The old boards and signatures

Discussion in 'THE TEMPLE' started by Garner, Aug 19, 2005.

  1. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    we can move this one to the temple later, but I'd like it to get everyone's attention for right now.

    I think we can leave the old boards alone after changing our signatures, and not worry about newbies finding us.

    the threads Doors made will be fairly obvious for a while, and if we change all our signatures, any old thread that gets bumped will have the links to the new boards. i DON'T think we need to "test" our new signatures over there.

    I've also heard some people are surprised or concerned about the trolls staying on the Harper Collins site. Frankly, I expected that and thought it was understood that they would. They've "won", and will enjoy their victory dances. I think the new poster on the stamps forum is simply one of them trying to create new conflict. It won't work, we've got moderators on both sites and both sites know how to behave.

    This means WE have won.

    Let the trolls dance, we can ignore them.

    Still, I'd like to hear from anyone who thinks we need to monitor the old site. I'm warry of continually advertising these boards in an active way, but I think the signatures are passive and unobtrusive. I don't think that PM'ing newbies on the harper collins site is good or bad... some of them may be troll accounts used to see if we're still checking the boards there, but that's only a minor risk.

    after all, what can they actually DO to us now?
  2. Maljonic Administrator

    I agree that changing our signatures should be enough, I don't see why they (the trolls) would want to bother trying to do anything to us seeing as we have left them to it; and, although they can do little over here to bother us, I'd rather not give them any reasons to want to try and do anything in the first place - i.e. making any more posts about the fact that we've moved. :)
  3. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    oh, when they get bored enough, they'll come over here. be sure of it.

    they'll enjoy trying to fit in and looking like ordinary posters then slowly causing more and more trouble until they can cause the appearance of us fighting with each other.

    the problem is, in that respect they'll be utterly indistinguishable from genuinely new people who just happen to get more annoying as time goes on.
  4. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Done my sig there

    It's: We've moved to Here[link]. It's Like Narina but with less goat people.

    :)

    Let forget what the trolls say. Without us they've got nothing to do.
  5. Hsing Moderator

    One of them posted (in the old Boards) that they hate the people, not the place, and that it was a silly thing of us to leave.
    So.
    Still, it was morbid to see Jugghead talking to himself for the last 24 hours, were normally the place was buzzing. What did they expect, cheering crowds along the road?
    Those who check the old place and stumble across a lost soul might pm them or not. I too think that we did enough advertising for this place for now.
    It needs to build, and that's were the spotlight should be now. We will attract the more people the fuller this board is. I'm sure we'll be doing well.
  6. Maljonic Administrator

    I think the signatures will be enough, our old posts on the old boards will come up in search results for all sorts of stuff and lead people straight to them - that's why the more of us that fix our signatures the better.

    I personally am also working hard to get links to this site on other sites; there are currently 7666 links pointing to here, we're not properly in Google yet though so that will rise when that happens, but it is going up every day with link swapping and such.

    To put it in perspective though, the HP website has 141011 links pointing to it in the major search engines - so I still have a long way to go with this, every little helps.

    On the bright side though, the stamp place has only 436 links pointing to it at the moment.

    Also I've Googlified (for want of a better word) this site so that all of the urls are search engine friendly, which means all the pages will eventually come up in search results a lot quicker than they otherwise would. I don't want to start harping on about search engine optimization stuff here but, suffice to say, we will eventually be high up in any Terry Pratchett and Discworld related searches.

    I can let people know how we're doing as we go along if anyone's interested in this stuff? :)
  7. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Yeah, how in simple finger puppet terms does it work, If someone put terry pratchett message board in to google how would they find us?
  8. Freya New Member

    Also, is the there anything we can do to help you?

    [i:a20ccb12d8]EDIT: to make sense.[/i:a20ccb12d8]
  9. Electric_Man Templar

    I agree with Garner's post. I don't think we need to continually bump the place, it'll be a bit too much like spamming for my liking.

    And on googlifying (soon to be a word in the Oxford English dictionary no doubt) are there any tips you can give us on assisting you Mal?

    edit: gah! Freya beat me to it, I blame Snails for infecting me with slowness
  10. Mynona Member

    I would post a link in my sig but I have no idea how to manage it. I know... I'm ashamed.

    I've linked to this place from a couple of other places, not much but better than nothing, right?
  11. Electric_Man Templar

    Off the top of my head:

    [code:1:f4c4dbd20f] here [/code:1:f4c4dbd20f]
    It's easy mmm'kay!
  12. Cynical_Youth New Member

    [quote:c71c9a3550="Mynona"]I would post a link in my sig but I have no idea how to manage it. I know... I'm ashamed.

