Because I can almost swear that I have seen Hellbound as a Featured site for, like, several months?
I'm not saying I don't like Hellbound. I just bring it up because It was probably overlooked (unless i lost my mind a bit) with Xepher being so busy with his job(s) and such. (that and a few other hosted sites seem to not exist here any more, but still are indexed).
But my other question realted to the Featured Site. Is it possible to make our own Xepher.net Phase 2 Featured site list? I mean like go through our custom Phase 2 list on the pulldown and have it change each week... or something like that. I liked customizing my newsbox, so i was seeing if there was any more that could be done.
I dunno just a thought i was thinking.
http://xepher.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=262
I think it's whenever Xepher gets around to it. ^_~
haha
Quote2006-05-03
so i wasn't going crazy :P Hellbound has been featured for several months.
... well, ok, i might still be crazy ;)
Yeah, I'm lazy... Suggestions this time 'round?
Okay, I've updated it. Sometimes it just takes a little proding. :-)
Ah, that website listing! that's a good pick.
Oh wow! Thanks for making me a featured site! Being the dork I am, I reloaded my page a few times to make sure I saw that right :P but thank you! that's cool!
*nods* Yeah, figured it was time to change it. Just an FYI to everyone, if you don't SHOW the featured site section of the newsbox on your page (it is optional) I'm not very likely to feature your site in return.
I just left it at the defaults. It fits in perfectly.
As much as I like the publicity, I think It's time to change it again. It's been a good four months ;)
Actually, if possible, I think It would be nice to rotate it Monthly.... instead of quarterly ;)
:P
Yeah, it would be... I'm just, well, forgetful of such things. I'll go change it now.
Okay, it's done. This is getting tricker than I thought to pick one. That's probably why I'm so long in changing it. I tend to wait until something catches my eye, which means people that hang out on the forums more than anything. I also won't feature any site that isn't updating, or that doesn't show the "featured site" section of the newsbox. I had to break a couple of those rules this time, because I couldn't find a site I hadn't already featured, that had enough content, and that was actually updating. As such, I don't plan for tripout to stay featured too long, if we can find a better one.
So what I need is this. A new way to select/nominate such sites, so I can actually feature a new one more often. I'm open to ideas here. I can't just go through the entire site list every time I need to pick a new one.
Well... to be honest... you could almost start RE-featuring some since yout only had 3 featured inthe last year.
if you want, we can bug you each month to change it.
Should be no problem in re-featuring older sites and showing newer ones if you cycle it more frequently ;)
Oh, and while the Jenny Everywhere comic should probably have a News Box on it, Its too late to change the address to a PHP file, besides, I think I have some good links for it anyway.
If you had anything related that's work in HTM (like java) just let me know and I'll try to incorporate it instead.
You've got links going to a specific file, rather than the directory itself? How come? I'm guessing that's why it's too late to make it .php.
Actually, in most cases I guess I have it going to the directory. If I made an index.php can I still have the index.php set to redirect to the php file, without the directory picking the wrong file?
Does it have a priority reference?
will it check for the following files in this order:
index.html
index.htm
index.php
Well I really didn't wanna mess with it too much right now because I'm not feealing the tip top of shape, but I'll check it out a bit later.
Yeah, no rush on it, but the priority for index files is...
index.php index.shtml index.cgi index.pl index.htm Default.htm default.htm index.html index.html.var
On the last one ".var" is a three letter extension for language, and the webserver will select the correct file based on the brower/client's preferred language header.
What folder/files exactly are you concerned about? If I can take a quick look, I can tell you (probably) an easy solution.
Oh, if the PHP file is first I'll be able to edit the index.htm page to redirect the visitor to the new main page. So that will be no problem.
I'll just have to edit some code to direct to the PHP page... as well as get the all the right colors and sizes for the adbox itself.... I'll try to get that up by next week. presently I am still trying to get over feeling sick from allergies.
I went through the whole list...I think all the ones that are quite active have already been featured.... :( What about Mystic Skies? Or has that been featured already? Tickyhead doesn't have the box, but he's always been around the forums, as much as I can remember.
Ok, got the Jenny page fixed to have the newsbox.
I still say we bother Xepher to change it monthly :P
I think Beastling would deserve a feature sometime soon.
Beastling should too, but wasn't it featured before yours? I thought it had made an appearance....
Fes: No rush, but it sounds like you already got it done. And yes, feel free to bug me monthly about it. :-)
Mystikskys doesn't show the "featured site" section of the newsbox. I really figure it's unfair to feature a site that isn't featuring others. Beastling hasn't been featured but... no offense intended... but... Oh frack it! Beastling it is!
Quote from: grieverBeastling should too, but wasn't it featured before yours? I thought it had made an appearance....
No, I think Beastling got an account right before me.... I think... or something.
Ah, I don't remember. :p
Yeah, I got my account right before you, but it's never been featured.
