Site update: 3/21/2008

[Paul Kreiner]

I figured I'd make a quick post to keep folks in the loop as far as current updates on the site.  We don't have an official blog yet, so this post will have to do. 

Right now we're doing some maintenance and housekeeping work primarily, although we've got some goodies coming soon (Aaron thinks by the afternoon, but we'll see).  The FAQ is a work-in-progress, and that's going up here in just a few minutes as well.

I've been working on back-end stuff.  We're trying to respect folks' privacy by tweaking some of the forum and user account code to hide the users who are online (I think that's a neat feature, but not everyone does, and we can honor  that).  Other stuff includes changes to the registration page, allowing folks to set their display name when signing up, some tweaks to the registration code to handle duplicate display names gracefully, and relaxing some of the sanity checks we had that were causing people grief when trying to sign up.  We've also disabled code which emails passwords (that was silly anyway) and replaced it with a link to recover a password by entering your display name or email address.  Finally, the CAPTCHA -- I did a bunch of work to replace the current one with one that is hopefully a bit easier.  A lot of folks don't really care for the current reCAPTCHA, even if the concept behind it is a cool idea.

So, that's what's up for now.  I've been coding for the past seven hours on this, and I'm ready to crash.  See you all after the jump...

[Mandi Taylor]

...although we've got some goodies coming soon (Aaron thinks by the afternoon, but we'll see).

Oh, goodie!   

But you guys really ought to get more sleep.

Edit: I just noticed your post count...  Your 42nd post!  This must be significant.

[Albert Frates]

Hey Paul, I would have been over last night to help out, however I fell asleep when i got home until about 9:00 

[Stephen Rollins]

Yay for updates!  On my half-birthday, too. 

Looking forward to future updates as they come along.  Hopefully they don't keep you up late too often.  xD

[Aaron Stanton]

I get to tack on my bit a little late.  Paul and I finally closed the doors on last night's programming meeting at 4:00 a.m., and I spent most of the day feeling the effects. 

We got the start of the FAQ up last night, but additional updates are going to happen to it on Sunday.  I have to put in the index and answer another 20 questions about the more basic elements of BookLamp - nearly all of the questions come from the discussions we've had on the forums.

While Paul has been handling coding, my life has been mostly communications; we've received many, many e-mails regarding the project, and I'm doing my best to maintain a respectable response time to those.  The update that Paul was referring to is actually the "Timeline" post that's in this same forum, and then possibly a video or two.  There are a few concepts that still need to be introduced.

The Timeline is simply there to help give people an idea of how we're planning on taking this forward.

It's probably the next place to check after this post (now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go create the Timeline thread. 

[Joseph]

While Paul has been handling coding, my life has been mostly communications; we've received many, many e-mails regarding the project, and I'm doing my best to maintain a respectable response time to those. 

Eventually you will need to delegate someone to email reading. While it is awesome when the most important person reads the email...it is also impractical. I know that if the site gets REALLY popular... in a few months (weeks?) maybe, you will aso need forum mods too. Basically, i think you should always keep staff expansions in mind along with all of your other plans. It is not fun having to tell people to slow down until you find someone to do a job, or worse.... having things start going so fast that you can't keep up. As with my other suggestions... you are probably already doing this... but i have no way of knowing...

[Aaron Stanton]

I agree... but at the same time, it's a lot of fun for me to communicate with people; I really do enjoy people's thoughts, ideas, curiosities, and good wishes.  It is sort of like the forums, though.  The first day or two, we were able to keep up with answering nearly every post.  Now, there's too many of them - I have stacks that I'm supposed to get around to answering. 

We've made some early steps towards recruiting moderators.  A few people have agreed to help us out.  Considering the history of BookLamp and CanGoogleHearMe.com, I'd like to do what I can to keep personal communications open with people... but at some point I will have to focus on other things (Paul, too).

Anyway, good thoughts.  And very true.

Aaron

Aaron

[Stephen Rollins]

I know what you mean about the posts...  I try to make it a habit to check on here 2 or 3 times a day so I don't fall way behind. XD  Also, I tend to skim topics...  Especially if I've already posted in there once, then I just jump down to my last post and read from there.

Better than no posts, though! 

[Mandi Taylor]

I'm working on catching up on everything myself; I'm far behind on post count!  (Not to say that's what matters, but...   )
I will probably be reading all the new threads this afternoon.  A lot has been posted while I was gone, and I've been busy since I've been back...  My last semester in general has been a busy one!

[Andy]

Seeing as im in my final two or three weeks of uni im always at my computer, so I have a break every few hours and check if theres anything new or interesting, some seem to slip by, I use the view new posts button, but sometimes find other older ones that I havnt read after I post

[Stephen Rollins]

I'm working on catching up on everything myself; I'm far behind on post count!  (Not to say that's what matters, but...   )

Far behind?  You're in 4th, that's not bad at all. 

I'm working on catching up with Aaron (even though that also doesn't matter, but it's fun to pretend like I'm trying).  It's not going to happen any time soon...

One area I'll always suffer in is the time spent online.  I don't have a whole ton of moments when I'll leave the site up without doing something, so that never goes up fast for me.

[Therin]

I think your post count just proves you talk too much, Stephen 

Time online is easy - this is one of the more interesting forums around at the moment so just pop by every hour or so when work gets unbearable.  The read/unread signals are my new friends  stop me re reading posts all the time.

I think I read every post but I don't always have anything helpful to comment and the continual positive affirmations seem to serve no purpose once you've written three or four. 

But I do like the idea of assigning some mods.  The number of posts going up everyday is getting far greater than originally and poor Aaron and co cannot keep up.  Not that there is a lot that needs moderating but there may come a need and even just for neatness sakes, mods can keep posts in the right threads and areas of the forums.

[Stephen Rollins]

No, it only proves that I always have something to say.  I hardly ever post just to post, or even just to say things.  I just have comments for just about everything people say, is all. 

But you're making me go off-topic now.   

[Mandi Taylor]

We got the start of the FAQ up last night, but additional updates are going to happen to it on Sunday.  I have to put in the index and answer another 20 questions about the more basic elements of BookLamp - nearly all of the questions come from the discussions we've had on the forums.

Any progress on that front?  Once it's updated, a few more of the questions people keep asking will be easily solved by a link to the FAQ.

[Aaron Stanton]

Sure, I'll see what I can do about that  today.