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Harold Mansfield
03-05-2010, 11:31 PM
I have been pulling hairs out for a few days now trying to get Wordpress MU functioning properly on a revamp of an old Politics blog.

For those of you who don't know, Wordpress MU stands for "Multi-User"...basically you can go to a site that runs MU and set up your own community blog under a subdomain of the original.
"Supposedly" this is also what runs Wordpress.com (free hosted blogs).

This is what many Universities who offer free blogs to students run.
A recent addition to MU that is also available in a limited form on Wordpress Single User is Buddypress (http://buddypress.org/), a Wordpress Social Network and community plug in...you may have seen me and VG discussing it.

I would appreciate it if you guys could give it a once over. All of the functions seem to be working fine, my biggest issue right now is email registrations.

You can sign up, create your own blog, start a group..basically just give it the once over and report any glitches or finding to me so that I can hunt them down and kill them...I mean fix them :)

I don't expect everyone to sign up and create a blog, but if you choose to, it should be functioning fine (and it's not going anywhere) and I have installed a generous selection of child themes to choose from that fit the niche. (example (http://johnqpundit.clusterfox.org/))

If you do register a blog, you can get into the back end the same as any other WP blog, by adding /wp-admin to the end of your blogs URL and using your username and password to gain access to set it up, make a post, etc.

Known issues:
*Gmail addresses seem to not be getting email notifications, but I'm not positive.
*MSN email notifications go to the spam folder.
*Occasionally I've gotten a bad activation link that produced an error on the page.
* The 'Community' link in the menu is askew.*Fixed

Right now, I'm not as concerned about how it looks ( I was going for sort of a 1950's - 1960's underground Newspaper look) as I am if it is functioning, so any help squashing problems would be appreciated.

Thanks

Clusterfox (http://clusterfox.org)

painperdu
03-07-2010, 05:44 AM
Your domain must be registered as spam somewhere because it ended up in my gmail spam folder. Other than that everything looks good.

Why not add a link to wp-admin from the navbar? Also, some of the lead-in sentences get cut off too soon.

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 03:10 PM
Your domain must be registered as spam somewhere because it ended up in my gmail spam folder. Other than that everything looks good.

Is THAT what's going on ? Do you know anything about how to deal with that? Do you have to send a request to the email companies or something ? Never had that happen before.



Why not add a link to wp-admin from the navbar?

I could do that.


Also, some of the lead-in sentences get cut off too soon.
Yep, I was thinking the same thing.

Thanks Painperdu

painperdu
03-07-2010, 04:02 PM
A search on your host "WEBAIR.NET" and "spam" turns up reports of them hosting spamming sites.

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 04:47 PM
A search on your host "WEBAIR.NET" and "spam" turns up reports of them hosting spamming sites.

Well, that doesn't really mean a whole lot, I can't think of any host who hasn't unknowingly hosted a span site, or spam email once or twice in their existence.

I'm sure they can be found all over the hosting community at one point or another...show me a host that has never hosted a rogue website or had bad clients.

I have over 15 email addresses on the exact same web server and none of them get stuck in anyone's spam folder, I think it has more to do with the domain ( if that is the problem) than the hosting company.

Spider
03-07-2010, 05:06 PM
I went to Clusterfox to see if I could help (because you have been so helpful with my site.) It wasn't as intuitive as I expected, but I think that's because I am not understanding why I (or anyone else) would want to create a blog using this system. I suppose there must be some good reasons but I can't see them at this moment.

I mean, I have a blog on my website. But what is that? It's just an ordinary page on my site, same as all the other pages on my site, but this one is called "Frederick Pearce's Blog" and I update it more often than other pages on the site. Updating my blog doesn't take much - a lot less complicated that having a blog at Clusterfox appears to be. I may be wrong - maybe Clusterfox is really more simple than my blog page on my website, but at this moment I cannot see it.

This is not a reflection of your site, Harold, just an expanation of why I feel I am not understanding the point of it. If it's so easy to create a blog on one's own website, why have a totally separate place to write a blog?

I think I'm missing something, eh?

