TR Website Overhaul

[Swiftoak]

Let's face it. Our website is confusing, broken, and most importantly outdated in several aspects.

This is a stark contrast to the work we've done and the massive leaps in terms of standards and professioanlism in our work (I don't mean to sound snobby in this regard either).

Yet our website continues to be dated to 2002-3. Now this isn't me criticising anyone in particular, and I know there are more important things to be taken care of, but it would be nice if our entire website got a facelift. Even if it's just discussion at this point, it's time we start to talk about this.

I want our website to be simple and functional. This is more important than how it looks, but that is important too.

Simplicity: I think our current layout is not sufficient for our needs. There are alot of links on the left, top, etc, and alot of old/dead things that are no longer needed. I propose we condense everything into categorized pull-down menus, that make everything easy to find. I'll break down what I think will work later in this post.

Functionality: Alot of things are broken. Our claims browser, permissions, etc, people not being able to see claim descriptions, and other things I probably don't know about since I'm not a moderator. I think this should be our first priority is just getting the backend of our site working properly. Perhaps updating to phpBB3 and cleaning up code (something I admittedly know nothing about) will be a good start. Perhaps adjusting our claims browser to increase workflow. Particular things of note are fixing broken permissions, retooling the system to work properly for NPC claims, and sorting them out based on release instead of the old map system. Arvisrend mentioned the introduction of a proper bugtracking system.

Content: Alot of things are old. Too many for me to list. We should get rid of the old screenshot gallery and make a new one, with our newer stuff, categorized by release instead of the old development map system. Tutorials need to be condensed and more concise, alot of stuff needs to be re-written to 2013 standards, etc.

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/vucj22pc1u87a92/bored.jpg

Now onto my "mockup" which I made up quickly because I was bored.


The About section will provide visitors with an overview about what we are, and how we work. From this menu, people can see the following:
-What is TR?: Basically our mission statement. Our first impression on people. The most important things need to be said here. We can briefly talk about our origins and history, but not too much since what we like to coin as "Old TR" isn't really relevant now.
-FAQs: Basically everything above but in more detail. Self-explanatory. Like what games do we mod for, whens the next release coming out, etc.
-The Team: Similar to what we have now perhaps. Who's in the core, reviewers, and modders.
-Release Schedule: not sure if this needs to be here, but people need to know how we're breaking our releases down, maybe this is redundant and can go in the FAQ? In the future this would be like a guide of sorts to get people acquainted with the mainland, and the various factions and people.
-Cartography: Self explanatory, maps of our stuff. It would be nice if we had a newer map with the new names and stuff. Again not a priority.
-Progress Blog: Maybe a link to our tumblr? Maybe this isn't needed.
-How to Contribute: Telling people how to get started, making a showcase, maybe showcase guidelines?

The Media section will provide visitors with screenshots, videos, modding resources etc. Broken down in this fashion.
-Screenshots: Self-explanatory. Sorted by release, or even by house territory.
-Videos: Ditto, maybe just embed our youtube stuff in a nice grid.
-Concept Art: What it says, concept art. Broken down by province, we can include our old stuff too, it's nice.
-The Library: In-game TR books for people to read.
-Modding Tutorials: Updated how-to-mod-for-us-for-dummies.

And the Downloads section will be where people can download stuff.
-Released Files: Main download link.
-Modding Utilities: Stuff like TESAME, Wyre Mash, etc.
-Our name generator.
-Soundtrack: Our music.
-Wallpapers: This could be redundant, go into media maybe?

Of course this was just a start. The categorization thing should only serve as a starting point. I made this in 20 minutes for the hell of it, but hopefully it will be something to work from.

[Aeven]

Like I said on IRC, this is a great mockup. I don't believe it's incredibly hard to do either, both for the main site and the forums.

We could rewrite text together, as though they were weird claims.

