GoM Website

shimmerillion · **Joined:** Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 149

I posted this in another thread, but I think people have quit reading that thread ...

shimmerillion wrote:

Regarding the website ... what about this?

Each group is given a username (with icon) and posts to an RSS feed. The front page of the Messenger website (whether it's located at Myst Embassy Nexus or elsewhere) collects and displays those RSS feeds. That way explorers and messengers alike can visit the homepage of the Messenger site for a quick look at what's going on.

Each entry links back to the affiliate's homepage (or whereever).

The benefit of this arrangement is that no particular person "gets to be"/"has to be" in charge of the website. Each group is able to upload news as they see fit. Apart from a couple of static pages we'll probably want (Affiliates, About), the site runs itself.

I've drawn up an example for you here:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Now what would be super-awesome is ... if Cyan would set up a public imager to display the last 5 results from the total Messenger feed ... but I guess I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

It occurred to me that if all the guilds wanted to cooperate, we could set up similar feeds for the other guilds. Then their news could be displayed on their homepage (if they chose) - but it could also feed into the GoM newsbank, where orgs would be able to create news articles out of the community news. We'll also probably need to set up a news submission form, for non-guild news submission.

The Noble Robot · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:34 am **Posts:** 769

I haven't been part of the GoMe discussions, so I don't know what the prevailing opinion is, but I think that this is a great idea.

It's a wonderful way to preserve the existing groups' autonomy without promoting any group to "lead" the GoMe. Water will find it's own level (and change over time, no doubt) on that score.

It allows new groups to form at any time, either general news orgs. or niche groups devoted to specific communications (My own Jalak Registry feed may find a home on this site...).

I also love the idea of other guilds having a "PR person" who submits announcements directly to the site under their banner, rather than having to go through a GoMe person (that's what interviews and investigative journalism are for).

Just... brilliant! Good work.

Nynaveve · **Posted:** Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:36 pm

I actually believe this would work very well with what the GoMa has planned for PR. And I agree... anyone can post for their group. Very nice and flexible.

BladeLakem · **Joined:** Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:58 am **Posts:** 582

Myst Headlines (http://news.mystembassy.net) does this sort of thing. It'd be easy to set one up for the GoMes. (It even has some basic icons for many of the RSS feeds I aggregate).

Stevecrox · **Posted:** Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:40 pm

I'd be happy to setup up some server space for it, I know Miles is willing to donate the www.theguildofmessengers.org to any group serving that interest.

May I suggest that we ask Eleri if she would be willing to donate the source code for D'ni Network. that used rss and I believe multiple people were updating it. if people were willing to donate some skills I'm sure we could get it going. we could even setup a simple forum.

I think its a great one shimmerillion and if theres anything I can do to help get it going drop me a line (coding, getting a server organised on the cheap, helping teach people to write rss, digging out a old auto rss maker and setting it up.)

hope you do get enough support for the idea tho

Eleri · **Posted:** Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:39 pm

D'net was built in Wordpress, actually, using the plugin from our host. Modifying it to a new purpose wouldn't be that hard, just a matter of changing some graphics, and archiving the existing pages.

It could even stay at that url, if people think rebirthing the D'ni Network as a GoMe function is apropriate.

BladeLakem · **Joined:** Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:58 am **Posts:** 582

Well, you could set up the following things at a GoMes website:

* RSS aggregator(s) like on the Myst Headlines website. Individual sites just
have to submit an RSS feed to the admin.
* Blog (like the D'net site) which can be set up so multiple people can post to it for their org or guild. This would be picked up by the RS aggregator above.
* An area for links - Maybe not like Myst Embassy Nexus - it doesn't seem to be a successful format. Maybe a more organized set of links by topic (Beginngers, using your KI, Guilds, etc) with pointers to various Guild pages and IC and OOC pages
* A calendar (or just mirror the Guild of Greeter's calendar - no need to duplicate efforts)
* A resources archive
** tutorials on how to do various things - take video in Cavern, play music in cavern
** resource files - graphics libraries, fonts, cheatsheets for D'ni letters, etc
** An archive of Chat logs, searchable

shimmerillion · **Joined:** Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 149

Wow, thanks for the positive responses, everyone! I think the site would be best located at theguildofmessengers.org, for the same reasons I thought the Guild of Writers should be located at guildofwriters.com.

Stevecrox, if you could host the site that would be wonderful. I also think an auto-RSS would be a wise idea (any help you could give there would be appreciated). Likewise, Eleri, if you could let us take a look at the code from D'Net, it sounds like that would be the fastest jumping-off point.

There are many forum programs out there available for free - I've used Blackboard before. We will just need to be able to install one on the server.