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 05:27 PM
Well, my attempt is to create a niche community. There are free blog hosts all over the internet, Blogger, Typepad, Wodpress.com (which is what this software is), Live journal and the list goes on..but none that cater to specific community or subject matter with the exception of companies like VH1, MTV and some others like Mom Bloggers Club (http://www.mombloggersclub.com/) that are just really kicking butt.

Then there are other 'community' sites like Gather and Examiner, that are trying to be everything to everybody, and only have one writer per location and category (I happen to be the Electronica Music Examiner), but I feel that is very limiting for the reader,especially when it comes to editorial and opinion pieces, which I am targeting.

If you host your own blog, then of course you wouldn't want a free hosted blog anywhere, you are already your own webmaster, you can build as many sites as you wish. I have a music blog, so I wouldn't be prone to start a blog on an MTV subdomain. Not everyone host's their own website. Actually, most people don't host their own website or blog...we are the exceptions because we are in this business.

I'm hoping to attract a certain demographic of Joe/Jane Public who aren't webmasters and don't , or don't want to, secure their own hosting, learn some kind of publishing software and pay a monthly bill just to express themselves to the world.

I don't know if it will work, but I see other niche corporate sites that offer community blogs on a closed platform have success...and those are not picked up by search engines because they are on that closed system...they are only accessible to other members within the site. That is not good enough. This can do both...and the others don't allow you to monetize, I will. Actually none of the platforms that I mentioned ( except for blogger) allow you to monetize, neither do the communities and they pay peanuts.

More than anything I wanted to have a working prototype to show clients. This was an already existing blog of mine and I just changed the format...it's still my blog, now I'm just inviting others who like to talk about similar things to blog with me..pretty much.

I agree that I need to make it a little more user friendly and I am working on that; It needs to be idiot proof so anyone's grandmother can use it. Right now I suspect it only makes since to people with experience on other free blogging platforms.

I actually wanted to do this a while back and my host actually discouraged me (it's a love/hate relationship), but at this point they can't deny that this is the next wave since Wordpress is going to become a community platform.

Good feedback Frederick, I appreciate it.

Spider
03-07-2010, 06:46 PM
Aha! I understand it better now.

Going on what you said, Harold, I think you would want to make the interface not just user-friendly but chimpanzee-proof (So simple a caveman could do it, to quote a phrase!)

I have actually been to several other systems in the past - I think I might have set up a blog on Bravenet, at one time. Maybe Blogger, too. Never used them beyond that first post! I can certainly see that if someone is not interested in creating their own website, they wouldn't want to spend more than a few minutes creating a blog subdomain.

I think the interface needs to be

Name
e-Mail address
credit card # (if you are going to charge them -or PayPal.)
Choose a layout/skin/whatever.

Then a blank screen with instructions to Type Something.

Finally, "Click Here" to make it a blog post. (It would be nice if they could retrieve it to edit it.)

After that final click, the system does everything else to produce the blog post and load it on the web.

Too many choices, too much control of layout, etc. will lose many people, I suspect. Facebook pages, I think, have a good balance between Do-Nothing-But-Post and allow you to dress them up. But I do believe a super-simple 'Chimpanzee' version would be popular.

Talking of Facebook - couldn't you build an app to operate on Facebook and accomplish what you are after?

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 07:31 PM
Aha! I understand it better now.

Going on what you said, Harold, I think you would want to make the interface not just user-friendly but chimpanzee-proof (So simple a caveman could do it, to quote a phrase!)

I have actually been to several other systems in the past - I think I might have set up a blog on Bravenet, at one time. Maybe Blogger, too. Never used them beyond that first post! I can certainly see that if someone is not interested in creating their own website, they wouldn't want to spend more than a few minutes creating a blog subdomain.

Finally, "Click Here" to make it a blog post. (It would be nice if they could retrieve it to edit it.)

After that final click, the system does everything else to produce the blog post and load it on the web.

...Too many choices, too much control of layout, etc. will lose many people, I suspect. Facebook pages, I think, have a good balance between Do-Nothing-But-Post and allow you to dress them up. But I do believe a super-simple 'Chimpanzee' version would be popular.



Yep, I know where you are coming from and the closed systems like VH1, Mommy Bloggers, and Examiner offer that kind of simplicity..good for people with absolutely no technical knowledge, but limited. Basically what you are doing on those is posting within the system..every post is on the same template so there is no customization or options to do anything except drop some content down and set up an Authors box.

