Our Site

[Lex]

Hey guys, you've all probably been wondering what the hell it is I've been doing since I became Site Director (or you've not even thought about it, as is more likely the case ).

I've been checking through all of our content, seeing who we have writing regularly, trying to identify gaps in what we have and what we need. I've also been putting together a task sheet of things that need to be done.

So our goal is to be the number one source of all Compilation of Final Fantasy VII information and although we may be lacking in some areas, the site is amazing and really is the most popular VII-niche site online as far as I can tell. Yay to that. There's also always room for improvement.

Spoiler: Our Current "Team"

So this is who we have on board at the moment:

People who regularly write for the site/have recently done so and are retaining writing privviledges:

Shademp, Flintlock, Mako, X-Soldier, Pixel, Tres, Ryu, Force, M.O.G. and Tenny.

Fangu is empress of the site code as we all know

Forum member Jiro has also written a few things for the front page and has been actively contributing to other projects behind the scenes. Sprites is currently working on a few tasks Shademp gave her to do (and it's some exciting stuff).

So that's our current "Site Staff" team; but I want to make it clear that anyone on the board is able to contribute if they're interested. If you think an article series would be an interesting topic for our content, post here, send a PM to me, make a thread. The site belongs to everyone here who wants to make it great.

Spoiler: Ideas for the "Fan Works" Section

The same goes for some of the discussions that have been popping up recently. More speculative essays in the style of those already submitted to our content by Ryu, Tres et al have both done the site wonders for both its image and drawing in new members. Linking to them in the weekly roundup is all well and good, but there are some amazing ideas floating around out there that are worth a feature.

Lic, for example, used to run the Fan Fiction section which is now gone. I think the site should have it back - Lic's fic (lol) is a fantastic piece of fan work from a Lifestream member and should be hosted here. The same goes for any member who has created a piece of writing - if everyone here enjoys it there will be more.

Even satire - the thread on "Does Hojo Deserve Symnpathy" can be turned into a humorous speculative article so easily. There is a fan works section for a reason, and it needs to be beefed up with the amazing stuff everyone discusses on the board IMO.

On the FFVII Compendium and fact based side of things, we have the following that needs to be done (will add as more is discovered):

Task List

• Social Media Plugin for front page posts. Dear god please.
• An information page about the VII PC release and re-release.
• Installation instructions for the above
• Snowboarding Mobile Game page
• Last Order page
• On the Way to a Smile : Episode Denzel page
• On the Way to a Smile Novellas page
• Lateral Biography TURKS: The Kids Are Alright page
• Maiden who Travels the Planet page
• Crossovers and appearances of FFVII characters - multiple pages
• FFVII Ultimania Omega page
• Crisis Core Ultimania page
• FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania page
• FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania page
• FF 20th AU File 1: Character page
• FF 20th AU File 2: Scenario page
• Final Fantasy Memorial Ultimania Vol. 2 page
• FF 20th AU File 3: Battle page
• Dissidia Final Fantasy Ultimania page
• Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy Ultimania page
• FFVII True Script Dissection – The Complete page
• Final Fantasy The Complete Works Vol.2 – FFVII through FFX page
• Dirge of Cerberus Official Complete Guide page
• Crisis Core FFVII – The Complete Guide page
• Kusanagi IV page
• Reunion Files page
• A page for each of the Compilation of FFVII sountracks, including re-releases and remix albums.

^That's the work that lies ahead to bring the Franchise Guide portion of the Compendium up to scratch. I might also want to look at reformatting the structure, but the content is the most important part for the time being.

By "page" this means a page detailing what it is, an image of the front (and if possible, back) cover, information on what it contains, and any VII-related tidbits that came from it. In the case of the soundtrack pages we need tracklists for each one.

I wrote the Franchise guide pages for all the main Compilation titles. Here is the one for Final Fantasy VII. Depending on the type of media, it might be longer or shorter than that one. It really all depends on how much information we can get - the more the better.

These are all things that need to be done at some point in the near future. If anyone thinks they can take them on, post here or send me a PM. That includes the site staff and anyone who has an idea they think should be incorporated into the site or anyone who thinks they might want to take on writing one of these pages.

I don't have a target time set for this, it'll be done when it's done. I'm going to endeavour to get as much of it done as possible before the end of the summer, but I know there are people on here who are far more clued in to the contents of for example the various ultimanias etc - said people would do a better job of writing the page than I would -it'd also take me longer.

It's not just what's listed here though, there's other content being worked on at the moment. A comparison between an early trailer and the final game, credits lists by other people, etc.