[Yeti]

I've never had any major problems with our humble website before, but I wouldn't mind seeing it updated either. It is rather out of date. Not to the point that it really impedes our work flow as far as I can tell, but I agree with Switftoak that there are a lot of inconveniences.

The question is, do we have someone with the time and skill to update the site without impeding our progress on the mod? Making our lands should always be our first priority, in my opinion. Right now we seem to be picking up the pace in terms of getting stuff done around here. I'd hate to see this headway disrupted by focusing too much on making our site super fancy.

If a site update is practical, however, and won't disrupt our modders or led to the loss of any of our past forum discussions, then I'm all for it.

[Swiftoak]

Agreed. There's no set timeline, I just want this to be a topic of discussion.

Our first priority should be upgrading our forums to phpBB3 (thought this was already going to happen?) and fixing the broken claims system. Having a functional backend will do wonders in terms of organization. Anything else like the main site can easily be dressed up afterwards and it wouldn't be too hard.

Things like implementing a bugtracker and retooling the claims system so that we don't have this clusterfuck of threads all over the place for NPCs, detailing, etc are paramount. Having a proper bugtracker will streamline how we deal with bugreports. Navigating through those bugreport threads right now is horribly confusing and time consuming.

As for the claims browser, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it's very broken, people not being able to see attachments, claim descriptions, etc. I must admit I myself don't know much about this becasue I'm not a moderator so I don't see fully how it works.

Here is a suggestion of how a future claims browser could work though.

I suggest having ONE thread per claim, and having that thread move between subforums reflecting it's progress.

So 5-32 would start off in Exteriors Unclaimed, then move through the process as it stands now, until it is finished. One small change is during the final review, before approving the claim, they must create and link any associated interior claims to be "bound" to the exterior thread. This should be done from a control panel in the claim thread itself. Each interior claim will have the following three pieces of data. Name of door mesh in the exterior file, it's exact co-ordinates, and a claim description. This is to make it easy for interior makers to pinpoint exactly where their interior is, and for mergers in the NPC stage to know which interior goes where. The interior threads will continue to be seperate. At this point the claim can be approved and moved to Exteriors: Finished.

Once the exterior claim is finished and approved (as per the process described above), a moderator can change it's flag to become an NPC claim. This can only happen if ALL of the interiors associated with this claim are complete (conveniently download links to the latest interior file of all claims associated with the exterior will appear in the thread). Ownership of the claim is then removed from the exterior claimant, as the thread is moved into the new NPC claim subforum and is opened to claiming. And so on.

Another neat thing we could implement is the ability to claim. For example, I'm an exterior/interior modder, but not an NPC modder. I would be barred from claiming an NPC claim until I was promoted for NPCs and put in the appropriate usergroup. I'd still be able to see and comment on NPC claim threads, just not press claim. I don't know how hard all of this will be to implement right now. If I have some time later, I could draw up some more mockups of how it would work.

Anyways that's all I have to say right now. Hopefully some others will give their feedback.

[Lady Nerevar]

I don't think anything about having a newer website or a better-functioning organization system is debatable. I hate the black mockup, though. Color wise, I'd go with a light tan, more akin to the current site or to that of elderscrollsonline.com

If I remember correctly about the last time this all came up, the biggest issue with overhauling the website is that a lot of it draws information from the forum. I'd like to suggest looking into a content management system (such as Wordpress or Drupal) so that the website can easily be updated on the fly by someone without any html, css, or php knowledge.

P.S. we have a Tumblr?

[arvisrend]

No time on my side to take part in this discussion, but just mentioning that trac has a dependency system, so you could tag a ticket for an int claim as depending on a ticket for an ext claim, and then you can easily have it list all tickets depending on a given ticket (i. e., in this case, all ints in a given ext claim).

[Gez]

Using an issue tracker (Trac, Mantis, whatever else) would make sense for claims. It's a near-perfect tool for the job.