How about the following information architecture (links):

Index/Home Page: RSS aggregator of GoM news and newly released packages from affiliates - finished products and GoM announcements only.
- About: Mission statement, brief description, and Guild officers (when applicable)
- Affiliates: List of member groups affiliated with the GoM, including services offered and a link back to their site. Also allows you to view RSS entries from that particular group.
- Blogs: Various blogs, either hosted here or linked from here. We would probably want to set up some type of policy as to whose blogs we would link to (for example, only news-focused blogs).
- Contribute:
> Become a Messenger: Detailed instructions on how to get involved.
> Submit News: News submission form for regular explorers.
- Forum:
> Newsbin: This is where all the "raw" news is collected for groups to create packages out of, including chat logs, photos, logos, graphics, fonts, etc. It looks like there is support for this being an RSS feed available to the other Guilds, but it must also support the Submit News form. I put it as a subforum (which would enable Search), unless you guys think a non-forum format would be better. Calendar should also go here.
- Tutorials: BladeLakem's good idea of posting Messenger-related tutorials.

I'm trying to keep the parent (second-level) links to six or less (in this case: About, Affiliates, Blog, Contribute, Forum, and Tutorials). Child (third-level) links can be arranged under those six. If we need to reshuffle parent links, we can, but more than six usually gets too cluttered.

BladeLakem · **Joined:** Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:58 am **Posts:** 582

Myst Headlines uses something called Planet Planet for RSS aggregation (UruBlogs and MystBlogs use something similar, I think). It's pretty simple but works well. The downside is that it doesn't keep archives of posts - that's all kept on the originating site.

As for D'net, that's just WordPress, standard installation. There was a simple Calendar plugin on there, but I found it really kludgie. WordPress can be set up to allow multiple logins. So you could hand out logins with posting rights to 'affiliates' who could then go in and post their own information. Or they could just set up an RSS feed (even just a blog on blogger.com will work) and that RSS feed could be added.

I'd still like to see a calendar on the top level somewhere - I think that event notification is going to be a big part of the GoMes' activity. (I'm really hip to just mirroring or pointing to the GoG calendar - it's very well done and well maintained).

I like the Forum as newsbin idea. Just a onestop place for dumping news and info that then can be sorted out as needed.

I'd still include a Links page with starting points, etc.

Would the blogs linked to be different than those that are aggregated from RSS feeds? I'm fond of having a master RSS feed that I can subscribe to that all of the various groups can add to from their own sites. It'd be a central place so people didn't have to hit a dozen forums to publicize their event

Andros · **Posted:** Wed Oct 03, 2007 5:45 am

I said it earlier shimmerillion, it is a great idea. If you need help with it, do not hesitate to ask me to help you.

Alhon · **Posted:** Wed Oct 03, 2007 5:59 am

Nice idea, Shimmerillion. I'd support a site in this style.

Alhon

Narym · **Posted:** Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:24 am

Yes, I think this is exactly the sort of thing we were all looking for. It just took someone to come out an actually put forward a well thought out idea like that one (unlike that sentence...

sleepy..)!!

I'm happy to leave the technical stuff to the people who know it best. Im getting there (I can code a little in Flash MX and C now

!!) but I think a website is a little far fetched for me atm. :cry:

I trust you guys to get it right, though

Tweek · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 12:11 am **Posts:** 2633

I just plugged in http://www.guildofmessengers.org/

And well...you see what came up. Any idea who owns this domain? I personally do not like the "the" in the theguildofmessengers.com domain, the domain is already long and the "the" in it makes it needlessly so.

I'm sure people are wondering why thats an issue. Shorter urls in websites go down a lot better with visitors than longer ones. Especially if sharing the links which need to be typed out instead of copy and pasted.

Jenine · **Joined:** Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 292

It's great to see you all begin to come together! Great idea!

While you are at it could you think of a way to coordinate and display all of your news groups "in cavern" as well? I found most of your magazines and podcast and stuff by searching the forums and the internet. Would have loved to have found out about all of you easily in the cavern too... Is it taboo to add your new web link to the end of a KI message or the imager in the pub?

I am being told over and over that we need to do more communicating in cavern for those that don't have the time to read all of the forum posts or search the internet...

shimmerillion · **Joined:** Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:28 pm **Posts:** 149

Tweek, I agree - the simpler an address we can acquire, the better.

I looked up guildofmessengers.com on WHOIS - it appears the owner is our very own Veralun! Perhaps he could be persuaded to share the domain?

guildofmessengers.org is owned by a Tim Keller in ZA (not sure what country that stands for).

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