Cracked Sidewalks background

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Great info.  I never came across the history on the wiki.

Some archived posts from the Sports Only site (nothing for the Geocities link + not all links to posts actually work - strangely the link to Madison being desperate works):
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sportsonly.com/a/6025

This thread is particularly interesting, and may be relevant...  
http://web.archive.org/web/20010818160603/www.sportsonly.com/a/6025/bin/2811.html

Old RingOutAhoya:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.RingOutAhoya.com

Edit: Fixed links.

Oh Great.

Now Marquette84 can quote people from 10 years ago.

(I kid, I kid) 

[Aughnanure]

On an SMF forum that I admin we use something similar to the SMFBlog mod.  That could be the exact mod, but I'd have to look into it further because I implemented it years ago.

You create a forum that's marked as your blog forum.  New Thread creation is limited to certain users, but everyone can reply.  A new thread generates a blog post on the main site's landing page.  Because anyone can comment on the thread, people that are already visiting the forum can read the thread like they would any normal thread.  If people would rather just read the news (blog) they can consume it that way with a little "4 Coments | Write Comment" link at the end of the text.

It's worked like a charm for us for years.  It's about video games, so feel free to ignore the content.  We customized the layout years ago and we could make it look however we wanted.

Here's the 'blog' generated from all new News forum posts:  http://www.dusk-gaming.com
Here's the forum:  http://forums.dusk-gaming.com

Edit:  The forum is private so that's why you can't see most of the boards

Im thinking something a little bit more free than that, as I don't like the idea of limiting who can post a topic. Obviously I think the landing page should be the blog as that is your true original content and the face of the site, and the name should be Crack Sidewalks (its honestly a more unique and defining name than Mu Scoop). However, there would be a section/tab for the forum, along with a comments section for each post, just like the Wiki, scholarship table, etc. I also think there should be a Fan Posts type of thing (like on SB Nation Blogs), different than a thread and not the official blog, where people can post much longer thoughts, concerns, analysis they personally have about a game, player, etc, or even off -topic (also would have comments enabled).

[Skatastrophy]

Im thinking something a little bit more free than that, as I don't like the idea of limiting who can post a topic. Obviously I think the landing page should be the blog as that is your true original content and the face of the site, and the name should be Crack Sidewalks (its honestly a more unique and defining name than Mu Scoop). However, there would be a section/tab for the forum, along with a comments section for each post, just like the Wiki, scholarship table, etc. I also think there should be a Fan Posts type of thing (like on SB Nation Blogs), different than a thread and not the official blog, where people can post much longer thoughts, concerns, analysis they personally have about a game, player, etc, or even off -topic (also would have comments enabled).

You don't have to limit everything, that's just how we set up that particular forum.  Same with the domain name.  Those are two things that we obviously set up for our purposes.  It won't matter if the blog lives at 'crack sidewalks' or not, technically speaking.

Though, if you don't limit who can post a topic then it's not worth reading.  It's just a forum where every inane topic is published.

I mean, if you have longer thoughts then you can talk to the CS guys.  I'm sure that if your idea has merit then they'll let you guest-blog.  There needs to be a hurdle of some sort or else you'll get rambling tirades by MR. HAYWARD every night, which would effectively kill any clout CS has built up over the years.

[Aughnanure]

You don't have to limit everything, that's just how we set up that particular forum.  Same with the domain name.  Those are two things that we obviously set up for our purposes.  It won't matter if the blog lives at 'crack sidewalks' or not, technically speaking.

Though, if you don't limit who can post a topic then it's not worth reading.  It's just a forum where every inane topic is published.

I mean, if you have longer thoughts then you can talk to the CS guys.  I'm sure that if your idea has merit then they'll let you guest-blog.  There needs to be a hurdle of some sort or else you'll get rambling tirades by MR. HAYWARD every night, which would effectively kill any clout CS has built up over the years.

Im not saying I want to guest blog or that I would want to post the longer Fan Posts, but its just something different to add to this proposed site than - in between the official blog and the forum, which is discussion based. Who knows, I would think there a number of decently talented MU writers who have the motivation and desire to write some pretty decent intriguing pieces in their own free time, thats all - you have to take some of the risks along with the possible benefits of opening up.