Claiming: done by assigning the "issue" to someone.
Revoking: removing the assignment.
Map grouping: done with milestones.
Linking ints with ext: done through "related issues".
Approving: closing.

[arvisrend]

Exactly, except I'd do

Approving: positive review.
Merging: closing.

(This is one of the things I'm missing in the current claim system: a way to see if a given int is already merged in somewhere or just finished.)

[Aeven]

A Trac system is currently in the works. I think it'd be a good idea for a couple of people to input the stuff we have so far in there too, so as to properly know what's been done with the stuff.

As for a site redesign, I personally like the dark colour, but a lighter scheme could work too. As long as I don't feel like I've stepped back into 2003, I'd be happy. (And that's not a suggestion to step back into 1998)

[arvisrend]

Finally having some time to respond...

Simplicity: I think our current layout is not sufficient for our needs. There are alot of links on the left, top, etc, and alot of old/dead things that are no longer needed. I propose we condense everything into categorized pull-down menus, that make everything easy to find. I'll break down what I think will work later in this post.

I'm a bit surprised to see "pull-down menu" and "simplicity" written in one paragraph. We do have a pull-down menu already, though, so this shouldn't be hard to make if we want to. But I'd rather have the pull-down menus fully optional (i. e., every part of the website should be accessible without using them). Pull-down menus tend to make things very invisible (and can be a mess on mobile browsers and nonstandard screens).

Functionality: Alot of things are broken. Our claims browser, permissions, etc, people not being able to see claim descriptions, and other things I probably don't know about since I'm not a moderator.

I'm hoping trac can improve the claiming process (noone said it should only be used as a bugtracker!), although permissions probably won't be very easy on trac either. A problem with permissions is that some things we want are a bit... weird. E. g., I remember the majority opinion being that interiors in reviewing should be visible only to reviewers, but quests in reviewing should be visible to everyone? I guess this will need some tweaking whatever backend we are using.

Content: Alot of things are old. Too many for me to list. We should get rid of the old screenshot gallery and make a new one, with our newer stuff, categorized by release instead of the old development map system. Tutorials need to be condensed and more concise, alot of stuff needs to be re-written to 2013 standards, etc.

Oh yes. We've got lots of information on the forums that really should be on the website.

The About section will provide visitors with an overview about what we are, and how we work. From this menu, people can see the following:
-What is TR?: Basically our mission statement. Our first impression on people. The most important things need to be said here. We can briefly talk about our origins and history, but not too much since what we like to coin as "Old TR" isn't really relevant now.

Yes, and FFS drop all that fluff ("Do you want to travel to the edges of the Argon Jungle, which few have survived?" etc.). The average age of a Morrowind player by now shouldn't be under 20.

-FAQs: Basically everything above but in more detail. Self-explanatory. Like what games do we mod for, whens the next release coming out, etc.

Yes. From my memory: backward compatibility; not having to download all the older releases; mod conflicts (link to mlox; also someone who knows MGSO might comment on that); requirements (link to MCP); suggestions (link to MGE XE); localizations (none so far).

[Swiftoak]

I only suggested pull down menus because having so many links can be clutter-y.

I totally agree with N on a CMS. It would save us tons of time. I'm more of a visual person so I can make graphics and design layouts, but coding them outside of basic HTML/CSS is outside my realm, and a content-driven project such as ours needs more than that. Wordpress might be a good start. I still like how our news page draws from the forums though, because it allows people to discuss news items. So if we can find some sort of compromise between an CMS and drawing stuff like news from the forums still, I'd be happy.

Cutting the fluff is exactly what I want frankly. There's no need at all to display the claim maps and who has each claim, as they're mostly an internal development thing.

Also per N's suggestion, a version with lighter tones. Colours could still be tweaked, not entirely happy with them, but it's an alternative to the black. I only chose black last time to match beth's ES sites. It really doesn't matter, so long as we have something fresh and more importantly functional.

