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Hey there,

As some of you may or may not know, there has recently been discussion about a TGC Webring.

Things are moving along quite fast and nicely, and now we want your input.

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For those that don't know;

The TGC webring was an idea inspired by Matt Rock & Dabip to have a simple link-exchange between a few members of the forum.
The idea was quickly taken on by a few more members of the forum and before we knew it, we had our very own website for all our links - http://www.dbwebring.co.nr

Taking the next step, we're putting the site into a proper CMS based environment to make the link submission and management process alot more automated and easier to work with.

Thus, www.tgcwebring.info was born.

Josh (from Coders Turf) has very greatfully agreed to host the new site, but there is another week and a half before we are going live.

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And so, we come to your part in all this.

We are starting to discuss rules and regulations, Acceptable Usage Policies, and how the site should work.

The topics already raised have been:

* RSS feeds

* Forum or No Forum

* Private Forum or No Private Forum (for moderators & members of the link exchange)

* Number of sites submittable per person

* Site Reviews & strict guidelines about assosciated content (eg adult)


What do you think?

Jess.

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I have a question.
I use FPSC but I have a lot of models that I made on my site.
I checked out your webring and it is impressive.
The front page on the site says it is for DBP developers only but my models will work in DBP (since they are all in .x format).
Can I join your webring or not?
Even if the answer is no can I put a link to it on my site the next time I upgrade it?
You can click on the link above my sig to get to my site.
I am not trying to promote my site as much as I want as many people as possible to be able to use the free models and resources on it.

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Heck, I don't see why we couldn't. It's more TGC based but DBP, DBC, the C version of the dark basic stuff, FPSC will work I think.

Of course, it's not my choice so, let's hope some more people will say sure.

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* RSS feeds
Yes

* Forum or No Forum
Only for questions about the webring. There is no need for another forum.

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A forum wouldn't be a good idea, there really is no need for one. It will just be empty.

but I could see how a simple forum just for admin & mods could come in handy.

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Forum, as I've said before, is a bad idea. An announcements board, maybe... Maybe a board for admin stuff...

RSS - DEFINATELY. Plugging Drupal again - Drupal does RSS for you hehe...

Site Limit - Why? The more sites, the more content, the better the ring...

about FPSC - Why would we ever not do that? Its a TGC Webring - not DBP Webring. Surely just making a new category for that would work best, especially from an SEO point of view.

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Yeah, FPSC is fine.

Just shoot an email to the current host of the web ring and you can get included.

Nick, the site limit would be per person. So if (using Matt's example), I had a game under one sub-domain, and another under another, etc, but I still had a main page that linked to all these, the rule should be that I can only submit my main page, and not all the subdomains individually.

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Thanks,Jess.
I sent my e-mail.

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I think it's a shame that this is a 'DarkBasic/FPSC thing' only. Surely the point of an 'Independent Game Developer' webring would be any developer who develops independently?

I mean, you're cutting out a gaping hole in the amount of developers who could register their site by restricting language. I was initially interested in this ring, but since I don't code in DB (but I do code games) it appears that this ring is rather fruitless for me.

Please, for the sake of me and countless others, make the ring do what it says on the tin ('Independent Game Developers' not 'DB Game Developers')

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Err, the link is tgcwebring.info - Which would imply things only by the TGC community...

And besides, there's plenty of places out there already that have things set up for indie game developers (Coders Turf being one).

Can I ask, if you don't use TGC stuff, what're hanging around the forum for?

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Well yes, but that means the name on the site is unwarranted then doesn't it? It isn't Independent Game Developers, it is just TGC developers.


Well, both these things are answered by one question: I like this community. I've been a part of this community for 3 or 4 years now, and I don't think I should leave just because I don't use DBP etc.
After all, this site is the Game Creators not the Dark Basic Only community. Besides, I find it fairly ironic that your questioning me about this, when your coding things for the DS. Are they coded in DB or with TGC's products? Why are you still 'hanging around here'

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This new webring thread has got a lot of attention There's already been 3 people since yesterday who have emailed me asking for a place in the webring

I will add the sites that have been emailed to me. I will also change the site so it allows FPSC.

