave me (and possibly others) pause for thought. Because we all to a degree want to attract traffic to our blogs. But I also think bloggers are too coy about this this subject. We’ll say things like “I write for myself” or “it’s not about the numbers” and although I agree with these points, building an audience is important. Let’s be honest, it can be somewhat disheartening after writing a lengthy post about a subject close to you heart, for it to fall flat and not attract any traffic. As discussed before, often it is the casual blog posts written in a hurry, that can be the most popular and the articles you’re most proud of can go unnoticed. So let us be honest. I think most bloggers want to grow an audience and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that it provides.
I decided to take a short break from blogging last week. I have a lot on at present and the only time I’ve had available to write has been in the late evening. I prefer to write in the morning as I’m more focused and motivated. Plus I haven’t really had a lot of positive things to say of late about the two primary subjects of this website. Broadly speaking there’s not a lot of going on in the video games industry that enthuses me. Similarly, the current crop of film releases have hardly distinguished themselves. At present when I do get writing ideas, they tend to be obscure niche market subjects or commentary on social issues. For example, I’m thinking of writing a post about my continuing enjoyment of the Japanese TV show Takeshi’s Castle. I’m also forming my thoughts for an article about how society’s relationship with wildlife may be “broken”. Stuff that is interesting to me but may not be ideal material for readers of Contains Moderate Peril.
As January comes to an end, I am pleased that I have so far managed to maintain a daily writing schedule. I hope that I can continue in this vein throughout February. As ever the actual process of sitting and writing has proven a somewhat mixed bag so far this year. Some days the word simply spill out of me and a blog post potentially writes itself. On others, composing just three coherent paragraphs is like pulling teeth and much time is spent procrastinating and getting side tracked. But a mixture of self-discipline and a degree of pride have helped oil the creative wheels and kept the content flowing. Whether any of it is any good is for others to decided. However, it was nice to find one of my posts quoted in an article over at Massively Overpowered. It means that at least someone is reading my work and pondering upon the points therein. Writing is after all a means of communication and sharing ideas so it is rewarding to know that you’re not just yelling into the wind all the time.
This week, a rather high profile sub-reddit associated with the Star Trek Online community, changed its status to “private” as a means of protesting against the state of the game and the way developers Cryptic are handling things. That matter was surprisingly resolved within 24 hours after an olive branch was extended from the STO community manager on reddit. However, it is not the protest itself nor the state of the game that I wish to focus upon, but the importance of /r/stobuilds as a shared community resource. A lot of STO players enjoy optimising their builds and tweaking their loadout and this site it the place to go to share such information. There is also a group of hardcore players that dig deep into the games data and comprehensively crunch number and generate useful information. Hence if a resource such as this was taken offline for longer period of time, it would have a tangible impact upon players and the wider community.
Spending time in the company of others who have similar interests and passions can be an invaluable shot in the arm and a great source of motivation. For example, I recently joined a Facebook group associated with The Evolution of Horror Podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to pick over the bones of a movie such as The Wicker Man and explore its finer points. You don’t have to adjust your level of conversation for fear of boring people, or dial back your enthusiasm due to concerns of being labelled a nerd or fanboy. Finding these online havens where you feel comfortable are invaluable, regardless of whether your passion is sport, knitting, Lepidoptery or Phrenology. Remember this point. I shall be returning to it shortly.
I read a post over at Tobold’s Blog recently that got me thinking about blogging, popularity, and the ebb and flow of our passions. The reason being is that Tobold, like many other long-term bloggers, has seen a decline in his audience over recent years. He certainly wasn’t carping about it, just simply observing the correlation between reducing your written output, the decline in popularity of his original subject matter and the number of visitors coming to his site. He also made a keen observation that blogging is not necessarily “where it’s at” with regard to cultivating an audience. If you are producing content specifically to grow and maintain a following, then You Tube and Twitch are better platforms for that. Especially if your content is part of the wider gaming scene. For better or for worse, I now associate gaming commentary with visual mediums rather than blogging. Yes, there is still long from criticism being produced but it’s aimed at a niche gaming audience. One that I would guess is older.
I usually write a post early on in the New Year in which I list the various goals I’m focusing on over the next twelve months. To date I have not done this because I am still trying to work out what I can and cannot accommodate within my current schedule. As a carer I’m kept very busy, but my weekly routine does offers windows of opportunity for writing. However, free time is a finite commodity, so I have to really cut my proverbial coat according to my cloth this year. Therefore, I’ve decided to pursue the following projects. I will continue to regularly post on Contains Moderate Peril as I enjoy having my own platform and certainly feel that I still have a lot to write about. Also, the audience is steadily growing, and I think it would be counter productive to fly in the face of such a development. I was also given the opportunity to write for MMOGames recently and have decided to accept this invitation. Writing to deadlines and deferring to editors, is an invaluable learning experience. Plus, it presents my writing to a wider audience which is great for brand awareness and other awful marketing terms.
There wasn’t a Newbie Blogger Initiative this year and I was saddened by that. I’ll make no bones about the fact that I liked this yearly event and the way for a few months after it, you’d see a lot of interesting new blogs spring up, filled with optimism and passion. But, what’s done is done, and life goes on. It’s up to others to pick up that particular torch and run with it, if they wish to see the event to return. I also miss a lot of my colleagues and peers’ blogs and the comradery that stemmed from the associated community. Again, this is a natural and inevitable attrition process, caused by that thing known as “life”. So, to combat my current melancholic malaise, I thought I’d collate a few of my thoughts about writing online and set them down in a semi-regular post, the same way as I do about podcasting.
Thoughts on Blogging Part 16
March has been a challenging month for several reasons and as a result I’ve written very little. Furthermore, the recently revived podcast has also ground to a halt after just six episodes due to scheduling issues that are beyond myself and Brian’s control. At the end of February, Google made changes to their search algorithm which have had a major impact upon traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. Visits are down by over 20%. I’ll make no bones about the fact that this has really pissed me off. Several years of growth has been unceremoniously swept away at the drop of a hat. So all this, plus the rapidly changing situation regarding my Mother’s care, has found me ill disposed towards writing. To be clear, I’m not talking about writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas and a folder full of draft posts. I just haven’t wanted to write because I feel that I’m just spitting in the wind.
March has been a challenging month for several reasons and as a result I’ve written very little. Furthermore, the recently revived podcast has also ground to a halt after just six episodes due to scheduling issues that are beyond myself and Brian’s control. At the end of February, Google made changes to their search algorithm which have had a major impact upon traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. Visits are down by over 20%. I’ll make no bones about the fact that this has really pissed me off. Several years of growth has been unceremoniously swept away at the drop of a hat. So all this, plus the rapidly changing situation regarding my Mother’s care, has found me ill disposed towards writing. To be clear, I’m not talking about writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas and a folder full of draft posts. I just haven’t wanted to write because I feel that I’m just spitting in the wind.
I’ve been writing and maintaining a blog of some kind since early 2007. In 2014, after seven years of writing everyday and building an audience, I secured a sponsorship deal from a hosting company. Maintaining such a schedule and producing a weekly podcast was great fun but hard work. However, the main problem with “free hosting” is that you’re dependent on the goodwill of those that supply it. When the company was bought out, the sponsorship was terminated and I had to find a new home for Contains Moderate Peril. Due to compatibility issues, rather than migrate the existing site I ended up having to start from scratch. Needless to say by March 2016 I was burned out and went on a three month hiatus. During that time I came close to throwing in the towel. I’ve started feeling that way again, recently. Is it all worthwhile or am I just screaming into the void?
But as the expression goes “this won’t buy the baby a new hat”. I have two options open to me at present. I can either continue to be annoyed, not write and subsequently watch years of work wither on the vine. Or I can get back on the horse, drink my milk or whatever the hell John Wayne suggested. Just to clarify, I am opting to continue writing. “Normal service will resume shortly”, so to speak. Which means imposing a bit of discipline upon my writing schedule and ensuring that I write early in the morning when I feel engaged and productive. I’ve also decided to do some experiments with certain types of posts to see if they gain more traction with readers. I have quite a few other ideas but I think I’ll keep them quiet for the present. Best not to promise too much and then fail to deliver. For the present I’ll focus just on writing as often as I can. Focus on what’s ahead, not behind. Oh and fuck you Google.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
Back in March 2019 I wrote a blog post about the operating costs of running this website. I went into detail with regard to hosting and domain costs, as well as the other software and hardware used to write posts and at that point produce a podcast. Let it suffice to say that five years on, those costs have all increased. If we’re just looking at maintaining a blog simply in terms of hosting and the domain registration, it costs about £20 a month to run Contains Moderate Peril. Theoretically, if I want to reduce those costs I could dispense with a specific domain name and use a free blogging service. However, I feel that such a compromise comes with its own set of problems, such as advertising and a lack of control (to a degree) over your content. I therefore choose to pay to mitigate these concerns. If I then wish to do more, such as produce a podcast, create videos for YouTube or live stream, then those costs increase.
When you initially start blogging, your aspirations tend to be very straightforward. Choose a title, find a niche and get into the habit of writing. Simple tasks that can still take a while to master. Once your blog is established and has endured for a while, you may not have any further long term goals other than to just keep going. However, if you feel that you want to achieve more then you have to tackle a new set of problems. There is a great deal of “advice” in the public domain about growing and monetising your blog. A lot of it is questionable but there are some approaches that do work. However, these require you to write to a specific process, chasing the ever changing whims of your potential readership. You have to compromise. And for many bloggers, that is the deal breaker.
I spent some time in July, making some changes to Contains Moderate Peril. I replaced the branding and made some alterations to the “about” page to ensure that it was up to date and relevant. Not that anyone reads it as I still regularly receive enquiries about guest posts. Something I no longer do. Today, I made some further changes as it is my long term goal to grow the audience for this site. Hence I want to try and make it easier for visitors to find the content they seek and offer them related material. To facilitate this, I have added some additional menu options to the blog homepage. These act as filters, presenting specifically themed content for readers. Hence there is a “movie” button that lists all film reviews and similarly one for “video games”. There are also links for two specific video games, The Lord of the Rings Online and Star trek Online, as website statistics show that these are popular subjects.
I’ve been writing online for 17 years. During that time a modest audience has read my posts and occasionally commented on them, which is the accepted dynamic of blogging. Some of my posts are ephemeral. Others, such as film reviews, have greater longevity. Naturally I want people to read my output and I’ve noticed that the film reviews seem to generate a fair amount of traffic. After consulting my website analytics package, it would appear that the majority of readers find my reviews by searching Google. Promoting my writing via social media does very little. Another issue is that readers tend to read the post they found via their search and then leave. Despite there being links at the bottom of the post to similar material. Currently, my blog does not have an effective means of searching older posts. The landing page has only 20 posts listed. There are approximately 2,500 archived.
As a blogger we are often told by our peers not to obsess over website traffic and statistics in general. There is a degree of sense in this. We should be primarily focused on writing, maintaining an equitable schedule and staying motivated. Stats can have a negative effect on the latter. However, one cannot ignore the subject either. As a writer, at some point you do want people to actually read your material, or else what is the point? I have therefore always kept an eye on traffic and have attempted to grow my readership overtime. The results have been varied. In my experience, you do slowly build up an audience by being persistent with your writing. But you also have to promote your work, which is a job in itself. It’s also something that not everyone is comfortable with. “Therein lies the rub” as the expression goes. How do you attract readers without compromising your own standards?
