The RPG Bloggers Network admins are stepping down. They are looking for people to take over.
RPG Bloggers Network admins are stepping down
Here’s how I used the network.
I use Google Reader to read my favorite blogs. There are websites and applications that offer the same service. This not something the RPG Bloggers Network does.
My solution does exactly that: RPG Planet doesn’t do categories, nor does it do fancy RSS feeds. But it publishes the blog homepages, the blog feeds, and an OPML file that you can import into your own feed reader.
Here’s how I would solve the problem:
I think the setup where the list of subscriptions is controlled by a wiki is great.
If the wiki itself is not important, then I suggest we just follow @robertsongames example and use blogspot. His RPG Bloggers built using Blogspot is sweet and looks good on an iPhone, too! It’s simple, it’s free.
RPG Bloggers built using Blogspot
I’m a big [DoOcracy do-ocracy] fan. 😄
Reading about 100 messages discussing membership fees, hosting arrangements, bylaws, voting schemes – that just gives me a headache.
A big benefit of a democracy is that – while cumbersome – it allows you to rule a country where people can’t just simply opt-out. If opting out is trivial, we don’t need democracy, simpler tools will work. A [CorporateMembership Swiss association] is a form of self-government used by the FIFA and the ICRC. But even that is way too much overhead for an aggregator of blogs!
There are *many* blog aggregators out there. It’s easy to do. It’s easy to host. It’s not worth a penny in membership fees. It’s not worth hours of discussion. A solution on the level of Stuart Robertson’s Blogspot site is super easy. All the talk on the mailing list right now is talk about an idea that is super easy to implement.
Adding a wiki to control a planet might be interesting for those of us that wish for a more active participation.
I’ve sent a proposal with the above when I heard of the Revised Plan of Action!
Hi
I run several wiki based sites. The biggest one is http://emacswiki.org/, others include my own blog, http://campaignwiki.org/, http://communitywiki.org/, blogs for my dad, my wife, etc. I have experience founding and maintaining a wiki.
I’m using wiki software that I’ve been maintaining for years, now. I know how to code.
I’ve set up an RPG Planet at http://campaignwiki.org/planet/ as a proof of concept and it has been happily running for quite some time now. My installation fetches 56 blog feeds at the moment. I don’t think that I’ll have a problem scaling to 240 blog feeds, because I’m using Planet Venus – http://intertwingly.net/code/venus/ – it only fetches feeds that have actually changed, and it produces static files. The result is a robust website without dependencies on databases.
It is trivial to reduce the excerpts, strip images, produce a nice and shiny CSS file, etc.
I have shared hosting paid for in two non-profit cooperatives in the USA, and I pay €20 a month for hosting in Germany. Should traffic be a problem for the non-profits in the USA, I can always move the planet to Germany and benefit from excellent resources.
I don’t plan to work on the software to support features I personally don’t use. Therefore there will be no categories, and no banners.
Since I’m not planning to invest in coding, I’m using software that is already up and running, and I already have hosting, I don’t need to make money from RPG Bloggers Network. I don’t require membership feeds nor do I require donations.
The setup will allow other people to fork the project whenever they feel like it. The site makes all feeds public, exports an OPML file, and the wiki itself is also easy to migrate should it turn out to contain valuable information beyond blog names and feed URLs. My proposal uses free software and provides open data. It gives users a maximum of rights.
Thank you for your efforts, and thank you for your consideration, Alex Schroeder
http://campaignwiki.org/planet/
http://intertwingly.net/code/venus/
Gaaah! Now that I read through it again, I see some glaring mistakes I’ve made…
1. I didn’t spell out that a wiki is used to control the feeds aggregated
2. I didn’t spell out how using a wiki automatically provides for an open process
3. Another thing my solution will not provide is a shuffling of feeds in the sidebar
4. I didn’t link to the wiki software at http://oddmuse.org/
Oh well… 😄
#RPG #Web #Planet
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
Nice proposals; I’d be interested in knowing how it works out.
– LionKimbro 2009-10-20 21:32 UTC
---
I don’t think I like Berin Kinman’s counter-proposal: “buying up the network and running it as a business.” I also don’t agree with most of his other points. But see for yourself.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-20 21:32 UTC
---
You know, this seems to work so well, I’m going to setup the Venus software for myself. It’s not because I want to take anything away from you, just that this wiki software looks like the best way for me to follow the many websites I read.
Thanks for posting about the software.
FWIW, I hope your proposal is chosen.
– sycarion 2009-10-20 23:13 UTC
---
Great idea, Alex. Do you think you could set up this Venus software even in the case someone else acquires the RPGBN from the current owners? It could be a nice addition or alternative to the RPGBN in any case.
– Michael Wolf aka Stargazer 2009-10-21 04:50 UTC
---
Of course I could. Give me ssh access and I’ll set it up on your box. 😄
The box needs Python 2.4, xsltproc or python-libxslt, and librdf.
I have a list of all the websites on the RPGBN but I need a list of all the feeds. Then I could set it up right now as an even better proof of concept.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-21 09:49 UTC
---
I am pretty sure some of the former RPGBN board members can provide you with a list of all the feeds.