Two Questions:

1. Should Dark Game SDK also be allowed? (I think it should be)
2. Does the 1 site per person rule only apply with subdomains? because Robin emailed me asking if his two sites could be submitted (www.robinsgames.com & www.darkbasicgames.com). Seeing as the two sites are different to each other would they both be allowed)?

@David R: What program do you code games with?

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1) Languages: I think David R has a point, I mean there are thousands of resources out there that everybody here would find useful but most are being cut-out by limiting the scope of the web ring.

However, the idea was for this to be a web ring just for TGC products, but as TGC are not endorsing/supporting us in any way I think it might be an idea to meet half way? We can still have section(s) specifically for TGC but also allow others the right to join in too? Anyway that's my input.


2) RSS Feeds: Yes if the feed displays a list of newly added links, or random links. Would be great if users could customise an RSS feed and choose the categories they want included in their feed too. Don't know if Drupal can do that though...


3) Forum: No forum. An empty forum creates a negative atmosphere on any website. (and yes it will be empty.) We have a forum here, and my Coders Turf forum if you want something that covers everything indie-related.

As Jess said the web ring can either be discussed here, or I can setup a private board at Coders Turf if the MOD team for the web ring gets very large.



4) Site Limit: An outright limit per user I think is a bad idea, but as each link is going to be reviewed before its added we can filter out the people who try to add every page of their websites. I could create a page where it makes it easy for MODS to see similar links already in the database, who added them etc, so it'll be easier to filter bad links out... This is something that Drupal definitely can't do.


5) Site Reviews: By site reviews, do you mean people can rate links, and post comments? Can Drupal do this? Maybe Nick can help us out.. Then links could be ordered by their rating...


6) Adult Content: So long as the adult content is clearly marked, and pops up a message when the link is clicked which asks the user if they definitely want to visit the website I don't see a problem with it. But again, can Drupal do these things? These are all things that a custom system will allow us to do.

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For now http://www.dbwebring.co.nr is quite flexible on what language you use. It no longer states that your site must have Dark Basic content.

edit: I'll add the new sites onto dbwebring now.

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@Josh: Drupal wise...

2. RSS - check out SportBusiness. This is a site I developed at work and it has PLENTY of RSS feeds in it.


4. Why do you say this is something Drupal DEFINATELY cant do? hehe. Drupal is just a foundation - yeah out the box it wont do it, but it's just as easy to create a page to filter content, possibly by domain name?


5. Comments and Ratings are all available for Drupal. Comments are built in (but disable-able if you want) and can also be enabled or disabled on a per-page basis. Ratings, I've never personally used, however I know there is a ratings module and I've heard plenty of talk about a "Voting API" being developed for the future.


6. Why on earth would there be adult content to start with? Its a game development webring, not a porn site! Depends what you want to do on how easy it would be, but generally speaking its not a matter of "can drupal do it" its more "can someone program in PHP".


The reason I was suggesting Drupal wasn't because its better than blah or because I use it or becauese "whatever"... I suggested it because I know its a fantastic foundation for extending for almost any project...
At work I've used to to create the Sportbusiness site which is a News portal. We've also just launched Teaching Expertise on it which is a portal for teachers - we have an aim to make it a one-stop resource for teachers around the globe. We are also moving a Sports Performance site into it with thousands of articles + a blog + a forum + an eCommerce section.

Companies like MTV used to for their new Flux site and they've contributed a LOT back from doing this.

To be honest I'm more than happy to use your system - it doesn't matter to me which is used. My concern, as I said before, is for whoever maintains it. I've been dumped in situations where I've been given hundreds/thousands/tens-of-thousands of lines of poorly documented, poorly coded and poorly presented code. Its not fun. I'm not even implying yours is poorly coded at all - you sounds like you know what your doing so I'm guessing its good code, but good or poor, its YOUR code. Do you document? Do you comment?
Drupal is documented with tutorials, it does have hundreds of pre-made modules, it does have IRC support.

