'Posts vs. Pages', TLS Vision & UT Part 6

Due to disagreements between me and Fangu in the TLS GFX thread, I feel it necessary to create this separate thread to enlighten everyone just what my vision for TLS means, coupled with how it actually contradicts the intended use of WordPress sites.

First of all, News and Content are too separate entities for me. Thus far, we've posted all features as "Posts/News". This means that entries, for example Quexinos' recent Cait Sith profile translation, are coupled with
1) Links at the top to the previous and next News article
2) Visitor comments at the bottom
3) Tags & Categories

To me, this is not the way that material like this should be presented. It is especially not so because I envision TLS as a great FFVII Compendium, much like what The Mega Man Network is for the Mega Man franchise or what the Chrono Compendium is for the Chrono franchise.
These places present content in wiki formats which is how I want TLS to be as well.

But we're not a wiki site. We are a "WordPress" site and it is only very slowly it has dawned on me the simple truth that WordPress is meant for blogs and news sites. It is probably for this reason that only the second-highest user class, "Editor" can actually create Pages (articles without the three listed features that come along with Posts) and not just News Posts, while the lower class "Author" can only create News articles.


To me this doesn't matter. I want content to be presented neatly and without making it feel like you are browsing through News Archives. For this reason I aim to post "The Unused Text Part 6" as a PAGE, not as a News Post. I will merely create a News Post to tell visitors that a new entry is up, then they follow a link to said update.


If however more people other than Fangu (and seemingly Pixel) disagree with me about the distinction between News and Content, I am at a standstill because I really don't want to publish Part 6 as a News Post.
I can make compromises for some planned features, like if somebody posts a subjective analysis of FFVII themes then it may be appropriate to have it be a Post so to allow people to comment on it (assuming we don't want to reserve that for the forums). But for my vision of the site, this in general won't be the case.


SO. What do the contributing and active members of TLS think about this issue? Is my vision for more wiki-style presentations completely insane due how it contradicts the intended use of WordPress or do I have many people on my side about constructing and designing the site to be an FFVII compendium rather than a site all based around news?

Personally I think that the easier it is to find and access information the better, and it seems to me that your idea would make it easier Shademp.

How often is it that we genuinely have something that could be classified as 'news'? (which I would class as external things, ie announcements from Square) TLS own projects and articles I would class as 'features'.

Anyway, I prefer a wiki style approach (though I understand it might be difficult to format such a thing using wordpress) I've always found blog style stuff a massive pain in the arse to navigate, but maybe thats just me?

Keep in mind that the discussion between me and Fangu has only just started and there may already be some misunderstandings between me and her, but the fact that disagreements have turned up regarding "Posts & Pages" means that I need to voice out loud just what I am trying to do here on TLS.

From what I understand, Fangu has used WordPress for years and in the way it was always intended to be used. I am the oddball here in that I want to make distinctions between News & Content. On a site like Destructoid, Kotaku or other, news IS content. I do not want TLS to be like this however. With its exclusive content, TLS has a very good starting position to become THE FFVII Encyclopedia.

So, if I am to continue have a leading role, we need to make clear whether or not I am allowed to tell all contributors to start making Pages rather than Posts.

Edit: Example of a Page
As you can tell, it is a bit different from News/Posts.


Edit #2: Just got a message from Fangu (who is busy atm but will return later).

Just a quick note - I'm totally with you on the site having its main focus around content - as in pages. Then a new page can be bumped as news the first time it is posted, if you catch my drift.

Click to expand...

The argument may have been more about semantics then, but I'll still keep this thread up to enlighten people about my envisioned direction for the site plus having more people learn about Posts vs Pages thing.

Ah what the hell, I have to get up in an hour anyway, might as well just type this up right now

Shademp you mentioned how I've been into Wordpress for years. It's true, I know the tool fairly well. And even though, over the last years, the way of using it in different ways has been stretched and bent (WP can now be used as a light CMS in many ways) - we still have to keep in mind it was created for the purpose revealed by its name: To 'press' (publish) words. Wordpress core is the post system, which is basically an article system. The articles can be categorized and called out to different 'galleries', but let's face it - WP is an article publishing system, which means its based on 'I have something new, I as an author publish it, it comes out on top of everything else'. As other articles gets published, old ones are pushed to the bottom, because they are of less importance.