Well...now it is.
I feel honored...
Congrats :D
You should be getting a nice little bit of a jump for the next 30 days. Hopefully you get some that stay ;) I got a bunch mostly from DMFA and Hellbound, and inaccurate-perdition.xepher.net interestingly enough... furfire.org and jawc.xepher.net had a bit of clicks too. I'd say ROCR, but I think most of those clicks came from my PW ads on his site.
Beyond that I can't tell because my Project Wonderful stats cloud up my referer pages.
Heh. Ads won't interfere with mine, that's for sure. The only one I have is the one you've got on your site.
Getting close to the first of the month!
Think about whose going to be next!
Why not just make it some sort of smart randomized script?
Because I'm slow... and full of lazy. Originally I liked the idea of giving a particular site a boost for a good period of time, but it doesn't seem to really matter that much given the size of xepher.net. The place is too small for a little ad-like box to have much effect it seems. I'm hoping that changes with the new server. Once I have the capacity and backend/admin stuff smoothed out, I'm thinking of really doing a publicity push to get more (good) sites. May even go put some project wonderful ads out and about, that sort of thing. On the way to doing that, I would like to rework the feature idea... perhaps even the whole newsbox. Ideas anyone?
Right now the newsbox and, along with it, featured site can be too inobtrusive. For exmample, I found xepher.net from the itty-bitty text at the bottom of DMFA. I didn't even register the medium size newsbox as it looked like a just web ring.
I think it needs to stand out against the pages more. Something like using a banner or requiring it at the top. It especially needs to if the art/creative community site idea (artica?) is used. If the newsbox stands out more, then so does xeph.net and the featured site. Nothing too gaudy though or it'll be more like a banner ad ;)
For the featured site now, maybe you could also use a little image alongside the text. Liven it up a little. Users could set it in their config like the site description. Sort of like a site avatar. It could also be displayed in other places like the xeph.net site directory.
Add images!
maybe half banners, or those 200x40 ones.
Also, Xepher, I'm pretty busy at the moment, But if you make Xepher Ad Images, I'll set a $5 a month Ad budget for it (what I normally try to donate monthly here normally).
Also, if you sign up to host PW ads on the regular Xepher pages, you might have to e-mail the guy. people don't get approved too quickly... unless you'd wanna work something out with me since I'm already approved, I could give you my PW login and you can set up your own ads and such and you (or me or both) can keep track of money made and spent on Xepher.net.
Up to you. Just offering a variety options. Let me know if any one of these strikes any interest.
I am considering making the newsbox less configurable -- more standardized would mean it would stand out more, and (hopefully) be something people can recognize between pages, possibly thinking "Oh, two of my favorite comics are on this "xepher" thing... maybe I should check it out." Because right now, unless you really read the newsbox, it looks quite different from one page to the next.
Images for the featured site are another thing I'm considering. Technology has come a ways since I first tried the newsbox thing. Javascript is a LOT more reliable across browsers now, so I may make things quite a bit more useful and interactive too.
I think one thing that might help out in terms of recognizability is a Xepher.net logo. Even if it's just a tiny icon and "Xepher.net" in the same font. This could then be added as a transparent png/gif over the ad image, which users could select size in their control panel.
Yeah, it could stand to be a bit more noticeable. Probably not require it "at the top," as that'd make it feel too much like comicgenesis or Keenspot to me. Requiring it would be good, though.
And graphics are always good. I think you'd do well to come up with something that says "Xepher" (maybe the pawprint thing you have on the main page?)
Well, that be my 2.73 cents.
Remember "web rings"?
I remember webrings! I used to be in several before they seemed to be replace with banner rotations. Do people still make webrings anymore with the random, next, previous, etc. links?
Sadly I think the day of the webring has since left. They aren't really that popular anymore.
The new 'in thing' seems to be comic collectives, like Webcomic Hotness (http://www.puddlejumpart.com/thehotness/) and Blank Label (http://www.blanklabelcomics.com).
I'd like to eventually have xepher.net (or a section of xepher.net) function somewhere between a collective like Blank Label and a hosting site like keenspot (but better, of course.) Right now, I'm not doing any promotion or seeking new members until the new server gets in place and I'm confident of it's reliability. After that however, I want to actively seek out good comics. Not entirely sure how to go about that, or what it is the artists are really looking for. That is, how shared (comic specific) hosting compares to just running their own site, and things like that.
Quote from: Xepher on June 21, 2007, 10:04:40 PM
I'd like to eventually have xepher.net (or a section of xepher.net) function somewhere between a collective like Blank Label and a hosting site like keenspot (but better, of course.) Right now, I'm not doing any promotion or seeking new members until the new server gets in place and I'm confident of it's reliability. After that however, I want to actively seek out good comics. Not entirely sure how to go about that, or what it is the artists are really looking for. That is, how shared (comic specific) hosting compares to just running their own site, and things like that.