I'm a huge fan for not reinventing the wheel, so if you feel that "out of the box" your setup does more than Drupal will (drupal out of the box + any pick from the modules section) then that is probably the decision made there, but it does mean that you're going to either be the main/lead developer for the future of the projects or maybe even the sole developer as it'll be hard for others to figure out your project.

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David, I didn't mean to sound harsh or anything, I was just curious.

I actually still use DBP fairly often - It's a brilliant prototyping tool

And although I do do DS programming more often now (C++), my site has a majority of information that pertains to TGC products (only 3 of the 13 projects aren't related to TGC).

But, that's just me - I posted this thread so we could discuss these exact issues

Gaming,
That's a perfect example of where my suggested rule breaks-down.
Maybe more of a guideline stating something like "Any websites with duplicate content may be rejected"

Also, while I've got you here, could you add the following to the dbwebring.co.nr site, please?

+ Code Snippet

[b]Link to the webring[/b]

If you'd like to be part of the webring, even if your site is not listed here, then you can link back to us from your site.

To do this, first download our image tag from:

http://jt0.org/images/tgc_webring.png

upload it to your server, then simply add the following code to your website:

<a href='http://www.dbwebring.co.nr' title='TGC Web-ring'>
<img src='http://www.yoursite.com/path/to/tgc_webring.png' alt='TGC Web-ring' />
</a>

Josh,
with regards to point 5, I meant more along the lines of a breif run-down of content (pretty much what you generally find in the first paragraph of any "About" page kind of thing). But, reviews and ratings as you suggested may be plausible, but then again, may add another layer to the site that is unnecessary.

Point 6 is interesting.
Personally, I don't mind if any adult content is added and/or linked to (with or without a warning on click, but most certainly at least a visible text warning), but I don't know how everyone else feels about it.

[EDIT]
Didn't see your post, Nick...

With regards to the adult content - Extreme violence, sex in games, and possibly even a high ESRB rating could all be classed as adult content.

Both Drupal and Josh's system sound easy to use, but I have to agree with Nick's points on how easy Drupal would be to hand over to someone else without any prior knowledge than Josh's system would be.

Also, while we're deciding upon the back-end, how do people feel about graphical style?

Would you prefer something more Web2.0ish, or a classic layout?
Neutral colours, or those that can tie back in with tgc.com (if we go that way and stick with tgc-only products, of course).

Personally, I think something web2.0 would really help to make our webring stand up against any others that are simply a page of links.
But then, that does add an extra layer to the usability to simply navigate a set of links (which I think is acceptable if the interface helps to improve the viewing pleasure).
[/EDIT]

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Ah sorry, it's hard to get the gist of someone's tone of voice over the web you see - I didn't mean to sound rude, and I hope my opinion has assisted the creation of webring It's a very cool idea too, one which I haven't seen a decent implementation of (on this scale) for this community.

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@Jess: I've put your message (The one about linking to the webring) on the dbwebring site. I'll put the "Any websites with duplicate content may be rejected" note on in a moment.

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Wow, so much has happened since last night!

* In terms of content, I agree that we should broaden the scope of games/ apps that can be submitted to the webring to include other languages, but in my opinion we should still limit it to games and apps developed using software available via TGC. For example, if you've made a game that's written in C++, but you used AC3D for modeling or 3D World Studio for level development, then your site could be included because your game was developed using products purchased from TGC. This would include FPSC, DarkSDK, PlayBASIC, and all of the asset development tools available on TGC (and thus the name of the webring wouldn't need changing ).