I don't think this would be difficult to implement. The news page would use the same PHP code to draw news from the News forum. The screenshots tab would be random screenshots form the wordpress gallery plugin, and content pages are easy enough to make and update.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i389zl7wteacbme/bored-2.jpg

Let me know what you all think.

[Aeven]

Instead of the claim maps, maybe something akin to what UESP has done for Vvardenfell?

Also, I like the other colour scheme too, but I prefer the other one.

Swiftoak, are you saying that in theory, if we chose a CMS for the main site, you could code its HTML/CSS?

[Swiftoak]

In theory perhaps, I could find a good template to start on, and analyze it, figure out what code does what, and make it look like the mockup. I've done that before, but not with wordpress. This would be well into next year if I do though and would take alot of time. I won't be around TR as much as I was these past few weeks, so it will have to be put on the backburner. If someone else can code it though, I can gladly give them my graphics (like the TR mini banner) to work with.

I'm not a webmaster though, and I don't want to step on anyones toes. I'd rather have our current webmaster handle things if they have the time of course, since they probably know how our site works better than anyone else here. I'm just offering suggestions heh.

Perhaps Haplo or TF might know how to contact them if they're still lurking about. Maybe a Q1/Q2 2014 launch would be nice. I'd much rather see the trac stuff taken care of first though.

[Lady Nerevar]

Swiftoak, are you saying that in theory, if we chose a CMS for the main site, you could code its HTML/CSS?

The beauty of Wordpress is that we could likely find something very close to our wants without having to code anything from scratch. Assuming we don't get too picky While I know nothing about modifying the actual php files for wordpress, the css is generally easy to make visual tweaks with.

What is being drawn from the website right now? As far as I remember, it's:
news (not a major issue, I think, we update rarely enough that we can cross-post it if needed. Or keep news a site-only thing, enabling comments on the articles themselves)
the team roster (a bit bigger of an issue, would need to be updated with new modders regularly)
the painfully inaccurate top claimant list (can be ditched, I think)
books (do we really need these on the site to begin with?)

Other than the team list, and maybe the news, I don't really think we need to integrate the site and forum. Especially if it would make having a modern site and forum easier.

[Aeven]

I agree with what N said. We can quite easily replace the main site with Wordpress, and make a new theme for phpBB, regardless of whether we update to phpBB3 (which would be nice.)

[Katze]

w/ regards to Wordpress- yes please. Wordpress is awesome :3

[Swiftoak]

I'm a bit wary about using a new piece of software for our claims system. Or a massive forums overhaul. Would it not be easier to upgrade our forums to phpBB3 and tweak our existing system for our current needs? (In regards to NPC claims and interior merging).

It would be another learning curve. I'm content with using trac as a bugtracker to streamine our error reporting process, I'm not entirely sure how it would work as a fully-functional claims browser. I still prefer our claims system to be fully integrated with our forums because it allows for discussion in the claim thread itself, but I'm sure someone can speak more about this that I can.

I say yes to wordpress too for our main site. If I have time at the end of the month I may start on some functional mockups for the wordpress theme. I'd like to hear what Hap or TF, or our webmaster has to say on all this though, because it seems to me they of all of us would have the most experience dealing with such matters.

[Lady Nerevar]

make a new theme for phpBB, regardless of whether we update to phpBB3 (which would be nice.)

I would prioritize functionality (update) over appearance (theme). Doubly so if we're switching to a different software for claims tracking, which eliminates the need to re-code the CB (which, I believe, was the biggest hurdle to an update?)

[Haplo]

Ha. A website thread.

Also re: old things: This is TR; our website is from 2003. The Claims Browser is from 2005. Everything we have was written by a guy who was learning how to code. It was literally his learn how to code project. Now no one has an excuse to be surprised at how shambled our website is. That it even works half as well as it does is a miracle on a daily basis. We use phpBB 2.0.18. phpBB3 was launched in 2007. We've been a full version behind for five years, because all our shit is custom-written for phpBB2 and most 'pro' mods in phpBB2 aren't compatible with phpBB3, let alone the mods we have. Not to mention there is some Javascript and decent amounts of Flash and lots of PHP and lots of MySQL thrown into the XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS2 mix.