At minimum, we're probably going to need to be a little flexible in regards to giving new comic artists some PHP to hit the ground running with rather than just expecting them to always roll their own.
I see Xepher becoming a Furry Blank Label (Fuzzy Label, perhaps?) but a little less stingy about who it lets in. Not by much though -- Maintaining at least a little eliteness should be key, because what attracted me to Xepher was the following:
- Almost Ad-Free Hosting
- Small Clientele List (at least compared to Comic Genesis or Drunk Duck!)
- Can't-Lose Payment system (No money owed until you start making a profit through donations)
The best way to find new artists (besides seeking them out) would be to get DMFA to do half your legwork for you. Seriously, that thing has pull.
I could do the other half... but only if no condition that things be furry is introduced, because I obviously wouldn't qualify for that myself.
.... why?
I mean... why purposely segrogate (sp?) comics like that? Just go "Xepher Comics" or something... Variety-a-Plenty! I know that the Application process says that something unique gets better props than carbon copy comics. so there is not a lot of strikingly similar stuff already here.
well, I strongly disagree with such an idea.
If anything, being able to have both just shows tollerance and acceptance of other types of comics. Start making groups, you'll soon have elitests (esp. when dealing with the "furry" issue... you can get UGLY debaters... on both sides).
well, those are my thoughts. Up to you Xepher, of course ;)
I don't intend to have any "furry specific" sort of criteria at any point, so no worries there. It just happens that this site started as my personal webspace, and I gave a few sites to friends and such, usually from furry-ish communities, and they brought more people, and so things here do have a bit of a furry bias because of how it grew. But it's not something I ever mean to actively select for.
Note: I don't think Jekkal meant to say it should elitist in only picking furry stuff, but that we should have minimum quality standards overall.
As for having some basic PHP/Comic framework for new people to start with if they want, I'm considering it. Not sure if it really belongs on xepher.net proper, or if that's more something that might fit in a comic-specific subsection/project though.
Well, a PHP starter index page would be all that you'd need to do. for those that don't know PHP, so they don't have to come in and ask every time ;)
Well, part of my plan for the new newsbox is that it will be javascript based, not requiring people to use PHP at all.
Somehow, I can't help feeling that that's a retrograde step. Don't quite know why, though.
I assume you mean Javascript? I don't personally like it as a language, but it's really the only client-side language there is, and some of the stuff I have in mind needs to be client-side.
Hardly, actually javascript is used a lot now, even in business solutions.
Ever heard of Ajax? It's basically using javascript to call a server-side script which returns xml to the javascript DOM for you to use for various applications.
Shipping estimations, search text suggestions, live form updates, etc... all of these are done using Ajax. Without javascript they would be, well, pretty much impossible to use. Aside maybe using something like Flash which is an even worse solution, as is Java for the same reason. Anything that requires the user to download additional software to make your site work is pretty much useless.
Quote from: Xepher on June 23, 2007, 11:34:14 PM
As for having some basic PHP/Comic framework for new people to start with if they want, I'm considering it. Not sure if it really belongs on xepher.net proper, or if that's more something that might fit in a comic-specific subsection/project though.
Perhaps have a file containing commonly used comic functions. Include simple, highly automated functions for things like listing comics for an archive and getting numbers for First, Prev, etc. links. Using it'd require a minimal knowledge of php while still allowing for a custom page design.
I imagine the most it'd require is being able to copy the right bits of php into the right places, like "<?php include('comic_functions.php'); comic_set_vars($_GET['comic']); ?>", "<i
mg src="images/<?php echo $current; ?>.jpg" />", and "<a href="comic.php?comic=<?php echo $next; ?>">Next</
a>".
The problem is that the amount of knowledge needed to integrate someone else's PHP functions into your own page is probably higher than installing a full, third-party script package like Walrus or Autosite. Thus, anyone with enough coding skill to integrate code doesn't really need my code. No, I think it would have to be a much more full-featured (or at least self-contained) solution. The people that can't even install Walrus need something very simple to start with. Though it is possible that if I were to write that, I might also provided a function-level API-ish way for more advanced users as well, that way everything could work with some system-wide things like "What comics updated since my last visit?" or some such. Those system-wide features would be the main reason to consider doing this sort of thing, but because it would involve a standardized way of doing things, it probably would fit best on a new, specialized subsection or division, because a lot of current users wouldn't be interested (or able) in migrating to some sort of required/shared code base. Bottom line is I think this is something that's probably a ways farther off than most of the other plans. Gotta get the new server in place, the management/settings scripts rewritten, and then redo the newsbox first.
On the flip side, if you wanna hire me on a contract basis I can write you a rather nice interface and system for your comic to your exact specifications. ;)
. . . what?? . . .
No I'm not kidding! This is what I do for a living! :D Stuff like that actually takes quite a bit of work!