* I still think we should only allow one submitted site per developer, for the reason I brought up previously in the other thread. The visitor could see those sub-sites by visiting the primary site for that developer. However, I could see one exception to this rule being someone who has released games under two different studios. For example, if someone makes applications with apps.com, but they also make games on games.com, and those two sites are entities separate from one-another, then I could see that being an exception to the rule... if that makes any sense.

* In terms of content I still think moderators should monitor it carefully. In my opinion, a pornographic website would decrease the integrity of all the sites around it. I think the primary focus of the submitted websites should be on the apps/ games those sites produce, or at the very least there should be a strong emphasis on the software rather than an emphasis on something else. I think that it's very important and beneficial for everyone involved that we keep out sites that focus primarily on pornography, not only for the sake of keeping things notable, but also for the sake of the younger individuals who are looking for games and not breasts. However, I don't think that the content in the games and apps themselves should matter. Also, if someone has adult material on their site, but their site is primarily focused on games/ apps, then I could see them being accepted into the webring (but with a warning offered with the link). For instance, if the logo for your company is a pair of breasts, that's fine, so long as your site's primary focus is on making games/ apps.

* In terms of style, I'd love it if it had a "TGC vibe," so long as Lee & Co. don't get upset about us ripping off their designs . I'm still a heavy proponent of the webring maintaining some direct link with TGC's product line, so naturally, I'd love it if we "borrowed" that style. But again, I'm the worst web designer of anyone here so I'm not entirely sure my opinion on the subject of style and design should count toward anything

Edit: Is this thread worth stickying? I'm hoping we can reach as many people as possible with the webring, but I wonder if stickying it would be necessary... just thought I'd mention it in case any mods didn't give that any thought

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Design wise I thought it should be light, pastelly and modern (ie Web2.0) looking... Not dark and colour-saturated.

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@Jess: I've included a link to the webring on my website. I'll apply for it after you've finalized the guidelines for submission.

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David,
No worries

Gaming,
Thanks for including it - Now we can all have the same link-back.

Preston,
Feel free to email Gaming (to the address listed on dbwebring.co.nr) to be included in the current version of the webring - All current links will be moved over to the new site once it's live.

Matt,
I think that's a good guideline for content.
I know that we're cutting out a lot of people (and yes, even people on this very forum) by limiting it to TGC-only product use, but I think that is better. Keeps it more specific, and allows for our community to advertise within itself, and also to the greater world-wide-web.

For the one link per person, Robin's websites are a perfect example of where it should be "No Duplicate Content" rather than "Only One Site", since his two sites are very different.

When I talk about adult content, a site with blatant explicit content simply to show it off would not be allowed. But then, what if someone makes a Leasure Suit Larry clone? That should be allowed since It's quite a valid game, just with strong adult themes.
Just straight up porn, or graphic violence should be rejected without hesitation.

I agree with Nick on design style, but we're not the only two in this webring.


About stickying this thread - I started it and am quite involved with the whole process, so I feel it would an abuse of my powers to sticky the thread.
If another mod feels that it deserves some glue, go for it!

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And that's why we respect you.

As for the multi link, I say one link per author(s). So, let's say I make 2 games, and put each on different websites, I'd say neither of those sites should be allowed to be displayed. It should be the author's site that we should allow. Not a 3rd party's. If the author has more than 1 site, he should either pick or choose, or combine them.

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I think it's more content- driven though. Take my site for instance. For all three of the new games I'm planning to have sub-domains for those games on my site. Naturally, it would be wrong for me to crowd the webring with each of these sub-domains. But what if I worked on a different project by myself, without the rest of the MISoft team, and then made a website for that game, a website and a game that had nothing to do with MISoft? I would definitely want that site included in the webring as well. But in the same hand, if I started submitting a new site every single time I made a new game, then I'd expect the mods to reject them and advise me to combine them. At the end of it all, I don't see this being a constantly-occuring issue for us. I'm sure that we'll encounter this scenario more than once, but most of these people would only have one or two separate websites to include in the webring, and I don't have a problem with that.