'Pages' in WP is set up to be an alternatively and easy way to publish 'other content' that don't fit the articles. Pages was never meant to be in high numbers. A good WP page shouldn't have more than 5-10 of them. They are meant for 'static content' like 'How to contact us', 'Read more about me', 'My CV' or things like that. They are not structured in WP's core to relate to other pages as a Wiki would do. Pages are meant to be linked once or twice, that's how WP is built.

Now. Shademp, you envision TLS to be a resource page, which with yours and other participation it really can be. You keep mentioning Wiki. A Wiki is the strictest form of information page the Internet has to offer. It does just one thing (and it does it well) - it presents information in a structured and easy-to-find way. Wikis are an awesome tool. A lot of web sites have its own Wiki -and that's where all the facts go.

Now here is where my subjective opinions comes in - and stop me if I've gotten things entirely wrong: I don't see TLS as just a resource page. I see TLS as a community that can and does spawn lots of 'content' that isn't just 'facts'. Take the TLS projects like the LP's or the Audiobooks: They would never fit in a Wiki, not in a million years. They are 'fun stuff' that should spark discussion, comments, people getting together. A community.

So what you have her is a web site built on two things. This also falls in line with the way you envisioned the sidebars: "Compilation stuff to the left, fan stuff to the right".

Just using WP wouldn't do justice to the facts, as we'd probably be better off installing a Wiki (which is free and easy, but then we'll have THREE tools to keep track off - vB, WP AND Wiki) - but replacing the entire frontpage of TLS with a Wiki wouldn't be representative to what TLS is about, IMO. Which means we're stuck with WP, who's original intention was never to be a information presenting tool.

So. Do we work with what we have, or do we look around?

I don't know much about other CMS/publishing tools than WP. WP is the biggest, it's free, it's easy to manipulate. But if we were to use WP as both an info base and a "news"/article/hot stuff site, we'd have to base it on the Post system. The post system, as I said earlier, is the heart of WP, and it's the Post system that has the flexible code.

WP Posts can be tweaked and edited and fondled with to death. You can remove dates, remove links to previous/next stuff, remove or add comments to posts; you can tag them, categorize them, plus plus. So what if we start thinking of Pages and Posts as not Pages and Posts - but Content Posts and News Posts? It's easy to set up rules between CP and NP (to just call them that for now), as in NP's goes in a certain box on the front page as "heheeey! flashy article! click me!" and NP stays in an enclosed "info system" that can be linked to from various places. NP's can not have dates (except 'updated 01011970 by Shademp') and not have comments. They can be structured with a dynamic link at the bottom ("Go back to 'Dirge of Cerebus'", "Go to 'Characters' section". Basically, the sky's the limit.

WP is basically a mySQL database. That's what it is. And then there's some horrendous PHP code to present it in web format. The code can be changed.

So now that I've ranted about the technical side of stuff - does that spring any new ideas to mind?

PS: A site I think does the 'Wiki with a slight news aspect' well is battlestarwiki.org. Now I think their CMS is pretty home made by a team of people. But that site is definitely good for inspiration. I've seen the Chrono site you mention Shademp, and I think that site is pretty home made as well. I'll have a look at them in my shift that starts in... 2 hours.

I think we should just move to a proper CMS, . Wordpress is a blog engine that can be sorta made into a CMS, but it still requires quite a bit of manual labor.

I agree that would be ideal, but see now I took the time to explain why

Also, what CMS would that be? And hey, battlestarwiki.org runs on Wordpress! And vB. Who knew. Their team are all developers though, from what I can see. (Frakmedia they call themselves.) They've made some widgets too, but nothing that strikes me as super duper handsome (maybe except the gallery plugin).

Thank you Fangu for responding so soon.

Fangu said:

Now here is where my subjective opinions comes in - and stop me if I've gotten things entirely wrong: I don't see TLS as just a resource page. I see TLS as a community that can and does spawn lots of 'content' that isn't just 'facts'. Take the TLS projects like the LP's or the Audiobooks: They would never fit in a Wiki, not in a million years. They are 'fun stuff' that should spark discussion, comments, people getting together. A community.

So what you have her is a web site built on two things. This also falls in line with the way you envisioned the sidebars: "Compilation stuff to the left, fan stuff to the right".

Click to expand...

Indeed, I think that TLS should be both a resource site and a community. The site will die without an active community and fun projects to add flavor, while a "resource" goal helps strengthen the site's identity and popularity even further.

Fangu said:

I don't know much about other CMS/publishing tools than WP. WP is the biggest, it's free, it's easy to manipulate. But if we were to use WP as both an info base and a "news"/article/hot stuff site, we'd have to base it on the Post system. The post system, as I said earlier, is the heart of WP, and it's the Post system that has the flexible code.

