Dear readers, subscribers and blogger friends,
After almost three years I bid farewell to my old blogger blog, known as Raging Monkeys (sometimes with apostrophe, sometimes not) and am very happy to welcome you to my brand new wordpress site: MMO Gypsy!
When google announced the death of google reader that was the final push for me to turn my back on blogger whose continued existence is now doubtful at best. I’ve always toyed with the idea of moving to wordpress but platform switches being such stressful undertakings, I resisted. So, I guess this is where I give thanks to google for ever treating blogger as their bastard child.
That said, moving blogs cross-platform was as rocky as expected; much reading, eyebrow raising and hair tearing has gone before this very first post on wordpress. Coming from blogger with all its installed conveniences and simple stylesheet, learning how to navigate WP’s plugins structure, editing themes and setting up a self-hosted domain are a challenge. That last part was easiest thanks to some friendly support, but I am still working my way through finish issues concerning permalinks switches, feed redirection, google’s SEO et cetera. Oh boy.
A new name and theme
I am very happy that the move to WP also marks the beginning of finally hosting my own blog (as blog content ownership is shady at best at blogger) and loosing the baggage of Raging Monkeys. It is always weird to be the only person blogging from a ‘plural blog name’, frequently being referred to as ‘they/them’. Somewhere along the lines I gave using an apostrophe a shot which only created more confusion on people’s blogrolls, either linking to Raging Monkeys or Monkey’s. Yeah, that worked well. I haven’t felt attachment to my old blog’s title for a long time now and after having had friends ask me what was apish or angry about my blog, I had to agree that it neither really fit my personality nor writing style. It was fun for a few months before blogger hindsight struck me. Alas, Raging Monkeys was my home for a long time and I’ll always treasure it for all the enjoyment blogging in the MMO sphere and interacting with my commenters has brought me.
I’ve chosen MMO Gypsy as my new alias. I feel it’s a fitting description of my many travels through online worlds that started over a decade ago. I know I will be attached to this wonderful genre for much longer. There is also a more personal identification with the literal gypsy as I partly share origins with some of that wandering folk. This is something I only recently discovered, so I take it as a good omen towards the new name choice.
About the old feed and blogroll issues
Due to both permalink reasons and google punishing duplicate content, the old blog is not accessible anymore but redirects to the new domain. However, as you can see I managed to fully import all my past articles and all your old comments to MMO Gypsy! This was the most important part for me and luckily it all went smoothly. I am glad that from now on there will be more and better options for commenting.
As I intend to keep my old feedburner feed, no changes have gone into the site’s feed; if you subscribed to my old blog before, you should now automatically get the new updates from MMO Gypsy. I have installed a feed-redirection in WP on behalf of new joiners (unfortunately WP automatically generates its own feed and won’t let you delete/replace it) and sincerely hope that’s working reliably to direct them to my old feed to avoid multiple feeds. Please let me know if this appears not to be the case!
To those of you who have Raging Monkeys on their blogroll: I’m afraid this will have to be updated manually by yourself as the old blogger link will not update any longer or reliably (and certainly not update the blog title). Thanks!
With that, I hope to have sorted the most important aspects of the move. As you can see the new blog is not entirely finished yet and I have few qualms to sort out on the sidebar and plugins to find to replace blogger’s inbuilt functionality for mobile view or statistics. Many thanks for letting me know if you detect an error or loading issues anywhere!
A look ahead and thank you
So much novelty did of course beg for a brand new look, too. I’ve been a white, minimalist theme blogger forever and while I loved Raging Monkeys final look (and have kept its overall layout and font styles), I’ve been wanting to go more ‘gamey’ and cheerful for a while. I hope all you non-feed readers like the new look – after much fixing I am quite happy with it now!
All that said, from here on MMO Gypsy is resuming all business and tomfoolery as usual. While names may have changed, I remain yours truly Syl, host of this not-so-serious but always sincere MMO and RPG blog – looking forward to many adventures to come, interesting discussions and great laughs with the community.
I do also want to take this opportunity to thank all my faithful readers and commenters, those who have stuck with Raging Monkeys for so long and those who have only discovered it more recently. You’re what’s making blogging this fantastic and worthwhile experience to me and all the merry chats, insightful debates and exchanges we’ve had over the years are what I will always cherish and welcome, also on this new blog. I look forward to seeing you back here! A very warm welcome to MMO Gypsy!