We should try to pinpoint what sites are getting hits with the original webring site, how many hits those sites are getting, and then try to figure out why the sites that are drawing the most attention are doing that. It could help us down the road with improving exposure to the sites that aren't drawing as many hits. according to my counters, Gaming's site brought in 47 hits so far, but I'm not sure how many of those are repeated-visit hits... and also, I could be reading the stats wrong because aplus.net's customer service is absolutely terrible

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I agree with that . Maybe let slack one or two extra domains to people, ONLY if they have a site where its a group of people, and one with JUST them.

Edit: I was looking at the forum, and saw that the TGC Gallery thing was right above this and laughed because they both had TGC in them, but then I realized that until TGC says so, we should say that We this web ring is not Supported by TGC (or something), we are only their community or something as we are using a (probably) trademarked name.

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Holy crap, I think you guys are being *way* too legalistic with this.

Are you planning on doing investigative research into every submission for a little webring? I mean, checking out how many games, how many domains, looking into the domain registrar etc. etc.? It's obvious this should be an honour system thing, and only if you notice something obvious like 20 different people submitting the exact same site should little red flags be raised.

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2 things:
1) Subdomains are ok for GENUINELY SEPERATE things, eg webmail or a secure shopping cart... but if its just another project then keep it in the same domain name otherwise you're just wasting your time. You're effectively trying to publicise 3 different sites whereas it'd be much easier and more efficient to do 1 big one.
2) I still dont get why people cant submit more than once - fair enough, limit it to a single domain name (ie you cant submit subdomains or specific folders) unless the domain name is a shared service, eg myspace.com where the subdomain isn't a seperate project but instead an individuals site.

Why would you ever turn away more free content?

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Hence why I keep saying "No duplicate content" should be the only rule to deal with this...

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Can we have one of those little table thingies to put at the bottom of our websites to show we are part of a webring. They usually look something like

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I've taken a quick look at Drupal, and its a good CMS (if a bit unfriendly for newbies). It's my opinion that if we want some of these custom features such as what John Y suggested above, someone would have to hack or write a custom module for Drupal, which is easier said than done.

That's not something I would be able to do as I simply don't have the time to learn how to code a module for Drupal. If we choose to use Drupal its open for someone else to take a shot at (if you're really sure you can do it).


The Drupal Road:

If we choose to go the Drupal road, I'll install the basic installation on the server and give someone else access to the required MySQL database and limited FTP access and they can setup and administer it.


The Custom Road:

If we choose to use the custom system that I've been coding we'll be able to include all these nifty features, but Nick is right in the fact that if someone needs to update it in a few years time they'll have to learn how I code. Although someone will have exactly the same problem with Drupal.


Its up to you lot to decide which you want really, shame this forum doesn't support Polls!

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Mate - its more than a bit unfriendly

I think you're summary has hit the nail on the head.

I think the most important thing to do before we decide it to actually decide what we want from it. We need a Wish List, then we need to break that down to a "get live" list with a "phase 1,2,3,n" list to follow.

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@ Jeku: I just want to ensure there's a certain degree of order with things. I don't think we should be totalitarian or anything, and none of these rules are outlandish. It's not like we're insisting every site must contain (x) vowels in their url. I've seen a few webrings end up being destroyed, due to poor management or lax rules, and I'm sure others have seen that as well. And I'd hate to see that happen to the TGC webring, what with so many great sites linked up on it already. It's just a precautionary measure

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I like the no duplicate content rule.

And hey, I'm willing to learn anything, so if you want you could go with both drupel or Josh's system. I'm willing to learn both.

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John, do you mean like this that sourceforge has?

If so, it'd be quite easy to write up a php script that will output a simple list of links that can be quite easily called from within any other php page:
+ Code Snippet

<? include_once('http://www.tgcwebring.info/getlinks.php?numlinks=5&width=500'); ?>

Another point I want to bring up is no paid advertising on the webring - It brings in the issue of money which is too complex for the amount of people involved (it's not clear-cut who gets what), so it's better to just avoid the whole situation.