WP Posts can be tweaked and edited and fondled with to death. You can remove dates, remove links to previous/next stuff, remove or add comments to posts; you can tag them, categorize them, plus plus. So what if we start thinking of Pages and Posts as not Pages and Posts - but Content Posts and News Posts? It's easy to set up rules between CP and NP (to just call them that for now), as in NP's goes in a certain box on the front page as "heheeey! flashy article! click me!" and NP stays in an enclosed "info system" that can be linked to from various places. NP's can not have dates (except 'updated 01011970 by Shademp') and not have comments. They can be structured with a dynamic link at the bottom ("Go back to 'Dirge of Cerebus'", "Go to 'Characters' section". Basically, the sky's the limit.

Click to expand...

(I think you meant to write "CP" in two spots there at the end.)

Having two different types of Posts makes me hopeful. I have noticed how WP is indeed not created for an overuse of Pages.

If we are to make Posts more flexible, then that change would have to happen before the front page redesign. If you log into WP and check the "Pages" section, you'll see that I've created over a dozen page drafts in preparation for the front page redesign. If you manage to make it so that I can adjust a Post to not include comments etc (whether it be by simply 'checking off' this feature and others or by choosing whether you want to create a News- or Content post) then I can proceed with moving these drafts from the Pages section on to the Post section.

In short, as long as Posts are flexible so that I can maintain a neat presentation without tags/categories, comments and news link to clutter it, then I'd feel extremely joyous. =)

One problem that remains even when we move from my earlier "Posts-Pages" duality to the now suggested "NewsPosts-ContentPosts" duality is what we do if we still include a Search bar on the front page. Do we have it search for only News or Content? Both at the same time?

Also, how acceptable is it that I do not want to include tags and categories in Content Posts, considering that these are probably very important even for the site's own Search function to find articles? As you may understand by now, I prioritize the "clean/neat presentation" more-so than the increased traffic and search hits that a Post's tags and categories might bring.

Fangu said:

So now that I've ranted about the technical side of stuff - does that spring any new ideas to mind?

Click to expand...

No new ideas, as I have great trouble visualizing any other front page layout other than the one I have already presented in the TLS GFX thread.

But thanks to you informing me that the Posts function has the most flexible code, I can now give it greater support as the main platform to present both news and content. Also I hope the suggested News/Content Post division might erase the need to create replacement posts, so that I for example can edit my UT Part 1-4 articles so that "previous-next" news links are removed from the top, as well as the comments at the bottom.

Thanks for the input. And yes I did mean CP

The built in WP search searches all text in all posts. I haven't looked too much into the search function, so it might be more sofisticated that I'm aware. You can probably set up an "advanced" feature that lets you decide. But by default it searches the body for all posts. Tags are not important for general searching. They might just be handy for site navigation (like, say, Tumblr posts.)

The new front page won't be happening for a while, though. Yop has to set up the server first, then create a test environment, and then we have to start fiddling around with it. If you have finished drafts lying around, I suggest you just go ahead and post it.

I've never felt that the current setup was all that bad, however, these suggestions do sound like they could be great.

This part from Shademp's first post especially caught my eye:

like if somebody posts a subjective analysis of FFVII themes then it may be appropriate to have it be a Post so to allow people to comment on it (assuming we don't want to reserve that for the forums).

Click to expand...

As actual pages instead of articles that can have comments, perhaps it could get more attention to the forums. Get more of the lurkers to sign up.

Ok so I had a look at the two sites you listed as examples, Shademp.

The Mega Man Network - This site runs on Wordpress and MediaWiki.

Chrono Compendium - This site runs purely on MediaWiki.

It seems like this is a common and popular choice - to use those two combined. By looking at the Mega Man Network - the need to connect wiki content with articles and vice versa might not be big. I mean you can always hard link to wiki pages within news articles if needed. It will create some sort of divide though, like in the Mega Man site. Are there things about that site you find particularily good or bad?

So that's also a possbile choice - setting up a Wiki for the content. With a little script I believe content from the excisting mySQL database to a wiki is easy. Heck, someone already wrote a plugin or something for that, I would believe.

When the test site is up I could play around with it and you could have it set up as you'd like, Shademp. With a project like this we'd never go "live", we need to test stuff (with a duplicate, so to speak) before changing the actual front page. So you could play around with it (particularly the back end/ admin panels) and say what you like and not, and we'd do rounds so to speak until the result is satisfactory. And of course input from the other forum members will be valuable as well.