Monday, June 8, 2009

Retiring from card blogging

Right now, I am leaning heavily towards retiring from card blogging when I finish the current set of 1989 Topps Major League Debut. I'm simply not getting the kind of response that I had hoped for in terms of generating discussion about individual cards and players. Some folks out there, mainly other bloggers, have contributed nicely, but for the most part, I'm just not getting what I had hoped out of this effort, and it's taking too much time to continue under these circumstances.

In the end, this is my own failing. Clearly if the content on my blog were better, I'd generate more interest and readership and get the type of interaction I've been hoping for. I have attempted to increase the breadth and quality of my content but it hasn't helped.

So, despite the fact that I have 1990 Upper Deck High Numbers queued up for this blog, I expect to end it instead after finishing this set. I'll post about it again when I make a final decision.

17 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear that! I don't really post, but I do look forward to these every morning.

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  2. I might be inclined to continue if I can come up with a format that would encourage more posting. I'm toying with the idea of posting 4 cards at a time, having people comment on which card is the best of the 4, then going forward with the winners in a tournament until we find the best card--then awarding the set the whichever person ultimately commented on the most winning cards. I'm not explaining that very well, I think, but it might work. I'm thinking about it.

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  3. The "tournament" idea sounds like a good one.

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  4. How come crappy news always seems to come on Mondays? :(

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  5. Sorry guys--not trying to bring bad news. If you have ideas on how I can improve this blog, post them...I'm willing to try.

    The thing I'm trying to avoid is starting a set and then quitting halfway through like I did with 1978 Topps. That's a really crappy thing to do to readers. If I'm going to start the next set, I want to make sure I finish it.

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  6. I, too, would be sorry to see you go. I think certain blog entries lend themselves to comments better than others though - I know I enjoy posting my Larkin collection one card at a time, but mostly they remain commentless because what can someone say other than "nice card." It's a challenge, and a rather fine line, but on behalf of the entire blogosphere, we'd hate to see you give up!

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  7. Hey Andy,

    I love this blog. I would absolutely love for you to do the Upper Deck High Numbers. My expertise is in Blue Jay and Expos - I will promise to post a humourous post on all Blue Jay and Expo players if you go ahead and do that set.

    Thanks,

    Dave

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  8. I'm new to this post, but I typically don't comment anyhow. However, I've been enjoying, even anticipating each new entry. I hope that you find a reason to continue the blog.

    Also, Shopped Cards is awesome! Don't feel you have to award a prize every time though. Maybe that would relieve any burden.

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  9. Haven't posted as much as I should, but it would be odd not coming on here everyday and checking out a new card or two. Whatever you decide, I'm sure it'll be for the best...

    The tournament idea sounds like something that could be really interesting...

    How many cards are in the set? Even amount?
    Card #1 could face off vs. (for example) card # 200 ...and so on #2 vs #199....and so on..

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  10. I haven't been around in a while, but I would be sad to see you go. In any case, if you decide to retire, I would hope that you leave the blog entries here as an archive of sorts. I was disappointed when I saw the 1988 and 1978 blog posts disappeared.

    But always remember, there are some out there (like me) who surf the blogs and enjoy the posts but don't make comments often. Discussion is great, but sometimes the posts speak for themselves.

    I'm rambling. I'll shut up now.

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  11. What? The 78 and 88 blogs are still there with all the original posts.

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  12. Your tournament idea might work, Andy. I think with these cards, you may have to come up with something to encourage comments because, at least for me, there are a lot of players that I just haven't heard of in this set. And because of that I don't know what to say.

    But I'd hate to see this go away.

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  13. One thing that's true, as pointed out by both FanofReds and Night Owl, is that posts containing multiple cards are much more likely to warrant comments. So I'm leaning that way right now.

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  14. Sorry Andy, I see it now. You have to click on "Older Posts" to see anything other than the link to this blog. Confused me. Which isn't difficult to do.

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  15. I think an Upper Deck set would be more interesting than Topps or Score, both of which are very straightforward in their photography. UD pictures tend to be more interesting.
    As for commenting, I tend to only comment if I disagree on something. I do read and enjoy each post though.

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  16. I just started reading this a couple of weeks ago, and enjoy it! The tournament idea would be really cool, especially if you keep the names are still alphabetical like Topps did in 89.

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  17. Yeah..thanks everybody for the encouragement. I'm gonna give the tournament idea a shot with 1990 Upper Deck High Numbers. We should start late next week or the week after.

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