Help TLS

[Lex]

So, it's time for a scrum about what to do re: the site. I've made these kinds of threads before, and if nothing else they're always successful in finding a platform to move forward from.

In my head the following things matter most:

- Finishing the new site
- Motivating ourselves to produce (good) content

If we take Flint's recent article, that's an example of something anyone can do - you can write for the site, you don't need a title like "site author" to do so. If Wordpress or the technical side scares you, you can get someone to publish it for you. We have a lot of fresh blood on TLS these days and I want to make it clear that you're all welcome to contribute.

So anyone can do anything, really. If you have a suggestion or an idea that's great. If you want to get involved and make it happen, even better. That's really what we need right now, people who are really willing to get involved and get it done. Most of us look at the site and are annoyed by all the things we want to change or improve, so now's the time to make your voice heard and action it.

With that being said, I really need more people who are willing to actually do stuff. I might be the Site Director, but what that's kind of turned into is me being the de facto "everything" when others don't, and I get a bit overwhelmed and can't actually do it all. This has a knock on effect because other staff see me being ineffectual and nothing gains traction, so people just kind of "meh" out. And I totally get it, because hey, I feel the same way.

FFXV is out in 3 months. We have a remake coming. Let's put our heads together and motivate each other. Don't get bogged down in titles or who's staff and who isn't, that doesn't matter. What matters is making TLS the best it can be.

discuss

 

[RedFFWolf]

I'm very willing to try my hand at anything I feel I could be useful in. The kind of projects I see pop up from time to time (such as site design) are areas I haven't confidence/knowledge in, but overall I want to even so much as say I'll be looking out for areas I could potentially be of some help in.

Perhaps I could consider writing up something too, once a suitable/relevant idea/topic crops up. Maybe even volunteer myself as a beta/proofreader on standby for others' articles or similar. I guess there are always options out there to get involved in some way. (All righty, seems I've motivated myself - anyone who wants my assistance for anything at all, do not hesitate to get in touch).

I appreciate this post hasn't exactly been useful but, if anything, I stand by my willingness, and I'll continue to give this thread some consideration as it goes on. And, hey, hopefully others will do the same

 

[Shademp]

Apart from the Unused Text Part 12 (which I'd honestly prefer to publish after the new site is up ), I was thinking that whenever I complete my All S Rankings run of Dirge of Cerberus(J), I could make a post for the frontpage about it. Perhaps even write an editorial about my experience. If nothing else, people with a morbid curiosity might want to know why I'm putting myself through this.

My post is not constructive for the topic at hand, I know, just wanted to share my thoughts about a possible Dirge of Cerberus editorial.

 

[Octo]

Sometimes I like to think I'd be able to write something. But then I remember that my knowledge of FFVII, and indeed FF in general is infinitesimal. And I don't really know what to write about exactly. And I'm worried about coming across as the bitter old ratbag that I am.

Er...

I dunno, I guess I could collaborate maybe if someone has ideas and for some godforsaken reason thinks I could be of use.

/useless poast.

 

[Flare]

I couldn't help with any technical side of things (coding and whatnot, no idea really how to do it), but if I ever think of an idea for an article to write (or even write something up), I'll be sure to mention it.
Like Red says I'm open for helping out, I'm not totally sure what I could do or what I have time for, but I know I can help out at least a little.

I just know I came to TLS for years because of the written articles and the game discussions on the forum and I greatly enjoyed them all, so when XV and the Remake is out, I'd love for other fans across the world to be able to continue to do the same. If I could help make that possible, I would love to.

 

[CrashOuch]

I'm a trained proofreader and copy-editor and I'd be more than happy to help with that, whether something just needs a basic proof or a more in-depth edit, whatever, I love it.

I kinda wonder as well if it might be worth like frontpaging headlines as and when big FF news comes out? I totally understand that having the dedicated and inspired manpower to write up full articles for everything as and when it's happening is asking too much, like all of y'all have lives and everything, but we're all super quick to discuss the newest news in the forums and link to all the articles, is it possible to put something like that on the frontpage to keep it current? Even if it is literally just a big ol' headline with some links to articles elsewhere? Or would that be counterproductive? IDK But like you said there's XV and the remake coming out and most of us stay up to date with whatever news is out there, shouldn't the frontpage of the site reflect that?

 

[Kionae]

To be honest, my reliability is pretty shit when it comes to writing anything things of an articley nature. I don't think I've even updated my own blog in like... a year.

But just for the record, I do happen to be a web developer (as in, that's how I make a living ) with experience in WordPress and PHP/mySQL in general... so if there's ever a need for help on the techie side of things...

 

[Flintlock]

Like Red, I'm also "up for anything". I have a certain set of skills, TLS has a certain set of needs, and I'll do whatever has the greatest overlap. I'm in the mood to be productive. We just have to figure out how.

Remember folks, lots of things you might be doing anyway can be useful to TLS. Playing a Final Fantasy game? Stream it - the TLS Twitch channel can host you. Have some thoughts you want to share? Publish them. Start an interesting discussion on the forum? Collect the best responses and make an article out of them. Produce some artwork? Grant TLS permission to use it with a credit. Find a good FF article on the internets? Share it with us - maybe it'll help someone else make a front page post. Everything is useful.

 

[Cthulhu]

What really needs to be finished with the new design thing anyway? Is there a List of Shit to Do or is it more of a "whatever seems off" deal?

