Past, Now, Future - Soul Souce Articles Section

Past, Now, Future - Soul Souce Articles Section

The last couple of weeks saw quite a major update to the layout and display of the front section of Soul Source. It was quite a major task but what didn't see coming was after this improvement, there was no way that could put off a long overdue sort out of all the exisiting content in this section

Once started sorting and digging deeper it quickly become obvious that over the years the upgrades and such to the site have had a pretty harsh affect on some of the past content, and so what at first seemed a fairly easy task did turn out to be a right old chore.

Anyway end result is that all article/news items have been checked and if needed reformatted/tidied up. Though the amount of effort put in depended on how recent the article were and its actual content, with the focus being more towards the recent article type content rather than short event news. As well as the content being sorted, the majority of the articles have been both tagged (see below) and grouped better as well

Of course its still ongoing (as always - better tagging, grouping, old links etc etc) however do think its fair to say that the articles section (both content and engine) is now in as good as state (if not best) as its ever been

Past:

The way this section has been used over time like the rest of the site has evolved, If do look at the tags they do sort of reflect this (see box on right sidebar), recently its been more article based and less news, while during 2001 -2005 it was used a lot for event news, lookbacks and such

Archive - One of reasons why try and keep the past articles is that do feel that as time passes it does become a worthwhile archieve. There are some articles form pre 2001 which were transfered over and have recently dug up a fair bit more material from then, and will add when time allows

Now:

All the usual stuff, comments, rss feeds, rating, social bookmarking, auto-annouce in forum, views, email forward, etc etc are still there, some improvements follow

improvements:

Tags - all content has been tagged where felt works well, these tags should help/improve navigation and such

if you click the below link you can see a full list of tags

some examples of tags - all shirleys old reviews, many club/event specfic tags, all vinyl related articles, all radio related articles, films and so on

Up and Down - this system has replaced the old 5 star, similar to digg you can now just simply rate articles with a "up" or a "down" vote, the highest rated show on the front page and via the link in the members nav menu (as per below)

Comments - Now quick and easy to post comments, the form opens up on the page itself

Bookmarks - new bookmark feature allows you to keep a track of stuff that maybe want to read later or such

Future:

Ok after the upgrades and sort out this feature is now locked as in there be no major changes.

Better tagging and grouping (mainly old news to archives) will continue as time allows

but from now on and starting today you should start seeing the actual use of it increase sharpest after all this geeky upgrade malarky of the past few weeks

Members contributions - currently via email , however plan is to re-open it back up shortly for members to submit worthwhile news and articles

Content - few new things planned content wise- more later

End Note

As said this soul source main feature is now frozen, that means no more upgrades, sort outs or such for hopefully a long time (eyes to the ceiling)

Onwards and ...

mike

as always any feedback, suggestions etc more than welcome via the feedback forum