How This Site Works

Martin on Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:52 pm

Now that some people have gotten used to the new blue layout, I'd like to focus a bit on the ideas behind this site. We're all used consuming content from a number of random sites (depending on your preferences), so it'd be easy to have a fixed number of writers typing up content for everyone to read and comment on.

I'd like this site to be different. It should be about content provided by the community for anyone who wanders into this community. A lot of people have creative streaks and will probably want to try their hand at writing an article. We want to enable anyone who frequents this site to add to the site's content. I guess you can compare it to a shared blog, forum and wiki mix.

Submitting content
The news section on this site is built on top of the phpBB forum code. This means that any thread on the forum can show up as a news item. The only prerequisite is that the first post of the thread is the item of interest - anything hidden deeper inside threads (like for instance, Kage's comments in the LoTR poll) can't be moved there unless it's the start of its own thread.

There's a screenshots section accessible through the 'Image Album' link at the top of the forums, or by clicking any thumbnail or 'more imagery' link on any other page. Those images aren't just there to look at, if you have a forum account, you're free to submit screenshots yourself.

Expanding the community
It's nice to have a close-knit community, but it's great to see new faces arrive and old faces return. Anyone you think would be interested in roleplaying or MMOGs, feel free to point them this way.

If you're of a mind to start a guild in a game (for instance, Vanguard), feel free to use this site as your home base. As things expand, we should be able to tailor parts of the site more to your needs.

Helping out
Posting screenshots, but most importantly forum posts and articles is a great way to help fill out this site. Let us know what upcoming activities you have heard of, and what game they're for, and we can add them. If you want to do more, and aren't afraid to touch php and phpBB, there'll be the odd job to do in the near future. In that case, don't hesitate to shout out on the Website Feedback and Announcements forum, or throw us a line through the contact form.

permalink | trackback | comments (0)

Welcome!

Martin on Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:02 am

Hello and welcome to the revamped Underlight website!

This is the first step to what we hope will be a nice and busy community site grown from the old Underlight community. This site is still a work in progress; in the next few months we'll try to add requested features as best as we can.

If you're wondering what will go where, here's a brief description:

Home - The index page, which currently just shows news items. The idea is to add featured in-game snapshots by members, a summary of community activities and hottest forum items. Know MMOG-related RSS feeds? Let us know.
News - News about this website and the community in general. As we grow, this page gives a summary of all news posts.
Forums - I imagine this is probably the busiest section of the site. Ready for your heated debates, deep delving discussions and fun picture posts!
Activities - A place to post invitations to real-life meetups or game sessions, guild activities, in-game raids and raves. I guess a bit of a "LFG" section.
The Archives - Historic items, like the old Underlight website, old forums will live here. Limited to Underlight at the moment, but who knows what the future holds?
Links - A compact overview of games, sites, fansites and other game related resources valuable to the community. Have new links? Let us know!

The old Underlight website can still be found in the Archives. It still contains a number of bad links, which will be fixed in the next weeks. The old forums (and possibly the even older and oldest forums) will be added to the archives, in an effort to make a window on the history of Underlight.

We've tried to copy most of the vbulletin logins to the new forums, so you should still be able to use your old accounts to login and post discussions and comments on news items. If you can't login, are unsure if your account was migrated, or if you just don't know if you should re-register, drop us a line. We'll have a peek in the database, and help you along with any new registration.

Anyway, have a look around and let us know what you think in the Website Feedback and Announcements board, or feel free to post a comment. Feedback, comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

permalink | trackback | comments (69)