Site Blog

With prepping to move and everything else I've got going, Flamencophile continues to slip further behind the schedule I set for myself. A more realistic estimate for initial release would be Nov. 1, 2007, and I'm becoming a bit skeptical of that.

In the meantime, I continue to build features in the background and there are usable portions of the site, just not much content yet. As my grandmother used to say, "We'll see what we see when we see it." :-)

New Feature! Flamencophile now has basic blogging available to members. It's only text entries at the moment, but expect the ability to add photos, audio clips and video to show up on your blog entry page soon.

The background work I'm doing for this is quite similar to what will go on to implement the Artist pages - expect them soon, as well.

Tagging is back AND BETTER. I totally reworked the interface and tagging options for the whole site. Now, anytime a member posts new content, they can attach an existing tag (or, in many cases, create their own) to the article, blog post, or other item. This will give site users better search results, allow the tracking of "Most Popular" and "Hot" items, and enable various other bookmark and sharing features to work.

The more content we get and the more we use tags, the more valuable the social aspects of these linkages by category become. Rather than depending on machine generated links via keywords, real users make real decisions about the quality and relevancy of information. The idea is that the "cream" will rise to the top, but all the "milk" is still there, waiting to be searched in order to find more obscure information.

After hardware problems with my laptop and having to migrate all development work over to the excruciatingly slow tower, I have decided to make life a little easier for myself. I've changed the "official" release date for Flamencophile.com to October 10, 2007. I doubt that this will even be an issue for anyone but me. (I'm my own client on this project, after all.)

The basic site is still available in the interim if you want to go ahead and create a account. If you have events or news items, please use the contact form to send them to me and I will post them within a day or so of receiving them. Features like artist's pages and articles are only a couple more days off. Once again, the Universe provides me with a lesson in patience...

Forums Split into Public and Private Zones
I spent hours today on site security and, as a result, made some major revisions to the Forums. After quite a bit of reflection, I decided that there were a number of potential discussions that did not need to be held in the public arena, that debate would be freer on collaborative projects if the mechanics of those were in the members only area. The results of the projects will all be publicly available; the process of putting those together does need not to be.

I also moved the support discussions, announcements, and new member topics into the private forum. This was based on a decision that, again, site mechanics doesn't need to be public. Only members will be doing things that require admin support (things like building artist pages, blogging, posting events, and so on).

Why Isn't Everything Public Access?
It's about site security and protecting personal information. Non-members will have complete access to all public features of the site - public forums, public calendar, articles, news, artist pages. Anything that affects non-members will be prominently posted on the front page; non-members can make contact with a site administrator through the site-wide contact form or join Flamencophile to have full access to all of the site's features. What's the down side? I don't see one. The whole site is free, member privacy is protected, and I've made the registration process as easy to use as possible and still filter out the non-human applicants...

That's the biggest reason that the whole site isn't completely open. It's only a small percentage of Internet users who misuse the Web, but they have a disproportionately large impact. Requiring membership was the only viable way to protect email addresses, personal information, and individual sensibilities. I've deliberately structured the site to minimize problems with spambots and all the other nasties that roam the web. I didn't want to see hundreds of drug and porn ads appearing on the forums in an hour because some robot spammed the posting link.

It boils down to this: To post content or be able to contact individual members, you must be a member yourself. Even then, you won't see the other member's email address, unless they choose to reveal it. I want to be sure members have the option to shield or share their personal information as they see fit. [Note: Artists with profiles do have the option of posting weblinks, emails, and additional contact information publicly. If you are an artist, talk to me first, though. I can help you with ways to cut down on the resultingspam.]

Why Some Upcoming Site Features Require Membership
There are a number of features I'm working on behind the scenes that will strongly encourage community building. That, by definition, requires a certain climate of openness. The site will soon enable Flamencophiles to create their own profiles, invite friends, create interest groups, have private and shared bookmarks and calendars...lots of goodies. These could only be safely done behind a virtual wall.

Splitting the site features in this way is also what will keep this site admin's focus on building new and better features for all of us to enjoy, instead of constantly having to ride into battle against the trolls, scrapers and spammers. I'll still have plenty of site security and maintenance to do without all that, thank you. I want to have a little fun, too!