– Syl 🙂 (who still needs to figure out how to align images in WP)
Looking good so far! 🙂
Thanks Brian! I think I may still knock on your door with a wp question or two!
Looks great! Good luck 😉
Haha thanks Spinks! I hope the worst is over though!
So far, so good, Syl…
Yay, welcome back! and why can I not see the bearded dwarf? =/ I hav to figure out what other avatar plugins I need, obviously!
Ah, you mean the Ghost of Redbeard? I guess being from Europe you’re not familiar with the Scooby Doo cartoon, but ol’ Redbeard was a villan in one of the original Scooby Doo episodes.
I found a wiki online that explains the episode: “Scooby Doo Where Are You?” Episode 14: Go Away Ghost Ship
Haha, now wait a minute! of course SD was on TV here too in the 80ies, hmpf 😛
I was just never a follower, so my ignorance is entirely mine. Cheers for the link!
Please take me off your blogroll; I do not appreciate being referred to as a gypsy.
Your wish is granted!
I’d also like to be placed in the upcoming “Particularly Awesome Bloggers” section.
Hooray! Nice new domain and site. 🙂
Thanks Liore! and same as for Redbeard – whyyy can I not see your lovely avatar? I’ll get to the bottom of this asap!
Looks great so far! If you want to consolidate your WP feed into something a little more manageable, you could use the Feedburner plug-in. It’s Google-based, but for a quick way to keep tabs on how many subscribers you have, it works. And if it goes under, no harm is done.
Hmm, I’ll check again, thanks. I am already using a feedburner plugin or two, so not sure which one you mean.
Welcome to the WordPress side, young padawan 🙂
This should make it easier for me to post comments here, I find commenting on Blogger can be a pain at times. On the other hand, those difficulties HAVE kept me from making intemperate responses to Tobold a time or two hundred…
Thanks! 🙂 yeah I know many bloggers hate blogger comment forms – so no more excuses henceforward, hehe!
Nice work. Looks good via the Pulse reader (I’m still trying to find a replacement for Reader) on a phone so you’re doing it right! It also looks great on my PC. I’m dreading the move from Blogger so I think I’ll bury my head in the sand for a while longer. :p
Oh great, I appreciate the feedback. I think some of my meddling broke the mobile styles, but oh well – can’t have it all working at once! 😉 the move is a bit stressful yes, but hey you know whee to ask now. 🙂
Looking good! This explains why my Google Reader had 15 articles from you all of a sudden yesterday, timed with the import I guess 😉
New title sounds good, all the best going forward!
Oh my, it did? =O haha am sorry! glad though it was only 15 and not 300 rofl….
many thanks ^^
I still hope that the doom and gloom about Blogger is misplaced… but well done on your move! I agree that you’d long outgrown the Raging Monkeys name, it was just one of those random oddities by now. 😛
It was 🙂 I’m glad to have lost it now.
and well, you never know with google – for me it was just the last straw of my overall blogger malcontent.
Looking great and congratulations on getting the move nailed down. I’ve been thinking about it but like Comptess above I’m putting it off. While I no longer trust Google, I do at least believe they will give fair warning when they decide to close Blogger so I will probably wait to deal with it then.
I’ve already moved to Feedly though, which I’m getting used to. I picked this link up from there and that came in turn from my Reader feed so your move has gone smoothly as far as that’s concerned. Off to add MMOGypsy to my blogroll now!
Many thanks! I’m sure they would give due notice. and if you still decide to move sometime, you know where to ask now! 🙂 maybe I’ll make a brief guide sometime too….the sheer amount of misinformation out there was part of the headache.
Love the new look!
/an irregular reader (might be more now) 🙂
Yay for new visitors! welcome and thank you very much 🙂
Looking great. 🙂 I confess to being a mite fond of the delightful absurdity of the Raging Monkeys name, but I’m sure t’will be a matter of time and we’ll all get used to your new moniker. And hooray for WordPress!
Cheers! 🙂 delightful absurdity sounds wonderful haha, don’t make me miss it now!
Very posh! I like your new title as well!
Thanks Ironyca! 🙂