Solved 🗞 Webwide Blog Discussion

[adam]

Following on from this thread:

Solved - Promote WebWide

While there is an awesome ref system in webwide there is still a very small amount of users. I created this thread to discuss ideas about how to make Webwide more popular among IT community. Does anyone have ideas of promoting Webwide?

webwide.io

I'd like to move forwards with a Webwide blog that will feature articles across the entire spectrum of what the forum covers both user-submitted and perhaps from a few editors who can create content from quoting some of the great discussions here.

We can feature articles on the homepage here and also it will be a good opportunity to share on websites like Reddit, Designer News, Hacker News, etc. to still spread the word about our awesome community where posting a forum thread might not be as accepted or optimal.

My current view is that a separate, open-sourced, generated static site could work well (perhaps 11ty?) or maybe another flat-file style CMS and allow for input on design & build from us as well. I appreciate that the forum being proprietary is not a perfectly ideal solution so it will be nice for this to be open for all to contribute.

Submissions could then be handled via GitHub pull requests for those more developer inclined and I can set-up a section on the forum for other submissions (subject to an editor approval). In the longer term as a phase 2, it would be possible to create a CMS back-end to handle this.

I would like to keep it tightly integrated by utilising the forum API to connect author profiles to pull in info as well as award referrals from sign-ups from links in the article as well as coupling new posts with forum threads to allow for 'comments' on posts via the forum.

I'd also like people to be able to syndicate blog articles from their personal sites without fear of SEO penalisation (duplicate content) by giving the option to turn off search indexing on their posts and a canonical URL to their own site.

I'd like to reuse the terms from the forum whereby users always retain the copyright to their submitted content but by submitting you give permission to share, reproduce, etc.

Of course this relies on some level of user participation so I'd like to use this thread to gauge interest, see if anybody has any better platform suggestions or just any other general thoughts at all! Likewise if you have any objections, think the time could be better spent elsewhere or otherwise think it's a bad idea then I would appreciate those feedback as well.

I'd like to reiterate that Webwide is not a for-profit project and although I would be looking to grow the community via a blog it's just as important to me that community members get the opportunity to get all the credit/social links/promotion and perhaps even affiliate links (in an appropriate circumstance) that they deserve for contributing.

 

[Gummibeer]

Agree, agree, agree - but would prefer a PHP setup.
Offer: would setup one with Laravel.

 

[adam]

Agree, agree, agree - but would prefer a PHP setup.
Offer: would setup one with Laravel.

That’s kind, thank you! What do you think about Grav? Happy balance?

Grav - A Modern Flat-File CMS | Official home of Grav CMS

getgrav.org

Or this seems to be based on Laravel but I think abandonware:

Saaze - An all-inclusive, flat-file CMS for simple websites and blogs

Saaze is an all-inclusive, flat-file CMS for simple websites and blogs.

circulatecms.com

Statamic would be wonderful but no budget for that. 😅

 

[adam]

Pico looks pretty great: Pico - A stupidly simple, blazing fast, flat file CMS.

I'm keen to keep everything but post media in source control (will sort an image uploader for images!).

 

[Mike Rees]

If flat file's the way you're looking to go I don't know if the choice of which one is that important, especially if we're going to collectively maintain it. At the end of the day both the things you linked use markdown for writing content, and what goes on under the hood isn't going to be that important.

 

[Gummibeer]

If flat file's the way you're looking to go I don't know if the choice of which one is that important, especially if we're going to collectively maintain it. At the end of the day both the things you linked use markdown for writing content, and what goes on under the hood isn't going to be that important.

For the authors you are right. For the technical maintainers it is. How easy it is for them to adjust a theme, write a plug-in and so on.

 

[adam]

Agree! I am trialling Pico which seems to be a great balance.

webwide-io/webwide-blog

🗞 Community-powered web designer, developer and maker blog by the wonderful people at Webwide.io - webwide-io/webwide-blog

github.com

The benefit of markdown means it's really portable anyway.