Basically, if there is an item related in any way to Final Fantasy VII - we want a page about it on the site. That is what makes us the most comprehensive source of VII information on the web. What makes us unique is the awesome memberbase and the exclusive translations, audiobooks, comparisons, essays and analyses by those members. So more of both.

Please discuss this here, talk about what you think is a good idea for the site and what isn't, but most importantly get involved

 

[Flintlock]

Good one, Lex. I want to highlight this in particular so it doesn't escape anyone's attention:

So that's our current "Site Staff" team; but I want to make it clear that anyone on the board is able to contribute if they're interested. If you think an article series would be an interesting topic for our content, post here, send a PM to me, make a thread. The site belongs to everyone here who wants to make it great.

I'm willing to help anyone write an article for the front page, be it with ideas, formatting, editing, graphics or anything else. Also, I've made a weekly roundup template now in case anyone feels like they want a turn at putting one together

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Thank you for the kind words, Lex.

Okay - fanfiction and fanart generally. I know that this isn't a big deal for a lot of the people who visit this site - well, maybe the fanart is, but I'm guessing that not many people visit this site in search of fanfiction (or fanart). More likely, artists and writers are visiting this site in search of background material. For example - do we still have the timeline? I remember that being very useful to me (I know it off by heart now, more or less). I've also found all of you incredibly helpful with my often nitpicking and sometimes downright bizarre questions, and whenever I encounter another fanfictioneer looking for answers to some knotty canonical problem, I always tell them to come here and ask the experts.

Fans searching for art to look at, videos to watch or stories to read already have their go-to sites, and I don't think we need to become a duplicate archive. On the other hand, fans are always looking for recommendations, and these we could definitely provide.

A couple of things that I think would be a good idea are:

1. Occassional frontpaging of fanart that either has already made a stir in the community or has the potential to do. I'm thinking of things like Sinnatious' fanfic "The Fifth Act" and ObstinateMelon's FFVII parody webcomic (and "Dead Fantasy", although it seems to be dead for real, alas).

2. A rec list, like an Amazon review page or TV tropes fic-rec page, where anyone can - with permission from the creator - post a recommendation/review and a link to a fic, a artwork or artist, a fan video, a fan-made game etc... that they have enjoyed. This list could be organised in categories or by tag to make it easy for people to find what they're looking for.

3. A page with links to people who can be comissioned to make Final Fantasy related arts and crafts. For example, I know of someone who makes wonderful amigurumi dolls (I have a Tseng and a Rufus, surprise surprise).

4. I do think that this website is the ideal home for meta. And I love your idea of more articles along the line of "Does Hojo deserve any sympathy"? FWIW, CameoAmalthea and I just wrote a fic in which we showed how the events of a scene in Case of Shinra could be interpreted in very different ways depending on whose points of view was being considered.

Edited to add: There's nothing about Before Crisis on your task list, Lex. Was that an oversight?

 

[Lex]

@Flint's post, everyone who has written for the site knows how much of a pain in the ass it can be to sit for 3 hours or so the first time you write something and figure it all out. On paper, it's relatively simple, but you end up moving back and forth between those and not really knowing what to do. Like Flint said, he's there to help. So am I, and anyone else on the writing team you can get a hold of.

@Lic, The Before Crisis page was already written by me last year, which is why it isn't listed. All the main compilation titles have pages similar to the one I linked to. If there's anything to add, let me know.

I really want you back at the head of our creative fan works section. I know you might not have a lot of time, but you don't have to be on it or stressing about it 24/7. You're probably the most versed in fanfiction on the board and I think everyone on the site would agree to putting your work up here. And yes, where possible, feature it. This way we're getting more updates on the front page and we're letting the people know that things are constantly happening in the fandom.

I love all of your ideas. How do you think to implement them? What would a rec page look like? Do you have an exmaple?

How do you feel about becoming a site contributor again? Your role would essentially be head of creative fan works. GhostX is now the Moderator of the creativity section on the site, so you and he could collaborate to incentivise the creation of artwork in the community or something similar.

 

[Octo]

This is a bit of a stupid question but do we have links/copies of all the scans people have done of the Ultimanias and magazine articles etc? It would be cool if all of that was in one place. Sorry if this has already been adressed I'm on my stupid phone and its not good for browsing.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Ah, thanks, Lex. We're approaching my busiest time of year, but when summer comes round I'll have some time on my hands.

When it comes to websites and webpages, I'm like the person who knows how to drive a car but has no idea how its engine works. I can make suggestions for layouts and page structuring, but I have no idea if what I am suggesting is easy or difficult to implement. I'm not even sure if I'm using the technical terms correctly.