I was sitting in my office over the weekend, half-heartedly typing up a blog post about table manners and dining etiquette, when I paused and lapsed into a state of self examination and introspection.
“Isn’t Contains Moderate Peril supposed to be about gaming, movies and popular culture”? “Yes”, I replied to myself via my inner monologue.
“So what the hell am I doing writing about table manners, then?” my inner contrarian retorted.
“Well it is part of our culture, although I wouldn’t argue that it is a defining aspect of the zeitgeist at present” my conciliatory alter ego responded.
“Frankly, I’m getting bored with all of this per se” a third voice stated. It was at this point, I stopped arguing with various facets of my id and went to the pub.
March has been a challenging month for several reasons and as a result I’ve written very little. Furthermore, the recently revived podcast has also ground to a halt after just six episodes due to scheduling issues that are beyond myself and Brian’s control. At the end of February, Google made changes to their search algorithm which have had a major impact upon traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. Visits are down by over 20%. I’ll make no bones about the fact that this has really pissed me off. Several years of growth has been unceremoniously swept away at the drop of a hat. So all this, plus the rapidly changing situation regarding my Mother’s care, has found me ill disposed towards writing. To be clear, I’m not talking about writer’s block. I have plenty of ideas and a folder full of draft posts. I just haven’t wanted to write because I feel that I’m just spitting in the wind.
At the time of writing we are halfway through the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event. Whenever the subject of personal blogging is raised, there are those who immediately declare that “blogging is dead”. According to Google, out of 1.7 billion websites that currently exist worldwide, 500 million or so of those are blogs of some kind. These generate over 2 million blog posts daily. So I wouldn’t say that blogging per se is done and dusted. However it certainly has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. At the start of the current century blogging was a novel activity providing the means of keeping a personal journal online. Inevitably, popularity and ubiquity led to commercialisation and a necessity to monetise. There was a period of time when clicks, traffic and advertising could generate popularity as well as an income. But other forms of social media offering greater immediacy eventually usurped this potential. Now blogging is seen as more of a niche market activity or corporate tool.
By the time that August rolls around this year, I will have been actively blogging and generally sharing my writing online for 14 years. Prior to that, back in the eighties, I was involved in the production of several fanzines. That was indeed a labour of love and although I was happy to write the content, the work involved in physically creating the actual pages was tough. The printing costs were also an early lesson in how writing is not an immediate path to fame and fortune. All things considered, writing has been a major aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. I used to enjoy writing stories as a child and then as I got older I discovered the pleasure of a well constructed essay. I was fortunate to have three very good English teachers during my time at school, who were passionate about their job and very encouraging.
I mentioned not so long ago the possibility of a website revamp. I was concerned that the general layout of the blog was not optimal and that readers couldn’t easily find old material. In the past I even went as far as to write a guide to navigating through Contains Moderate Peril and using the categories to find old posts. Well I got a few emails and Twitter DMs about this and it would appear that folk like things just as they are. So I have reviewed my position and decided to leave things as they are at present. I did a little digging though my website stats, both from Squarespace and Google Analytics and it would appear the summary blocks at the bottom of each post are used and that the bounce rate for my site is not exactly as it first appears. Seems that readers do peruse other articles and the search facility is being used more often, especially for finding film reviews. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Due to the ongoing Global Pandemic, many people are now finding themselves working from home or having to stay in for health or childcare reasons. Hence there has been a marked increase in online leisure activities. Steam has been hit by a record number of concurrent users and Netflix and Amazon prime have both seen an increased demand upon their respective streaming services. If you’re not commuting then you are freeing up a substantial amount of hours each week. This potential abundance of “free time” along with a practical need to channel your energy into something to prevent yourself from going “stir crazy”, presents some interesting opportunities. Many people who have previously expressed an interest in writing and content creation now have the leeway to do so. Naturally, as a writing enthusiast and a long time blogger, I am happy to encourage such activities.
The New Year is often a time for revised plans, renewed ambitions and a desire to get back on the proverbial horse when it comes to content creation. More often than not, many of these lofty ambitions wither on the vine or fall victim to our propensity for indolence. Which is why I think it is prudent to ensure that any goals that you set for yourself are realistic and attainable. If for example, you have just started blogging, then it is wiser to focus on developing and maintaining a writing schedule, rather than trying to get a million page views in your first month. Impossible goals lead to disappointment which can then crush your optimism. Measured, targeted achievements, obtained over a credible time period may not seem so satisfying but they get the job done. Which is why I have given a great deal of thought to my own blogging goals for 2020. I am not going to alter or replace the blog template, nor am I going to embark upon too many side projects such a streaming or creating video content. Although I’d like to do such things I cannot sustain them or cope with the volume of work they will create. This year I am just going to try to create as much written content as possible and focus on expanding brand awareness.
The end of Blaugust Festival of Blogging 2019 presents the perfect opportunity to write another entry in my “Thoughts on Blogging” series. According to the Blaugust schedule this is the “lessoned learned week”, although I’m not too keen on that specific phrase. It sounds too much like the sort of bogus, sombre platitudes that politicians trot out in the wake of some national tragedy. But such is the nature of semantics and such is the curious fashion in which my mind works. So rather than worry of the wording, I’ll just simply reflect upon the past month and consider what it means for my writing, both present and future. Because I do believe that over the last month, I have had a minor epiphany with regard to my relationship with blogging.
The last three months have been problematic from a writing perspective and my productivity and motivation have both suffered. I struggle to find appropriate time to sit down and apply myself to writing and when I do, I seldom have the correct mindset to stay focused for long. Yet due to the back catalogue of content available on Contains Moderate Peril, there is still regular traffic coming to the site. Ironically, despite my low productivity, I have started receiving an increase in blog related marketing and have received numerous emails regarding “collaboration”, “featured posts” and “SEO optimisation”. All of which I have no interest in. However, the point remains, I’m not writing as much as I used to and I miss it. The same can be said for podcasting but that’s a tougher problem to fix. It is more labour intensive than writing, so the logical thing to do is to focus on the former and not the latter to fix.
I wasn’t expecting to write another entry in the Thoughts on Blogging series so soon, but something came up that grabbed my attention and got me thinking. A simple question that’s often asked about blogging and one that has many layers to it, as well as numerous answers. A new blogger who recently joined the Blaugust discord server asked for help “getting traffic to their blog”. An enquiry that gave me (and possibly others) pause for thought. Because we all to a degree want to attract traffic to our blogs. But I also think bloggers are too coy about this this subject. We’ll say things like “I write for myself” or “it’s not about the numbers” and although I agree with these points, building an audience is important. Let’s be honest, it can be somewhat disheartening after writing a lengthy post about a subject close to you heart, for it to fall flat and not attract any traffic. As discussed before, often it is the casual blog posts written in a hurry, that can be the most popular and the articles you’re most proud of can go unnoticed. So let us be honest. I think most bloggers want to grow an audience and enjoy the sense of accomplishment that it provides.
I decided to take a short break from blogging last week. I have a lot on at present and the only time I’ve had available to write has been in the late evening. I prefer to write in the morning as I’m more focused and motivated. Plus I haven’t really had a lot of positive things to say of late about the two primary subjects of this website. Broadly speaking there’s not a lot of going on in the video games industry that enthuses me. Similarly, the current crop of film releases have hardly distinguished themselves. At present when I do get writing ideas, they tend to be obscure niche market subjects or commentary on social issues. For example, I’m thinking of writing a post about my continuing enjoyment of the Japanese TV show Takeshi’s Castle. I’m also forming my thoughts for an article about how society’s relationship with wildlife may be “broken”. Stuff that is interesting to me but may not be ideal material for readers of Contains Moderate Peril.
As January comes to an end, I am pleased that I have so far managed to maintain a daily writing schedule. I hope that I can continue in this vein throughout February. As ever the actual process of sitting and writing has proven a somewhat mixed bag so far this year. Some days the word simply spill out of me and a blog post potentially writes itself. On others, composing just three coherent paragraphs is like pulling teeth and much time is spent procrastinating and getting side tracked. But a mixture of self-discipline and a degree of pride have helped oil the creative wheels and kept the content flowing. Whether any of it is any good is for others to decided. However, it was nice to find one of my posts quoted in an article over at Massively Overpowered. It means that at least someone is reading my work and pondering upon the points therein. Writing is after all a means of communication and sharing ideas so it is rewarding to know that you’re not just yelling into the wind all the time.
This week, a rather high profile sub-reddit associated with the Star Trek Online community, changed its status to “private” as a means of protesting against the state of the game and the way developers Cryptic are handling things. That matter was surprisingly resolved within 24 hours after an olive branch was extended from the STO community manager on reddit. However, it is not the protest itself nor the state of the game that I wish to focus upon, but the importance of /r/stobuilds as a shared community resource. A lot of STO players enjoy optimising their builds and tweaking their loadout and this site it the place to go to share such information. There is also a group of hardcore players that dig deep into the games data and comprehensively crunch number and generate useful information. Hence if a resource such as this was taken offline for longer period of time, it would have a tangible impact upon players and the wider community.
Spending time in the company of others who have similar interests and passions can be an invaluable shot in the arm and a great source of motivation. For example, I recently joined a Facebook group associated with The Evolution of Horror Podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to pick over the bones of a movie such as The Wicker Man and explore its finer points. You don’t have to adjust your level of conversation for fear of boring people, or dial back your enthusiasm due to concerns of being labelled a nerd or fanboy. Finding these online havens where you feel comfortable are invaluable, regardless of whether your passion is sport, knitting, Lepidoptery or Phrenology. Remember this point. I shall be returning to it shortly.
I read a post over at Tobold’s Blog recently that got me thinking about blogging, popularity, and the ebb and flow of our passions. The reason being is that Tobold, like many other long-term bloggers, has seen a decline in his audience over recent years. He certainly wasn’t carping about it, just simply observing the correlation between reducing your written output, the decline in popularity of his original subject matter and the number of visitors coming to his site. He also made a keen observation that blogging is not necessarily “where it’s at” with regard to cultivating an audience. If you are producing content specifically to grow and maintain a following, then You Tube and Twitch are better platforms for that. Especially if your content is part of the wider gaming scene. For better or for worse, I now associate gaming commentary with visual mediums rather than blogging. Yes, there is still long from criticism being produced but it’s aimed at a niche gaming audience. One that I would guess is older.
I usually write a post early on in the New Year in which I list the various goals I’m focusing on over the next twelve months. To date I have not done this because I am still trying to work out what I can and cannot accommodate within my current schedule. As a carer I’m kept very busy, but my weekly routine does offers windows of opportunity for writing. However, free time is a finite commodity, so I have to really cut my proverbial coat according to my cloth this year. Therefore, I’ve decided to pursue the following projects. I will continue to regularly post on Contains Moderate Peril as I enjoy having my own platform and certainly feel that I still have a lot to write about. Also, the audience is steadily growing, and I think it would be counter productive to fly in the face of such a development. I was also given the opportunity to write for MMOGames recently and have decided to accept this invitation. Writing to deadlines and deferring to editors, is an invaluable learning experience. Plus, it presents my writing to a wider audience which is great for brand awareness and other awful marketing terms.