If anybody has some existing blog posts they'd be happy to republish that we can get started with I would be very appreciated. Republished posts will not be search indexed and will include a link back to the original version.

 

[adam]

Ok I deleted everything and now trialling Grav: Grav - A Modern Flat-File CMS 🙊

It is somewhat more complex but comes with some nice features such as automatic image processing, caching and more that will come in handy as we scale.

I've set up deployment at https://blog.webwide.io/ that automatically pulls and updates the latest version from the master branch. A bit crude but will keep us up to date for now. 😄

The wonderful @VickiLanger has graciously given us access to her DEV back-catalogue to kick-start some content. I am still on the lookout for anybody else at all who would like to publish to the site. I can take care of porting content if you would prefer.

 

[Gummibeer]

Uncaught ReferenceError: Bricklayer is not defined at (index):123

My Browser

Easy to digest browser details to help you with QA and tech support

mybrowser.fyi

 

[adam]

You will see errors and 1,000 more for the next day or so. Don't panic. 😅

 

[Gummibeer]

You will see errors and 1,000 more for the next day or so. Don't panic. 😅

Okay :D

Could you add a brief conclusion of what topics, types of posts you want to publish?
I would have some posts finished - but my blog isn't. 🙈

 

[adam]

Okay :D

Could you add a brief conclusion of what topics, types of posts you want to publish?
I would have some posts finished - but my blog isn't. 🙈

The tags are going to be pretty similar to our forum categories to start! Plus more granular tags for programming language/framework, tutorial, learn to code, etc as we need them.

Absolutely anything web dev / design / management / optimisation / career is great!

Of course totally open to input this is a community project. Going to be plenty of opportunities for people to expand/refactor very shortly, just need to get the basic structure up and running. :)

 

[avena]

Hey, this is great! 🤘

 

[adam]

Hey, this is great! 🤘

Thanks @avena! 💙 Would be more than happy to feature a write-up/demo on Spline if you'd like.

 

[avena]

Ohh @Adam that would be awesome! 🌟

I can work on something and share it with you when ready 🤓

 

[adam]

Ohh @Adam that would be awesome! 🌟

I can work on something and share it with you when ready 🤓

Awesome, yes please, thank you! Will post more submission details soon but feel free to get started and I will convert anything as needed. Codepen support for anything interactive.

 

[Sharkie]

The wonderful @VickiLanger has graciously given us access to her DEV back-catalogue to kick-start some content. I am still on the lookout for anybody else at all who would like to publish to the site. I can take care of porting content if you would prefer.

Not that its extensive or particularly brilliant, but I'll offer up my DEV backlog as well! I'm on mobile right now (as, like, 90% of the time) but its @justsharkie as it usually is for me.

 

[adam]

Not that its extensive or particularly brilliant, but I'll offer up my DEV backlog as well! I'm on mobile right now (as, like, 90% of the time) but its @justsharkie as it usually is for me.

Thank you Shayna! I will have a poke around and be in touch about publishing. 😄✨

 

[v1rtl]

Awesome idea. Some companies and communities also have a blog so people, when googling things, will appear on your site.

I think we should host an app on a subdomain, like blog.webwide.io, with some picks of users' articles.

I think instead of a CMS we should just create a repository for posts, so it will be easier to submit new articles.

I also recommend trying out Forestry + Hugo or Jekyll

 

[Gummibeer]

Awesome idea. Some companies and communities also have a blog so people, when googling things, will appear on your site.

I think we should host an app on a subdomain, like blog.webwide.io, with some picks of users' articles.

I think instead of a CMS we should just create a repository for posts, so it will be easier to submit new articles.

I also recommend trying out Forestry + Hugo or Jekyll

The idea behind the "CMS" is markdown + Frontmatter as base with a simple UI on top for non devs.
So you will be able to PR your post on GitHub or just use any future UI to write one online.
Forestry is awesome!