JediKnight.net BETA

[Warlord664]

http://www.jediknight.net/jknet/2013/11/knights-of-the-old-republic-iii-delayed-indefinitely-due-to-fears-that-it-may-be-too-awesome-to-handle/

 

 

:rofl: :rofl:

 

The sad part is, for two seconds, I actually thought that was real.

[Lynk Former]

So I've put a bit more work into the site... working on alternate post formats right now.

 

Basically my idea is tha we have regular news posts which have this kind of format: http://www.jediknight.net/jknet/2013/11/the-force-is-with-you-young-skywalker-but-you-are-not-a-jedi-yet/

 

But then we have a featured article, like an article discussing the history of KotOR or something, we'd use this format: http://www.jediknight.net/jknet/2013/11/knights-of-the-old-republic-iii-delayed-indefinitely-due-to-fears-that-it-may-be-too-awesome-to-handle/

 

I haven't finished the css for the alternate post format so it'll end up looking wrong in tablet and mobile mode at the moment. I'll let you know when I'm finished, but in the meantime it'll look as it should in desktop mode.

 

 

 

Also, on the disqus issue. The whole word-break issue is stupid, but whatever, it's no big deal. It's a bug with disqus, I'll contact them about it and tell them they need to fix it in an update or something.

 

 

@ supreme kotor: I totally agree with you. I was saying something similar to someone else about how regular folks are clueless about what a dot net address even is because it's fallen out of fashion in teh 21st century.

 

@ Groov: Unfortunately, a chatbox is a pretty dangerous thing to have these days since they can be exploited in many different ways. I'm sure if you use your imagination, you can figure out multiple ways in which it could be exploited. Which means we'd have to have round the clock moderation for it... and that takes a lot of effort, more than what I think a chat box would be worth.

[Sith Sizzle]

I'm going to be honest if there's nothing you can do about the .net then ignore me. For the average Internet user as strange as it may sound .net,.gov,.edu are major turnoffs....

 

Love the site btw

Well if .gov, .mil, or .edu turn you off it looks like you'll never be able to visit any government, military, or educational websites.

Certain websites only use those USA top-level domains (TLD's) because they have a specific purpose. There are a lot of different generic TLD's, the most common being .com, .net, and .org. Thee TLD's are all open for anyone to use, but they all have an original purpose. .net is originally intended to be use by domains pointing to a distributed network of computers, or "umbrella" sites that act as the portal to a set of smaller websites, which is what LucasForums is. .net is more specific than .com, although .com is more common and people tend to type .com by default.

[Lynk Former]

@ Sith Sizzle: Yup, but despite its original purpose, it is severly out of style and no longer relevant in today's internet. I mean, talk to some kid in high school right now and unless they're Internet geeks themselves, they wouldn't have even heard of .net addresses because everything is .com.

 

 

I mean, I purposefully HAVE to put .net in the site title to make JediKnight.net and put emphasis on the .net and its existance because if I called it simply "Jedi Knight" the first thing everyone today assumes is "Jedi Knight.com" when relating a web address to the title. It's very frustrating, but not impossible to market... just more difficult.

[Lynk Former]

Okie dokie... I've finished the "feature article" template, take a look and see: http://www.jediknight.net/jknet/2013/11/knights-of-the-old-republic-iii-delayed-indefinitely-due-to-fears-that-it-may-be-too-awesome-to-handle/

 

I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out. Also, check the other parts of the site just in case my css changes have caused additional bugs.

[Sith Sizzle]

Yeah I was wondering why .net was included in the title, but I guess you just have to really get it through peoples heads! The site is coming along great by the way.

[Lynk Former]

So here's some good news for you all. I've contacted the LFN owners about my plans for LFN in the future (the consolidated star wars site and the lucasforums restructuring). I also showed them the dummy jknet site and they're pretty excited about the efforts put into the project so far.

 

It looks like things are really moving forward, and for those of you who have expressed interest in becoming staff members for jknet, pretty soon I'll be starting a public brainstorm session to try to figure out specific things we can do with this site other than "post articles and news" ...this site has to be special in some way to attract people to it and this forum.

 

Also, on a final note, the way we're moving ahead with this site is that of a professional publication instead of an amatuer fan site. The reason for this is because we're up against some very powerful gaming web sites that all take the professional route and we need to compete. The other reason why we want to take this mentality is because it can help people who become staff members of the site. If you have interest in writing in a professional setting, perhaps we can be the ones to give you your first experience in the field that you can point to in your resume.

 

Of course, all of this really hinges on the number of people we manage to get for the staff of jknet, the ideas we come up with and the motivation to continue supporting the site on a long term basis. If we can get enough people with the same or similar commitment I have to this project into the staff, this site can do anything. It will also help us to recruit the talents of those less commited and only want to write an article once in a few months to participate without any pressure of holding the up the entire site on their shoulders with their contributions.

 

 

 

 

It may be a difficult thing to do, but I want JediKnight.net to become a recognisable name on the net and immediately thought of as the best place to get information and articles about Star Wars gaming.

[Miltiades]

Don't have any ideas that haven't been mentioned yet at the moment but I just want say: amazing job, Lynk, we're glad to have someone like you who cares so much about this community and has the skill to keep it alive (nicest words you'll ever hear from my end to yours, so enjoy them while they last ).

 

About the .net thing: okay, it might not be as recognizable, but eurogamer.net does it as well, and it's a damn good gaming site.

[Lynk Former]

@ Milt: Don't lie, you've said other nice things

 

 

Also... I accidentally came up came up with rebranded titles for the network sites...

