Rolling out a new feature this weekend: News

So far you can post new Articles and edit Existing articles. All articles will be listed on the news page.

After a few updates, I plan to make it so all new articles are Private until you Publish them. After Publishing, they can no longer be edited. Moderators will be able to look over published Articles, and post them to the front page of the site. I'll be moving the search panel off the front page to a search page, and come up with something of a decent front page containing info/content generated from the site.

I plan to use the News as something of a site blog. A place I can write very boring articles using highly technical terms and jargon about the things I do each day on the site.

But! Everyone else will be able to write their own articles. So I'm looking forward to seeing what other people use it for!

Maybe you've added a new character you want to tell everyone about?
Maybe you want people to vote for a certain character as COTM?
Maybe you started watching a new anime, and want to tell people how great it is?
or whatever you feel like! ^_^


The full set of Forum BBCode can be used with it as well. You can post images, links, etc using BBCode in your news post.


There's also the potential for Comments to be posted to news articles. I'll get around to adding that at some point too ... lol

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

Yes, the comments would be nice but i think we would need to somehow "link" the news into the forums. Remember when the WTCB was separate from the forums?

Basically, the news "feed" (when you click the news button on the banner) would update itself whenever (someone) would post a news article in the news forums. Every thread would be an "article" and the posts in that thread would be the comments. This would save it from becoming a "second forum".

The only problem that I can think about is the Public/Locked/Front Page checkboxes, since I don't know if the forum allows that... I'm not sure how useful the Public/Private function is, and I don't think the Locking function is wholly necessary. For the Front Page checkbox, would it be possible to put a line in the beginning of the article that the news feed reads, but makes invisible (like adding a comment line in a program)? Or we could maybe scrap all three together (but it's better to know how the news section is being used before we go toss features out) and make it easier to integrate.

By the way, what happens to an article when I don't mark the Public box, but mark the Front Page box? lol

[ Edited Jul 18, 2011 ]

I'll be removing the Flags ( check boxes ) in the next update. lol They seemed like a good idea when I was designing it, but in practical use, they're kinda pointless.

Hmm, I see what you mean about it being "second forum" as it currently is. The News has a simpler set of needs, and I want to also serve as something of a Private Blog.

I've coded so many Comments system.... and I still don't have a good one I can copy and paste. lol Let's just say that feature will be on hold for a while now. Next thing I'll try to get done is making a new front page.

私は日本語を少し読むと書くをできます。あなたも？

Rei I've coded so many Comments system.... and I still don't have a good one I can copy and paste. lol Let's just say that feature will be on hold for a while now. Next thing I'll try to get done is making a new front page.

You know, it really would have been simplest to use the same code and table(s) for comments across the site.