Sure, you can link to your content, but it is still on their domain, you are basically just set up as an Author or Contributor of the site. You can do that with any website, especially CMS's like Wordpress.

To be able to have your own actual blog, with the design of your choice (from what is loaded into the system), you will have to have at least some basic skills or at least be able to follow directions.

To set it up completely idiot proof, every available theme would have to be designed with one click posting. It could be done, but I would have to design every available layout and to be truly idiot proof, and that would mean sacrificing people's ability to customize, monetize, and have complete control over their content on the entire blog.

I don't think that the level of difficulty, which is really very basic, will turn off anyone who really wants to do it. It's basically the same as setting up a blog on Blogger or Wordpress.com..it actually is Wordpress.com

I am in the process of writing a few tutorials for the first timers on Set Up, Customization, Monetization Options, Promotion Ideas and Techniques, Social Networking, as well as making the set up instructions for each individual theme available.

I have chosen the easiest possible designs for users...basically name it, put in a header ( if you want) throw some stuff in the widget sidebars, and post.

There is nothing available that takes any real technical knowledge to set up and get going a few minutes time, from registration to your first post.

Even the registration is simple, just a few fields and you are in.


Talking of Facebook - couldn't you build an app to operate on Facebook and accomplish what you are after?

Yeah, but then that would only work on Facebook, which is a closed system.

As it is you can load your blog posts via RSs to your Facebook page anyway, or just post on your wall. No reason to reinvent that wheel.
I can easily set up a plug in that will allow bloggers on my network to post directly to their Facebook, and Twitter accounts..that's been possible for months.



I think the interface needs to be

Name
e-Mail address
credit card # (if you are going to charge them -or PayPal.)
Choose a layout/skin/whatever.

Then a blank screen with instructions to Type Something.

I don't plan on charging, it's completely free. If it works and gains any kind of following or traffic, I have some other ideas for monetization.

billbenson
03-07-2010, 08:00 PM
Well, that doesn't really mean a whole lot, I can't think of any host who hasn't unknowingly hosted a span site, or spam email once or twice in their existence.


It's IP's that get put on the black lists. ISP's subscribe to services that provide black listed IP's. If it turns out that this is your problem, just get a dedicated IP. They are about $10 per year if I recall correctly.

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 08:12 PM
It's IP's that get put on the black lists. ISP's subscribe to services that provide black listed IP's. If it turns out that this is your problem, just get a dedicated IP. They are about $10 per year if I recall correctly.

Thanks for the tip. Actually I think I can get them for $2 from my, host even better.

I was thinking that it was more a specific problem, rather than an overall problem from the host. I don't have that problem with anything else that I have hosted with them.
Feeling much better now.

Harold Mansfield
03-07-2010, 08:52 PM
Why not add a link to wp-admin from the navbar?

Actually, after thinking about this more..I don't see how I could do that. Sure everyone can log in from the home page and have access to their account and blog, but since each individual blog is on a subdomain, the Admin log in URL for each will be different.

Do you have any ideas on how to accomplish that ?

vangogh
03-07-2010, 11:22 PM
"Supposedly" this is also what runs Wordpress.com

Not supposedly. It's exactly what they use.


I am not understanding why I (or anyone else) would want to create a blog using this system.

Frederick you wouldn't necessarily run your main blog through a site running WordPress MU, but there are still reasons why you might want to run a blog on another site. This isn't necessarily specific to Harold's site. Think about why you use Facebook. Is there really anything you post there that you couldn't post on your blog? Same for being a member of the community here.

BuddyPress is a system of plugins for WordPress that adds a social layer to a site. WordPress MU adds the ability to run blogs under the main blog (this will be coming in WordPress 3.0 as WP and MU merge). The person running the main site can work to build a community and by giving community members profile pages and things like their own blog it can help strengthen the community.

Getting back to Facebook, you like post there because there's a certain community there. It's easier for you to interact with the community at Facebook. Now imagine Harold's site builds a community and you want to interact with that community. It'll be easier to interact with them on his site. You may be able to get those people to visit your blog on your domain, but it'll possibly be easier to get them to visit your blog on Harold's domain at first, which could then be used as a stepping stone back to your own blog.

