This week is the second anniversary of EVEOGANDA.
The exact date is this Friday, but for a variety of reasons, I'm celebrating it today. Mostly because this is a week from Hell and I'm honestly not sure how much posting I may be doing this week.
So I've been at this thing for two full years now, over 700 posts, nearly 200 pieces of commissioned work, over 100 freebies, 40 cartoons, almost 200 Twitter Hats, 10 Corporation changes, 6 different Alliances - two of which I helped create, not to mention untold chaos and exploded ships, a Death Race, several events and uncounted opinions, jokes, stories and assorted whatnots.
And that doesn't mention the responsibility of the Eve Blog Pack, something I take somewhat seriously.
Nor does it mention the friends, both real and virtual, that I've made along the way. Some of whom are still with us and some of whom have moved on from our little, albiet dedicated and insane, community.
How does one sum it all up? One doesn't try. The past is dead as someone once wisely said and it would be the height of... well, not arrogance per se, but something approaching it, to wallow in it. To me, more importantly, is the future. What happens next?
So where do we go next? Frankly I don't have a clue. In fact, based on the current real-life situation I've been fighting for the last six months or more, the future is a foggy, indistinct, hard-to-fathom place right out of reach. This doesn't mean that Eve won't be a part of that future, it simply means that, pushed against a proverbial wall, I can't pretend to know what it holds in store.
But that is true of all of us. If you believe for a moment that you know what the future holds for you, tomorrow, next week or next year, then you are fooling yourself my friend. I had no idea when I started this little blog what would happen in the years that followed. I had no way of knowing just how important those ten to fifteen minutes I spend every day writing these posts would become. Or just how much the Eve Community would come to mean to me personally. How could I?
And so we move forward into the unknown together. Just as we always have. A journey whose destination is unknowable. The milestones we land upon along the way as mysterious and unfathomable as the deepest ocean. Whatever the future holds, I'll face it the same way I always have. In good faith and with a smile in my heart.
I hope that you will continue to make this blog one of your stops in your own journey.
The fact that so many of you do, well, that is the one thing I am most proud of.
Thank you.
Back before you were born, our ancestors travelled to New Eden thru a massive Wormhole that came to be known as the Eve Gate. At some point, for reasons still unknown, the Gate closed forever and cut our people off from home. We literally could never go home again. Those podless, death limited freaks were cut off. Poor things.
I feel a bit like them today.
The Eve Online Bloggers Portal will be closing down at the end of the month, as reported over on Black Claw's blog The Travels of Black Claw. My buddy Seismic Stan has already written an excellent post regarding this news and I encourage you to read it.
I'm not writing to cover ground already covered, so I won't even try. Mostly I just want to point out the stories and help get the news out to the community.
But the Eve Online Bloggers Portal is more to me than just another great Eve community service that is going to be lost to us. In many ways, it has become my home over the last three years. It was, next to CK's Eve Blog Pack, the way thru which I discovered the Eve Community in the first place. I spent the first year of my time in Eve reading other people's blogs before I decided that maybe I should start writing my own. And since day one, the EOBP has been open in my browser almost every single day.
It is my gateway and without it I'm feeling a bit like those schmucks that got left far from home when the Eve Gate crashed on them. Uh, now what?
Everything changes and I wish Black Claw nothing but the best. But as much as we all except the facts of change, the more resistant we become to the fact of change. We'll move on and try to re-start civilization somewhere, but it won't be as easy. Centuries of chaos may ensue.
Or not. Either way my life just got harder. The EOBP will be missed by me most of all.
People ask me all the time, what do I have to do to get into the Eve Blog Pack? And despite all the complicated bullshit I've written about it in the past, it really comes down to a few simple things.
1 Have a strong voice.A strong voice isn't one that is always opinionated, angry, or ranting... although it could be. More importantly however is having something to say that others might find interesting. Having a blog is a lot like having a soap box in front of the entire Eve Community. Use it.
