Admin Updates - Reposted for Poll...

[twigged.livejournal.com]

NEW LAYOUT.

The new layout is (pretty much) finished¹ and thanks are owed to velvetglove who designed the banner art for us some time ago, when we first set up our CafePress shop. *throws petals her way* Please let me know if you encounter any bugs as you use the site.

[Poll #1165475]

NEW TAGS.

Our memories are now all tagged, thanks to the tireless help of our members. *awards virtual cookies and gold stars* You know who you are. :DDD

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES.

Effective immediately we will no longer be saving recs in Memories. We understand the advantage to reccers of being able to scroll down a single page of story titles; however, this change will allow me and Philtre to take a significantly more hands-off approach to modding the comm, and after 5 years of Memory-ing posts we really must insist. ;) I am searching high and low for the necessary code to change our tagged-view pages to show more than 20 entries per page, and hopefully this will make things a little easier on our reccers. In any event and to be perfectly honest, duplicate recs won't be the end of our world.

NEXT UP.

In tagging our fandom overviews, I was reminded that many are years out-of-date or contain dead picture links. If this is the case and you would like to update your fandom's overview, please comment below. A courtesy comment to the original poster to gauge their interest in updating the overviews themselves would also be nice. :)

WEBSPACE.

I've got tonnes and it's not going anywhere, so I am happy to host pictures for existing or future overviews. Simply email me a file of your pics at shaggy1 @ gmail.com if you are interested in switching over to permanent links.

I think that's it! Thanks again for all your enthusiasm and support of this community. <333

1.Besides the tagged-view page view issue, I am also looking for code to right-align date/time over user pics. Please be patient while we sort our final tweaks.

Comments

[withdiamonds.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the work you've done on this comm.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Thank you. <333

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

This comm is my go to place when I get into new fandoms (right now I'm reading through Starsky and Hutch). I rely on the memories page, and I am so excited for tags. Yay!

[twigged.livejournal.com]

The tags are a huge improvement over scrolling memories for readers. :D

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

Yay S&H!

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Well, I can only see so many recs go by before I start wondering what the fuss is all about. I have some rambling over on my lj (http://ivy03.livejournal.com/339248.html) about the show.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

I get kind of obsessive about projects like this. I am EXHAUSTED. :)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I "usually" read crack van on my friends page, but I go to the comm itself fairly often, particularly when I'm playing around with a recent obsession ... er ... fandom.

I did notice while I was doing that that there was a dead link to a story -- I found it by googling and added a comment with the correct link, but is there a better way to go about suggesting fixes?

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Mods can't edit posts, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to ask the OP to ask us for posting access to edit it themselves. The best thing to do is just leave a working link in the comments of the post itself so others can find it.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm really surprised how many people read the comm on their friends pages. The volume is too overwhelming for me.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I keep track of almost everything I do on LJ via my friends page, and only occasionally visit the "root" pages for a journal (although I do like the redesign for crack_van very much! I adore being able to find every fandom ever mentioned in the tags. Yay! New Avengers fic!)

I've also found a number of stories I would *never* have read if it weren't for the descriptions that caught my eyes as I skimmed down the ol' flist. I mean, come on, I'd never even watched "House" before you folks had me reading the fic...

[periwinkle27.livejournal.com]

I really love your site and would be willing to take responsibility for putting a few fandoms in Memories each month if that would help. I think it is definitely easier to find things that way. How would you feel about farming that job out to a pool of some five people with way too much time on their hands?

I was impressed with the support you got for the tagging project.

But I completely understand why you can't continue doing mrmmories yourself. I moderate two sites and it can be a nuisance keeping up with them. You've been working your tail off for way too long. But it's a wonderful site, it really is.

[palmaceae.livejournal.com]

i second that. i would be happy to volunteer to do memories as well.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the delayed reply, I wasn't ignoring your offer, just giving it some more consideration. I appreciate your offer, but for about half a dozen different reasons I'm going to decline. I'm happy to elaborate if you'd like me to, but it's kind of rambly. :)

[periwinkle27.livejournal.com]

Nope, I can think of reasons myself why it could be an unholy mess.

I typed the last post in the dark -- I'm just now seeing the typos. Wow.

[periwinkle27.livejournal.com]

Also, I answered that I read on the recent entries page, but that's not totally true. I first read it on my friend's list, then at the end of the month I go back and check recent entries. Then every couple of months I check Memories (or now tags.) That's partly because I run a rec site.

So I would have to check two boxes.

Hippity-Hop comes an Obi-Plot-Bunny

[pronker]

It's a well-run site and the new touch-up job is excellent. Congratulations.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

*de-lurks* I love the new layout and the tags are awesome. My only quibble is that the dates of entries are no longer easily viewable when I access the page.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm trying to add the date/time info back into the subject line, but the default for this layout is left-align and I want it on the right side, so just looking for the right bit of code. We'll definitely find a fix for that, though.

