About The Blogs - Please Read If You Are A Blogger Or You Read Them

[Cry Me A River]

I think I can conclude that our blogging experiment has been a success. At least the sticky-post has been getting a bunch of hits, even though the counter resets every time I make a new post to add a new blog. Now that I think of it, deleting the previous stickies was dumb. If I'd just let them drop off I'd be able to get a count of how many total views. Oh well.

There are a couple things that should be discussed:


First, should it keep it's own sticky or just get out in the FAQ?

I think it's been popular enough to leave it with it's own sticky. I think that's far more accessible there and it's doubtful people are going back to re-read the FAQ anywhere near as often. I don't think 3 or 4 permanent/semi-permanent stickies are too much.

But if everyone wants to minimize the number of stickies, please say so and I'll reconsider just putting them in the FAQ. If there's no big outcry either way, I'll leave things the way they are.


Second, a couple people have had trouble viewing the blogs because the syndicator uses Flash.

I know my way around html/Javascript well enough but I'm not really knowledgeable at all about blogging. If anyone knows of anything similar that DOESN'T require a plug-in please let me know and I'll check it out. Flash is about as baseline as there is when it comes to plug-ins so I think the only way to improve the situation would be to go plug-in free.

Maybe Java?

I could probably cobble something together using frames, but it would look like crap. Something that looks comparable to what we have now, but without the impediment of Flash would be ideal. I think Java is a little more universal if anyone knows of anything. I don't know if running multiple instances of Java, as we do now with the Flash syndicator, is such a good idea due to resource issues so it might have to be something that can handle multiple blogs.

Anyway, we'll deal with that. If anyone has any suggestions, please post or PM!

[Split Suit]

u can delete my blog. i realized gettin that personal prob wasnt good timing for me. sry =(

[Cry Me A River]

K - Somebody PM'ed me with a new one this morning.

So for everyone reading this, it's going to look like we have the same number of blogs, but we'll actually have a new one.

[BotOnTilt]

Sir, I really appreciate the stuff you do for the forums. But thinking to code some new Java app just to display the blogs in a nicer fashion seems a bit extreme. I'm sure you can find something more fun to do [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

For the most part I think the list works nicely. By now I have some blogs that I read regularly and I figure I could just bookmark these, and then from time to time check if there is anything new in the other ones. So IMO it would be okay if the blogs were linked to in the FAQ, since less stickies makes much easier reading of 2+2 when I'm using a public computer (more threads per page without needing to log in). Also having a link in the FAQ would just mean one more click to get to the list.

If the whole blog list is in the FAQ it might be a bit clunky, and make the FAQ a bit less noob-friendly. Preferably there could be a link in the top of the FAQ so that I wouldn't need to search for it every time.

[RiverMustelid]

I don't really read the FAQ any more, having been around a little while, so probably would have missed the blogs if we had linked them from there. Having them so obvious is what made me start one of my own - I vote for keeping them where they are, as it doesn't seem to cluttered to me.

[BotOnTilt]

One thing I forgot to ask for, the name of the blogger links to his user page. If the flash doesn't work for me I can't go to the blogs unless the user has a link for them in his own page. I'd like to have a text link adjacent to the flash thingies so that I could access the blogs without flash. This could just link to the main page, as I guess it would be hard to keep it updated.

[Cry Me A River]

[ QUOTE ]
Sir, I really appreciate the stuff you do for the forums. But thinking to code some new Java app just to display the blogs in a nicer fashion seems a bit extreme. I'm sure you can find something more fun to do


[/ QUOTE ]

Lol. I'm not really up for writing something in Java from scratch. I was just hoping someone knew of something similar to what we're already using, but in Java, since it might present a little less of a compatibility problem.

[ QUOTE ]

One thing I forgot to ask for, the name of the blogger links to his user page. If the flash doesn't work for me I can't go to the blogs unless the user has a link for them in his own page. I'd like to have a text link adjacent to the flash thingies so that I could access the blogs without flash. This could just link to the main page, as I guess it would be hard to keep it updated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good idea, I'll add direct links to the blogs the next time I add/remove a blog or in the next couple days.