    I've linked to this place from a couple of other places, not much but better than nothing, right?[/quote:c71c9a3550]

    You don't need to use UBB code, you can just type the url, like www.terrypratchettbooks.org
  13. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    While I don't think we want a standardized signature, i think we ought to be pretty clear, and of one voice, in what the sigs say.

    "We have moved to www.terrypratchettbooks.org" would be sufficient.

    anything that gets that message across would be sufficient, though.
  14. Hsing Moderator

    Mal, I'd like to hear how it's going - in which forum would that be found? Somewhere in the Temple? Or here?
    Also, like Frey, I'd like to know what we can do. Would it help if we went on this site via google? Does that pull one to the top?

    Maybe the best thing we all can do is filling this place with intelligent posts. When I'm back home, I will start a rereading round! There are still zillions of Pratchett related questions I never came to ask, believe it or not. Well. most of them are due to my lack of knowledge of the English language, but still.

    Ah, and the Jugghead is still talking to itself on the old site... :?
  15. Maljonic Administrator

    I wouldn't get too obssessed with it, just being here adding content is the best thing we can all do really. If you have a website you can put links on that, it's better if the link (anchor) text actually says Terry Pratchett or Discworld etc somewhere in it, but every link is good.

    I have the link on the bottom of every page on Maljonic's Dreams, about a thousand or so, and four other websites also have the link on every page - including Marcia's Planet Surveyor.

    I've also been trying to develop this page: http://www.terrypratchettbooks.org/discworld/
    but it's gone on hold a bit with sorting everything out now that we've moved here. If anyone wants to write a couple of the remaining book descriptions that would help. I made the page because people kept coming on the old boards and asking the same question that that page answers, so I figured some people might search for 'discword book order', 'discword books in chronological order' etc, and thought it a good idea to make a page based on that premise.

    The first couple of descriptions could do with a bit more adding too, I've made it look like they're a bit crap by not writing enough on them.

    If anyone is going to write something though, make sure you use your own words - this can mean rewriting stuff you've read somewhere else, just make sure you don't copy and paste it so we get unique search results for that page.

    Tephlon is having a go at some little symbols for the page to go with each group of books, watch, witch, wizard etc, which wont increase search results as such, but will make the page more useful, nicer to look at and, therefore, more likely to be linked to on other message boards and such for instance.

    I was also thinking of making some other pages as offshoots from that same page, the only thing I've thought of so far is a Terry Pratchett biography, collecting information from many different sources then writing a page about him using all the info with unique rewritten text - more stuff to relate this site to Terry Pratchett and the Discworld really, and things we can use to point visitors to when they ask often repeated questions.
  16. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Great page mal!
  17. Maljonic Administrator

    I don't think we should try and force ourselves to fill the boards will Discworld-related stuff, it'll drive everyone nuts if it's forced...

    Also it makes no difference if you arrive here via Google to our search engine placement. :)
  18. Rincewind Number One Doorman

    Yep, We definatly have to talk loads of pratachett. People will come here to talk about him. No-one will invest time in a forum that doesn't have any threads about the books.

    We'll all have to make a big effort to fill up those sub forums. Maybe it's time for that big complete re-read you've been promising yourself.
  19. Maljonic Administrator

    [quote:9fa9327f8c="Rincewind"]Yeah, how in simple finger puppet terms does it work, If someone put terry pratchett message board in to google how would they find us?[/quote:9fa9327f8c]

    Having 'terry pratchett message board' in our site title is a big bonus for this, when our site is properly indexed in google it will come up on the first page probablt if somone type that. :)

    P.S. the term is also on every page in this text: 'The Terry Pratchett Unseen Message Board welcomes visitors to the Discworld, Terry Pratchett’s novels and literary enthusiasts.'
  20. Maljonic Administrator

    I'd also like to add that Google isn't the only search engine, lots of people use MSN because it's the default search engine on a lot of new computers, and MSN search indexes things quicker, for instance the search Rincewind mentioned yields these results in MSN: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=terry pratchett message board

    http://www.terrypratchettbooks.org is halfway down the first page (no description yet, but still!), Maljonic's Dreams is near the bottom on the same page. :)
  21. Cynical_Youth New Member

    Mal, I'll write blurbs for 22 to 27 if you like. I could even look at the first ones when I'm done. :)
  22. Maljonic Administrator

    [quote:c2deac2117="Cynical_Youth"]Mal, I'll write blurbs for 22 to 27 if you like. I could even look at the first ones when I'm done. :)[/quote:c2deac2117]

    Great! :)
  23. Mynona Member

    I might be annoying here, Mal, but shouldn't The Wee Free Men and Hat full of sky be on that page too? They are 'discworld' books though written for a younger audience.
  24. Maljonic Administrator

    Are they counted as being in the series though, I don't think they are? There's no reason why we can't incorporate them into the design of the page though as branches off the main series. I can't write about them though because I haven't read either of them, though we do have them both here so maybe I should? :)
  25. Mynona Member

    I can write the blurbs for them if that's needed.