So when you find someone who has the time to re-write-while-fixing-the-broken-bits all of our website utilities into one nice, neat package, using PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, MySQL, etc., then we can talk about colors. This involves poring over literally tens of thousands of awfully-commented (if you're lucky) lines of code poorly-integrated across multiple languages and even more files in yet more directories. After you do this and have a firm grasp of the code that makes up TR, then you can begin with the new code.

There is no easy fix; we have tried nearly half a dozen times to fix or update just one thing here or there. Any kind of upgrade or replacement means EVERYTHING must be redone from scratch. Literally everything. It is not an exaggeration.

Also our webmaster webmasters us pro bono, and he doesn't even really have time for that most of the time. As for who knows how our website works best, no one does. Even Zephyr, who created it, has forgotten by now.

[Massalinie]

I like our website, it's classic. I wouldn't like it if the colour scheme changed, it's just TR like this.

Plus what Haplo said. ^_^ Our claims browsers is something we take for granted but a new website would require it as well as numerous other features that the project has become accustomed to. Plus the most important point - you'd need to find a person to actually make this happen, which has been tried before and so far no one promising enough has come along. Garfield isn't just going to hand the website over to every johnny who wants to give it a shot so it has to be someone who is serious about it and good at it.

[Yeti]

Considering what Haplo just posted, I suggest we all be thankful that our website works at all and leave it at that.

[Sload]

can we just replace the front page with a tumblr, linking to the rest of our content in the same way the front page currently does, that a wide range of members have access to, so that we can regularly post screenshots?

the big problem with our public website is that our front page has a 2003 mentality: "news" updates announcing important changes. we should be posting new awesome screenshots all the time whenever they are taken. but the screenshots seems like it has to be updated manually (i dont see it in the Website forum that updates tutorial) and to make a post on the front page you have to make a thread in news, which is obnoxious if its just some pictures of Gargen Huul.

a tumblr would also allow these screenshots to be spread to other TES fans through reblogging, raising our profile. really, just running a tumblr (like N has said) would be a good thing, the best would be for the same content to be showing up on our main page though.

[Haplo]

Considering what Haplo just posted, I suggest we all be thankful that our website works at all and leave it at that.

I'm not saying we should just give up and accept our fate of a web 1.5 era website, just that everyone should be aware of the tremendous amount of work actually required to do something of this nature. We have tried and largely failed in a concerted effort something like four times or five times to get the website redone or the forum upgraded; there are a half dozen threads in the admin forum with dozens of pages of replies between them trying to do just that.

Also I think it is worth being said that I feel like this thread is detracting from the purpose of the Halfway House, which is to plan out and implement the mod. I do understand and appreciate that the website and forums are the channel through which we do all of that together, and improving them will vastly improve our ability to build the mod, but people should not be jumping on a bandwagon here and channeling all of their energy on this, assuming it's as easy as thinking up some ideas and then it will get implemented.

[Lady Nerevar]

a tumblr would also allow these screenshots to be spread to other TES fans through reblogging, raising our profile. really, just running a tumblr (like N has said) would be a good thing, the best would be for the same content to be showing up on our main page though.

I started a tumblr about a minute after I asked if we had a tumblr.

http://tamriel-rebuilt.tumblr.com/

[Haplo]

I think something like a tumblr is a good idea, but not a tumblr. We already have lots of independent social media presences; what we need in this regard is something integrated into our website.

