Now that we have a site that’s fairly easy to use and presentable, I’d be appreciative of some suggestions about how to further improve the site.

I’ve put a poll up (you’ll find it about halfway down the right-hand side) asking what features you would most like to see on the new site.  I’ll run through these now.

• Your Own Weblog - by this, I mean a weblog service like livejournal.com or blogger.com.  In the end, the idea will be for you to be able to create a customised weblog, and have it hosted under a subdomain of blogs.cairnscentral.net (eg. myblog.blogs.cairnscentral.net).
• Bulletin Boards / Forums - At the moment, the site supports discussion of topics using the comment system.  There may be a need though to have dedicated discussion boards for whatever reason.
• Better Channel Stats - This is a difficult one.  At the moment, the only channel stats we have access to are through the cairnscentral bot, which generates the web stats as well.  In order to get better stats, I’d need direct access to the bot’s database, or I would need to get a new stats bot running that I could tweak myself.  If there is enough demand for it though, I’ll investigate it.
• Web Based Email - This is pretty obvious.  You would be able to sign up for an email address - yourname@cairnscentral.net - and an interface would be provided for you to sign in and check your mail, much like hotmail / gmail.  This would most likely be under a webmail.cairnscentral.net.  Another alternative, which is already being used by some people, would be forwarding addresses - eg. you would get an address - yourname@cairnscentral.net - and any emails sent to that address would automatically be forwarded to your normal email account.

These are just some ideas I have come up with.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know either by posting a comment on this article, adding your own article, or discussing it with me in the cairnscentral channel.

You can now use special characters in your nickname on the site.  This is useful if your nickname contains strange characters (for example, my own!)

You still need to use a username without special characters when you sign up, but once you’re in, you can go edit your profile, and add a ‘nickname’ which is separate from your username.  Once you’ve updated that, you just need to select which name you actually want to display on the site (it’s in a drop box in your profile editing area).

I have implemented a profile system which is easy to maintain, and easy for users to add to / update.  If you’re a member, all you need to do is go to the site admin area and click ‘users’, and you’ll be able to edit your profile.  Your description box is much like the article editing box.  It will let you format your profile however you like, and upload a picture if you want to.

Please note that the profies will be monitored regularly, and anything offensive will be removed

Recognising that the former cairnscentral.net website was difficult to use and a little buggy, I have rebuilt it using new software, with the aim of making it simpler to use and more extensible.

More features are in the pipeline, but for now check out this guide to using the site to get an idea of the features available to users.

Thanks,

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