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate that. Thank you! :D

[twigged.livejournal.com]

aldkfjdlkfjds I FINALLY FIXED IT. :DDD

[vowel-in-thug.livejournal.com]

The new layout is fantastic and the tags are so wonderful! You're doing an awesome job :)

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

As helpful as it is to look through memories for stories, I often found that it just didn't work and I just got 'try again later' message. Tagging and tidying up must have been a truly mammoth task. Thank you for keeping this going all this time, it's a terrific fandom resource.

[swear-jar.livejournal.com]

The amount of effort that goes into this comm is awesome! It's always my first thought when I get into a new fandom. And the new layout is so shiny! So, yes, thanks for keeping it up! And thanks for putting bandom on the permanent reccing roster, I was hoping for that to happen.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Bandom is clearly here to stay. :D

[flyingtapes.livejournal.com]

You know, whenever I look at my memories, it is a little astonishing that I've been recced for this comm for four years. Astonishing and really cool.

I wondered, though, if you guys are aware that you can only get 100 entries on any given tag, when you're browsing by tag? I learned this the hard way when I was doing my own recs thing on LJ, when I went back and tagged everything and then couldn't actually view all the entries I had tagged. Memories don't have that limitation, which is the only reason I would be wary of moving full-time to tags at the expense of memories. It would be a shame to lose the ability to browse the recs people have made because you can't navigate farther back.

Obviously it's not a problem for the smaller fandoms, but with HP, or popslash, or whatever, all those entries won't be visible.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

LJ actually increased the limit on viewing tags from 100 to 1000 recently, which is why we finally relented and made the switch.

And I was thinking along the same lines recently. Our five year anniversary is coming up this fall and as I was looking through the calendar views from the first couple months it struck me how many people who were posting back then are still regular contributors. You guys are awesome. :DDD

[flyingtapes.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, man, I didn't know that. That's so much better and, you know, useable.

I think it's awesome that so many of us remain committed to c_v. It's the first place I go when I get a new fandom, you know?

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

It looks great - thanks for all your hard work!

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

i clicked 'via my own friends' page' - but i also wanted to supplement that answer. i've been playing around with the filtering feature lately, and finally have it (mostly) set up to where i want it, so i can check certain sections of my flist at a time. so reading via the friends' page is a recent development for me.

also, i'll go read via the comm itself, especially if i'm scrolling through all the entries on a specific tag. i don't use a style=mine thingie, tho - a tad too lazy to worry about that.

and lastly, i also wanted to thank you guys for all the hard work you've done, and changing everything over to tags - it's so much easier and intuitive for me that it makes my experience of the comm much better.

::hands out cookies to mods/maintainers::

-bs

[ninamalfoy]

I read this community on a filter where most of my fandom communities are also accumulated, for easier browsing so that my flist doesn't get too cluttered. :-)

By the way, thank you so very much for all the awesome work you've put into this community! Thanks to you, I got into some oldschool fandoms like TS and S&H and it was truly a pleasure. Also, your memory list rocks for discovering new or previously unheard of fandoms. *blows kisses*

[mom4three.livejournal.com]

The update looks great! And I've already starting taking advantage of the new tags (work, what work ??). I did notice that the date isn't showing up anymore. I use it to scan to see if I missed anything.
Thanks for all your hard work!

[twigged.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for the bit of code to get date/time to right align in the subject line, but we'll definitely get that fixed. Thanks!

[roga.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, you've tagged entries! Bless you. Every now and then I come to crack_van to search for new stories, and tagging makes everything so much more accessible - I can finally scroll down and read summaries, not just titles. You guys are awesome :-)

[spikedluv]

I read crack_van by coming to the LJ because there are just too many recs to keep it on my f-list, and the new layout is so much easier to read! Thank you so much. *g*

[dragonflymuse.livejournal.com]

Great new layout :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can change the # of entries displayed in just the tag view, but you can easily change it for the ordinary view, which will also carry over into the tag view, in most layouts (I think). At least, Smooth Sailing has # of entries to display as an option.

Yay for easier-to-read layout!

[twigged.livejournal.com]

I want to go up to like 60 or 80 posts per tag view, is the thing. Which I think is too much for the recent entries page. I'm still on the lookout for code, but I may have to strike a compromise. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I just tested it with my journal, and it appears that 50 is the upper limit.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

That's true of what the customization wizard allows, but you can often override those things with the right bit of code and a paid account.

[ausmac.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to express my appreciation of the new look, its much easier on the eye IMHO. And well done on the community, as well, a very excellent resource.

[twigged.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it!