 

[Tennyo]

Playing a Final Fantasy game? Stream it - the TLS Twitch channel can host you.

I nominate Carlie to stream FFVII

 

[Channy]

Like Red, I'm also "up for anything". I have a certain set of skills, .... I'm in the mood to be productive. We just have to figure out how.

??

I still wanna do a TLS Forum Survivor thing if people are interested.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

If anyone needs someone to format word processor documents into Wordpress articles for them, send me a PM. I love getting XML tags to make it display text correctly.

I'm not going to commit to anything at large has reformatting the already existing content of the site just yet as I'm studying HTML and JavaScript for school for the next four months along with work, so it'll depend how that goes.

If we're putting up a new site though and someone needs to transplant the already existing pages onto that, then I wouldn't mind taking a look at those and making sure they look consistent. The current site has a ton of stuff I'd redo, but I don't have the time to reformat it and do pages for the new one.

 

[Jason Tandro]

My primary contributions to the site seem to be in the Podcast, Retrospective and Editorial bouts. My Community Events so far have been pretty much board exclusive things.

I think I mentioned this at some point but in case I haven't, I'd like to pick up where Flint left off with "The Seven". Get that going again as far as content.

 

[Flintlock]

Playing a Final Fantasy game? Stream it - the TLS Twitch channel can host you.

I nominate Carlie to stream FFVII

I've actually been setting things up to stream that game myself very shortly... if Carlie doesn't follow your suggestion, maybe she would like to join me for some commentary.

 

[Pixel]

I've been trying to write some video editorial type things and finish off some things like Tifa's draw my life, but I've been flat ot with work the last few weeks, and writers block doesn't help.

Once I get my new computer working, I should be able to make 1080p video, and edit better stuff, so hopefully we can get more content out there.

 

[Fangu]

What really needs to be finished with the new design thing anyway? Is there a List of Shit to Do or is it more of a "whatever seems off" deal?

I really encourage you to read the last few pages of the 'Site Design' thread, it explains how far Vader and Lex are with design adjustments on the test site.

...errr, you're going to go 'cba', aren't you. Can someone summarize for Yop pl0x

From my end (also in said thread): Shademp and Vader found some unwanted behaviour (term in thread used: bugs) between our code and Fractions (Worpress theme) that I explained. Also I've been helping Shademp out with making his articles look okay. It looks like we're almost done.

So that's where I come in; as I said in that thread - if you've agreed on a design on Fractions, go through it to look for weirdities, and I can help explain why it happens and provide a fix. (As with the missing "next page" Shademp discovered.)

In other words: I'll reserve my workload for the more programmatic shit. That and CSS, since Wordpress' CSS' level of advancement is medium plus. (It's great practice though, for anyone who knows 'some' CSS, 'some' meaning you should have advanced from writing one class per thing you want to accomplish.) You'll be tearing your hair out, but you do learn a lot.)

 

[Airling]

Fangu is so sexy when she starts spouting programming shit.

Ahem, OT: We have so much talent lying around here, myself not really included. I think about FF a lot. I get into these looong chains of thought about all sorts of things - story mechanics and the ways in which they apply to real life, what makes something in a game work, what breaks it, what would be the alternative - all of this fueled by watching probably way too much Extra Credits. But I doubt any of it would interest anyone else, especially since they're mostly messy trains of thought. I suppose if anyone is stuck on an idea they could shoot a question my way and have their brains tangled by my response? Wait, tangled brains aren't productive.

 

[ForceStealer]

Sometimes I like to think I'd be able to write something. But then I remember that my knowledge of FFVII, and indeed FF in general is infinitesimal. And I don't really know what to write about exactly. And I'm worried about coming across as the bitter old ratbag that I am.

Er...

I dunno, I guess I could collaborate maybe if someone has ideas and for some godforsaken reason thinks I could be of use.

/useless poast.

At the risk of being slightly hypocritical as I haven't written anything in awhile, you needn't write intimate knowledge-informing articles. It could merely be editorials. Opinions on things. Such as Mog's Fantastic Journey series about FF7's towns or my Final Dungeon series (for which I've been trying to think of a good sequel).

 

[Carlie]

Playing a Final Fantasy game? Stream it - the TLS Twitch channel can host you.

I nominate Carlie to stream FFVII

I've actually been setting things up to stream that game myself very shortly... if Carlie doesn't follow your suggestion, maybe she would like to join me for some commentary.

I so knew some would bring my not having finished VII up. I'm up for doing commentary for anything. I have a playthrough that I want to start soon but that's for my youtube channel though I could stream it on TLS twitch stream too.

I have an opinion piece in mind, I'll do my best to combat my procrastination and work on it soon.

 

[ForceStealer]

I so knew some would bring my not having finished VII up.

I was reading some old posts in the Mass Effect thread at Lex's prompting and noticed a post where you say how you don't enjoy playing ME1 and therefore have "only done 3 playthroughs." I thought, "you're killing me Carlie." You'll play a game you don't even really like 3 times before playing through a game that you know at least doesn't have a Mako?

...though it does have mako, coincidentally

 

[Carlie]

But really the first 2 were necessary because I stupidly did the first one with an mshep, then I did my second right with a femshep.

 

[Dawnbreaker]

I've been dealing with professional and personal shit that has kept me from doing anything to help the site, which I feel bad about. Now that much of both has settled, I shall find something to contribute.