Blog Status Update

The HTML editing is coming along nicely, I think: this thing is starting to LOOK the way I wanted. Now, I need to create or steal a couple more gadgets that are not offered here as "widgets": a listing of all post titles, to act as a table of contents, and links to get to the selected title, without scrolling. I may also want the same type of indexing for the archive, although I have not thought that through, yet, and may find that my early misadventures with so many edits and re-edits of the first post impair that process.

I want to think about a team blog, rather than "my" blog for the team: perhaps include a few willing members as full-blown authors, rather than readers who are able only to comment. With the HTML soon settled, though, the authorship issue may just blow in the wind for now - I also want to get to the process of blasting this thing out to the team members, and see how many will visit once it is fully publicized. The bad habit I have, of dropping messages on profile pages may just get expanded, to include that effort.

And, we may wish to openly publicize the blog to the entire IWON membership (although I THINK I remember some problem with making url references copy-and-paste in the chats).
That way, it could operate as an additional recruiting tool for us. I believe I have gathered about a dozen really high-ranked coin collectors over the past week, but I also know that we have some of our top 16, leaving at the end of the month, so that may only be a little better than break-even for Tigers.

If I start pushing the blog in public chats, and invite others to review, there are two immediate consequences:

1) Visitors will happen, and some of them may decide to join us from previously being uncertain that we were the right team;
2) Visitors WILL happen, and some of them may attempt to copy the device for their current teams. This one is not so good, for we need the edge. AND, some of the recruiting discussion that I have already posted, needs to not be applied by those who are not already using similar techniques. I don't want to start finding messages from Wounded Warriors when I view "touching" profiles.

This decision must ultimately be a team decision - probably introduced in the team messages, and comments to be collected here to result in that decision. However, even that does risk some leakage, so the decision may turn out to be moot, for others WILL eventually detect this, or our own defectors may carry the information to others. Even the Ask.com search may ultimately start to find us - I set this blog up to allow crawling by the search engines, and publication by them to their blog rolls.

Blog Status?

I am working on editing the HTML / Blogger script now - the first focus was to steal a template that readily and fully supported the sidebar - I found Rounders 4. The problem was, that Rounders 4 has a really terrible color scheme and some graphics that annoy me. So - after a bit of searching, I decided that I would be unable to find a better template. Thus, I am using the corpse of Rounders 4, and editing.

There are some annoying problems with that approach, too: one must always save the last functioning template, in case the changes DON'T function; but one cannot merely edit that save, nor a copy of that save, for they are xml documents, and want to act when clicked. Not good. Online edit is better, in that one can SEE the code, and change it. However, the Blogger editor is weak - no search - much less, search-and-replace. Now one must save the template as xml, then again as copy-and-paste text, then use an independent editor to find the areas to change, and change them. And after each change, reload that as the new template, and view the blog to find the result - good or bad - and repeat. Slower - MUCH slower - than I wanted, but not such a bad thing, either, for it is forcing me to relearn HTML - once I was GOOD - 15 or so years ago - and could again become at least adequate in this process. And it saves the IWON world from all the recruiting I would be doing, if not this. I am sure everyone breaths a sigh of relief at all those messages and recruitments not received on the profile page, and the ability to play a slots game without having to mute me in order to see the chat.

Once I am fairly well satisfied, I plan to begin pushing the blog at the team members I can reach - first in team messages, then on team profile pages, then in open chat as part of the initial recruitment. Then, participation here will begin to allow the team, I hope, to grow together, to become more cohesive, and to help us figure out how to reach our "Lost Tribes".