DDOCentral is now an Official Fansite!

[The_Human_Cypher]

Hello, all

Cordovan (Jerry) just approved ddocentral.wordpress.com as an official Fansite and I am now on the Fansite page. I'm glad to be part of this community.

Jerry said that I would receive a special new forum title with a link to the blog. How do I use this feature?

[Saekee]

Hello, all

Cordovan (Jerry) just approved ddocentral.wordpress.com as an official Fansite and I am now on the Fansite page. I'm glad to be part of this community.

Jerry said that I would receive a special new forum title with a link to the blog. How do I use this feature?

First, congratulations and keep up the great work! Don't forget to post links here to unique posts that you create.

You can start by putting the link in your signature!

BTW I recommend that you do not do that repeating wallpaper with the Turbine DDO official logo. Perhaps some other background? It seems a little visually distracting.

[The_Human_Cypher]

First, congratulations and keep up the great work! Don't forget to post links here to unique posts that you create.

You can start by putting the link in your signature!

BTW I recommend that you do not do that repeating wallpaper with the Turbine DDO official logo. Perhaps some other background? It seems a little visually distracting.

I wanted to make it obvious that the blog was about DDO, especially for people finding the blog in random searches. I have noticed that some of the other DDO fansites are very vague about indicating that they are a DDO fansite and I wanted to make to clear to everyone. If Jerry or someone else has quality / rare DDO art resources formatted for WordPress that I can use, I would happily accept them.

[The_Human_Cypher]

I just noticed that DDOCentral is now in my forum signature. Jerry must have done it. Thanks again!

[Loromir]

I wanted to make it obvious that the blog was about DDO, especially for people finding the blog in random searches. I have noticed that some of the other DDO fansites are very vague about indicating that they are a DDO fansite and I wanted to make to clear to everyone. If Jerry or someone else has quality / rare DDO art resources formatted for WordPress that I can use, I would happily accept them.

Very cool Idea. Thanks for doing this.


To echo the above poster...maybe you could change the background color from white to something less contrasting. Maybe a darker color that fits well with the DDO logo.


Good Job otherwise.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Very cool Idea. Thanks for doing this.


To echo the above poster...maybe you could change the background color from white to something less contrasting. Maybe a darker color that fits well with the DDO logo.


Good Job otherwise.

Thank you.

I'm still tweaking the blog, so I will look into changing the colors and art work. If anyone has a DDO Logo correctly formatted for the WordPress header, I would like to use it. I had to resize a DDO logo I found online for the header, and it now appears somewhat distorted.

I am also having an issue with re-posting from the blog to the site's Facebook and Twitter pages. When I post to the blog, a single post feeds to the site's Google+ and Tumblr pages but double posts on Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure how to fix this issue yet.

[The_Human_Cypher]

I changed the background color behind the DDO logo to black.

[geoffhanna]

Welcome! Thanks for taking the time it takes to do this!

[The_Human_Cypher]

Welcome! Thanks for taking the time it takes to do this!

Thank you. I am still adding sites so please let me know if I have omitted anything. I want DDOCentral to be a comprehensive resource for the community.

[Saekee]

Since you are using it also as an aggregator, maybe use the main banner space for the Screenshot of the week? It seems redundant to have that logo (all stretched out) there as well as a repeated background.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Since you are using it also as an aggregator, maybe use the main banner space for the Screenshot of the week? It seems redundant to have that logo (all stretched out) there as well as a repeated background.

Jerry is going to send me some images for the site. I will see what fits best in the header space. The screenshot of the week probably wouldn't conform to the pixel dimensions in my WordPress theme header.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Since you are using it also as an aggregator, maybe use the main banner space for the Screenshot of the week? It seems redundant to have that logo (all stretched out) there as well as a repeated background.

I replaced the stretched DDO logo in the header with a Velah / DDO logo image that Jerry sent me.

[The_Human_Cypher]

I upgraded the domain for the WordPress site to www.ddocentral.com. I didn't think the blog would get this much attention - over 850 hits since I started it on Friday evening.

[The_Human_Cypher]

I am also having an issue with re-posting from the blog to the site's Facebook and Twitter pages. When I post to the blog, a single post feeds to the site's Google+ and Tumblr pages but double posts on Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure how to fix this issue yet.

I figured it out; the solution was fairly obvious. I un-linked Twitter and Facebook from the DDOCentral Tumblr profile and the double posts stopped appearing on Twitter and Facebook (I had set up a number of social media accounts this past weekend and didn't remember everything I did). Now, when I post to the WordPress blog, a single re-post automatically feeds to the DDOCentral Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Google+ pages.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Since the DDOCentral blog went up this past Friday evening, I have received almost 1,200 hits, mostly from North America and Europe. I have been reblogging content almost every day and hope to follow a weekly update schedule of Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday for regular updates. I follow the format of reblogging from active DDO blogs to my WordPress site, including with each post a significant amount of text and pictures from the original article. This method is intended not only to make the blog interesting and visually appealing as opposed to just a collection of links but also to build up key search words over time. I think with persistent effort, DDOCentral can drive a significant amount of Internet traffic to ddo.com.