From an seo standpoint it would be a way to build links back to your main site and if Harold does a good job building his domain your blog on his domain would also benefit.

Spider
03-08-2010, 12:00 AM
...Now imagine Harold's site builds a community and you want to interact with that community. It'll be easier to interact with them on his site....Yes. I see. In fact, as you put it like that, about 10 years ago, I tried to do that very same thing on my scubadiving site, with each scuba diver/member having a section for themselves (I think a directory rather than a subdomain.)

That makes a lot of sense. Which leads me to suggest that the central theme of the site needs to be made more obvious to attract and build the community.

Harold Mansfield
03-08-2010, 12:20 AM
"Supposedly" this is also what runs Wordpress.com

Not supposedly. It's exactly what they use.


I know, I was being flip about it since I had so many issues in the beginning


Yes. I see. In fact, as you put it like that, about 10 years ago, I tried to do that very same thing on my scubadiving site, with each scuba diver/member having a section for themselves (I think a directory rather than a subdomain.)

That makes a lot of sense. Which leads me to suggest that the central theme of the site needs to be made more obvious to attract and build the community.

Yes, actually, the posts on the main page are imports from the old blog layout, but I am in the middle of creating content that is specific to building the community and instructing new users instead of my own posts.

As VG said, this is all pretty new, there aren't a whole lot of plug ins and layouts for this combination, and not too many examples to emulate or get tips from, so I'm kind of winging it right now

You can look at some other examples of what people are doing with it on the Buddypress Forums (http://buddypress.org/forums/forum/gallery).

Spider
03-08-2010, 09:42 AM
...As VG said, this is all pretty new, there aren't a whole lot of plug ins and layouts for this combination, and not too many examples to emulate or get tips from, so I'm kind of winging it right now.. .Wow! Cutting edge stuff, eh?!!

Just think - I'll be able say, "I knew that guy!" when I see you on TV alongside Bill Gates and Sergey Brin!!!

Harold Mansfield
03-08-2010, 10:40 AM
Wow! Cutting edge stuff, eh?!!


Well, I don't know about cutting edge, the kudos go to Worpdress and their theme of developers for even coming up with a social solution, I'm just trying to follow along and catch up.

Amazing that programmers and developers can do such amazing things, and yet keep them open source for people to use and work with, gratis.

But if you still want to tell people you know me, it's O.K. :)

vangogh
03-09-2010, 02:10 AM
BuddyPress is probably past the cutting edge stage, but it is still relatively new. The Academic Commons of The City University of New York (http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/) is using BuddyPress now with its students. You can get a decent feel for how it works if you click around, though some things are private.

Where this is mostly new is for those of us who are theme and plugin developers. BuddyPress is only now reaching the point where it's going to grow with smaller sites. It's only been the last few weeks(?) that BuddyPress could work on WordPress without requiring WordPress MU.

Harold Mansfield
03-09-2010, 10:54 AM
Update:
Get a new IP, to tackle any possible email issues and finished installing the support forum (http://clusterfox.org/support/).
Everything should be functioning fine now.

Edited:
I also think I narrowed in on a specific niche or service:
Clusterfox.org is the free blogging platform and community for people who have had enough !

What do you think about it ? Any suggestions ?

Harold Mansfield
03-12-2010, 04:01 PM
BuddyPress is probably past the cutting edge stage, but it is still relatively new. The Academic Commons of The City University of New York (http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/) is using BuddyPress now with its students. You can get a decent feel for how it works if you click around, though some things are private.

Where this is mostly new is for those of us who are theme and plugin developers. BuddyPress is only now reaching the point where it's going to grow with smaller sites. It's only been the last few weeks(?) that BuddyPress could work on WordPress without requiring WordPress MU.

New version of Buddypress just dropped. got my database backed up and my fingers crossed:
BuddyPress.org → Docs → Upgrading BuddyPress (http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/upgrading-from-10x/)

vangogh
03-13-2010, 02:16 AM
Clusterfox.org is the free blogging platform and community for people who have had enough !

That's really mean anything to me. Had enough of what? I think it needs to be more specific. Who do you see as your customer? What is it you think they've had enough of?