– Michael Wolf 2009-10-21 10:42 UTC
---
I actually ran it through a Perl script of mine that fetched the page, extracted title and first feed, then I went through the list and did what clean-up I felt was reasonable and ended up with a decent list of over 200 feeds. I’m running Planet Venus on them right now. I’m surprised that the first run takes an enormous amount of time (27 minutes and still running). I’ll report back! I sure hope that reruns are a lot faster. :__
a decent list of over 200 feeds
Good thing I decided to do some actual testing.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-21 13:01 UTC
---
Ok, the run took 33 minutes for 223 feeds. A second run still took about half an hour. I had changed all the blogspot feed URLs, so that might explain it. 🙁
The result is already visible as RPG Blogger’s Planet.
I’m fiddling with the excerpts setting at the moment.
The third run worked like a charm! This is the *time* output:
real 6m37.250s user 1m54.900s sys 0m13.760s
Less than seven minutes. I like it.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-21 13:40 UTC
---
Alex,
While I generally view the RPGBN as you do, the categories, or at least tags, are useful to me... when there are that many blogs, having some way to filter out the ones I know I’m not interested in makes it easier to find blogs I’m interested in.
I never pull a feed from something as large as RPGBN or The RPG Bloggers Planet (I’m very selective about what shows up in my reader), so its primary use to me is as a directory... a listing of who’s blogging. And a directory is most useful when it is categorized and has descriptions.
That’s the funny thing about the RPGBN and planets in general from my POV... I don’t see a point in aggregating the feeds. Maybe a categorized directory is an adjunct project, but one should pull data from the other to avoid duplication.
I know you’re not interested in adding features, but I’m wondering how I could add such features within this framework.
– Carl Cravens 2009-10-21 14:27 UTC
---
Well, if by “this framework” you mean you’d like to install your own Planet Venus, I guess the thing to do would be to write some sort of filter (like the excerpt filter I’m using) that filtered feed items by category element. Alternatively, you could probably take the index.xslt template and modify it. Actually, now that I think of it, I guess you could send me any oldschool.xslt or whitewolf.xslt file you develop. It should be trivial to add. The only problem with this approach is that I’d have to add a new file for every category or filter people propose. Alternatively, it might be possible to do with Yahoo Pipes. Take the http://campaignwiki.org/blogs/atom.xml feed as input, and filter by `/item/category/attribute::term` – but I was unable to figure it out in half an hour (and have never used Yahoo Pipes before), so you’re basically on your own.
http://campaignwiki.org/blogs/atom.xml
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-21 15:52 UTC
---
The RPG Blogger’s Planet seems to work fine so far. But is it possible to access older posts, too? Currently only today’s and some of yesterday’s posts are shown. For example the post I wrote yesterday is missing. The other issue is that there’s obviously a problem with umlauts. And is it possible to add more features to the site like a search function or customized links to a forum, Google Group etc.?
– Michael Wolf 2009-10-22 09:05 UTC
---
Currently there’s just a template for one page. The default is to keep 60 items on that page. It would be trivial to change that to a higher number. I’m going to try 100 items.
Do you have an example for the problem with umlauts? I didn’t see any.
It’s easy to add more static HTML to the template. I’ll add a link to the forum and to the Google group.
Since the result of this process are static webpages, there’s no point in providing a search function. Old items are not stored anywhere. They just go away, like tears in rain. ;)
Ok, added links, increased number of items, and switched to a light blue theme.
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-22 11:14 UTC
---
Hmm, perhaps the umlaut error is browser related. The ä in Westeuropäische Sommerzeit is broken in Chrome for example. And 100 items is still not that much. Too bad, that old items are not stored somewhere.
– Michael Wolf 2009-10-22 14:23 UTC
---
Considering the network’s language is English, you should probably change “Westeuropäische Sommerzeit” to “West European Summer/Daylight Time”.
– Michael Wolf 2009-10-22 14:26 UTC
---
I still don’t understand. Where do you see this? If I search for “westeu” on the page I get no matches found!
Your posting “Necessary Evil” is signed “by Stargazer at Thu Oct 22 14:11:00 2009”. In the info box it says “Last updated: Thu Oct 22 14:22:00 2009”. Is this where you’re seing the German timezone?
– AlexSchroeder 2009-10-22 15:23 UTC
---
Aaaah! Now I see that there is a piece of Javascript that gets installed as well! I didn’t know about that one. It does in fact translate the GMT times into local times. Looking at the code I still don’t understand where the “Westeuropäische Sommerzeit” comes from:
132 var date = new Date(); 133 date.setTime(Date.parse(element.innerHTML + " GMT")); 134 135 var local = date.toLocaleString();
The regular expression then doesn’t match, and so the local string will be used. That string is “Thu Oct 22 13:23:00 2009” and the like on my system. On your system it obviously includes the wonders of “Westeuropäische Sommerzeit”. 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-22 15:27 UTC
---
With that out of the way, let’s talk about multiple pages. Why would you need that? Are you seriously going to return from your summer holidays and read 300 blog excerpts or more? I have a hard time imagining it.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-10-22 16:04 UTC
---
Categories work!
Proof of concept using the tag “mutant future” for my old-school planet:
http://campaignwiki.org/planet/mutants.html
http://campaignwiki.org/planet/mutants.xml
Happy happy! 😄
In short, what my proposal *does not do* is
1. gravatars
2. banners
3. random shuffling of the feed list
4. archiving of old entries
My idea did not win. 🙁 ¹
– Alex Schroeder 2009-11-01 20:29 UTC