[Lady Nerevar]

I agree that we need more frequent (and sexier) updates on our site, but the benefit of Tumblr is the community and the ease of spread. Right now, we have 40 followers (not bad after two days up) - that means every post is automatically seen by 40 people. When I reblog it to my account, it is automatically seen by 200 people. If one of my followers reblogs it from me, all their followers see it, and so on. It's a pyramid scheme of publicity.

The community of Tumblr is also one that we hadn't really been reaching before. It is full of great artists who we could definitely use. Our biggest presence is really on the official forums, which is a tiny community of people who already all know eachother. Outreach to people in other places, who aren't already part of 3 province mods, is, I think, valuable.

[Sload]

I think something like a tumblr is a good idea, but not a tumblr. We already have lots of independent social media presences; what we need in this regard is something integrated into our website.

Is it possible for us to integrate tumblr seamlessly into our front page so that people without a tumblr wouldn't even notice it was a tumblr? (I'm fairly certain the answer is yes.)

[Swiftoak]

Do we really need so much code? Most of our forum features sans our claim browser should work without any crazy stuff.

We should replace our mainsite with a CMS like Wordpress because that's the easiest soluytion, and leave the forums given its' complex nature.

Tumblr is catered mostly towards the TLDR crowd IIRC. Our wordpress/main site should be for the most important updates/information. Tumblr to post more "on-the-fly" updates such as Tyrion's lovely review videos, gifsets, screenshot pretties. We can also use the tumblr to cross-post our most important news updates, such as releases, etc. That way the two platforms aren't redundant.

Sload's idea of moving the tumblr to the main page also works.

----

Now at the risk of derailing this thread, I would like to point out a few things I've observed. This is still sort-of website related, but not as much.

I'm not pretending I know anything, and I do not want Garfield to actually give me or anyone site-admin. I don't want to tear the whole place down here and now just so we can get a prettier site. I'm well aware that this isn't a mission-critical issue. I was bored, made a mockup, and wanted to contribute some ideas. I don't see at all how this detracts from mod planning at all. It's not like there's a fixed deadline for all this, and that I'm asking people to drop everything they're doing to work on this (and if I somehow came off that way, then I apologize). Just that people keep it in mind for the future, whenever that may be. See if I had known that these discussions were already happening elsewhere I wouldn't have bothered wasting anyones time (or my time for that matter) making this thread.

What is the purpose of the HH if there is still secrecy and hidden forums?

I thought the purpose of HH was to promote people smart enough to be on the core without needing core-powers to participate in these kinds of discussions.

I'm probably going to be lynched for even suggesting this but I think members of HH should have access to all forums from now on, forgoing the need of an "admin forum" altogether. We have a PM system, and maybe an admin-IRC channel for stuff that absolutely must be kept secret (such as deliberating future core members, etc).

This isn't me trying to usurp the core, or pry my nose into other people's business. I could care less about power and stuff like that, the core would still be heads of departments, and keep the place running smoothly. I just want to make things as transparent as possible for the benefit of progress.

I just feel the project has evolved to the point where I cannot even begin to understand what aspects of mod planning are so high-level that only a select few are allowed to participate. Is it really necessary to have that fourth-tier? This is 2013-TR. We're all mature and knowledgeable enough (at least I'd like to think so) to handle these kinds of discussions.

Anyways, I don't mean to sound upset or melodramatic. That's the last thing I want. Feel free to dismiss this as ignorant jibberish from an ancient red squirrel who's AWOL more often than not.

[Haplo]

Is it possible for us to integrate tumblr seamlessly into our front page so that people without a tumblr wouldn't even notice it was a tumblr? (I'm fairly certain the answer is yes.)

If so then this is a nearly-ideal solution for a centralized cover screen/section for our website.

Do we really need so much code? Most of our forum features sans our claim browser should work without any crazy stuff.

I'm not sure you are realizing how barebones the phpBB software framework is compared to our forum. Nearly all of the functions beyond "create a topic and reply" and "PM a user" are mods. The Claims Browser alone is a mixture of about two dozen mods and twice as much custom code.