However, I don't understand your point about limiting who can post. Isn't that (not limiting who can post) the exact same way it works here? It seems to work decently fine.

Maybe you're thinking of combining the blog and forum much more than I am proposing. I do not think they should be melded together in the same platform, but instead simply exist on the same site. I believe they need to maintain their distinctness, and instead more combine their power into one MU fan site/social hub.

[Skatastrophy]

This particular solution would meld the blog and the forum.  The benefits would be that there would be one central repository for discussion and commenting on a post (as opposed to today where people discuss on MUScoop separately from the Blogger site).

The limiting of who could create new topics would be in only one forum.  That forum could be named Cracked Sidewalks (or anything else) and content authors would craft their posts in there.  Upon posting their post would live in the Cracked Sidewalks forum and could be responded to.  The post would also automagically be syndicated to the blog site where it could be consumed as it is today (again: the URL of the blog site doesn't matter afaik.  It could stay CS.com).  The only difference would be that when clicking to post a comment it would bring the discussion back to the Cracked Sidewalks forum on muscoop.com as opposed to having separate discussions at Blogger.com and MUScoop.com.

To reiterate, this would keep the branding/naming separate, but allows for a central discussion point for MU fans.  Plus it would take care of the character encoding snafus that occur whenever a CS post is syndicated to MUScoop today because all of the content would exist in the same technology suite.

[Aughnanure]

This particular solution would meld the blog and the forum.  The benefits would be that there would be one central repository for discussion and commenting on a post (as opposed to today where people discuss on MUScoop separately from the Blogger site).

The limiting of who could create new topics would be in only one forum.  That forum could be named Cracked Sidewalks (or anything else) and content authors would craft their posts in there.  Upon posting their post would live in the Cracked Sidewalks forum and could be responded to.  The post would also automagically be syndicated to the blog site where it could be consumed as it is today (again: the URL of the blog site doesn't matter afaik.  It could stay CS.com).  The only difference would be that when clicking to post a comment it would bring the discussion back to the Cracked Sidewalks forum on muscoop.com as opposed to having separate discussions at Blogger.com and MUScoop.com.

To reiterate, this would keep the branding/naming separate, but allows for a central discussion point for MU fans.  Plus it would take care of the character encoding snafus that occur whenever a CS post is syndicated to MUScoop today because all of the content would exist in the same technology suite.

Ok, that makes a lot more sense. And definietly those character snafus are about the only reason I visit the actual blog. I guess I would just rather have everything under on domain and site - CrackedSidewalks.com - obviously not in its current form (let's be honest, MUScoop is no as good of a name to brand an MU fan site with).

Again, we are just discussing ideas for the two to be more compatible/partners and I think your idea would be a good in-between to see if it works well and then later move into a fully powerful functional MU Fan hub/database. 

See, Im thinking something more in the overall scope and power of SB Nation blogs, but not in their ugly scattered and confused design (adding a fully organized unlimited forum section as well, along with either the open "Fan Shots/Posts" part - Im not sure what the difference really is between them).

[Skatastrophy]

See, Im thinking something more in the overall scope and power of SB Nation blogs, but not in their ugly scattered and confused design (adding a fully organized unlimited forum section as well, along with either the open "Fan Shots/Posts" part - Im not sure what the difference really is between them).

You and I definitely differ there.  I avoid SB Nation because most of the time I get 50% of the way through an 'article' before I realize that the author is a kid that has no clue what he's talking about and nothing to back up any of his claims. 

[Aughnanure]

You and I definitely differ there.  I avoid SB Nation because most of the time I get 50% of the way through an 'article' before I realize that the author is a kid that has no clue what he's talking about and nothing to back up any of his claims.  

Haha, I don't like their design and obviously we would give that main blog space to the already established Crack Sidewalks bloggers. However, the power and functional capabilities of the site as an all-encompassing hub is what Im striving for. SB Nation is just the easiest example to find, and are always some of the top ranked blogs in terms of influence and authority.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want some random kid posting - I want the CS guys doing the official blog postings (we would clearly identify and separate the official blog from the fan ones so there is no confusion or waste of time like your experience was), but Im striving for the actual capability of it all....you seem to be focusing just on the posts you saw. So I don't get where we really differ THAT much.