There wasn’t a Newbie Blogger Initiative this year and I was saddened by that. I’ll make no bones about the fact that I liked this yearly event and the way for a few months after it, you’d see a lot of interesting new blogs spring up, filled with optimism and passion. But, what’s done is done, and life goes on. It’s up to others to pick up that particular torch and run with it, if they wish to see the event to return. I also miss a lot of my colleagues and peers’ blogs and the comradery that stemmed from the associated community. Again, this is a natural and inevitable attrition process, caused by that thing known as “life”. So, to combat my current melancholic malaise, I thought I’d collate a few of my thoughts about writing online and set them down in a semi-regular post, the same way as I do about podcasting.
Thanks Google Page Experience Update For Desktop
Last Tuesday, I noticed a drop in traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. As I’m currently only writing every other day, I assumed that it is normal to have occasions when visits to the site may decrease. However the decline has persisted and to date, works out broadly as a 20% reduction of traffic to my blog. At present, I have a lot going on in my life so blogging and website growth are not my highest priorities. However, I am a firm believer in cause and effect and so a situation like this must be down due to other external factors, rather than just the capricious nature of my readership. So I searched online to see if Google had made any changes and I subsequently found that they had rolled out an algorithm update starting on Tuesday 22nd February 2022. Apparently Google Page Experience Update For Desktop “is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences. Page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes”. I beg to differ.
Last Tuesday, I noticed a drop in traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. As I’m currently only writing every other day, I assumed that it is normal to have occasions when visits to the site may decrease. However the decline has persisted and to date, works out broadly as a 20% reduction of traffic to my blog. At present, I have a lot going on in my life so blogging and website growth are not my highest priorities. However, I am a firm believer in cause and effect and so a situation like this must be down due to other external factors, rather than just the capricious nature of my readership. So I searched online to see if Google had made any changes and I subsequently found that they had rolled out an algorithm update starting on Tuesday 22nd February 2022. Apparently Google Page Experience Update For Desktop “is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences. Page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes”. I beg to differ.
Please feel free to search about Google Page Experience Update For Desktop and to read exactly what it’s supposed to do and how it “works”. I have and it is simply beyond my skill set to fully comprehend it. From what I can ascertain it’s supposed to ensure that the best content continues to appear in search results, which is the usual corporate mantra. My real concern is whether it’s fair and if the system can be manipulated. Will smaller content creators be able to equitably compete with the big players. Well, it looks like the answer is “no”. I am not the only person to see a drop in traffic. I have found several posts over at SEO subreddit and they squarely point the finger at Google for this change. There also seems to be growing concern over Google’s continued push for standardised criteria governing content creation. If your site doesn’t entirely comply with these it will have difficulty being found. Sadly, a poorer quality site that is compliant, will rank higher in search results.
Statistics are not the defining reason why I and many other people write online. But let us not be coy. Finding an audience is important and you cannot do that if your website is not visible. However, whether anyone finds Contains Moderate Peril ultimately is a matter out of my hands. I could slavishly follow the prevailing content writing styles and SEO trends in an attempt to “game the system”. However, I like to write in the same manner in which I express myself in real life. Having to conform to a specific regulated standard to reach a broader readership is a double edged sword. You may gain accessibility but at the expense of nuance, maturity and character. Personal blogs are often not just about the content but the content creator as well. However, all of this is academic while we deal with the reality of Google Page Experience Update For Desktop. Perhaps it is naïve to expect an equitable process and a level playing field from a corporate entity such as Google.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Stuff to do in 2022
Regular readers will already know my position on New Year’s Resolutions. I think unrealistic, kneejerk commitments to hare-brained schemes that you know damn well won’t ever get done, are crass and tiresome. So let’s not waste each other’s time going down that route. I like sensible, realistic, attainable goals and that is exactly what I am setting myself for 2022. I want to increase my writing output this year because my drafts folder is filled with posts and ideas that haven’t quite been completed. Essentially this comes down to making the time to finish these articles and possibly embracing a somewhat briefer writing style. I’m also going to try and see if I can grow the existing audience for Contains Moderate Peril. I have some ideas as to how to do this and none of them really require any additional resources. It simply comes down to doing the required work and staying motivated. I believe that I meet both of those requirements.
Regular readers will already know my position on New Year’s Resolutions. I think unrealistic, kneejerk commitments to hare-brained schemes that you know damn well won’t ever get done, are crass and tiresome. So let’s not waste each other’s time going down that route. I like sensible, realistic, attainable goals and that is exactly what I am setting myself for 2022. I want to increase my writing output this year because my drafts folder is filled with posts and ideas that haven’t quite been completed. Essentially this comes down to making the time to finish these articles and possibly embracing a somewhat briefer writing style. I’m also going to try and see if I can grow the existing audience for Contains Moderate Peril. I have some ideas as to how to do this and none of them really require any additional resources. It simply comes down to doing the required work and staying motivated. I believe that I meet both of those requirements.
I’m 5’11 and weigh 189lbs (13st 7lb/85.7kg). According to the UK NHS BMI calculator I have a BMI of 26.4 which is a little too high. For a person of my height, age and ethnicity I should have a BMI between 18.5 and 25. My weight theoretically should be between 132lbs (9st 6lb/59.8kg) and 179lbs) (12st 11lb/81.1kg). However, BMI index is a disputed and inaccurate measure of body fat content as it does not take into account muscle mass, bone density and overall body composition. Yet the reality remains that at present, my clothes are all a little too snug and the “extra weight” which I carry on my chest gets in the way and has an adverse effect upon my physical activity. Hence I shall be changing my eating habits in the months to come and aiming to lose about 14 to 21lbs. I’ve done this before and I need to do it again. Structured meals, no snacks and a substantial reduction in my alcohol consumption is the way forward. No excuses, just adherence to a sensible regime.
Mrs P bought me a pair of walking shoes as a birthday gift a few weeks ago. Specifically Men’s Trailstorm Mid Waterproof Walking Shoe from Columbia Sportswear. Due to life getting in the way, I only just got around to walking any distance in them. Thankfully my research paid off and they have proven to be a good fit and offer exactly the sort of support that my feet need. Most of the walking that I do is through woodland and grassland, hence I didn’t need heavy footwear for rocky trails and mountain hiking. The Trailstorm is robust, comfortable and able to keep out the elements. Also, having opted for a black pair, they can be worn with a wider variety of clothes without looking too out of place. I intend to do at least one major walk each month this year. I am currently looking at existing trails and paths in my immediate vicinity. London is fortunately filled with plenty of open spaces and parks, so I’m spoilt for choice.
Looking back at last year’s plan I did manage to broadly adhere to it. My writing routine did improve when I got up at a fixed time each morning and started preparing posts for the day ahead. Unfortunately real life messed up my schedule. Keeping a physical “to do” list in a journal certainly paid dividends. Admin tasks and paperwork were kept under control in 2021. Mind you a lot of it was the sort of bureaucracy that you can’t afford to ignore. I even found a podcast to gatecrash and I’m very grateful to both Braxwolf and DJ Pimp Daddy for allowing me to appear on Beyond Bossfights. Sadly my dream to adapt The Golden Voyage of Sinbad into a West End musical still remains unrealised. Obviously this is still due to the pandemic and has nothing to do with my lack of musical ability. This idea remains on the proverbial back burner, along with Twister on a duvet cover and travel kabaddi.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
I am intrigued by the growth of the IndieWeb, owning your domain and static websites. I certainly agree with the notion of not relying on big corporations and I have an ongoing project to divest my dependency on software produced by major market players. However, although I own my own domain, my website is hosted by Squarespace. I’ve not really had any problems with them over the last 11 years and I would describe our business relationship as equitable. However, the monthly subscription price has increased over time and is likely to keep on doing so. It has crossed my mind as to whether there is a suitable alternative. However, if I were to migrate Contains Moderate Peril elsewhere I suspect it would be logistically complex and problematic.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
For the last few months I have being using Google Gemini. I subscribed so I could access a wider spectrum of services and evaluate it effectively. I also wanted to dispel some of the hysteria that accompanies any conversation about Large Language Models and Artificial Intelligence. The results were initially interesting and Google Gemini proved useful when researching material for blog posts. It is good at providing summaries about well documented subjects. I wrote a post about food banks recently and it distilled a lot of data into a manageable amount, which was ideal for my article. Google Gemini has also produced some visual basic scripting and simple batch files that have allowed me to automate processes on my PC. Such as changing the default monitor, or screen resolution at the click of an icon. However, I found this AI struggled with in-depth software troubleshooting and that its ability to create images varies greatly depending on the subject.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Goodbye 2021
When I wrote Goodbye 2020 a year ago, I endeavoured to be philosophical and sanguine in my approach. It was a challenging year for all of us and for me it was further compounded by a bereavement. However, I strove to keep matters in perspective and tried to look at things in a broader context. I cannot be as even handed this time. 2021 has been a very difficult year for myself and my family and I will be glad to see the back of it. Nationally speaking, things haven’t been much better. I feel that we’ve squandered the initial progress that the COVID-19 vaccines offered. Obviously, I cannot do anything about the problems that the UK faces in 2022. However, I certainly intend to address some of the issues that I and my immediate family are facing. I am going to tackle some specific problems that need to be laid to rest and set myself some tangible goals to achieve. 2022 isn’t going to be something that just happens and I passively sit back and watch.
When I wrote Goodbye 2020 a year ago, I endeavoured to be philosophical and sanguine in my approach. It was a challenging year for all of us and for me it was further compounded by a bereavement. However, I strove to keep matters in perspective and tried to look at things in a broader context. I cannot be as even handed this time. 2021 has been a very difficult year for myself and my family and I will be glad to see the back of it. Nationally speaking, things haven’t been much better. I feel that we’ve squandered the initial progress that the COVID-19 vaccines offered. Obviously, I cannot do anything about the problems that the UK faces in 2022. However, I certainly intend to address some of the issues that I and my immediate family are facing. I am going to tackle some specific problems that need to be laid to rest and set myself some tangible goals to achieve. 2022 isn’t going to be something that just happens and I passively sit back and watch.
Rather than focus on the negatives, let’s reflect upon the positives. One of the best things that did happen in 2021 was the Blaugust Festival of Blogging. I really do find this yearly event to be very motivating and it is always a pleasure to see new writers starting out and absent friends return. Trying something new, especially something creative is always a lot easier if you have a community to draw upon for advice, support and friendship. It’s also very encouraging to see over 40 blogs in my RSS feed, still actively writing on a regular basis, sharing their thoughts and ideas. It certainly counters that persistent and erroneous narrative that blogging is dead. Furthermore the Discord server created for Blaugust continues to be active throughout the year, which is also very gratifying. A community that continues talking and sharing after the event is clearly a success.
I managed to maintain a fairly regular writing regime this year although that went awry in December due to illness in the family. I intend to increase my output in 2022 as I still feel that I have things to say on a great many matters and that all too often I miss the opportunity to do so just through poor time management. I shall therefore attempt to return to a morning writing schedule, as that seems to be the optimal time of day for me. I have also planned some side projects that I will be announcing in due course. Often it is all too easy to become more enamoured with planning a project rather than actually starting it. I intend to avoid this pitfall this year. I shall also try to be more encouraging to others. I know so many talented people with interesting ideas, who sadly never follow through on them for one reason or another. Perhaps a little nudge will provide the impetus needed.
Usually the closing paragraph of these sorts of posts are either philosophical, motivational or sarcastic. A pithy summation of events of the previous year and one’s hopes and aspirations for the forthcoming one. Frankly, I’m just keen to draw a line under 2021 and move on. I recently hit 54 and I’m very conscious that I am now embarking upon a very different phase of my life compared to that which has gone before. There are important matters that I need to sort out to ensure that life is both manageable and tolerable. I certainly feel motivated at present and so I need to capitalise upon that. Best wishes to all who have supported Contains Moderate Peril over the last twelve months. It is satisfying to know that I’m not just yelling into the void. I’m going to just keep going. I hope that you do the same.
