ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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How about this?

We create a board called "News". A small group of people who generate news can post to it (Mafinot, me, Mike, maybe Jean-Michel or Patrice from TLK). Any registered user can reply to the board, but he just can't create a new topic unless he's special. Starting a new topic on this "News" board has some extra effects which I describe below.

The current News section of the website would be replaced with a customized version of the viewboard.php script. The current viewboard.php shows all the topics on a board, but the customized copy for News would show the most recent 5 topics (or 3 or 10 or whatever) and include the first message of the topic. So unlike the regular viewboard.php page, you would actually see a message for each topic without having to click on the link that takes you to viewtopic.php. Graphically, it would match the style of the rest of the DROD site, maybe using Clayton Weiss' scroll on stones style.

So with this, you'd basically get a blog, like Slashdot and other places. It should be very easy to keep the news on the website fresh this way.

And we get a nifty way to tie the news back into the forums, so people can add their comments to each news item: Under each News message would be a link that goes to viewtopic.php for the matching topic. When you follow the link, you'd see the first message from the news page repeated with people's replies underneath. You could reply to the original message and it would show up on this page.

That's my idea. How does it sound?

I had some other more grandiose, "big picture" thoughts that are related, but I will put them in another message. I just did a big ctrl-X and my clipboard is filled up with hot air. So let's send this one, and start another one.

-Erik

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krammer
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Cool. Useful to have announcements etc separate from everything else anyway. Thumbs up from me.


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Schik
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I like it - and it should be really easy to implement - you could just add a new user level, and have only that level be able to post (but anyone can reply) to that forum! The only issue would be that at least a couple of the news guys need to stay at the admin level, and at least one admin shouldn't be a news guy.

We could get around that by writing a little code, but I think just letting "Newssmiters" and "Legendary Smitemasters" both post news items would be easier. (I'm pretty sure I could restrain myself from posting news)


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Oneiromancer
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I don't think this is very uncommon; I am pretty sure I have seen many other open-source-type games do this also. Thus, I would have to say that it probably works pretty well and is a good idea. Maybe I will even go to the main page first instead of coming directly to the forums every time!

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

ErikH2000
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Schik wrote:
I like it - and it should be really easy to implement - you could just add a new user level, and have only that level be able to post (but anyone can reply) to that forum! The only issue would be that at least a couple of the news guys need to stay at the admin level, and at least one admin shouldn't be a news guy.

Maybe we could use the "moderator" type for this? Although, "Newssmiter" is a funny name that I like. I dunno--whatever works, Schik.

We could get around that by writing a little code, but I think just letting "Newssmiters" and "Legendary Smitemasters" both post news items would be easier. (I'm pretty sure I could restrain myself from posting news)

Yeah, if you're going to set it up, then make it easy on yourself, since there's not a lot to worry about here. Whoever makes an unauthorized post--the Newssmiters will show up at his house with really big swords.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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This is obviously very raw and needs a lot of work, but ....

I just wanted to show how darn easy this will be. Go here:
http://www.drod.net/forum/viewnews.php?BoardID=8

To see this idea in action, using this forum since we don't have a News one yet.

Muahahahaahah!

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Malarame
Level: Master Delver
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Very nice idea. Oh, and sorry about not updating the site. Yeah, yeah, I know that I'm bad like that. But getting ready for college, working, and being really really sick kinda put a damper on my involvement on DROD.net. I'm just starting to get back into the swing of things and I promise to have an update very soon!

But back to the news thing, it's a cool idea and I'm all for it. Personally, I feel that the more connected DROD.net and the forums are, the better.

____________________________
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Webb Institute
Class of 2007

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-Groucho Marx

ErikH2000
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Schik wrote:
This is obviously very raw and needs a lot of work, but ....

Well, there's our proof of concept. I'll go make the "announcements" board. Let's do it!

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Schik
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Well, since you're all gung-ho about this, I went ahead and fixed a couple little problems. It should be all ready!

If you have any suggestions or ideas, bring 'em on. I'd be happy to tailor this to your vision of what it should be. Or Malarme, since the site is under your control and all, I can either help you change it or just change it myself.


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Schik wrote:
Well, since you're all gung-ho about this, I went ahead and fixed a couple little problems. It should be all ready!

Hey, like you say, it's ready to go!

http://www.drod.net/forum/viewnews.php?BoardID=10

I think a link at the bottom, "Older Posts" that goes to viewboard.php would work well.

Maffy, if you wanted to convert your news items to messages by posting copies of them to the news board, we could easily doctor up the dates with MySQL magic to show them listed in the right order. Clayton's messages could go in too, again doctoring dates and author (unless Clayton personally wants to post his entries).

OR if the above is difficult, we could post one message that with date-doctoring is the oldest news message. It includes a link to an HTML page containing the "Really Old" news items.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Okay, I got all the news items in to the board. I gave up on date-doctoring because it started to get hard and well... it's good enough. The news items are in the correct order and their subjects provide the original date.

-Erik


____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)