I'm essentially suggesting pretty much the same thing that they have at the TV trope fanfic rec page. If you visit that page, you'll see that the recommendations are arranged according to certain categories: authors and websites; general fics; AU fics; shipping fics. The main shortcoming of the TV tropes page is that you have to scroll through every single recommendation in a category to find the ones featuring the characters you want to read about. I solve this problem by using control+F and searching 'Tseng'

We could have other categories - game verse, or sub-fandom. As a broad generalisation, writers in the FFVII fandom usually focus most of their activity in one of these sub-fandoms:

- stories centring on the OG party
- stories about Rufus and the Turks
- stories about Zack
- stories about SOLDIER
- stories centring on the Remnants
- stories about the characters from DoC

It would work a bit lke TV tropes and a bit like Amazon, in which the first person to recommend a fic would post a link to the site where it can be read (probably either ff.net or AO3), and then give a brief summary of why it's good and what you can expect when you read it. Other site members who have read the fic can then add their comments to yours (but not remove yours).

But like I said, I don't know how much work it would take to make a page like this. All I know is that I don't have the skills to do it. Once it's made I could certainly fill it up with links and recs.

I only know of one dedicated FFVII fanfiction site and forum, and, sadly, it seems to be withering away. The volume of fanwork being produced is much less than it was in the game's heyday, of course - but there's still a lot of wonderful early work available to be read, like Frank Vederosa's Web Series and Bishounenink's Turk fics, which we could make it easier for fans to find.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

@Lic: I'd add a separate category for fics that have the FFVII characters, but don't take place in the FFVII world... there's a lot of those out there now.

I have all the FFVII OST on my computer (might not have the DoC online ost...) and have listened to them repeatedly. What do you mean by remixs and what remixs are you talking about (fan-made or official)? I don't have/am not aware of those as much. I'd be willing to make pages for the OST I do have.

For the music pages, what do you want? I'm assuming you'd want where in the game the tracks are played, but I can also do music analysis for them as well.

These are all the OST I currently have:
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII (Piano Collections)
Final Fantasy VII (Reunion Tracks)
Advent Children
Advent Children Complete (Reunion Tracks) (also has Case of Denzel OST)
Before Crisis/Last Order
Crisis Core
Dirge of Cerberus

 

[Flintlock]

If we don't turn the "Does Hojo Deserve Sympathy" thread into a satirical, we could still present it as a debate on the front page. We'd just need to find two articulate people who hold different opinions on the issue and ask them to briefly defend their point of view.

Spoiler: Or...

that's the kind of thing we could feature in a podcast.

 

[Ghost X]

The next tournament I'm thinking, instead of militaries fighting each other... it'll be the mighty FF inn off. The battle of the FF Inns! Yes, which FF Inn is the best, etc =p.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Nice idea, Ghost.

 

[Lex]

We were just talking about that in IRC. It's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about content wise - someone could collate everyone's quotes and make an article out of it. Comparing VII's inns to the rest in the series. It's silly, but it'd be a very fun read IMO. This is the kind of thing I enjoy reading on niche fan sites anyway.

Obs, an information page for a soundtrack would contain the following in my head:

• Title of Sountrack
• Images of Covers and Discs
• General information segment (composers, track listing, length, format)
• Table of release dates by country and format (i.e. platforms (hard disc copy, amazon, itunes) - this table contains the links to any official sources or places to buy.
• Reviews - NEW IDEA - quotes from people here about the soundtrack. Ask around and get people to post.

That's what I would do. If you're only doing some of them we want to take care to make sure they align with the rest of the soundtrack pages, so if you like I can compose a template page so that you're clear on what information you'd need. In the main it's just what's in those bullet points. Creating these pages is about being as comprehensive as possible while keeping the page neat and non-busy looking.

Here's the page that these pages will be linked from. Every bit of text in the boxes that is grey needs its own page.

 

[AvecAloes]

I love the idea of having member reviews of the different soundtracks. I'd definitely be interested in contributing to that!

 

[Octo]

If we don't turn the "Does Hojo Deserve Sympathy" thread into a satirical, we could still present it as a debate on the front page. We'd just need to find two articulate people who hold different opinions on the issue and ask them to briefly defend their point of view.

Spoiler: Or...

that's the kind of thing we could feature in a podcast.

I've been on a Judge Judy binge for the past couple of weeks, and at the moment I have a cold that has made me go a bit funny and anyway I thought 'wouldn't it be cool if we could take the LTD to Judge Judy?'

Anyway that kind of thing could make an amusing podcast, it would probably be like a Phoenix Wright trial. I mean we'd have to involve an impartial jury, people who don't give a shit about FFVII.