    And I really do think that you should read them ;)
  26. Maljonic Administrator

    That would be great, I'll put them in when you've done them then you can tell me if it looks right or not. I will read them after I finish Going Postal. :)
  27. QuothTheRaven New Member

    [quote:3162a39c88="Rincewind"]Yep, We definatly have to talk loads of pratachett. People will come here to talk about him. No-one will invest time in a forum that doesn't have any threads about the books.

    We'll all have to make a big effort to fill up those sub forums. Maybe it's time for that big complete re-read you've been promising yourself.[/quote:3162a39c88]

    Maybe we could restart the Official discousion threads (in their respective forums, that is) and make them sticky. That way any newbits who show up wanting to talk about their favorite book won't have to a) start a new thread on the topic, which many older posters find anoying; of b) dig through the archives for a thread to bump.
  28. fairyliquid New Member

    It looks like the trolls at the old board are taking a direct dig at us.

    Baisically, in a new thread, captinismo (newbit...possibly) has comes along asking for a bit of help on what to do with some first editions and how he should sell them. Pretty standard question, anyone could find the answer to to if they tried.


    Struwwelpeter replies in a nice way saying that ebay or amazon is a good place to go.
    It's all very civilized and goes on like this saying how he should ask them if there are any problems and so on.

    Why is this so funny?

    Either they are sucking up to newbits and trying to convince them we are all evil beings with personality defects (see quote below) or are making new newbits and trying to appear sane and understanding people.

    Whichever it is, it's a blaringly obvious dig at us and personally I'm finding it quite hilarious.

    [quote:a41953188d]Go to the unseen board run by evil dictators and the stepford wives club.
    [/quote:a41953188d]

    Poor trolls have nothing to do, five new threads and all they can talk about is us :D

    edit to add: I think the official discussions is a great idea, people might be reserching things on the books and type something that comes up in one of our message boards that will bring them here. Thats how quite a few people found HC before...i remember one person saying they found it while looking up a recipe for chicken soup :?
  29. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    I suppose I should make a thread on this, except that I already have :-x

    The trolls will have their victory dance. Why is anyone surprised? Let them. They've lost. They'll try to build "Their" community on the old boards, and as they're the new victors on that site, they'll write whatever history they want about us. the archives, however, hold the truth and that's all that counts.
  30. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    I've got a whole list of posts that need making on this board, including the official ones.
  31. Marcia Executive Onion

    Official Discussion threads are a great use for sticky threads.

    edit: Note also that if someone starts a thread on a topic that has been discussed elsewhere, a moderator can just move the posts to the original thread. So we don't have to have dozens of threads on the same topic all over the place.
  32. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    A motion is made to sticky this thread for discussion.

    An additional motion is made to move this thread to The Temple.

    Any seconds?
  33. Buzzfloyd Spelling Bee

    Seconded. I shall move and sticky it directly!

    Edit: actually, I won't, just in case anyone disagrees.
  34. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    There's two separate motions, but I assume that means Buzzfloyd is seconding both.

    If there are no objections within, oh, say an hour or two, I'll sticky and move the thread.

    Edit: Ah! I am a toothpaste.... if there are any objections, I shall unsticky or unmove the thread as required! Silly me... anyway, moving and sticking.
  35. Hsing Moderator

    [quote:56299ddbed="Maljonic"]I don't think we should try and force ourselves to fill the boards will Discworld-related stuff, it'll drive everyone nuts if it's forced...

    Also it makes no difference if you arrive here via Google to our search engine placement. :)[/quote:56299ddbed]

    Oh, actually this time I'm quite looking forward to it, no worries. :)
    Are we going to wait until the Discussion groups take place, or can we pop in, say, "Hey, I've just re-red the Watch book and would like to post one or two reviews" and the Discussion groups pick it up later, if its okay?

    I'd like to reread the Watch books, see.