I don’t really celebrate New Year’s Eve anymore. By that I mean, I don’t go to the pub or any other social gatherings. Nor do we have guests ourselves. Mrs P often doesn’t stay up to midnight. Mainly because she tends to go to bed relatively early, by default. One year changing to another seems a somewhat arbitrary excuse for a celebration to me. However, I realise that New Year is a big deal for some. I used to work with someone who said, very philosophically, that Christmas was for the children and New Year was for the adults. He was of Scottish antecedents and so New Year’s Eve was of more cultural significance to him. Also if you’ve had a difficult, problematic or traumatic 2025, then I fully understand that you may well be happy to see the back of 2025 and look to 2026 to be a significantly better year. Or at least, not to be as shit.
I have not watched as much TV as I usually do, this year. Mainly because I have become a little weary of the ways contemporary TV is produced, especially with regards to streaming shows. Due to the costs, shows such as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds only have 10 episodes per season. Simply put, the season begins to hit its stride and then is abruptly over. This problem (if you see it as such) is then further compounded by there being a significant wait between seasons. In the case of STSNW it was two years between season two and season three. Not all shows fall foul of this. Apple TV produces two seasons of the excellent espionage drama Slow Horses at a time, ensuring a prompt release schedule. However, even this has issues. Due to the complexity of the plots of many contemporary TV shows, something that is a marketing point, some viewers cannot remember the plot after a twelve month hiatus. Network TV shows seldom have these issues with each season being 20 plus episodes long and story arcs that are seldom as complex.
It is customary in a post such as this to list the various games that I’ve played over the last twelve months and share my thoughts on them. Wider analysis of the video game industry is also de rigeur. Unfortunately, I don’t really feel disposed to do either of those two things. My thoughts on the games I’ve played have already been published and can easily be accessed via the links at the bottom of this post. As for the video game industry, it suffers the same flaws as music, TV and cinema. There is creativity and innovation out there but it is often drowned out by mainstream products which are demonstrably inferior due to their inherent mediocrity. As for the business side of things, we once again clearly see the failings of the corporate management class. Sadly, they do not face the consequences of the mistakes that they make.
I began 2025 with a fairly strong writing streak, publishing posts about games, technology and even air fryers. Sadly, this burst of enthusiasm gradually tailed off between April and June. I can’t even recollect if there was any particular “real world” reason for this or whether it was just a case of I wasn’t especially motivated. Fortunately, I started writing again in July in preparation for Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and subsequently wrote throughout the entirety of August. Revamping my blog in September and moving it to the latest version of Squarespace proved a positive move and since then I have kept up a writing schedule of posting to Contains Moderate Peril every second day. At present I have a lot of draft posts pending and I am not struggling to come up with ideas and write in general. I intend to nurture this positive approach and see if I can build upon it in 2026.
Looking back at my various posts regarding “technology” this year, a recurring theme has been my ongoing attempts to replace certain mainstream products with alternatives that do the job in-hand better, don’t require constant updates, aren’t bloated by superfluous functionality and are more cost effective or even ethical. Needless to say, this has proven quite hard. Hence I was unable to find a suitable replacement email client for Microsoft Outlook and end my subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal. The main problem is that most alternative software won’t support my email archive due to differences in the mailbox format. One possible work around is to install an older and therefore, non-subscription version of Outlook but this raises support and compatibility issues. It would be a lot easier to divest myself of a lot of mainstream software if I was starting from scratch.
I created a Bluesky account a little over a year ago. I was initially somewhat sceptical of adopting a third social media messaging platform, because I had become quite comfortable using Mastodon as a replacement for Twitter/X. However, certain individuals that I wished to continue to follow were migrating to Bluesky, so I followed suit. It has always been my long term goal to pick one of these two newer services and make it my sole point of presence in social media terms. So far that hasn’t happened. Hence a year on I find myself juggling three such platforms. Twitter/X, Mastodon and Bluesky. I post links to my blog posts on all of these services. To be honest none of them generate any tangible traffic but this is how you promoted your website or blog 15 years ago and old habits die hard.
In my teenage years, there was a social obligation to go out on New Year’s Eve. This often meant congregating in some dismal pub, queuing at the bar for 30 minutes to get a drink, then trying to find a corner where you could stand and struggle to have a conversation with your friends, above the noise of the crowd. The evening was dull, noisy and often ended in a fight. Then, around 1:00 AM we were summarily turfed out into the street and had to make our way home. Buses always run at this time of year to serve a public need but the “drunk express” was never a pleasant means of transportation. Quite frankly the whole experience was shit but the hubris of youth meant we deluded ourselves that we were having a good time. If someone suggested something similar today, I would laugh in their face. I am happy to spend New Year’s Eve indoors and away from it all.
It is customary for me to write an end of year summary of my gaming activities but I suspect that on this occasion it will be somewhat short. For me, 2024 has really hammered home the notion of the ephemeral nature of video games as well as their commercial ubiquity. The moment a game fails to satisfy for whatever reason, rather than complain or worry about it, I just move on to something else. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of games out there. I have a substantial back catalogue of games that Epic and Amazon prime regularly giveaway. I have bought numerous discounted bundles in the past, in the pious hope that I’ll play one of the games included, at some point in the future. Games may well be enjoyable and engaging but many are also disposable. That’s not to say they’re bad. While playing them you are indeed “entertained”. However, when you’re “done”, it’s amazing how you quickly find another and forget what you were previously playing.
The last time I wrote A Year in Movies post was back in 2020. That was naturally an unusual year and it certainly had a radical impact upon the film industry and the way new movies are distributed. In many ways the pandemic accelerated the inevitable move towards cross platform, same day releases. 4 years on and it is quite usual for films to have a short cinema release before becoming available on streaming media. They often appear on physical media at the same time. Effectively you can go to the cinema, or simply watch at home on the platform of your choice if you prefer. Rent, buy or subscribe, the film studios still get their pound of flesh and everyone is happy. Sometimes if a film has failed to gain sufficient traction at the cinema, its release will be cut short and it will go to streaming even quicker. Direct to video from the eighties and nineties has been superseded with direct to streaming.
It is fair to say that we live in an age where we do not lack quality TV. There are numerous shows that have garnered critical acclaim or a strong word of mouth following that are deemed “must see” viewing. No doubt you, like myself, have a long “to do” list of programs that you need to “get round to watching” on top of those shows which are staples of your viewing regime. If you didn’t have enough programmes already to catch up with, we all have friends and family telling us about a “great show” that’s on a platform we don’t subscribe to, that we really need to see. It is quite extraordinary and a far cry from my youth when the UK simply had three terrestrial channels until satellite TV became popular in the late eighties. To paraphrase the former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan “we’ve never had it so good”.
This post is not intended to be a comprehensive review of music per se in 2024. It is simply a few thoughts on what I’ve been listening to over the course of the year and my ever changing relationship with the Terpsichorean muse. As a man in his fifties who has always enjoyed multiple genres of music and it is a comforting presence in day-to-day life. Up to a year ago, I relied upon my own music collection on my PC as the source of music to which I listened. Yet, this meant that I was somewhat locked into my own existing tastes and there was limited scope for me to find new material. This changed last December when I started subscribing to Spotify and since then it has become my primary source of music. It caters to my tastes, which at times are quite niche and it gently introduces me to new material without being too invasive. This has proven most beneficial.
This is my third attempt at writing this post. The first was a little too philosophical, tackling the nature of adult life and how it is a far cry from the childish notions I had about being a “grown up” when I was seven. The second was just a list of the various shit that has gone down in my life over the last twelve months and it felt far too much like whinging. Hopefully this one is more succinct and even handed. 2022 was not a good year, personally speaking. My family and I experienced a lot of health issues and my mother died after a rapid decline. Hence there has been a lot of stress and anxiety which has left me feeling tired and somewhat jaded. Due to the subsequent changes in my personal circumstances, I now find myself at somewhat of a “loose end”. I feel the need to channel my energies into something but I’m not sure exactly what at present.
So far I have written 135 blog posts in 2022. Not much compared to previous years, but frankly I’ve become a little despondent with writing in recent months (I shall expand more upon that in a moment). Hence, since October I have been enjoying a break from regular blogging. I have written sparingly and pursued other leisure activities. Given that my post output has gone down, it would be logical to assume that there has been a commensurate drop in web traffic to Contains Moderate Peril, but this is not the case. Overall, my monthly statistics have remained the same, proving once again that most of my readership find my written content via Google searches, rather than reading new material on a daily basis. This has given me much food for thought and added to my ongoing reflection upon my writing activities.
When I wrote Goodbye 2020 a year ago, I endeavoured to be philosophical and sanguine in my approach. It was a challenging year for all of us and for me it was further compounded by a bereavement. However, I strove to keep matters in perspective and tried to look at things in a broader context. I cannot be as even handed this time. 2021 has been a very difficult year for myself and my family and I will be glad to see the back of it. Nationally speaking, things haven’t been much better. I feel that we’ve squandered the initial progress that the COVID-19 vaccines offered. Obviously, I cannot do anything about the problems that the UK faces in 2022. However, I certainly intend to address some of the issues that I and my immediate family are facing. I am going to tackle some specific problems that need to be laid to rest and set myself some tangible goals to achieve. 2022 isn’t going to be something that just happens and I passively sit back and watch.
Getting older does have a few benefits. One of them, if you are fortunate enough to embrace the concept, is a degree of self awareness and the ability to be honest with yourself. Over the years I have tried to adjust my technological habits but ultimately I am a creature of habit. My use of technology and consumption of content has been determined by the decades I grew up in. Therefore, I am a PC user and prefer to sit in my office where I write, play games and peruse the internet. I have my desk set up in a way that suits my needs and I can go about my business in comfort. When away from my office, I rely heavily on my phone as an alternative platform. In some instances phone based apps offer a superior experience to the desktop or browser based PC alternatives. Banking being one example. For better or for worse this is how I do things and I am comfortable with these choices.
Usually in a post such as this, my primary focus would be writing about the games that I’ve played over the last twelve month and what it was about them that I specifically enjoyed. However, this year I feel that I must address the wider issues that have dominated the news regarding the video games industry. Simply put, several very high profile and successful triple A video game companies have been beset by scandals over the last twelve months. And these have been of such a nature that they have finally laid to rest the myth that some still cling to, that working “in video games” is somehow different from working in more traditional industries because it’s “cool”. It turns out that it has all the same failings as TV, music and film. The people at the top are abusive and broken and maltreat those at the coalface who do all the real work for precious little reward.
I can’t speak for others but my relationship with social media has certainly changed over the last two years. Whenever new internet technologies emerge, there is a brief period when it feels like some sort of new frontier. Often such innovations become a means of empowering the marginalised and the voiceless. For a while new platforms can even be a force for good. But eventually commercial interests creep in along with rules and regulations. Hence, it all inevitably takes a turn for the worst. The frontier is finally tamed and ends up being just another corporate space. Social media is certainly not a forum for discussing social issues or politics, instead being a medium for tribalism and rancour. Because of these factors and others, I have moderated my use of social media and it has proven extremely beneficial to my state of mind.
