[SITE] Signatures

I'm glad that you agree Scott's articles were great stuff. I guess the emphasis now is on the 'were' since as a result of this thread they're gone.

It was stated that Scott's sig was one of those that had been complained about. BUT......
The signature was long cause all of the articles, except the c-bass one, were completely buried & Scott was trying to make them accessible.

I don't know why Scott's articles were not added to the other articles which are on the left hand side of every page?
I don't know why the two short articles I've written, regarding safety & AOTY, couldn't also be added in with these existing articles?
I've got some more ideas about new articles & I like to write but why bother if they're just going to get buried deep in obscurity?
What are the exact standards for which articles are to be added to the existing ones? Thanks, jim

Well, making information more prominent is something I had been thinking about long before this thread came up.  The articles on the left were mostly legacy.  Note that most of them are years old.  The one exception is Scott's WSB article, which is something I approached him about.  There really is no rhyme or reason to them other than at some point in time, Bill thought they'd make good articles on the front page.  In recent years, we've just been stuffing the front page with upcoming tournament threads.  And I haven't approached anyone about making articles.

Just thinking out loud here.  I don't know if I want to make NCKA a "publication", therefore haven't really been emphasizing articles.  That being said I realize as we grow it becomes increasingly difficult to find older posts with solid content.  There has to be a better way to handle this.

I've been thinking about making an index page where all "good" posts can be linked from.  Now, how to determine what makes that page and what doesn't are details to be worked out.  BTW, I did discuss this with Scott.  He chose not to participate with the articles he deleted.  I don't want to debate his intentions as I'm sure he has his own good reasons, but please, to say that the threads are gone as a result of this thread may not be entirely true.

-Allen

Might be a consideration to make a homepage and forum be one of the links instead.  Then you can have a wordpress style template with all your articles.  You can only squeeze in so much on SMF before it looks all cluttered.  Just my 2 cents....

Might be a consideration to make a homepage and forum be one of the links instead.  Then you can have a wordpress style template with all your articles.  You can only squeeze in so much on SMF before it looks all cluttered.  Just my 2 cents....

There are many ways to skin this cat.  This is a community forum first and foremost.  It is specifically not a publication.  I'm leaning towards an index for a couple reasons.  First being that it would be a concise way to link to existing useful information.  No need to transform posts into articles.  We just have to link to them.  Articles have a whole different feel to them both in the original post and the follow on posts.  Second reason being that it would be easier to maintain.

When we were smaller, things were much easier.  The search function wasn't overwelmed with dozens or hundreds of similar posts (similar yet different!), and we all just sort of knew where information was.  These days we're considered a large installation of Simple Machines Forum, the software we use.  The current search is overwhelmed and overwhelming to those using it.  And information gets easily lost in the thousands of posts.  We have over 500K posts these days in over 46K topics.

Forums are an interesting beast in terms of "social engineering".  If you publish all the information, it lessens the ongoing conversation.  There is sort of a cycle of life in forums.  You start out as a newbie asking a ton of questions.  You progress to a regular, answering a ton of questions.  Then you progress to a jaded OG, telling everyone to use the search function.  Hah!     No offense to any OG's here, but you know what I'm talking about.  Every time a newbie asks a question, you get a different set of answers and experiences.  The conversation stays fresh.  But articles, no matter how useful they are, become stale, and stymy conversation.  One of goals I have moving forward is to find a nice balance between it all.  I don't profess to have the "answer".  Suggestions welcome!

-Allen

and removing all of my articles from the site soon and yes they are copyrighted.

Please don't.

+1000

X100.

This makes me sad...

Scott, I hope you reconsider putting your articles back up on here. There is a wealth of information in them that I know many people appreciate.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Then you progress to a jaded OG, telling everyone to use the search function.  Hah!   

What if you don't even do that anymore?   

oh,  wait a minute …

  " YOU KIDS GET OFF THE GOD DAMN LAWN!!! "   ahh…. that's better….   

Just a suggestions.  I right justified my signature and gave it a go for awhile.  I think it doesn't detract from the look and flow as much.  If you'd like to try it, use the follow tags around your whole signature.

Code: [Select]

[right][/right]
-Allen

and removing all of my articles from the site soon and yes they are copyrighted.

Please don't.

+1000

X100.

This makes me sad...

Scott, I hope you reconsider putting your articles back up on here. There is a wealth of information in them that I know many people appreciate.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Me too, I love those articles!!!

Just a suggestions.  I right justified my signature and gave it a go for awhile.  I think it doesn't detract from the look and flow as much.  If you'd like to try it, use the follow tags around your whole signature.

Code: [Select]

[right][/right]
-Allen

Looks odd to me, perhaps because I'm so accustomed to years of reading left justified text.

Just a suggestions.  I right justified my signature and gave it a go for awhile.  I think it doesn't detract from the look and flow as much.  If you'd like to try it, use the follow tags around your whole signature.

Code: [Select]

[right][/right]
-Allen

I know I'm one of the big offenders. Do you want me to set mine up like that on the right? I'm fine with whatever. 

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I know I'm one of the big offenders. Do you want me to set mine up like that on the right? I'm fine with whatever. 

You can do whatever you'd like.  The only restriction we currently have in place is the height/width restrictions on the signature pics.  Still debating the others, but it seems like a lot of people voluntarily cleaned up a bit and things look better.

-Allen