So we all can post and edit, links work normal, etc.

Ongoing work in Blog.

TODO:

• Category Development: March 15th 2009 and older
• Category Release (quite a lot)
• Category Security
• Category Support
• Category Uncategorized

-- ArthurClemens - 23 Nov 2011

Here's some feedback after a a quick look at the blog web.

Some remarks:

• can we list the first 5 blog entries on the front page in full length, not just some non-telling headlines, please
• can we remove the "View category" form at the top: categories should go into the sidebar
• in general the sidebar still needs a touch as it is full of non-blog related stuff and even duplicates things already on the page like "Hello MichaelDaum, logout."
• the comment box at the bottom of a posting doesn't look bloggish
• readability in wide format is pretty hard: how about making it a centred fixed-width layout just for this web
• navigation among blog postings is too hard: it would be great to page to the next blog posting from a previous one, e.g. have links from http://foswiki.org/Blog/Foswiki_Association_board_election to both, the previous one at http://foswiki.org/Blog/Foswiki_1_1_4_released, and the next one at http://foswiki.org/Blog/January_2012_foswiki_development_roundup
• clicking on a category/tag e.g. Development goes to http://foswiki.org/Blog.BlogPost?tag=Development;category=;author=#BlogPosts: the extra #BlogPosts anchor makes the page feel unexpected or jumpy. I'd rather not add the anchor and give the user a normal page load experience
• the html header lacks SEO related meta data: keywords, description, and the like, based on the blog posting's classification as well as based on SEO formfields provided by the author.
• there's no clear separation between categories and tags: the same category exists as tag as well. That's a problem we have on the wordpress blog as well and this might very well be deeply rooted in the way wordpress treats categories and tags.

From a Q&A perspective, it does not feel like a blog at all. This is not ready to go.

The other big problem is integrating update services to the blog like http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/. Without, the impact / visibility of any posting will be significantly lower. Update services are xml-rpc endpoints to be contacted automatically when a new posting is out.

Here's a list of some more

• http://rpc.twingly.com
• http://api.feedster.com/ping
• http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
• http://api.moreover.com/ping
• http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
• http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
• http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
• http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
• http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
• http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
• http://ping.blo.gs/
• http://ping.feedburner.com
• http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
• http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
• http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
• http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
• http://www.feedsubmitter.com
• http://blo.gs/ping.php
• http://www.pingerati.net
• http://www.pingmyblog.com
• http://geourl.org/ping
• http://ipings.com
• http://www.weblogalot.com/ping

Wordpress is configurable to notify all or a subset of them automatically. That's why wordpress postings pop up so quickly on google and everywhere else. This needs a plugin of its own most probably adding it to the staled PingBackPlugin.

Just my 2cent

-- MichaelDaum - 03 Feb 2012

BlogAddOn will not meet all of your public blog needs. It is a topic+form data addon, not a plugin.

What realistically can be changed:

• add meta data to head
• create a front page with full texts DONE
• have a list of categories in the sidebar DONE
• style the comment box
• remove the # anchor from links DONE
• add a CSS style to reduce the content width DONE

Not realistically without converting to a plugin:

• navigating to the next post

Let it work with PingBackPlugin: no idea.

Categories vs tags: this is info management, by people. Duplicates can be pruned.

I can make some changes piecemeal, but my time is limited as BaseSkin has my priority right now, next to my day job.

-- ArthurClemens - 03 Feb 2012

I've made a couple of changes. My time got limited because of ENCODE troubles - somehow I cannot get it to change the quotes in summary texts.

I will now make the web public, and leave the other stuff for sometime later.

-- ArthurClemens - 05 Feb 2012

excellent. I'll switch over the DNS for blog.foswiki.org this week.

-- SvenDowideit - 11 Feb 2012

Sven, please don't!!!

The current blog application really isn't looking and feeling any professional at all.

While I agree that we need to use foswiki for as many use cases as possible, the current implementation simply isn't production ready.

Update services, pingback, public commenting, spam protection, etc .... you can't just put your fingers in the ears singing lalala.

Not playing "blog" properly will only hurt the project and not help. Using the Blog web as it is right now only shows that foswiki is not ready to be used as a blog thus shying away people.

This hurts the project more than anything else, besides people running in different directions without talking or even listening to each other

Wordpress is a save choice right now. We are not in any hurry to switch to a foswiki-based blog at all.

-- MichaelDaum - 29 Feb 2012

Micha, I'm not telling you that your opinion has no value, but rather that I'm taking a different tack.

I'm starting with something that we all want that we have now, with the expectation that if there's a problem, we'll fix it over time.

This is the foswiki-way: we don't let one person's objections overrule and delay things forever - and the wordpress temporary measure has been in place for.... 3 years.

That is long enough.

I'm writing more in the Feature proposal George made: MakeOfficialFoswikiBlogOnFoswiki

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Mar 2012