We should replace our mainsite with a CMS like Wordpress because that's the easiest soluytion, and leave the forums given its' complex nature.

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but we are already in the midst of working to get a forums and website updated. The new version would have a CMS and other such modern features.

What is the purpose of the HH if there is still secrecy and hidden forums?

I thought the purpose of HH was to promote people smart enough to be on the core without needing core-powers to participate in these kinds of discussions.

The purpose of the Halfway House is to hold higher-level discussions about the planning and direction of the mod, without having to deal with really stupid suggestions from people who are promoted to TR Modders for something, and yet still have the urge to post their ideas about topics or fields about which they aren't really knowledgeable. To put it very bluntly: all TR Modders should be good at modding, but some people who are good at modding are still idiots (or make idiotic suggestions). We don't want the idiots in our lore and quest and planning discussions, and so Halfway House was born.

I'm probably going to be lynched for even suggesting this but I think members of HH should have access to all forums from now on, forgoing the need of an "admin forum" altogether. We have a PM system, and maybe an admin-IRC channel for stuff that absolutely must be kept secret (such as deliberating future core members, etc).

I just feel the project has evolved to the point where I cannot even begin to understand what aspects of mod planning are so high-level that only a select few are allowed to participate. Is it really necessary to have that fourth-tier? This is 2013-TR. We're all mature and knowledgeable enough (at least I'd like to think so) to handle these kinds of discussions.

Absolutely not. An administrative forum is always required for any type of forum with regular users. For the same reason that the House of Representatives in the United States has not kept it's ratio of representatives per constituents even at all since its creation; we can't have administrative-level votes or discussions with the number of people who are in the core + the number of people who have access to the Halfway House; that would be the majority of active modders at TR, in which case why have a halfway house or leaders at all. This is not even mentioning the trust or authority issues that would surface if we simply merged or did away with the administration forums. It exists additionally as a layer of permanently-recorded accountability that is not timezone-sensitive.

Administrative forums are not used for things as you are suggesting. All of that stopped and moved here when the Halfway House is created. However, there are still many things of an administrative nature that the core has a responsibility to handle. I won't go into detail about the various things we deal with in admin because they are the issues for the core and not for TR Modders, Halfway House or otherwise. I hate to say "trust me", but trust me; you are not missing out on any knowledge as far as mod-related planning goes. The Halfway House is the highest tier that exists at TR for that type of discussion. Administration forums are literally those; forums for administration.

The biggest thing to take away here is: something like a website upgrade is an administrative task, not a modding task. The Halfway House is a space for modding work, not administrative or managerial work. If a time comes when non-administrative input and/or discussion is necessary or useful or right, then we will post something in Internal Discussion, or here, depending on how sensitive we feel the information or discussion is/should be.

[Sload]

This website is a tumblr, demonstrating all of the features I think we'd want our photos and news updates section of our website to have: http://www.stfuparentsblog.com/

[Massalinie]

The tumblr would be easily doable, my concern would be on who can post. We obviously can't just let Joe Noobie who just got his showcase approved throw up photos of his terrible practice mods. Is there a way to allow members to post on a tumblr and an admin to approve them? I feel like it's just a blog intended for one user.

[Edit] After some research; it appears that tumblr has a group blog option which allows you to administer the blog and add members who can post, I suppose if we only added trusted members to the actual blog that could potentially work.[/Edit]

[Aeven]

Perhaps just members of Halfway?

[Sload]

Members of halfway seems good, the point of having many people is to make the blog as active as possible. Probably some degree of coordination about when to show things off to the public would be good.

[Massalinie]

Yes, you want to maximize activity while maintaining the integrity of the project. I don't see why any modder, who has genuinely worked to be involved in the project in the first place, would abuse the privilege of being able to post to our front page. It may be worth considering admin approval before posts go live but that's up to the core. As long as a decent set of guidelines are applied, I don't see why the halfway people or even the modders in general couldn't post when something is worth showing off.