    Also, I had that idea of providing background for the series; when reading the books, we always had a lot of things PTerry was referring to, and the feeling that he must be spending more time reading than writing, if that is possible. I always wanted to write an article along the lines "Some background on Roundworld witches and history", finally putting all the coursework to some good use.... Something along those lines.
    But that is something I'll just post once I finished.
  36. Cynical_Youth New Member

    [quote:8a2e07d154="Hsing"][quote:8a2e07d154="Maljonic"]I don't think we should try and force ourselves to fill the boards will Discworld-related stuff, it'll drive everyone nuts if it's forced...

    Also it makes no difference if you arrive here via Google to our search engine placement. :)[/quote:8a2e07d154]

    Oh, actually this time I'm quite looking forward to it, no worries. :)
    Are we going to wait until the Discussion groups take place, or can we pop in, say, "Hey, I've just re-red the Watch book and would like to post one or two reviews" and the Discussion groups pick it up later, if its okay?

    I'd like to reread the Watch books, see.

    Also, I had that idea of providing background for the series; when reading the books, we always had a lot of things PTerry was referring to, and the feeling that he must be spending more time reading than writing, if that is possible. I always wanted to write an article along the lines "Some background on Roundworld witches and history", finally putting all the coursework to some good use.... Something along those lines.
    But that is something I'll just post once I finished.[/quote:8a2e07d154]

    I've been thinking of doing a series of essays on the books once I finish the Discussion Group ([i:8a2e07d154]hint hint, give your opinion on The Wee Free Men [/i:8a2e07d154]here [b:8a2e07d154][i:8a2e07d154]now[/i:8a2e07d154] [/b:8a2e07d154])Maybe we could combine our efforts somehow. Not quite sure what the topics will be, the only one I'm certain of is a Witch/Wizard comparison.
  37. Maljonic Administrator

    Both lots of ideas sound good to me, Hsing and CY; I posted this article to the archives about a month ago: http://www.terrypratchettbooks.org/article9.html which sort of anlyses some things. Some proper Discworld-focused stuff would be great though, both for the article archives and as more static pages like the Books page that's already up there.

    There's also the ability to make encyclopedia/dictionaries on here, but that might be too much of a mammoth task; I suppose if one or two people wanted to do it they could add bits as and when they felt like/ came across information?

    We could aslo do a couple of slightly less ambitious glossary of terms type pages, again to be offshoots from the discworld novels page - maybe some text explaining some of the jokes and footnotes that are UKcentric? :)
  38. Kat_in_the_Hat New Member

    [quote:1510f5ea18="Maljonic"]
    There's also the ability to make encyclopedia/dictionaries on here, but that might be too much of a mammoth task; I suppose if one or two people wanted to do it they could add bits as and when they felt like/ came across information?

    We could aslo do a couple of slightly less ambitious glossary of terms type pages, again to be offshoots from the discworld novels page - maybe some text explaining some of the jokes and footnotes that are UKcentric? :)[/quote:1510f5ea18]

    This is a good idea but...wouldn't it just be like copying off L-space?
  39. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    hell, use Wikipedia, i think it's open lisence.
  40. Electric_Man Templar

    [quote:b20bf986dc="Garner"] If there are no objections within, oh, say an hour or two, I'll sticky and move the thread. [/quote:b20bf986dc]

    OK, I have an issue with the 'couple of hours' thing. That is not adequate enough time for a response. Here I am coming online a whole 10 hours after the post, and if I'd have objected it would be too late. And I'm in the same time-zone!

    Presuming that you moved this from Boardania to Temple, I have no problem with moving it. But if I had, I wouldn't have had a reasonable chance of speaking up. There's another thread I've read that gave us about half an hour, which is ridiculous.

    I don't believe you should have less than 24 hours to allow a response from anyone, because that is the only way that you can (almost) guarentee that nearly everyone can see it. It wasn't exactly the most pressing of things, so why the need to rush?
  41. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    because, ben, the massive amount of time and effort neede to undo any changes would be so monumental, and therefore the issue of moving a thread from one forum to another is of such DIRE importance, we cannot afford to dally or take things lightly at all and must reach IMMEDIATE decisions for INSTANT action.

    or, without the sarcasm:

    because it's a simple bloody thing to do and to undo, but it's nice to let people know what's going on and not to just jump in and take any unilateral action.

    if it were something ACTUALLY important, then of course we'd give it time to be seen and discussed by everyone. HOWEVER, because some people ONLY check the boards on weekends, and others NEVER check the boards on weekends, we'd have to give a full week as a minimum, which is simply ridiculous.

    i mean, there's toothpaste, and then there's just retarded. "I'd like to move this thread, does anyone think it should be moved, or does anyone object?" does NOT need to be deliberated for ages and ages.

    jesus.

    edit: caught a typo. probably many many more still there though
  42. Electric_Man Templar

    So you move it... someone objects so you undo it, then more people say, actually move it, so you redo, then more people object so you undo again... I'm getting confused just writing this.