A very wise Vulcan once said “change is the essential process of all existence”. 2020 has demonstrated that unequivocally. How our privileged, pampered lives have altered over the last twelve months. We’ve had to stay at home, curtail our social interactions and reflect upon the meaning of existence. I appreciate that things are relative, so it’s not helpful to compare the concerns that discombobulate people today with the realities that folk had to endure during World War II for example. I won’t trivialise the sense of isolation and desperation some folk have felt over the lockdown. From my own perspective, my life as a carer is regimented and focused, so 2020 hasn’t really “cramped my style” to use an old fashioned phrase. However, several things happened over the course of the year that have had an impact upon myself and my family.
Let it suffice to say that due to current “circumstances”, Mrs P and I have watched a lot more TV this year. However, rather than just reiterate what we’ve viewed, which is already covered in my recurring blog post The Idiot Box, I thought I’d take the time to reflect upon some wider issues. TV has become a major source not only of entertainment but psychological support during this year’s social restrictions. The closure of cinemas for the majority of the past twelve months has meant that TV has had little or no competition. Furthermore, many of the films that may well have drawn audiences away, have come to the smaller screens a lot quicker. Never has so much TV been voraciously consumed. There’s also been a degree of nostalgia as viewers have watched popular shows at broadly similar times, reviving that sense of a shared experience that was so common in the seventies and eighties. However, the pandemic has also caused a slow down in TV production. Will the shortage of new content that many have predicted finally manifest itself next year?
In 2019, I went to the cinema just once to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I didn’t write a summary of the films I’d seen throughout that year, as I felt that mainstream releases had become far too formulaic and dull. 2020 has done little to change my perspective. The global pandemic has meant that Cinemas have spent most of the time closed and therefore many of this year’s major film releases have ended up on video on demand services. A few titles remain indefinitely postponed, such as the latest Bond movie No Time to Die, while Sony Pictures wait to see if “normality” resumes. But a film that is sitting on the shelf is not a film making money. Hence, Warner Bros. have announced that all their major releases for 2021 will be across multiple platforms simultaneously, thus ensuring a broader flow of revenue. This has not pleased director’s such as Christopher Nolan who argue passionately regarding the merits of cinema. But I doubt Mr. Nolan has ever had to endure an out of focus screening in the wrong aspect ratio at Cineworld, Rochester, where audiences talk and mess with their phones continuously.
Retrospective posts such as this can be a sprawling mess. There is also potential to cover the same old ground that I’ve covered in my monthly summaries “A Month in Gaming”. So I’ll try to be as succinct as I can. Firstly I won’t dwell too much on the iniquities of the video game industry as I’ve covered that elsewhere. Let it suffice to say that the notion of the “rock star developer” and the ethical publisher have proven false. Buying a triple A mainstream game is as morally compromised as buying a pair of jeans made by child labour. But let’s not get caught up in ethics. That’s another post. The pandemic meant that I, like many others, had far more leisure time this year and hence I spent that time gaming. It’s been a good year for video games publishers and the revenue has rolled in. Have I had fun while playing more games? Yes. The games have proven engaging and they also provide a lot to write about, so it’s a win, win scenario from my perspective.
In my lifetime technology has always been promoted as something that improves our lives, especially at a domestic level. The VCR in the eighties is a prime example of this. It liberated us from having to watch TV at a specific time and place. Then there the personal computer, which brought into our own homes tools, that until that point, had been exclusive to the office. And for all the ill that it brings, the internet has certainly made the world demonstrably smaller. It’s revolutionised shopping and has improved the administration of services. So overall, I still feel that technology is a force for good. However there have been changes. In recent years technology on a domestic level has ceased to be quite as transformative and become more of a disposable commodity. Tech is now a fashion accessory, with a distinct lifecycle and upgrade treadmill. It is fast becoming just another form of superfluous crap to fill your home with.
Despite the tumultuous events of the last twelve months and the accompanying emotional fallout that has followed in their wake, I’ve managed to keep writing throughout 2020. My output has been somewhat inconsistent this year and I’ve noticed some changes in what I write about. This is inevitable as one’s tastes and focus changes naturally change over time. I’m finding it tougher to write enthusiastically about the video games industry per se, as it has hardly covered itself in glory this year. However, I still enjoy writing film reviews although I haven’t set foot inside a cinema for over a year. I suspect that this will remain the case for much of 2021. My writing has broadened in its scope and I find myself writing social commentary about various aspects of life, rather than just posting articles about my hobbies. Sharing my thoughts on the pandemic itself and “caring for the elderly” has proven very cathartic. But as I’ve stated many times before, writing is one of the ways in which I make sense of the world around me.
Last year I tried to write a measured and balanced post about the passing of the year. Sadly this time round my attitude toward the departing 12-month period is somewhat binary. Yes there were a couple of highlights to 2019 but most of it was an uphill struggle and therefore not worth celebrating. It can frankly sod off and won’t be missed. The two high points were my son’s wedding in August and my renewed enthusiasm for blogging that came about due to the Blaugust writing event. But overall 2019 was a repetitive and somewhat depressing grind having to continuously deal with multiple family illnesses, numerous hospital visits and then at the end of the year a bereavement. Yes, these are things that happened to us all eventually and there is no escaping them but I appear to be trapped in this facet of the “circle of life”. Furthermore, until certain situations resolve themselves, I cannot make or implement any long-term plans. 2019 has been in many ways about just treading water.
Life is often cyclical, if you don’t believe me go watch The Lion King. I started 2018 playing The Lord of the Rings Online and by writing a post about how gamers collectively seem to repeat the same mistakes. And as the year and indeed the decade ends, I find myself once again playing the Yule Festival in LOTRO and reflecting upon how some games that garnered criticism over their egregious business models, have ended up as huge hits. It would appear that gamers are their own worst enemy. I shall leave the psychological analysis of paradox to others. From my perspective, irrespective of the iniquities of the video game industry and certain quarters of the gaming community, it has been a good year, gaming wise. I have enjoyed my time playing MMOs such as Star Trek Online, The Elder Scrolls Online and the aforementioned LOTRO. These and other titles have entertained me, provided me with an opportunity to unwind as well as affording me some much-needed social interaction. I particularly enjoy Wednesday evenings when I log into my Discord server and then chat and play collaboratively with longstanding gaming friends.
One of the benefits that comes with age (for some people at least), if the gift of realistic expectations. Having reached 51 years, I no longer harbour thoughts that each year will be a rollercoaster ride of excitement, mirth and personal gain. Nor do I count on the stars aligning so that I make my fortune and retire peacefully to the Cayman Islands, to live the life of a tax exile. If New Year’s Eve rolls round and no one has died, I’m not looking at being tried for murder and there’s still gin in the drinks cabinet, then I usually deem the previous twelve months an acceptable year. However, despite even these fairly lose and undemanding criteria I feel compelled to say that 2018 was bollocks and that I won’t be sad to see the back of it.
I did not manage to maintain my writing schedule this year and have not posted everyday as I would’ve liked. I have produced over two hundred and seventy posts but still feel I could have done more. Blaugust was a welcome burst of enthusiasm that I managed to sustain for September and October, but I lost momentum in the run up to Christmas. At least I know what the root cause is which puts me a step nearer to resolving it. Having written several posts in the past about “writers block” and the other perennial excuse of not having anything to write about, I seem to have squarely fallen into both those traps. At present I find that motivating myself is the key problem. If I haven’t started writing something by midday, then it more than often gets left for the day. If I intend to escape this malaise, then I shall have to establish a far stricter writing schedule for 2019 and endeavour to do my writing first thing in the morning, when I am most focused.
Throughout my adult life I have always gone to the cinema as a leisure activity. 2018 has been of note in this regard as it’s the year I’ve been to the cinema the least. I have visited my local multiplex just three times over the last twelve months. It’s not that good quality movies are not made anymore. Far from it. It’s just that they don’t always get released theatrically. Furthermore, the cost to entertainment ratio has simply become too much of a gamble. Standard tickets are priced between £12 to £15 locally and I resent such an outlay for a film that may only be adequate or worse. Perhaps my outlook on pricing is unreasonable but I am not going to pay such money for mediocre entertainment. I don’t expect every movie I see to be a cinematic milestone or genre classic but nor do I expect it to be an exercise in indifference. If I had paid such ticket prices to see The Predator or Death Wish at my local Cineworld, then I would have been singularly annoyed. Mercifully I saw them both at home and therefore at a much lower cost.
Blaugust 2021: Lessons Learned
It is the final week of the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event and the current theme and writing prompt is lessons learned. As a long term writer I do not have much to say on this matter. That’s not because I know everything and think there’s nothing new for me to come to grips with. You can always discover relevant and pertinent advice throughout your blogging journey. However, I do now have a fairly orderly writing regime and it serves my needs. The thing that most often derails this process are other demands upon my time. Overall, I think I have a positive approach to writing and it continues to bring me many benefits. With regard to lessons learned, I find it far more interesting to read others' thoughts on the matter. Especially those who are new to blogging or are trying to rekindle their passion for it. Krikket, Blockade85 and Aywren share some personal thoughts based upon their unique experiences.
It is the final week of the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event and the current theme and writing prompt is lessons learned. As a long term writer I do not have much to say on this matter. That’s not because I know everything and think there’s nothing new for me to come to grips with. You can always discover relevant and pertinent advice throughout your blogging journey. However, I do now have a fairly orderly writing regime and it serves my needs. The thing that most often derails this process are other demands upon my time. Overall, I think I have a positive approach to writing and it continues to bring me many benefits. With regard to lessons learned, I find it far more interesting to read others' thoughts on the matter. Especially those who are new to blogging or are trying to rekindle their passion for it. Krikket, Blockade85 and Aywren share some personal thoughts based upon their unique experiences.
Over the years, events such as Blaugust and the original Newbie Blogger Initiative have shown me that many people are writing as a means of self discovery, personal challenge or even self therapy. I understand this as I use writing as a way to order my thoughts and ponder the many of the issues that face us in life. I find that writing my thoughts, as opposed to face to face debate with others, is beneficial as it can be conducted without rancour. One has time to research a subject, reflect upon it and then form a considered opinion. However, I appreciate that others are blogging to do more than this. They are trying to conquer self doubt, work through a problem or test themselves. Blogging certainly does appear to be a valid form of cognitive behavioural therapy. It can have very restorative properties and be a source of support and community. I like to think that Blaugust contributes a little to these.
With all this in mind, I think there is another aspect to blogging that needs to be mentioned. It is a very personal undertaking. Yes, you can write under a pseudonym if you prefer and many people do. You can control to a degree who gets to see your writing. But there is still an element of “baring one’s soul” to it all and I think that is quite brave in some respects. We live in an age where we all have a degree of unparalleled reach due to social media and the internet. Yet that comes with a degree of risk in so far as the moment you stick your head above the parapet, then people may well take pot shots at you. There’s no shortage of angry people online and hatred is sadly an all too common currency these days. Yet I read blogs where the authors talk about their personal struggles be it physical or mental health, or the realities of their day to day lives which can be challenging. That takes courage as far as I’m concerned.