2 Be Consistent.This might be the hardest one. While you don't have to post every day, posting often and consistently is important. The Eve Community demands fresh new perspectives and the EBP needs to represent that. It is a tough row to hoe and not everyone is up to the challenge. That's ok in the larger sense, but not good enough for the EBP.
3 Luck of the drawVariety is the spice of life. And I strive to keep the EBP as full of variety as possible. This means that while you might have a great blog about low-sec pirating, there are already plenty of great blogs about low-sec pirating in the EBP. This is going to make it harder for you to get in. That's just the way the Cynabal spins.
So today, in the first major upgrade to the Eve Blog Pack for 2012, it is my honor to introduce six new members. Each one of which has consistently written from a strong voiced perspective and deserves to be included. Welcome to the Blog Pack.
Dsan's EVE-Online BlogSand, Cider and SpaceshipsGun Turret DiplomacyA Scientist's Life in EveThrough Newb EyesArdent DefenderBe sure to update your blogs with the EBP Feed to support the other members as they support you. And feel free to grab some swanky EBP Badges from the EBP Page to dress up your blog and announce to the world your new membership in an exclusive club.
Keep up the great work guys and welcome aboard.
Back in August when I first took over the Blog Pack from CK, I tried to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Any change like that is going to be problematic in many ways, so the idea was to keep it as simple as possible and minimize the bad.
This worked pretty well if I do say so myself.
Since then there have been a number of EBP Updates, changes and issues that have popped up. And, in my humble opinion, the EBP continues to be a vibrant reflection of the "best" of the Eve Blogging Community.
And there is that word.
I thought it would be a good time to define a bit more what I believe the Blog Pack is and isn't as we move into 2012. To me the EBP is a snapshot of the Eve Community of today, not of yesterday or tomorrow. A snapshot, not an album. Other people have lists, my personal favorite is Eve Blogger for example - it does an excellent job of linking Eve Blogs. Other people also have limited lists, or Best of lists, or friend lists, or any number of other ways of linking to Eve Blogs. But none of them are the Eve Blog Pack.
I am, in many ways, honor bound to uphold what I believe to be the spirit that CK created the Blog Pack for in the first place. Not to provide a comprehensive list of Eve Community Blogs, but to provide a snapshot of the ones that stand apart and that represent a wide selection of topics interesting to other members of the Eve Community.
So the EBP is about the reality of today. Getting on the EBP is no guarantee that you will be staying on the EBP. This isn't a Hall of Fame. It is a vibrant, living list. If you stop blogging for three months and then return, don't expect to see your blog on the list. It doesn't work like that. You will be replaced with someone else.
You need to write about Eve and write about Eve often. You need to do so in a way that is interesting, vibrant and important to the greater Eve Community. If not, you will be removed. And there is no warning, no head's up. I do try to help our EBP members if they are having problems, and they all know this is true, but I am not your babysitter. I still love you, but the list is the thing when it comes to EBP.
So moving forward the list will be updated more often under slightly more stringent personal guidelines from me.
The goal isn't to favor anyone, or punish anyone, the goal is to create a vibrant, strong, important snapshot of the Eve Blogging Community. It isn't easy to get on the list, it shouldn't be. And it isn't easy to get taken off the list. But staying on the list is more than getting on it in the first place. It isn't easy to continue to write about Eve and to stay excellent, that should also be true.
There will be changes coming this week. The first update of 2012 has been in the works for several weeks now. Already Eve A to Z has been removed due to non-Eve related postings.
More updates coming.
UPDATE: The Altruist moved his site. The Feed should have been working fine for a few weeks now, but I finally got around to fixing all the other links on here as well.
Since Ninja are sneaky and covert and clever, you might not know that there is such a thing as a Ninja Blog Pack. But there is. My good friend Aiden Mourn ( who just happens to be a Ninja, shhhh ) runs it over on his awesome blog that he calls Finders & Keepers.
Memorize that link and then destroy this... oh wait. Huh, quandary. Ok then, this blog post will self-destruct in five, four, three, two...
A permanent link will be going up around here shortly.
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Head on over to The Phoenix Diaries to learn more.