New version of Buddypress just dropped. got my database backed up and my fingers crossed:

I saw that earlier today. Let me know how it goes. Maybe I'll upgrade my site this weekend. Not a big deal for me since the site is currently empty and hiding behind a coming soon sort of page. It wouldn't be a big deal for me to uninstall everything and start over. Still I'd rather the upgrade be nice and easy and hope it worked that way for you as well.

Harold Mansfield
03-13-2010, 06:21 AM
That's really mean anything to me. Had enough of what? I think it needs to be more specific. Who do you see as your customer? What is it you think they've had enough of?
Yeah, I've already changed my mind on that one. I'm having a really hard time narrowing in on something. The only thing that makes sense is the obvious Fox News Bashing, but I was hoping not to limit it to that.



I saw that earlier today. Let me know how it goes. Maybe I'll upgrade my site this weekend. Not a big deal for me since the site is currently empty and hiding behind a coming soon sort of page. It wouldn't be a big deal for me to uninstall everything and start over. Still I'd rather the upgrade be nice and easy and hope it worked that way for you as well.

I did it.
Strange, it seemed to take longer than normal and I initially got a "failed to modify headers" error message, but everything seems to work fine and the message went away and I haven't seen it since.

Harold Mansfield
03-13-2010, 06:33 AM
I stand corrected, the upgrade completely wiped out my child blogs and themes. The accounts are still there in the dashboard, but the blogs are completely gone.White Space.
Thank God there wasn't really anything on them and I didn't have any real members.

That is not good.
Funny, the instructions for the upgrade were, "here are no special Instructions. Make sure you back up everything". Which I did, but some better instruction may have been:
Do not overwrite your Buddypress themes folder because they will all be wiped out.

Also, I may have mentioned this, but for a week, I have trying to log into the Buddypress forums and can't, and the password reset doesn't send a second email so that doesn't work either, and there is no other way to contact them to even tell them about it.

It's the little things that completely frustrate me and scare me away from using this for anything serious.

Harold Mansfield
03-13-2010, 05:42 PM
I got all that stuff fixed, but I just put this project on the back burner for a day or so.

It's been nagging at me since I started the installation that this is not the domain that I want to try and build a community on, it was just one that I had sitting around doing nothing.

It's cute, but it's not memorable enough, and I can only see a few instances of where it will actually work as the root of a subdomain.

Plus I wanted to do a fresh install with the wild card setting and IP address set from the beginning, instead of going back to repair things.

The concept of a political blogging community is still something I want, but I've had another idea in my head that just won't go away, it actually woke me up at 3 a.m. today...kinda like when you get dressed to go somewhere and at the last minute you decide that you really don't want to wear that shirt..even though you know changing at this point may cause you to be a little late.

I'm working on it now, I'll keep you posted.

vangogh
03-15-2010, 11:15 AM
Any progress to report?

Harold Mansfield
03-15-2010, 12:46 PM
Any progress to report?

Not yet, this new one is going to take me a few days. There aren't a lot of Buddypress themes out there, so I have to hack the one I have into submission.

I'm waiting for you to build one VG :)..a Buddypress compatible theme, that is.

Clusterfox (the other MU site) is up and running, but I haven't even begun to fine tune it, or promote it yet.

vangogh
03-16-2010, 11:24 AM
In time I will or hope to be building BuddyPress themes. Did you grab the plugin that turns your current WP theme into a BuddyPress theme. They're basically the same thing with a few extra files added for BuddyPress.

Harold Mansfield
03-16-2010, 11:49 AM
....Did you grab the plugin that turns your current WP theme into a BuddyPress theme. They're basically the same thing with a few extra files added for BuddyPress.

Yes, that was the first thing I tried, and I wasn't crazy about it. I think it will work just fine for simple themes, or themes without a lot of functions.
Not only that, I have made so many edits to my themes, without Buddypress in mind, that it was more trouble ( for me) than it's worth.

Also, if you remember there is the whole 'You still don't have multi user/multi-blog functionality if you install BP on single user WP'...so if I had to do a fresh install of MU anyway..may as well plop a BP compatible theme on it instead of trying to make a single user theme work with Buddypress/MU.

vangogh
03-17-2010, 01:29 AM
Makes sense. I installed that plugin, but hadn't activated it yet. My understanding was it just added a few BuddyPress necessary files, but I can see how it might not be up to par if you need a lot of functionality and if you've hacked your theme a lot.