Which is why I think Blaugust in its final week should be short on criticism and long on praise. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t quite hit the target you set yourself or that you haven’t quite yet achieved global domination from your volcano lair. At least you posted some blog posts and have a swivel chair. You’re a step further along the road and that’s much better than not doing anything. Maybe you’ve discovered if blogging is for you and what you will do next. Plus hopefully you’ve found some new blogs and added them to Feedly or whatever list you keep to stay abreast of what is happening. The Blaugust Discord server is active all year round and you can always find people to offer advice and talk to. Hopefully, upon mature reflection the lesson learned by all participants over the course of the previous 30 days is “I’m glad I did it”.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Blogging: Do or Do Not
We are currently in the third week of the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging Event. The current theme and writing prompt is staying motivated. Several of my colleagues have already tackled the subject. Kaylriene, Krikket, Naithin and Wilhelm Arturus. There’s certainly a lot to say on the point and people deal with it in their own, unique way. But to cut to the chase I think Bhagpuss has hit the nail on the head and has touched upon the heart of the matter. “If you need to go looking for motivation then you're already in trouble”. Yes, that’s a very good point. Blogging or writing creatively is both enjoyable and rewarding. But it requires focus and effort. Hence for a lot of people the prospect of doing it to a schedule is daunting and effectively determines how they continue to blog. But that’s fine. There is nothing wrong with being an intermittent blogger. I follow numerous blogs of that kind. However, if you desire to write daily or on some other regular basis, then one of two things will happen. You will either do it or you will not.
We are currently in the third week of the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging Event. The current theme and writing prompt is staying motivated. Several of my colleagues have already tackled the subject. Kaylriene, Krikket, Naithin and Wilhelm Arturus. There’s certainly a lot to say on the point and people deal with it in their own, unique way. But to cut to the chase I think Bhagpuss has hit the nail on the head and has touched upon the heart of the matter. “If you need to go looking for motivation then you're already in trouble”. Yes, that’s a very good point. Blogging or writing creatively is both enjoyable and rewarding. But it requires focus and effort. Hence for a lot of people the prospect of doing it to a schedule is daunting and effectively determines how they continue to blog. But that’s fine. There is nothing wrong with being an intermittent blogger. I follow numerous blogs of that kind. However, if you desire to write daily or on some other regular basis, then one of two things will happen. You will either do it or you will not.
Now I am sorry for going all “Yoda” on you all but I feel that this is an honest and realistic appraisal of the situation. Writing regularly requires discipline and there will be days when it does feel like a chore. You may feel uninspired and unfocused. However, if you still successfully manage to write something under such circumstances, then you do get a sense of immense satisfaction afterwards as you hit the publish button. As for the perennial discussion about writer’s block, I have argued in the past that there is always something to write about. More often than not it is a case of you just not wanting to write and you would rather go and do something else instead. Writer’s block does present itself as a convenient “get out of jail” card in such instances. But it also offers an opportunity to reflect upon your relationship with writing and how you want to progress.
If you genuinely want to write on the days when it is difficult then you have to sit down and come up with the germ of an idea. Once you have something written down you can focus upon expanding upon it. To start with, try adding a few points relating to it. Next if you begin to flesh out these ideas into sentences, before you know it, you have the foundations for a post. That’s how you power through these periods when you find writing to be an uphill struggle. It requires focus and determination to take that first step. To sit down at your keyboard and write that first word or sentence and start the process. And I think we all know in advance, whether we’re actually going to do that or not. If you’re not then that is fine. You haven’t failed. You’ve been honest with yourself. In fact you have found the level of writing that you’re comfortable with, which is an invaluable lesson.
Blogging isn’t an “all or nothing proposition”. You write what you want, how you want, when you want. Put aside what you think people might expect from you and focus upon your own needs. If you reach a point where writing is actually causing you anxiety then you need to stop and take stock of the situation. During the course of our lives we try lots of things. Sometimes we find that we like something and it becomes a regular part of our lives. Other times we give a new activity a go but discover that it is not for us, or that we will do it only occasionally, or only on our own particular terms. All of which is fine. So overall, I believe that motivation is a bit of a Red Herring. There are certainly things that you can do that will assist with your writing, such as picking the best time to write and doing so in an optimal environment. But essentially, I think your motivation to write to the level and schedule that suits you, is either there or it isn’t. A subconscious choice that has already been made. Hence, do or do not. There is no try.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Thoughts on Blogging Part 15
At the time of writing we are halfway through the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event. Whenever the subject of personal blogging is raised, there are those who immediately declare that “blogging is dead”. According to Google, out of 1.7 billion websites that currently exist worldwide, 500 million or so of those are blogs of some kind. These generate over 2 million blog posts daily. So I wouldn’t say that blogging per se is done and dusted. However it certainly has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. At the start of the current century blogging was a novel activity providing the means of keeping a personal journal online. Inevitably, popularity and ubiquity led to commercialisation and a necessity to monetise. There was a period of time when clicks, traffic and advertising could generate popularity as well as an income. But other forms of social media offering greater immediacy eventually usurped this potential. Now blogging is seen as more of a niche market activity or corporate tool.
Blogging is dead: At the time of writing we are halfway through the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging event. Whenever the subject of personal blogging is raised, there are those who immediately declare that “blogging is dead”. According to Google, out of 1.7 billion websites that currently exist worldwide, 500 million or so of those are blogs of some kind. These generate over 2 million blog posts daily. So I wouldn’t say that blogging per se is done and dusted. However it certainly has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. At the start of the current century blogging was a novel activity providing the means of keeping a personal journal online. Inevitably, popularity and ubiquity led to commercialisation and a necessity to monetise. There was a period of time when clicks, traffic and advertising could generate popularity as well as an income. But other forms of social media offering greater immediacy eventually usurped this potential. Now blogging is seen as more of a niche market activity or corporate tool.
Blogging for pleasure: At present it is the microblogging site Tumblr that dominates the bloggersphere, hosting over 400 million blogs (WordPress hosts 60 million). However, this is not really a platform for in-depth, longform writing. Perhaps that is the main reason for blogging becoming less popular. Writing competently does require both skill and time. Modern social media platforms are the opposite, offering immediacy and brevity. Plus there is far more of a focus upon monetisation and building an audience these days. Hence many bloggers are choosing to write not so much about personal subjects but are pursuing material that is marketable, such as Lifestyle and Travel blogs. Product reviews are another popular subject. Yet despite the fact that there are many commercial prospects available, current data from Google indicates that only about 10% of all bloggers generate any income. Broadly speaking the primary motivation for personal blogging is passion, fandom and pleasure.
Amending existing posts: I wrote a blog post back in May of this year about how the RPG The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was fast approaching ten years old. At that time there was a lot of speculation but no definitive answer as to whether the game developer Bethesda were going to do anything formal to celebrate this anniversary. This has now changed and a Skyrim Anniversary Edition has now been announced. So I updated the post with an additional paragraph and added a date reflecting the amendment. I think that this is a valid policy, providing value for your readers and also maintaining your credibility as a writer. I think it’s especially important if you are writing about a news story and the facts are constantly being updated and possibly corrected. Updating or appending a post is also a useful form of self-promotion.
Changes in traffic sources: Squarespace has an integral analytical service which provides statistics and data for Contains Moderate Peril. I even have an app on my phone that I can check if I see fit. I also have the website linked to Google Analytics which generates and emails to me very useful monthly summary of website traffic. Over the last decade, due to the success of smartphones and tablets, there has been a major shift in how people browse the internet and consume content. Over 46% of those who visit Contains Moderate Peril, do so from a mobile device. Hence it is important as a blogger to ensure that the template you use for your blog is “responsive” and adapts and optimises your content for mobile platforms. There are various sites available that can test your template and provide a preview of what your blog looks like on a mobile device. I would recommend that that all new bloggers look into this to ensure that their site is responsive, so they do not unintentionally exclude potential readers.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Blaugust 2021: Getting to Know You
According to the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging schedule it is “getting to know you week”. Although I have been knocking around the blogging community since 2007 it would be extremely arrogant of me to assume that people know who I am. Plus, as I am allegedly a mentor in the Blaugust event, it is both polite and proper to introduce myself to those who are new participants. I’ve never been especially keen on the whole standing up and introducing yourself thing that comes up from time to time in one’s social and working life but it is a necessary evil. Whenever I used to attend training courses for work, I’d always go first when it came to introductions, just so I could get it out of the way. So with all that in mind let’s tackle this now. Here are a few minor facts about me so that people can “get to know me”, so to speak.
According to the Blaugust 2021 Festival of Blogging schedule it is “getting to know you week”. Although I have been knocking around the blogging community since 2007 it would be extremely arrogant of me to assume that people know who I am. Plus, as I am allegedly a mentor in the Blaugust event, it is both polite and proper to introduce myself to those who are new participants. I’ve never been especially keen on the whole standing up and introducing yourself thing that comes up from time to time in one’s social and working life but it is a necessary evil. Whenever I used to attend training courses for work, I’d always go first when it came to introductions, just so I could get it out of the way. So with all that in mind let’s tackle this now. Here are a few minor facts about me so that people can “get to know me”, so to speak.
Firstly, I use my real name, Roger Edwards, for my writing. I did initially start writing under my gaming handle but found it a somewhat bizarre form of social etiquette. Having conversations with Jubal the Questionable or Cardinal Spleen has always struck me as odd. So I just started posting under my own name which is fairly unremarkable. Plus I did at one point harbour aspirations to be a professional writer. Anyway, I do understand why people wish to compartmentalise their lives and certainly if you’re posting content on the internet, the anonymity helps keep the crazy people at bay.
Captain Scarlet
I was born on 18th December 1967. One week before Christmas. From an early age I discovered that anyone who said anything along the lines of “I’ve bought you a joint birthday and Christmas present” was a cheapskate bastard. 1967 was an interesting year. Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest with Puppet on a String, Captain Scarlet and The Prisoner were on TV and The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I live with she who is known colloquially as “Mrs P (short for Mrs Peril). This is the agreed method to reference her online. I have a son who is 29 and three grandchildren. Twin granddaughters who are 6 and a grandson who is 6 months old. I used to be a IT consultant for small businesses but gave up full time work in 2016 to look after my ageing and disabled parents. My Father passed away last September at the age of 91. My Mother is 90 and now the focus of care. I am currently 53. Mrs P’s age is not for public disclosure. She took early retirement from work. We have a bungalow in South East London in what can be described as a “leafy suburb”. Walter lives with us.
Walter
As far as hobbies and interests, I like writing, reading, films, walking for pleasure and exercise. I’m not really interested in sport although I’m not hostile to it. It serves a purpose. I can swim, draw and paint competently. I used to sing and was in several choirs as a child. And then it all stopped and I can’t remember exactly why. I cannot play any musical instruments but I have a great passion for the craft of making music. I find it frustrating that I don’t know the correct terms when trying to write about music. I love words, logical arguments and critical thinking. I eschew ill conceived points of view, emotive debating and the overall infantilization of public discourse. It boils my piss that people will get up in arms about Geronimo the Alpaca but don’t seem disposed towards protesting against child poverty in the UK. Oh and binary, tribal politics is a constant source of irritation.
Here are a few more random facts. Mrs P and I don’t have pets due to health issues. In the past we’ve had dogs and cats. I am currently on a diet and need to shed about 18lbs. I’m trying to get down to 168lbs. I like good food and wine as well as good company. The latter is in short supply at present. I am not a practising Christian, although I grew up in the seventies when the UK was still very much culturally disposed towards that faith. Humour is extremely important to me and I consider it to be a kind of societal safety valve. I am not an extrovert although I can be social, even gregarious when I choose to be. I don’t like small talk and don’t tend to suffer fools gladly. Does anyone? However, politeness is hardwired into my social programming.