*waits for Haplo to get annoyed about the fact that we are still discussing this*

I do think it is worth discussing though! The website has been this way for a looong time and now members are even complaining about it. This is actually a good suggestion that would be easily implemented and I think it's worth some consideration.

(It does amuse me slightly that this conversation is mainly occurring between three members who, until very recently, have been mostly to entirely inactive on the forums) ^_^

[Lady Nerevar]

A few reasons we shouldn't rely on tumblr for our primary website (though I do love it as a secondary blog):

Tumblr isn't as flexible as wordpress or another CMS. Unless our website slims down a whole lot, it will take a lot of wrangling to get the sections we need up and running. Not impossible, I don't think, just messy.

It is an external site, the workings of which we have no control over. If Tumblr decides to embed adds, we will have adds. If Tumblr goes down completely, so do we. More realistically, they may add/remove/change functionality that could mess with the layout or functionality of our site. It also lacks doesn't have the number of plugins that something like Wordpress does.

I personally would also like to have more control over the order of posts. While we should certainly update more often with screenshots and stuff, I also think that important news (releases, changes in leadership, etc.) deserve to be at the top of the feed for a while rather than being buried in pretty pictures.

________

In terms of the current blog, I'd be happy to send over permissions to any modder who has a tumblr. Perhaps the better alternative would be to establish a group account (it just needs an email address) that everyone can post from? Either way, I do want to write up a little post when we get to this stage.

Tumblr comes with a queue feature (submit X posts every Y days between hours of A and B) and the ability to submit a specific post at a specific time on a specific day, so keeping it regularly updated should be easy as long as we have a healthy backlog of content.

[Massalinie]

So there's some debate as to the service we should us for the main site thhen. For the record, we would only be embedding tumlr (or whatever) into the main page, so if their site went down ours wouldn't, just the embedded part would be broken. Not catasrophic, and this would be the case with any service.

If you can find a blog you like which supports group blogging and all the other features you spoke of, then it can be integrated in. We could also add a backup view for the homeppage and just comment it out; uncomment it if the blog breaks so the public arent looking at a dead homepage if that ever happens.

[Lady Nerevar]

My suggestion remains Wordpress (a blogging and content management system installed on our own server) for the whole website. Haplo mentioned that our webmaster had already installed a CMS earlier in the thread, though.

[Swiftoak]

I agree with Lady N wholly on this, as this was my direction from the get-go.

Our tumblr would be a "progress blog" of sorts, since the platform is usually catered to the TL:DR crowd. As in short and sweet. Pretty pictures and short blurbs versus walls of text. HH people should be able to post stuff, WIPs of their claims, sneak-peeks, etc.

Wordpress would be for more juicy, major updates such as the ones N outlined. Those posts would also be x-posted on our tumblr, but for obvious reasons, posting would be limited to core memebers. That's not for me to sort out though.

The two platforms would complement each other, allowing us to spam the world with updates, while keeping our main page spiffy and clean with the most important imformation not having to fight our stash of TR porn clutter.

But regardless, if Haplo already mentioned a CMS in the works, then I trust he has the handle of it.

[Sload]

"lets just make it harder for us information about TR to be distributed"

how about no, we don't have two different fucking blogs.

[Sload]

here is our main page updates for the last 3 years. its two things: releases and internal shit the public doesnt give a fuck about.

-sacred east 1.5 released
-stryker is hoi
-stryker is assistant hoc
-2012 in review (the "news" updates of the past year in 1 post)
-not is hoc
-sacred east 1.2 released
-new core
-donations
-samir is hoi
-2011 in review
-heartland exteriors finished (no you cant see it)
-why is hoq

yeah we definitely want our main page to be a list of screennames people have never heard about filling positions they dont care about instead of pictures of the mod that they are actually here to find out about. that would be spammy fluff content!