 

[LDR]

I'm really liking these updates!

 

There's only one thing I feel I should critique: Why name it JediKnight.net? At first glance at it, one would think it would be centralized around Jedi Knight: Academy or something.

[Lynk Former]

A big part of the reason why we chose JediKnight.net is because our current JediKnight.net site is getting the most in the way of advertisement revenue.

 

Ideally, I'd have liked jediknight.com as our address so we can just call the site "Jedi Knight" however we don't own that domain and whoever does doesn't seem to want to budge from it.

 

I think the name "Jedi Knight" or "JediKnight.net" as it's turned out with the dot net address, is pretty cool when you think about it. The words "Jedi Knight" sounds pretty powerful in of itself. Actually now that I think about it, the "dot net" part of the site might not be so bad since everyone would refer to it as "Jedi Knight dot net" aloud, thus confirming the web address along with the name.

 

But the meaning a person associates with something can change over time... as I said before, if we're successful with this site, I hope when people think "Jedi Knight" in the context of the Internet, they think of our site.

[Lynk Former]

I've been making some good progress today... made quite a lot of changes to the beta site.

 

Show spoiler

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[igyman]

Interesting news Lynk. Looking forward to see where all this goes.

 

About the new design stuff, the only thing that's a bit out of place to me is the blue bar at the bottom of the footer. I think the footer can do without it. Also, I don't know if this is a bug or intentional, but the third news page does not show the forum activity and LFN segments.

[Lynk Former]

About the blue bar, I'm kind of in the middle of testing out different design elements, the blue bar at the bottom of the footer isn't permanent.

 

As for the last page not showing the lfn segment, that's intentional. It will only show the lucasforums box if there's 3 posts on a page and only show the lfnetwork box if there's 5 posts on a page. If there's 1-2 posts on the page, the lucasforums box won't show and if there's 1-4 posts on the page, the lfnetwork box won't show. This is to ensure that the gold boxes are always on the right hand side of the site and don't end up mixing in with the rest of the content.

[Lynk Former]

I am pretty much done with the site development... all I have left is to finalise the menu bar drop downs and to clean up the html/css and it's pretty much ready to launch... which means I'm going to start to with the official process of staff recruitment so we can get jknet up and running by the end of the year.

[Lynk Former]

JOB OFFER

 

Oh yeah, I've got a job offer for anyone who is willing to do it... when we launch the site, we're going to need people who look for Star Wars gaming related news, specifically. We're especially going to need someone to keep up with all of the SWTOR news that comes out pretty regularly. Is there anyone out there or is already a part of the team that's willing to take up that responsibility?

 

We really do need a person who specifically takes care of the swtor news since it is so common while the general star wars gaming news is a lot more rare.

[supreme kotor]

I unfortunatly can't take on that entire job Lynk, but I would be more than happy to help with that/the entire website in general(such as a moderator). I no longer play ToR so I wouldent be 100% up to date on it. If you ever need other help feel free to turn to me though.

[Lynk Former]

The staff positions I'm offering are for the web site only, not moderator position for this forum, sorry.

[machievelli]

I am pretty much done with the site development... all I have left is to finalise the menu bar drop downs and to clean up the html/css and it's pretty much ready to launch... which means I'm going to start to with the official process of staff recruitment so we can get jknet up and running by the end of the year.

 

All right, where do I fit in? And are you going to link to the old reviews, or move them all?

[Lynk Former]

You mean your previous "The Critic Return" posts? We're not deleting them or anything if that's what you're worried about.

 

In fact, the plan I have in mind is to archive all of the old sites and to link back to them in the "About" section of new jknet so that people can go back and go through the old sites as they were before the consolidation. The only difference is that the old sites will no longer be accessed using their old domain names, for example, you won't be able to get to the old version of starwarsknights.com by typing in that address into a browser since that address will redirect to the new jediknight.net site.

 

We're working really hard to move all of the static content on the site, however, a lot of the content that is based on the news systems of many of the sites are a lot harder and time consuming to transfer over. So while we're transferring as much as we can, some stuff won't make it... but, as I said, we'll still have them accessible and archived for people to see.

 

Nothing will be lost, we're not deleting anything, we're just redirecting traffic and consolidating all of the attention to the new site so we have a single point of focus instead of multiple points which are harder to keep track.

[machievelli]

I was more worried about the resource center. In fact what I would like to do is take my original Expert's sticky, and except for the first ones (Everyone saying 'hi, this is what I do') and convert it into standard separate posts. Of course I think I will have to find new ways to redirect because in my reviews, I sometimes refer to them instead of merely recreating the wheel every time someone call a deck a floor.

[Lynk Former]

Oh, as I said in your PM, I'm going to preserve CEC as it is along with the modding forum as much as possible if not 100% as they are now, just in a different location which will be just as easy to find as where it is now.

 

But the forum changes will be occurring only after we've gotten the new jediknight.net site up and running and secured. Then once that's done, we'll focus on the details of the forum restructuring, how it should be done and how to keep in circulation as much of the resources and tools everyone has created to help them with their fanworks/modding stuff.

 

Basically, aside from a change of exterior and a new coat of paint, you shouldn't notice much difference in the content of CEC since it's in all of our best interests to keep that place as it is and not interfere with the work that's been done there along with the modding forums.

 

Don't worry, as I said, when the time comes, we'll have more detailed discussions about this and you can follow along with the discussions and proposed plans and outlines, etc before we actually do change anything. I want to make this place better, not destroy it after all.