No, this time it isn’t about World of Warcraft or DAoC, just this small site. I think I was finally able to fix the log-in issues as previously but erroneously stated here.
The site should now automatically log in registered user up to three months if they do not manually log out. Or up to one month if an user never comes back to renew the cookie session during the month.
While fiddling with that I kept working on the new theme the site currently uses. I’m happy of the result because I was able to fix many quirks and incompatibilities of the previous layout. I’m starting to like the new color scheme, it looks somewhat elegant and it’s easy on the eyes even if a bit harder to read (which isn’t good due to the insane amount of text I amass).
Still there’s something I don’t like. It looks too much like a blog while I’d like an hybrid look, between a blog, a fool’s place, a news site, an archive and a workplace. But for now it will stay like this.
Why you should register?
– You shouldn’t. No really. I don’t care at all about who registers here, I don’t look at the user page, I don’t track the activity of the users in a similar way I never check the site statistics, referrers etc.. I prefer to not know who wanders around here. I write what I want and how I want and when peoples find this useful it’s good. And that’s all.
– Registered users can switch themes, so if you want you can switch to the previous one and use it. The fact that the site now properly logs in the accounts should make this a viable option if you hate the current layout and cannot live without reading my stuff.
– Registered users can post comments without approval, while ‘Strangers’ finish in a moderation queue. I found this the best solution to spam. The spam bots deliberately ignore me when their comments do not work and this site is still just a personal page, not a community (despite, as everyone else, I’d like so). So I assume that peoples write a comment so I can read it. The fact that they need to be approved makes sure that this happens. I don’t really moderate, there’s no ‘quality’ filter and what I get I show.
– Registered users can access private downloads. There’s not much and I was happy to offer that openly… till I was linked on a main Korean site and got 150Gb of traffic in a single day. On the sidebar there’s a link to a “World of Warcraft repository”. It’s where I keep all the patches of the game, from the CD till the last so that they are available. As I said I was forced to turn the download somewhat private. So you need to be logged in to be able to access the files.
– You can post topics/comments on the forum. But the forum isn’t used. One is locked and it’s where I archive stuff, the other is empty and I don’t believe it’s going to change.
Drupal allows more stuff, like access to extensive statistics, personal blogs for all the users, collaboration pages, community content moderation, multiple authors, submission of stories and a lot more. Again this site doesn’t work as a community and I don’t see why that stuff can be useful. So those few points sum up the reasons why you would want or not to register. Again I do not care, being popular or not isn’t something I care particularly about. More than building consensus and lead the masses I’d just like to find a concrete use of my ideas, or offer them to someone who is able to use them. But this is another story.
The fact that I fixed the problem with the php-sessions also makes me happy because it will prevent me to write lengthy article and then send them just to discover that the session expired, trashin all the work. Other ‘writers’ know how fun it is. If they were writing in a foreign language they’d know even better.
Oh, and feel free to flame/criticize me, I like that. About the site, about me, about what I write. The fact that I read doesn’t mean that I’ll change, though.