Hey guys and gals. Can you believe JD finally got on here?! And he did it all by himself! That's one more addition to our contributors list, but I still have a long list of members pending, and even though we have a lot of members on the list, we only have a few that seem to be embracing the whole blog community idea. So, if you're out there and you're a member, let's hear from ya. You don't have to make a post if you don't want to, just leave comments or something.
A couple thoughts: We need to add a little to this thing. I was thinking about a tagboard, but I'm not sure about that because I don't think there's an easy way to keep just anybody from posting to it. If any of you guys want to look into that and see what the possiblities are, please do. You can start by going to Blogger help from your dashboard, and going to Add-ons under the section called "Advanced Use". Lemme know if you find anything there that might make using a tagboard easier, or if you find something else you think we could use.
I also want to encourage you to look at old posts. You can still comment on them. Do it. Even if they're not current, they're still open to discussion. If you want to share something about Planet Wisdom, for example, go ahead and leave comments on that post. I'm still checking it and I hope you are too.
Other thoughts: I've been messing around with the template. I flopped the sidebar and posts to see how that looked. Not so sure. Can't put my finger on it, but something about it just didn't look right. If you guys think it would be better that way, though, I can do it. I also added a footer. Took me forever to figure out how to do that, but I finally did. I went ahead and put that verse from Ecclesiastes there. I'm also still looking for the best way to describe ourselves in the "Who We Are" section. Wanna keep it short but complete. Gimme some ideas.
Anyway, I'll probably keep making posts like this from time to time - asking for ideas on the blog or suggesting ways of using it more efficiently. So take a look at them and try to think of your own ideas. Try to think of ways to get this thing off the ground.
And join us! If you're a member, but you're just reading and not sharing, stoppit! We want you to contribute!
What's Happening on the Blog...
Take a look for yourself...
Thursday, March 23, 2006
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12 comments:
I know, JD did it! O_O *Crowd cheers in amazement*
As for the blog ideas.. Humm.. I don't really know what the options are for this type of blogy. I've never had a blog with this kind of format before.
Can we have a banner? You know, those cool photo blend things at the top of the page.. I could make something if that's possible (if you guys want one.. Maybe we could vote on a selection of banners and pick the coolest one or something?)
Uhm... Other than that I'm drawing a blank as for any new features (It'll come to me! Just wait... and wait... and wa-.. Well, You get the picture)
I think the tab board sounds cool. I don't really think that it'll be a problem if it's an open-to-anyone type tag board. I mean, what if someone outside of the youth group but from our Church wants to make a comment? Like the Pastor or something... lol, okay I doubt he would want to. But then again, I'm sure he'd be glad to see us together. ^_^
Besides, this is a Church-ish blog, I doubt we'll attract any seriously whacked out folk (...Other than the nice whacked out folky in our group). =P
The only thing that I'm a bit worried about as far as the tag board goes is that you might be able to write your name as anything. Because I can just see JD writing something with my name on it. O_o *Imagines*
"Heeey, I'm m3ldoy- I mean Melody. an leik, i'm a girl *giggle-giggle*"
See... That's disturbing... and the worse part is, I actually wrote that. O_X
Anyhoo, I'm brain fried at the moment. I'll continue thinking about it, though! =)
It might not be that big a deal if other people can post on it. But it's just the idea. I like the idea of it being our own. It might be kinda cool to have a guest book, though.
I would like to have some way for us to send messages to indivduals - not private messages, just messages that are directed towards a particular member. And I would also like to find a way for members to leave quick little messages without making a post - like on a tagboard, but in a way that would work like comments, where you have to sign-in with your own password to use it.
If it's possible to do something like that, it'll probably require some creativity with the template. Fun, fun, fun.
Yeah, I can't view that button either..
Oh, hey what about if we added a site counter? The little thing that tracks how many visitors we get. I think that would be cool! :)
Aha! If you are interested, and if this is the right code for this type of blogy, here is a link to a site counter: http://www.simplehitcounter.com
It's not too fancy or anything... *Looks for more*
Ehh, here's a more advanced looking counter. Their site is ugly, but their codes are free and they have a larger selection: http://www.e-zeeinternet.com/?src=overture
It's just a suggestion. Don't feel required to add it or anything. I just thought it would be neat, and I figured I'd save you some time by finding the links if you're willing to give it a try. ;)
Yeah, I was thinking about a hit counter too. Are you sure you guys don't have the Blogger help? I'm pretty positive you do. It's on your dashboard - that's where you go when you sign in. On the sidebar where you have the option to edit your profile and stuff. Scroll down a ways. There should be something that says Bloogger Help. I don't see why it would be limited to adminstrators only. After all, you guys could create your own blog under the same account you've got now if you wanted.
Hey Melody. I'm not sure what this thing is about a banner, but it sounds cool. I'm not sure if Blogger does anything like that. It would be cool to have some pictures that were a permanent part of our blog. At the very least, maybe we can pick out some of our favorite pics and post them down the sidebar. I'm pretty sure I can do that much.
Humm, I'm going to go check for the Blogger help button again. Maybe I just missed it the first time I looked for it?
As for the banner, you could briefly test to see if an image is postable somewhere on the blog template. Just to see if images are even a possibility. If it is, maybe we could then think up of what we might want to put on it? Just a thought... :)
Oh, and when I refreshed the page I noticed that you had a site counter type thing down at the bottom of the page. It has more info than the ones that I've seen in the past, it looks pretty cool so far! :D
Yeah, about that counter...I hated it! It screwed up the template and looked ugly and when I tried to delete it, it messed everything up. I finally had to completely restore the whole template, which required me to redo every minor tweak I've made, which isn't all that complicated, but there's so many that I have to remember to do.
Anyway, I'm not putting it back, at least not right away. It's too complicated. There might be some better ones we can use. And anyway, I'm not sure if we really need one. If we had a guestbook, that might be good. That way we can have a general idea of who's visiting our site and also encourage a community sort of thing.
We'll see.
I just saw what happened to the template. Whoa... O_O;
I'm glad you were able to restore the template, though having to re-do everything sounds frustrating (believe me, I know the feeling.. That's why my old site went offline ;p).
Though look at the bright side of things, at least the evil counter of doom didn't ruin the posts on here! :)
I think you can put pictures on the sidebar, but they have to be small enough to if, otherwise, the sidebar gets shifted to the bottom of the posts. So if we make something like that, we'll have to make sure it's gonna fit - if that's even where we would want it.
Well, I can post photos on the sidebar, it's just that if the photos are too big, it expands the margins and pushes the sidebar to the bottom of the blog, so we'd just have to upload the photos to Blogger in small mode. But I might not fully understand what you've got here, so we'll talk about it and see.
By the way, a tagboard is sorta like comments for the whole blog. It's this little message board that you put on the sidebar for people to leave quick messages. My problem is that I'd sorta like to keep this thing just between us. Like I've said, though: I am thinking about a guestbook. Do you guys want that? That would allow people who aren't memebers to leave messages, put it would be set apart for that purpose, so as to not confuse the line of communication between us - if that makes sense.
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