3.0 is getting closer. I'm seeing more and more posts about its features and many look great. I think the WordPress world is going to change with version 3.0. Aside from the merge with MU there's going to be a nice new system for creating menus. You'll be able to drag and drop menu items into widgets. There's also going to be the ability to create new post types so you won't be limited to posts and pages. WordPress is becoming more CMS like.

Here are a couple or recent posts listing features if you're interested

10 Features to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.0 (http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/wordpress/10-features-to-look-forward-to-in-wordpress-3-0/)

What’s Coming in WordPress 3.0 (Features) (http://www.wpbeginner.com/news/whats-coming-in-wordpress-3-0-features/)

Harold Mansfield
03-17-2010, 01:47 AM
I'll check them out.

My mind has been buzzing this month with ideas and projects that have been left on the back burner because I didn't have the tech skills to implement them, or it didn't exist yet...now it's like a whole new world is about to open.

I am really stoked...this completely woke me up.

Harold Mansfield
04-08-2010, 06:19 AM
Just a quick update on this project.
I learned a good deal from putting together the Fugget.com site that I decided to rebrand and rebuild this one.

Clusterfox.org is a decent name but it wasn't practical and it would have been a lot more brandable if it were the ".com" but someone is just sitting on that.

I put the site in maintenance mode and I'm going to open it up at the end of the month under, iPundit.org and make it an all Politics (not just liberal) and Current events blogging Platform and Community.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the feed back so far.

vangogh
04-09-2010, 10:46 AM
I like the domain. It could be interesting to see the left and right both on one site arguing with each other.

Harold Mansfield
04-09-2010, 11:35 AM
I like the domain. It could be interesting to see the left and right both on one site arguing with each other.

Now I'm thinking to expand that into all Social Issues, Current Events, and Business Subjects.
I think the world "Pundit" is applicable across a lot of platforms, not just politics.
What do you think ?

billbenson
04-11-2010, 05:47 PM
I always thought a good political site subject would be an attack on meddling celebrities. Whopie Goldberg comes to mind as an example. Or the film director, I forget his name, who made a movie to try to sway the last presidential election. Many of them know very little about what they are supporting. It would be pretty easy to pick their positions apart which would,no doubt, get their fans in an uproar.

Harold Mansfield
04-11-2010, 08:57 PM
I always thought a good political site subject would be an attack on meddling celebrities. Whopie Goldberg comes to mind as an example. Or the film director, I forget his name, who made a movie to try to sway the last presidential election. Many of them know very little about what they are supporting. It would be pretty easy to pick their positions apart which would,no doubt, get their fans in an uproar.

Celebrities are no different than the rest of society, or no smarter. They just have a larger platform to speak on.

Michael Moore, I think, is the Director you are thinking about.

KristineS
04-12-2010, 12:52 PM
Pundit is definitely applicable across a variety of platforms. Really all a pundit needs is a good set of opinions, I don't think those opinions necessarily have to be confined to politics.

I have to say, I really like this idea. Guess I've always had a secret desire to be a pundit.

Harold Mansfield
04-12-2010, 12:59 PM
Pundit is definitely applicable across a variety of platforms. Really all a pundit needs is a good set of opinions,

LOL, they don't even have to be good.



I have to say, I really like this idea. Guess I've always had a secret desire to be a pundit.

Aren't we all already? I mean what's on our mind as regular folk is more important than what 1 or 2 talking heads say on TV or radio.
There's 350 million of us.

Who hasn't, or doesn't talk out loud to the TV or radio when something stirs your attention, or pisses you off?

I've been poking around at this idea for over a year now, at least 3 different attempts.
This is the closest I have been to what I really wanted and envisioned.

Hopefully the 4th time is the charm. :)

Harold Mansfield
04-12-2010, 06:15 PM
This thread has changed from it's original review and is now pretty much a duplicate of this thread:
http://www.small-business-forum.net/website-reviews/2852-please-take-look-tell-me-what-you-think.html