    Even though that's a pretty unlikely series of events, I couls see at least the second move occuring, which then turns it into minor effort x3.

    If it such a minor thing, then you may say it doesn't matter if everyone sees it, but again, why rush? We don't need to do things at a hundred miles an hour, lets take our time, allow ourselves to think about things.

    As I write this, my time in the café has run out...
  43. Maljonic Administrator

    [quote:bfaf265576="Kat_in_the_Hat"][quote:bfaf265576="Maljonic"]
    There's also the ability to make encyclopedia/dictionaries on here, but that might be too much of a mammoth task; I suppose if one or two people wanted to do it they could add bits as and when they felt like/ came across information?

    We could aslo do a couple of slightly less ambitious glossary of terms type pages, again to be offshoots from the discworld novels page - maybe some text explaining some of the jokes and footnotes that are UKcentric? :)[/quote:bfaf265576]

    This is a good idea but...wouldn't it just be like copying off L-space?[/quote:bfaf265576]I didn't say anything about copying anything from anywhere, please don't anybody do that; I'm talking about writing our own stuff in our own way.
  44. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    tell me, ben, is there ANYTHING you don't object to about the new boards?
  45. Maljonic Administrator

    [quote:25eda9b8b7="Electric_Man"]If it such a minor thing, then you may say it doesn't matter if everyone sees it, but again, why rush? We don't need to do things at a hundred miles an hour, lets take our time, allow ourselves to think about things.

    [/quote:25eda9b8b7]Well there's taking your time and taking your time; as frustrating it is for you to come along 24 hours after something has already happened, it's as frustrating having to wait for the half hour that Electric_Man's on a computer to roll around again for him to approve something as petty as moving a thread from one place to another.

    We can't run the boards that way, we just have to rely on the approval of whoever's around in the few hours when things are being done if they're only minor things like this. Perspective is needed.
  46. Marcia Executive Onion

    Moving or splitting a thread is not the same as deleting or locking a thread. If a thread was moved or split, it would be to make the thread easier to find and easier to read, often at the request of other board members. Nobody would be censored in any way. It's not such a big deal that it requires the entire community to put their two cents in.

    The only time I have found objections to the moving of threads is on other boards where you have to pay to access some forums, and a thread that was started on a free forum was moved to a forum you have to pay to view, so sometimes the person who started the thread couldn't read their own thread.


    But every member has access to every forum here; that isn't an issue.

    edit: I know that we're not going to be deleting threads; I was just making a comparison.
  47. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    it's a valid comparison.

    if it's an issue like banning a regular member, that needs SERRIOUS consideration and lengthy deliberation.

    if it's an issue like making a time sensitive thread 'sticky' for a set period of time, then it shouldn't need more than a quick seconding for the motion to carry.
  48. Tephlon Active Member

    I do agree with Ben on the timeframe.

    We need to be very carefull not to take something important, say, "You've got 30 minutes to reply if you think this is a bad idea" and then do it.

    I noticed one other thread and thought... hmm, missed my chance to say anything... (I didn't have anything to say, as such, but it irked me to not have a chance)
    When moving a thread, ANY thread, for ANY reason, there should be a justification message from the mod that moved it.

    Then again, 24 hours for moving a thread to a better suited forum is silly.

    It's all about what is considered important and what is trivial.

    Is that set of rules for the sweepers in the make? This is something which should be clarified in those rules. That way the community can protest if needed.

    Edit:
    [color=red:6592b7ddf1]I think this discussion is better at place in the "Role of a Sweeper" thread. I'll continue the debate there.[/color:6592b7ddf1]
  49. urquhartfay New Member

    [color=green:380f86eda2]hello all!

    i used to be over at the harper collins site, and i haven't visited since late last summer. i got the link to here from someone's signature on a really old post after receiving a personal message (sent in august - shows how long i've been out of it) that this new board was going up. so [b:380f86eda2]thank you[/b:380f86eda2] for keeping the link in your sigs over there. i wouldn't have looked for the link if i hadn't got the personal message, and i wouldn't have found you without the link. since the spam had driven me away (but only secondarily to my own busyness), it would have made no sense for me to stay over there. so your sig strategy worked. [/color:380f86eda2]
  50. Garner Great God and Founding Father

    well, glad you found us! from what I hear, the harper collins site is doing well now, they've got an active moderator who gets rid of spam and, i presume, doesn't allow fights to engulf the whole site, but i think we've got a pretty nice place here, too ;)

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