I enjoy church architecture
Finally, here is an anecdote from my childhood for your consideration. Around the age of five or six, I was compelled to appear in a school play. You didn’t have a choice in such matters. If you expressed dissent you were beaten (Yay, the seventies). The play was Snow White and I was assigned the role of The Huntsman who lets Snow White go. Dressed in a green felt ersatz Robin Hood outfit, I delivered my lines with all the disinterest of a school careers advisor. I then remember the audience laughing in that patronising “oh isn’t he adorable” parental fashion. Apparently I turned and scowled at all the assembled adults in a manner that my Father subsequently described as saturnine. The reason I mention this is because if I ever commit murder, I shall base my entire legal defence upon this traumatic experience. That and the fact I never got a model train set as a child.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
Deciding the Scope of Your Blog
One of the most helpful pieces of advice you can give someone who is just about to take up blogging for the first time is “write about what you know”. Expressing opinions and views on subjects that you’re familiar with or especially knowledgeable enables you to write with confidence. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is a more complicated proposition, unless you're writing to specifically document your learning experience. Which is why most of the people that I know who maintain a blog tend to write about the games they’re currently playing. Sometimes if someone is especially enamoured with a particular title, that single video game will be the sole focus of their blog. I did this in 2008 with Misadventures in LOTRO which catalogued my experiences playing the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. It was a fun starting point and being focused on a single subject, kept me engaged with my writing.
One of the most helpful pieces of advice you can give someone who is just about to take up blogging for the first time is “write about what you know”. Expressing opinions and views on subjects that you’re familiar with or especially knowledgeable enables you to write with confidence. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is a more complicated proposition, unless you're writing to specifically document your learning experience. Which is why most of the people that I know who maintain a blog tend to write about the games they’re currently playing. Sometimes if someone is especially enamoured with a particular title, that single video game will be the sole focus of their blog. I did this in 2008 with Misadventures in LOTRO which catalogued my experiences playing the MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online. It was a fun starting point and being focused on a single subject, kept me engaged with my writing.
However, there is an obvious downside to putting all your eggs in one basket, especially with regard to video games. What happens when you tire of the very subject that is integral to your blog or you just want to write about something else? This can be particularly troubling if you have found a niche for yourself and have built an audience through your writing. Will they stay if you diversify your writing? One possible solution is to set up a separate blog but that requires a great deal of discipline as you now have double the work, effectively having to produce and promote content for two sites. When I found myself in this situation I decided to broaden my blog’s remit and cover a wider spectrum of games. However, I didn’t feel that my existing blog could accommodate subjects such as films, TV, books etc so I set up a second site. As time progressed and I became more confident with my writing, I saw the sense in posting all my material on a single site. I wish in some respects I’d done this initially but sometimes you have to learn through experience.
You may wish to blog exclusively about Etruscan pottery
Therefore, my advice to anyone setting up a new blog is to keep the scope of your writing as broad as possible unless you have very specific goals associated with a single subject or are targeting a specific niche. At first glance a food blog or fitness blog may seem like subjects with clear lines of demarcation but that is actually not the case. A food blog can explore cooking, recipes, ingredients, world cuisine and much more. Writing about fitness allows the writer to discuss not only exercise but associated products, the social aspect of keeping yourself in shape and wider topics such as diet and general wellbeing. It’s the same if you blog about travel, sport, fashion and lifestyle. There is plenty of wiggle room in those subjects, affording the writer the opportunity to vary their content and hopefully prevent them from getting bored or burned out.
If you do maintain a “variety blog”, you can segregate content if you prefer, allowing your readers to focus on the material they like best. This is not an issue as many blog templates support such a magazine approach. Writing on a multitude of subjects is also beneficial for developing your overall writing skills. How you write about your experiences in a particular game is not the same as writing a book or film review. Running a varied blog means you can write think pieces, essays, reviews, streams of consciousness and other types of posts. All of which can help with refining your writing technique. The other benefit of writing about multiple subjects is that it adds depth to your writing persona and the way you as a writer are perceived. If you intend to write professionally, a blog with a spectrum of different content can be an important part of your portfolio.
Contains Moderate Peril circa July/June 2015
Some bloggers will cogently argue that blogging about a very specific subject or occupying a clearly defined niche is a lot easier to monetise. It also makes search engine optimisation a lot easier. However, I suspect that neither of these two points are necessarily driving factors for the new blogger who is just starting out. Most bloggers just want to come up with a snappy title for their new blog and to try and find a writing schedule that they can manage and that they’re comfortable with. I therefore cautiously suggest that establishing a fairly broad remit of things to write about will certainly be helpful in discovering the latter. It should also help keep so-called “writers block” at bay. However, choice is not always a good thing and some bloggers prefer to have the focus of a single subject blog. As ever there is no “one size fits all” solution. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide what the scope of your blog is to be, so pick what works for you the best.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.
There is a subtle difference between being rash and being proactive. Being rash means acting too fast without thinking about the results, while being proactive is a question of acting early with careful planning. Why have I mentioned this? Well prima facie information indicates that recent Blaugust participants are interested in an “official” online presence for the annual festival of blogging, other than that existing Discord server. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Not everyone likes using Discord and I do worry that they may reduce its free functionality at some point in the future. With regard to there being a Blaugust platform of some kind, there is a consensus that it doesn’t need to be some sort of sprawling commercially hosted website running on Wix or such like. Those sorts of site require funding, a degree of admin and possibly private data management. It also a bit too “corporate” if you like. Hence the logical compromise is to have a static site. Let it suffice to say, that has been done.
Judging by the posts I’ve read, it would appear that Blaugust 2026: Festival of Blogging has been well received by those who participated in it. That is most satisfying to know, especially in light of the fact that this is the first year the event has been run without our founder who sadly past away in July. It has also become clear that Blaugust is reaching a far wider and diverse audience and most definitely is no longer the exclusive province of bloggers from one particular community. There has been healthy discussions on our Discord server about whether this year event needs to adapt to accommodate the modern blogosphere. Questions such as whether or not there needs to be a dedicated Blaugust website have been raised and explored. Should every site participating have an RSS feed? How, if required, should comments be handled. Inevitably, the subject of the use of AI in blogging still remains a controversial issue.
After a very productive month of writing, we come to the final Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. It is titled lessons learned and is usually a chance to reflect on the festival and whether or not it has been to one’s satisfaction. Have you achieved your goals? What have you gained from the experience? Those sorts of things. It also poses two further questions; “What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?” and “what’s the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?” for your consideration. I’ll address the questions shortly. Firstly let’s mull over this years event and assess how it’s gone.
It was my blogging anniversary on the 16th August. I’ve been writing and sharing my post online for 19 years, via various different websites and blogs. This current iteration of Contains Moderate Peril has been around since August 2015. To date it has 2,171 posts including this one. Quantity does not necessarily equate to quality but there are some articles I am proud of and feel that they make their point effectively.
This week’s Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt is an important topic. Namely, staying motivated. I prepared a fairly lengthy post with some advice and ideas to keep people focused and writing. Then I checked it against the post I wrote last year and the year before that, going back to blogging events from 2012. All of these posts broadly said the same thing, so I decided to scrap what I had composed for today and to go with a simpler approach. I shall answer the questions Krikket posed for this writing prompt. Fellow blogger Bhagpuss has also done so and as ever, his thoughts are interesting and well expressed. Here are my answers.
Once again, I have stumbled across an interesting debate that has provided me with an opportunity to write a blog post. Over on the Blaugust Discord Server, I read a comment from AgingGamer regarding RSS feeds and their significance with regard to blogging. This in turn referred me to a post by fyr (don’t you love all these nom de plumes) who wrote at depth about the ongoing community debate about the use of RSS/Atom feeds. The article explored the importance of such feeds with regard to reaching readers and providing accessibility to the disabled. All of which provided me with a great deal of food for thought. Mainly because I use a mainstream website service provider for my online endeavours, so RSS is by default built. I’ve never really considered not having such a facility at my disposal. But the rise in the IndieWeb scene challenges this assumption.
I have written two blog posts today that I have subsequently abandoned. The first was gaming related but when I was about halfway through writing it, I felt like I was covering old ground and just repeating myself. It was also regarding an issue that can’t really be fixed. Namely, how do you ensure that matchmaking in PVP games is done equitably. As there is no solution to this issue at present, or at least not one that all parties can agree on, I decided to ditch it. Similarly a post I was working on about what becomes of my blog if anything happens to me was curtailed. In light of recent events in our community it seemed inappropriate. However, as a result of binning two blog posts, I new idea occurred to me. Do my fellow bloggers self-edit and curtail what they write about? Is your blog totally unfiltered or do you apply a set of rules that determine what content is deemed acceptable?
It is time for the next Blaugust 2026 Group Project writing prompt. This one comes with two lines of enquiry. The first is an opportunity to “introduce yourself”. Over the years, I have written several introductory posts for previous Blaugust events. Rather than repeat myself I’ll just link to the last one, which was posted in August 2023. I haven’t radically charged since then apart from my hair going whiter. The next part of the prompt poses a far more intriguing question. “If you could have one magical power or super power, what would you choose and what would you use it for?”, which offers much for consideration. Having given this proposition much thought here is my response.
A decade ago I wrote a post about blogrolls and the practical and social issues surrounding them. At the time, the version of Squarespace I was using didn’t easily support such things or at least wasn’t able to do so in a manner I liked, so I didn’t have one. Ten years later Squarespace as a hosting platform has far greater functionality, hence I recently decided to add a blogroll. That was in March this year. However it just wasn’t really fit for purpose. So I decided to revise it a few days ago and rather than just have a traditional list of blogs in a side column, I ended up producing a more comprehensive blog directory, which list two hundred plus sites alpha-numerically. I’ve been tinkering with it on and off and I am now finally happy with it. The latest update reflects the international nature of the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging and the fact that we have many blogs written in their native language. Translating text is now an integral function of web browsers, so I see no reason why these blogs should be excluded.
Today’s post is part of the Blaugust 2026 Group project, which features a series of writing prompts set for specific dates throughout the month. The idea being that everyone who wishes to participate can write about the same subject, riff off each other’s posts and enjoy a shared experience. In many respect having a common writing prompt levels the playing field and provides a sense of common purpose among those who take part. Today’s group project prompt asks the question “tell us all about your very first blog”. An unambiguous and interesting question that will hopefully prove enjoyable to write about and informative to others.
I have been writing online for nearly two decades. I don’t claim to be good or accomplished but what I can say with certainty is that the more often you write, the easier it becomes. For those who are new to writing a blog and the Blaugust Festival of Blogging, possibly the biggest hurdle that you now have to get over, is writing your first post of the month. You spent the lead up to this event sorting out your blog templates, fine tuning the backend and possibly banking some ideas. Or you may have decided to just wing it and make it all up as you go along. Both are perfectly valid approaches. However, there is one thing left to do that cannot be put off, avoided or danced around. Writing. At some point you’ve got to do it. Or bail on the event. The proverbial “shit or get off the pot”.
If you take a cursory look at a calendar you will see that the month of July is fast coming to an end. That means that Blaugust 2026 Festival of Blogging starts in a few days time! If you’re participating, or thinking of doing so, the next few days present a golden opportunity to do some practical organising and basic preparation. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Feel free to just do things as they come, so to speak, if that’s your approach. However, for most of us, it helps if we have some kind of plan in place and make some arrangements in advance. I personally prefer this approach and like to have some ideas for blog posts in the bank. It is also useful to have “options” if something doesn’t go to plan. For those who are new to Blaugust, here are a few ideas regarding preparation that may be of use to you. As ever, your personal mileage may vary and ultimately you are best off adopting a strategy that suits your writing style and personal schedule.
