Some quick updates:
- While you need to be a GDNet+ member to assign editors to your Journal, regular members can be Journal editors and post updates to your Journal
- Due to the discussion over at Mike.Popoloski's blog, all journals have had moderating privileges removed. Although it is your Journal, it is hosted under our banner on our site and we need everyone to be equally accountable for what they post. Additionally, many journal authors most likely did not even realize they had a setting in their journal to moderate comments. The description for it was also badly-worded and many probably had it set backwards.
- There is an RSS feed for your journal, and for other people's journals should they choose to enable it. However it is currently really badly implemented to the end user - to follow someone's journal RSS go to their journal and on the right-hand side in the box "My Journal Links" click on the "Syndicate My Journal (RSS)" link. See? Reeeeally bad.
- Really, the Feedback button is as small and out-of-the-way as it's going to get. If for some reason you still see it big and overlapping content (most likely a browser issue) then submit a report. Otherwise, end of discussion.
- We're getting an SSL certificate set up for the website, if that hasn't been finished already by the time you read this.
- Have you seen Reviews Editor John Hattan's post on the new books section? He's done a great job revamping it and will be keeping it updated with new releases, so check it out!
Some slightly longer updates:
GDC
Obviously a lot of preparation this month is going into our presence at the upcoming Game Developers Conference that kicks off at the very end of this month and into the first week of March. I want you all to understand this because this does mean that tending to many areas of the site that do still need work will be set aside until we have everything in place and ready for GDC. This focus will only last through February and then we will be able to return to handling site-wide issues. In the meantime, any huge show-stopping issues that pop up will of course leapfrog to the top in priority.
Coverage-wise, we have a nice spread of features planned - mostly the usual if you've read our coverage in the past. (You can look at previous coverage by changing the year in the URL). One of the things I'm most jazzed about is the fact that we can set up a GDC Journal and assign all the coverage team to be editors to it. We will then have various posting categories (Events, Summits, Programming, Art, etc) that you can drill down into for specifics. We plan to make ample use of the embedded media capabilities of journal postings as well. Y'know - doing what other sites have been doing for like years now
We will also have a booth right outside the Career Pavilion in the Expo - #2323. Come visit us!!
PAX East
Speaking of conference coverage, I'll be at PAX East again in good 'ol Bahston. I wasn't planning on going this year but a friend offered to put me up and then the IGDA asked me to write an article for their newsletter on the East Coast game dev scene and got me the press pass so... I'm going! I haven't been shouting the news much but this is actually my 10th year in the games industry, my 10th year (well, soon to be) of working here at GDNet and also at the end of the year will be the 10th anniversary of the NJ IGDA chapter I co-founded back in 2001 that was one of the major kickstarters to the game dev industry in the NJ/NYC/PA area. So I'm looking forward to writing this article.
Also, yet another cool Journal ability - I can link directly to categories. So for my PAX East coverage that will appear on the main page, it will just be a link that will go straight to a PAX East 2011 category in my journal that will have all my coverage posts. Sweet!
Ok, time to hunker down and blow through this short month.
