The forum software was upgraded today to the latest release, and this release brings many new things to the software in addition to irons out bugs and the like from previous incarnations.
I won't bore you with all the spam management modifications and some I won't be switching on because they don't suit a community like this, but there are a couple of interesting new widgety inclusions that may spark interest.
The first is thread tagging. When creating a thread members can now list a few descrptive terms for it. For example, a thread on Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina may be tagged with phrases like tolstoy, tragedy, russian, 19th century, realist, aristocracy. Members who did not start the thread may also contribute up to five tags to the thread. There is, however, a limit of 25 tags per thread. The benefit of this is that by clicking on any of these tags you will be given a list of all threads similarly tagged. So clicking on russian will bring up a list of all threads members have thought to label as being Russian. Alternatively, to search by tags, you can also go to the Search dropdown menu and select Tag Search. The tag cloud there will only show the top seventy tags, but there will be plenty more to search for. You can see the tag cloud here.
The second is member profiles. These have been given an overhaul to give them more of a social networking theme. Therefore, aside from some basic information about the member, they allow other members to post comments to them, to show friends from the forum, and to display recent visitors to profiles.
Also, since I haven't mentioned them before, I suppose now is the time. In the main edit box when writing posts, you may have noticed the following three icons:
Let's walk through these one at a time:
Spoilers.
I won't bore you with all the spam management modifications and some I won't be switching on because they don't suit a community like this, but there are a couple of interesting new widgety inclusions that may spark interest.
The first is thread tagging. When creating a thread members can now list a few descrptive terms for it. For example, a thread on Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina may be tagged with phrases like tolstoy, tragedy, russian, 19th century, realist, aristocracy. Members who did not start the thread may also contribute up to five tags to the thread. There is, however, a limit of 25 tags per thread. The benefit of this is that by clicking on any of these tags you will be given a list of all threads similarly tagged. So clicking on russian will bring up a list of all threads members have thought to label as being Russian. Alternatively, to search by tags, you can also go to the Search dropdown menu and select Tag Search. The tag cloud there will only show the top seventy tags, but there will be plenty more to search for. You can see the tag cloud here.
The second is member profiles. These have been given an overhaul to give them more of a social networking theme. Therefore, aside from some basic information about the member, they allow other members to post comments to them, to show friends from the forum, and to display recent visitors to profiles.
Also, since I haven't mentioned them before, I suppose now is the time. In the main edit box when writing posts, you may have noticed the following three icons:
Let's walk through these one at a time:
Spoilers.
If, in discussing a book, you may be about to give crucial plot details away that other readers may be unaware of, it's probably best to use a spoiler. By hitting this button (
)you will be giving a couple of tags, looking like this: [SPOILER][/SPOILER]. Put your spoiler between these (like so: [SPOILER]The butler did it.[/SPOILER] and your text will show up blocked out. Users will need to move the mouse over the text to reveal the spoiler. (i.e. The butler did it. ).
Google
Want to link to a search on Google? Then just hit this button (
) and you will be given a couple of tags, looking like this: [GOOGLE][/GOOGLE]. Put your search term between these (like so: [GOOGLE]world literature forum[/GOOGLE] and your text will show up with a link to Google. (i.e. world literature forum)
Wikipedia
Want to link to an article on Wikipedia? Then just hit this button (
) and you will be given a couple of tags, looking like this: [WIKI][/WIKI]. Put your article term between these (like so: [WIKI]world literature[/WIKI] and your text will show up with a link to Wikipedia. (i.e. world literature