But yeah it would be good to do that with a number of things, some sort of mock trial/debate. But keep it lighthearted and amusing.

Gonna take some sudafed now...

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Lex, a template would be good. That way I can just play fill-in-the-blank and not have to worry about formatting.

 

[Lex]

Then at some point this week I'll create a page for one of the soundtracks. You cam look at that and base your posts on it. I'll just do the original FFVII soundtrack as a base post in the coming days.

If you could start collating the information as needed from the bullet points I've listed above that can give you the start you need until I've written it.

Do you have any experience with WordPress?

EDIT: Does anyone have any ideas about how to implement Lic's layout proposition?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Don't know where the thread went, but Shademp discussed the soundtrack pages at one point and I put up links to a site that had all that information... here's the page for the OG anyway link

 

[Sprites]

I'll hopefully have some stuff done up soon, just IRL stuff getting in the way but I haven't forgotten so don't worry

 

[Fangu]

EDIT: Does anyone have any ideas about how to implement Lic's layout proposition?

I read her post but it wasn't exactly clear to me what is desired. Can someone link to a page on TV tropes and bullet point the wants?

Edit: I'll be available for implementation mid June. Assignment is due May 28th and then there'll be a presentation between June 3rd - 10th, iirc.

Also Yop, if you're reading this, I'm totally up for a more professional development method this time, like Git + VS or any other IDEA.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Here's the link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/FinalFantasyVII.
It's just expanadable/collapsible lists that registered editors can edit, with links to the fics

And I guess this is the more usual wiki style:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/FFVII

 

[Fangu]

I'm essentially suggesting pretty much the same thing that they have at the TV trope fanfic rec page. If you visit that page, you'll see that the recommendations are arranged according to certain categories: authors and websites; general fics; AU fics; shipping fics. The main shortcoming of the TV tropes page is that you have to scroll through every single recommendation in a category to find the ones featuring the characters you want to read about.

So this is basically a question of "how to list things". You want to categories fics. But what if a fic fits in two categories? Could a tagging system work better? That would mean not listing everything on one page (as TV tropes does on the page you linked) but rather let the user choose from various tags, and the results would show up on a new page.

WP (Wordpress) already has a pretty nice tags and search feature we could utilize.

It would work a bit lke TV tropes and a bit like Amazon, in which the first person to recommend a fic would post a link to the site where it can be read (probably either ff.net or AO3), and then give a brief summary of why it's good and what you can expect when you read it. Other site members who have read the fic can then add their comments to yours (but not remove yours).

And I guess one or more admins can edit/delete all links and descriptions?

This is where the choice of technology comes in. We know by now that the software the forum is built on is waaaay too messy to use as a login system. The WP (Wordpress) user system is fine, but we'd still have to make some sort of new plugin to allow users to post new links and comment. I'm pretty sure it could be built up by WP's Post/Page system in some way.

Regarding users, people don't have to be logged into WP to comment on articles on the site, however if we were to build a Fanfic-list, members would have to register through WP to be able to edit their own additions to the list.

If only vB weren't so hard to dissect, we could have based everything on the forum login. But it's just nasty shit nobody wants to touch. Even the guy who built a WP/vB bridge has abandoned it.

And I guess this is the more usual wiki style:
http://fanlore.org/wiki/FFVII

Yeah, this is a basic Wiki.

We've talked about adding a Wiki feature, but it was dropped because WP was found to be sufficient for the article style we wanted, plus having 2 different types of systems (WP and vB (the forum)) seemed enough. For whatever it's worth I'm all for using WP as much as we can before taking in a new feature (such as a Wiki). TLS's strength is analysis and unique articles/content. Anyone can make a VII Wiki, and there are tons out there already.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

In that case, my first mission is to get in Wordpress and teach myself about it. Willco, Captain.

 

[Fangu]

We'd have to program a bit to get the lists to work, though. As of now, you have to put in and edit every link and description manually in a Post or Page, and that's QUITE inconvenient when it comes to... everything.

So do get into WP when it comes to writing articles, however for the Fanfic thing we'd have to do some development.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Okay! If I can teach myself what Wordpress can do, then I can figure out what we still need to do. I have no doubt I can work out Wordpress pretty quickly.

 

[Cthulhu]

IAlso Yop, if you're reading this, I'm totally up for a more professional development method this time, like Git + VS or any other IDEA.

Oh baby, talk nerdy to me <3.

 

[Lex]

OK Lic, I've found your username on the site wordpress. Can you remember your password? I've given you Author status just now so that you can get in there and see how everything works. Just log in by clicking "site admin" at the bottom of the front page.