Which leads to the only problem I have encountered so far: having new content to reblog three times a week. Of the 22 DDO blogs with updates during 2013 - 2104 that I have included in my Blogroll (as they can be linked directly to my WordPress site), only five have both weekly updates and also can be reblogged directly to ddocentral.com as they are also WordPress sites:

http://grimorde.com/


http://ddoeven.wordpress.com/


http://mickisdelirium.wordpress.com/


http://orderofsyncletica.wordpress.com/


http://erdrique.wordpress.com/

The WordPress blog, http://thelongshotist.com, is updated less frequently - more like once every several months. The WordPress blogs, http://sockofstuffing.wordpress.com (Tactalicious & Craftalicious) and http://ddoradzax.wordpress.com (ddoradzax) are updated regularly but are very basic with no visuals and not many key words.

I would really like to reblog from the following sites as the content is of high quality and they are also updated on a weekly basis.

http://www.gamergeoff.com/


http://ddogaming.com/


http://www.ddocast.com/

Geoff's site and DDO Gaming both appear to be WordPress sites but without the option to Press "Reblog" and include text and pictures on DDOCentral. Copying and pasting a static link not only lacks aesthetic appeal for the site's visitors but also will not increase the number of searchable words on the site. If the owners of these three sites can look into including the WordPress "reblog" feature below each article, this would help me build DDOCentral into a much better site with more frequent updates as well as increase traffic to their own sites.

These remaining DDO blogs have been updated recently and most of them appear to be WordPress blogs but without the ability to reblog or even follow them from my own WordPress site. I have included these sites on the static 'DDO Websites' page for DDOCentral as I can't link them to the DDO Blogroll.

http://chezcr.blogspot.com/


http://ddoplayers.mymiddleearth.com/


http://ddowarforged.blogspot.com/


http://melkiorwhiteblade.blogspot.com/


http://ddoguild.co.uk/blog/

Any comments or suggestions would be helpful. Jerry is going to include DDOCentral in this Friday's DDO Chronicle issue, so my site's traffic should get a boost going forward. I already have 121 subscribers on the site's e-mail list.

[geoffhanna]

The Reblog feature is only available on sites that are hosted on Wordpress.com

There is no similar feature (and strangely, not even a plugin) for Wordpress sites that are hosted anywhere else.

[The_Human_Cypher]

The Reblog feature is only available on sites that are hosted on Wordpress.com

There is no similar feature (and strangely, not even a plugin) for Wordpress sites that are hosted anywhere else.

Thanks for the response. So you are using wordpress.org and a 3rd party host for your WordPress site? I may eventually switch to WordPress.org but still need to read up on the difference between the two platforms.

[The_Human_Cypher]

Geoff (and community),

I looked through WordPress.org and apparently there IS a plugin for a reblogging feature.

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/...th-self-hosted

The WordPress plugin is called "Repost" and works on Blogger platforms as well.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/repostus/

If you and the other Fansite community members with self-hosted WordPress or Blogger sites could look into this plugin and test it out, I would appreciate it.

[geoffhanna]

Your tenacity is appreciated. However that plugin was discontinued earlier this year (http://repost.us/). It also inserted ads in the repost which I would have found annoying but is now a moot point.

I encourage you to keep at it if this is important to you. But just to save you time, yes there are other similar plugins that come up in searches but all of the ones I've found are either really old and not updated - or very poorly rated - or insert ads. Mainly though they are old.

Let me know if you find anything that is currently updated, free (or very VERY lowcost) and ad-free.

Alternately, you may want to look into the Press This feature. I haven't used it, but it is supposed to make it easier to repost content you find elsewhere on the web.

Best of luck!

[The_Human_Cypher]

Your tenacity is appreciated. However that plugin was discontinued earlier this year (http://repost.us/). It also inserted ads in the repost which I would have found annoying but is now a moot point.

I encourage you to keep at it if this is important to you. But just to save you time, yes there are other similar plugins that come up in searches but all of the ones I've found are either really old and not updated - or very poorly rated - or insert ads. Mainly though they are old.

Let me know if you find anything that is currently updated, free (or very VERY lowcost) and ad-free.

Alternately, you may want to look into the Press This feature. I haven't used it, but it is supposed to make it easier to repost content you find elsewhere on the web.

Best of luck!

Thank you for your further research. I am just learning WordPress, which is one of the reasons I wanted to pursue this project. The Repost plugin looked live from the link I found: https://wordpress.org/plugins/repostus/

From my earlier reading, I believe that you would have to enable the "Press This" feature on your end for it to work. I have already seen "Press This" on other WordPress blogs but I have not changed any of the original settings for my own WordPress blog. "Press This" is not as effective as "Reblog", however, it is still better than nothing.