Alright, for a list of things we may or may not need:

* Simple submission form
- Login required?
- Includes: Link, Submitted By, Brief overview, thumbnail image, category selections, Project list?
- Instant inclusion, or;
- Must be approved before going live?

* Search features
- Search by category, date, content, description, overview

* Browsing
- Display all categories
- Display by category
- Handle multiple categories for one site
- RSS feeds; one per site, or an over-all combined for all sites?
- Private mod forum?

* Submission Editing
- Login required? or;
- Email the mods with a requested edit?
- instant changes or;
- Must be approved before going live?

* Terms and Conditions
- Adult websites: banned
- Adult content within projects: ok but with warning on link
- No duplicate content
- We reserve the right to remove or edit any submissions
- All submissions must be approved before going live: be patient
- Submitted Site must have at least some relation to TGC?


I can't think of much more - feel free to add and remove from this list

Jess.

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definately

I'd do one for "the most recent 'n'" (whatever n may be) and another feed for each category... Drupal does this itself

Now this is an interesting point... What if someone wants to change it? It could get quite hard to manage if someone does it themselves without moderation and points it to a bad-egg site. But it'd be just as hard (management wise) to do an email-submission request system...

Definately! Its a TGC Webring.

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@ Jess T:


I see potential security issues here. Plus it would mean all websites would need to be built with PHP. I suggest we just do it the simple way;

[Prev Link] http://www.tgcwebring.info/ring/prev/?id=**current-website-id**

[Next Link] http://www.tgcwebring.info/ring/next/?id=**current-website-id**


That way we keep all of our PHP code and database access completely private. I mean more advanced things can still be done by adding extra flags to the end of the URL (and yes we can make them SE friendly on the new server).

Server security is paramount and I really can't have any external websites accessing the server so directly.

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In terms of money I'm in full agreement, so long as Josh is cool with running the server without compensation and you're okay with paying for the domain. If trouble with money comes up down the road, we'll deal with it then

As for your other points:

As simple as possible. A monkey should be able to submit a site, so long as he understands that bananas and poo-flinging won't classify him as a TGC developer

I think so. I'm wondering if there's some way for bots to register adult sites and I'd rather avoid the possibility than assume it's not going to happen.

Maybe a link specifically to the "trademark project" of that developer, something they could change in the future if they make a new game. That way the developer's newest title can be showcased in some minute way. Anyone else like that?

I still say they should need to be approved by ring admins, that way we won't be going through the list of sites everyday eliminating undesirables

All sounds great

I think their site should require initial approval, but they can log in to change certain information in the future. But maybe for URL alteration, they'd need mod approval... like a noob slap but without the mean title.

I agree with everything there, no arguement. I know it seems too exclusive to some, but I can think of at least one or two good reasons for each of those conditions and I don't see any of them as being unreasonable.

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Some of the new bots are quite advanced with what they can do now. Any system that we use needs to have good protection against all kinds of threats. I know that I'm using software (SMF) for Coders Turf which has -yet- to be penetrated by bots on a large scale over the web.



IMO all moderations should be submitted for approval because someone could submit an innocent site and then edit it to have links in the description for instance, and we'd never know unless one of us stumbled across it!

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That's a good point, and I'm pretty sure that at least five of us will be moderators so there shouldn't be an issue with people waiting for things to be changed. That was my primary concern but it isn't worth the trouble that could potentially spawn from it. I'm glad we're trying to keep it as hassle-free as possible and we should continue to plan for every contingency... I'm always a worrywort lol

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The TGC webring has been featured in the Newsletter (No.48)

Hooray! This should increase the number of people who want to join!

Anybody's content should definately be checked before it goes online. Whether they are submitting it or editing it. So I feel it is a definite yes with moderators.

Also, is the link back compulsary or optional? I'm sure this was answered ages ago but I forgot