Prior to last year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging, I upgraded Contains Moderate Peril to the latest version of Squarespace. There are still some aspects of the site that need fine tuning but overall, I am happy with the appearance of my blog and its respective functionality. With this year’s writing event fast approach, I decided to tackle over the last few days, some of those finer points that need tweaking. I have wanted a post counter on the site for a long time but unfortunately there is no native Squarespace widget for this basic function. I also felt the need to upgrade the blogroll, as the current one didn’t support RSS feeds from certain sites (e.g. Google Blogger) and was dependent upon a third party service, Elfsight, which wasn’t ideal. Both of these issues have now been addressed and I am pleased with the results. There is now a post counter on the Blog Archive page, which seems a logical place to have it and the Blogroll is now far more comprehensive.
Next month the annual Blaugust: Festival of Blogging begins. Roundabout this time each year, I try to write a promotional post to raise awareness of the event and encourage potential participants. However, as I’ve done this quite a few times before, each year it is becomes increasingly difficult to present the essential facts about Blaugust: Festival of Blogging in an interesting fashion. There’s nothing worse than writing a post and feeling that you’re just covering old ground. So, this year, I thought I’d try something different and present the most important information about this annual event, as if it were a conversation between myself and an interested passer by. Feel free to attribute novelty voices for each party in your own head, while you read this. If it helps, try imagining that this discussion is happening between two celebrities or such like. Both may be wearing exotic hats but I digress. On with the scenario.
I read a blog post by Void recently, about finding a new internet home. He wrote about how he and many others have had to pick up their “digital roots” and migrate multiple times over the years, from one platform to another. It is a position I can sympathise with as I have done likewise. Hence I like the idea of having a place online where I hangout by default. My own blog is an anchor for me but it is not quite the same thing as a platform or online portal where I can find all my friends and colleagues, share content and shoot the breeze. It’s a curious thing, because as I typed that last sentence it struck how such a sentiment may seem alien to others. There may well be people who like to have a finger in multiple pies and who are happy to frequent and flit between various social media apps, Discord servers and subreddits. I prefer to focus my efforts on a single instance. A place that suits my requirements, allows me to put down roots and become part of the furniture. Like a virtual Diogenes Club.
Everyday, once I’m up, I sit at my desk in my office, fire up my PC and log into Feedly. I have various RSS feeds grouped by category, which I slowly trawl through and read anything that catches my eye. I have one curated feed named “Blaugust” named after the yearly festival of blogging event. It has over 250 blogs listed, many of which are former participants. Most of these regularly post. Hence there’s a lot to get through and so I don’t read all of them. However there are a few that I always checkout. Mainly because they’re the personal musings of some of our writing community’s oldest and most prodigious members. The sorts of guys and gals who are part of the furniture. They’ve always been there and it feels like they always will. Posting their thoughts, sharing their enthusiasm and spreading the love, so to speak. One of these blogs, is Tales of the Aggronaut. written by Belghast.
On Friday 26th June, I had another random spike in internet traffic to Contains Moderate Peril. The statistical package that comes with my Squarespace account recorded over 13k visits in less than 24 hours, which is not typical (although I wish it was). However, all of these visits to my blog arrived via the default homepage and spent between 1 and 2 minutes there. Hence, it was obvious that this was not human traffic, as there was no evidence of any searches being made of content that is available on my site, nor of the “visitors” clicking on any of the links on the top menu and viewing other posts. This was undoubtedly AI traffic arriving at the designated homepage and simply parsing the site. I had a similar spate of this sort of web traffic last November. The only difference on that occasion is that the traffic all came from China. This time round it hailed from the US. I suspect that this is something that will happen more often as companies set their AI loose on the net for what is effectively training.
I recently watched a video on Patreon by someone who I actively support as a “content creator” and whose work I enjoy. I shall provide no more detail regarding their identity because they may not want their work referenced with regard to what I am going to say. During the course of their video they briefly referenced the work put into promoting a podcast they are currently producing and the relatively low audience that it has garnered so far. The comments were an aside and most certainly not said with any sense of self-pity. They were simply a statement of fact. Furthermore, I suspect they are far from unique and similar sentiments have been expressed in one way or another by anyone who has created something the published it online, only for it to be lost among the greater white noise” of the wider internet.
When I first started blogging way back in 2007, I maintained a blogroll of all my colleagues and peers’ websites. At the time this was a common practice and a way to support an expanding community. I considered this such an important aspect of the blogging scene at the time, I created a website to aggregate posts from video game blogs, called The Gaming Blog Nexus. It ran for two years and proved quite useful. However, it was tricky to administer and would frequently break as a lot of the back end widgets and plugins were created and maintained by “gifted amateurs”. I eventually shut it down due to the operating costs. When I moved my own website, Contains Moderate Peril, to Squarespace in 2015 I intended to start maintaining a blogroll once again. However, at that time there was no native support for such a thing on the platform. Hence for the last ten years, I have not had a blogroll on my website, which hasn’t sat well with me.
I was speaking to someone recently about hobbies (fortunately it wasn’t Simon Quinlank) and I mentioned that I have maintained a blog for over a 19 years. When I talked about the ongoing cost they were most surprised, as they had assumed that blogging was something that could be done for free. I guess we’ve become so accustomed to the provision of free online services such as email, that this a reasonable assumption. I pointed out that although it is indeed possible to blog for free using Blogger, it was not the optimal approach, especially if you want to maintain some degree of control over your writing. Naturally, the next question they asked was how much do I spend and I gave them a ballpark figure. All of which reminded me that I wrote a post on this very subject a few years ago. So I’ve decided to revisit the subject and see how much it currently costs to maintain Contains Moderate Peril.
Today I started the slow process of auditing every post that has been published on Contains Moderate Peril since 1st August 2016. The goal is to correct any obvious typos and replace all existing images with larger ones. The Squarespace software upgrade I applied to the website at the end of last year has finally allowed me to establish a standard format that I am happy with. Hence the ongoing audit is the perfect opportunity to apply these style rules to all posts. There are also some technical issues and matters regarding functionality that need to be addressed. I need to determine how to embed YouTube videos in such a way that they automatically scale to fit whatever device is viewing them. Another area which needs improving is the website search facility. This needs refinement so that enquiries can be more specific. Older posts also need to be more accessible, although I am still researching how best to achieve this.
It’s nearly two and half months since the Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event ended. During that time I’ve maintained a fairly regular writing schedule and I post every two days or so. Furthermore, I finally dragged my blog template, kicking and screaming, into the modern era. I tweaked a few pages and updated the content of the “about” page. The next task is to start going through all previous posts and replacing older, low resolution images with larger, more appropriate ones. This process also presents an opportunity to ensure that all posts follow a uniform style. IE Are appropriately categorised, have links to related posts at the bottom and are SEO optimised. This will be a lengthy task so I think the best approach will be to tackle two or three posts a day. Hopefully this will raise the profile of older content, which generates the lion’s hare of traffic to this site.
I use a browser extension called Control Panel for YouTube, which allows me to determine who many videos are displayed on my YouTube homepage and to filter the content that is shown. At present it is configured to display rows of six. Something that I have noticed of late, is the amount of videos with hyperbolic titles and thumbnail images created by AI. Both of which are design choices made to increase engagement. Clickbait titles are contrived to meet current SEO optimisation criteria and as such feature more and more in search results. The fact that they frequently have no relation to the subject I am researching, seems to be neither here nor there. The same issues arise with regard to AI generated images, which again frequently have no bearing on the matter. The fact that more and more content creators do this, infers that it works and is now an essential part of the process you must follow to be seen and featured in search results.
In the last post in this series, I specified the need for a plan with regard to upgrading my blog. Well a plan has emerged, been refined and has now been formally adopted. Rather than migrate Contains Moderate Peril to a new platform and effectively have to rebuild all the content, I am going to upgrade my existing presence on Squarespace. This decision was made for two reasons. Time and money. Migrating to a new platform will take a lot of time and incur additional costs. Upgrading the existing website will take less time and has no cost implications. That is not to say that it will be easy. It has become abundantly clear that the upgrade process will break stuff and that all published posts will have to be manually repaired. Hence my choice boils down to the lesser of two evils.
This year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging has reached an end and it would appear that this event has been well received by those who have participated in it. I believe that there were 168 bloggers taking part this year, many of whom have not participated before. Some were new to blogging, where others simply wished to see if they could increase their writing output. As ever there was a wide variety of blog styles and subject matters and it has been most interesting to read new posts every day. I have attempted to leave comments and positive feedback where I can and I hope that some of these new blogs that I’ve discovered continue to write. Well done to everyone who took part. I hope it has been an enjoyable and informative process and that you have learned from it. I know that at least one blogger has determined that writing online is not for them, which is a valuable lesson.
There is currently a group writing prompt available as part of this year’s Blaugust: Festival of Blogging which has piqued my interest. It asks the question “what is the oldest draft post you have” and suggests that it is revived in some manner. I have dozens of draft posts in a folder in my Google Drive. Many are film reviews or film related. The oldest of which dates back to summer 2010. Rather than write a straight forward review of Blake Edwards 1968 comedy The Party, I rather foolishly thought at the time that I’d tackle the issue of whether the film is sufficiently racist to make it beyond the pale. Let it suffice to say that I quickly found myself bogged down in the complexities of the subject and thus never completed the blog post.
I’ve participated in every previous Blaugust: Festival of Blogging event. Prior to that I was involved in the Newbie Blogger Initiative or NBI as it was affectionately known. I have therefore written quite a lot of blogging advice and suggestions over the years. If anyone feels disposed to do so, you can access them all by clicking on the “blogging” option on the top menu of this blog. However, it is important to remember that a lot of the ideas I have advocated and written about over the years are purely subjective. Not all advice or guidance works for everyone. People have different ideas about blogging, different approaches to it and different aspirations. This year has highlighted some quite distinct differences among bloggers which has been most illuminating.
Today is my blogging anniversary. I have been writing online consistently for 18 years. My earliest blogs no longer exist, although they can be found via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. My first blog was a Lord of the Rings Online fansite called Misadventures in LOTRO. After a while this morphed into a wider gaming website; Misadventures in Gaming. However, I soon discovered that I wanted to write about more than just video games, so I decided to start from scratch and created Contains Moderate Peril in February 2010. This blog endured and has been my main online presence ever since. It has moved several times for various reasons. For a while I had a sponsor, as well as a reasonably sized audience and had dreams of making money from my writing and podcast. But it wasn’t to be and now I just write primarily for my own peace of mind and amusement.
It is obligatory to start these sorts of posts by reiterating the standard mantra that you should not be driven by your websites stats and that the data they contain can be unreliable. Although a sound philosophy in principle, it is actually more nuanced than that. Such data can be useful for growth if used wisely. I have never been coy about trying to increase my readership. For me it seems an integral aspect of blogging. Over the course of 2026, the traffic to Contains Moderate Peril has doubled. A lot of that is down to curious spikes in visits which seems to be AI scraping the entire site. Setting aside these anomalies, more people are reading posts and a lot are doing so via the site’s RSS feed. All of which is fine by me as growing the audience for this blog was a goal for this year, I am quite pleased by this development and the ongoing progress. I hope it continues.