Hey everyone!
I've been slammed at work for the past few weeks, so thank you for keeping an eye on the place. I'm slowly resurfacing and will keep making visible progress here, but I've also been working on some behind-the-scenes stuff in the little bit of free time I've been able to sneak in.
At this point, none of the off the shelf solutions I've tried have worked for what we're doing here (WordPress, Invision Community Pages, portal plugins, etc). I've tried "just living with it" and making do with what each system provides, but the end result is always something that makes the community an afterthought.
I try not to get sucked under the current, but it happens sometimes. Please don't confuse my preoccupation with a lack of interest in things here. We aren't going anywhere, but I might give you all some more powers so you can have more control and access if I've fallen off the Earth again.
I've been coding my own custom solution to handle the movie/book/game database stuff to work the way I want them to. Once it's done, we'll be able to expose a lot more of the forum (using the nifty API) across all the different sections and make it easier for people to find interesting content. We're not changing forum software anytime soon; this is something separate and custom that can pull data from our existing setup.
@PaulaJedi and @Classicalfan626 mentioned that the site has been pretty inactive, and that's 100% true. Some of that is a lack of new content being posted, and my being busy hasn't helped with that. The other part is really being able to find stuff worth posting in; a lot of the good stuff gets buried and interesting conversations aren't readily apparent. There's only so many categories you can spread things out to, so I need to find creative ways to dig deeper (without making it retarded). That's what I'm aiming to improve with the custom development.
If you look at the previous attempts at the movies section, it was pretty isolated even when it was running directly on this software. You had comments integrated, but that was about it. There was no good way to cross-link to other related areas of the site. In the custom solution I'm building, movies will pull in (at a minimum):
Even if you don't care about the CCDB stuff, the articles section alone will be worth it. Articles are in-depth explanations of different subjects within each of the core topics. An article about telekinesis (under Parapsychology), Wikipedia-like formatting (but a kickass design) and then links to movies, books, threads, etc. associated with whatever article it is.
The telekinesis article, for example, would explain the phenomenon at whatever length is appropriate but include links to things that help you experience or engage in that kind of subject. Matilda is a good example to link to here, as is Scanners or Zapped.
Extrapolate sort of web geekdom throughout most all other areas of the site and you've got a nice way to help people burrow into and discover the good stuff here (or at least help me keep learning to program). I know most of this sounds like gibberish, but it'll make sense once you use it.
Anyways, that's my update ? Thank you again for holding the fort. I'll have something fancy to show in a few weeks.
I've been slammed at work for the past few weeks, so thank you for keeping an eye on the place. I'm slowly resurfacing and will keep making visible progress here, but I've also been working on some behind-the-scenes stuff in the little bit of free time I've been able to sneak in.
At this point, none of the off the shelf solutions I've tried have worked for what we're doing here (WordPress, Invision Community Pages, portal plugins, etc). I've tried "just living with it" and making do with what each system provides, but the end result is always something that makes the community an afterthought.
I try not to get sucked under the current, but it happens sometimes. Please don't confuse my preoccupation with a lack of interest in things here. We aren't going anywhere, but I might give you all some more powers so you can have more control and access if I've fallen off the Earth again.
I've been coding my own custom solution to handle the movie/book/game database stuff to work the way I want them to. Once it's done, we'll be able to expose a lot more of the forum (using the nifty API) across all the different sections and make it easier for people to find interesting content. We're not changing forum software anytime soon; this is something separate and custom that can pull data from our existing setup.
@PaulaJedi and @Classicalfan626 mentioned that the site has been pretty inactive, and that's 100% true. Some of that is a lack of new content being posted, and my being busy hasn't helped with that. The other part is really being able to find stuff worth posting in; a lot of the good stuff gets buried and interesting conversations aren't readily apparent. There's only so many categories you can spread things out to, so I need to find creative ways to dig deeper (without making it retarded). That's what I'm aiming to improve with the custom development.
If you look at the previous attempts at the movies section, it was pretty isolated even when it was running directly on this software. You had comments integrated, but that was about it. There was no good way to cross-link to other related areas of the site. In the custom solution I'm building, movies will pull in (at a minimum):
- Comments for that entry (from the forum)
- Any content tagged with that movie's name
- Any content with the name of the movie in the title or a post (think "possibly related")
- Similar movies
- Related articles, books, games, etc
Even if you don't care about the CCDB stuff, the articles section alone will be worth it. Articles are in-depth explanations of different subjects within each of the core topics. An article about telekinesis (under Parapsychology), Wikipedia-like formatting (but a kickass design) and then links to movies, books, threads, etc. associated with whatever article it is.
The telekinesis article, for example, would explain the phenomenon at whatever length is appropriate but include links to things that help you experience or engage in that kind of subject. Matilda is a good example to link to here, as is Scanners or Zapped.
Extrapolate sort of web geekdom throughout most all other areas of the site and you've got a nice way to help people burrow into and discover the good stuff here (or at least help me keep learning to program). I know most of this sounds like gibberish, but it'll make sense once you use it.
Anyways, that's my update ? Thank you again for holding the fort. I'll have something fancy to show in a few weeks.
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