[rmfo-blogs.com]: About

This was discussed quietly in the [rocksmyfaceoff.net] Services Board, but there are now four required links for [rmfo-blogs] users. ([RMFO-Pro] users are not required to have these as links, but they’re encouraged.) They are listed under RMFO Links on every installation of WordPress, and they’re owned by the “admin” user [in other words, me :)] so that you can’t delete them.

If you’d rather use the text links than the images, go to Links –> Links Categories, edit “RMFO Links”, and uncheck the checkbox next to “Images”.

What’s the purpose of required links? Simply put, I want people to know what RMFO, in terms of a community, is all about. I’m aware that you’ll probably tell lots of people—people who have no idea who Caedmon’s Call or Derek Webb even are!—about your new Weblog, and well … this lets them know.

Plus, it helps us out with Google a little.

We think the required links are a small price to pay.

I don’t ever expect that people who consider getting an [rmfo-blog] are new to Weblogging [although some are, and that's cool that this is their first experience]. So, I often get questions about importing content from old Weblogs into an [rmfo-blog]. Best as I can, here are answers for that:

Q: I use Blog*spot. Can I import my old entries and comments?

A: Entries, absolutely. Comments is another story; while Google/Blogger has recently started to provide commenting native to the Blogger system [and, by extension, on Blog*spot blogs], this hasn’t always been the case. If you’ve been using a third-party comments provider [YACCS, RateYourMusic, etc.], no … your comments can’t be imported without doing it by hand. [That's a pain, and I don't expect anyone to be interested in that.] I have read that comments provided directly from Blogger, however, can be imported [although I haven't done that].

Additionally, Justin of justinsomnia.org has a highly detailed synopsis of how to move from Blogger to WordPress. I’m happy to assist people making these transitions.

Q: I use LiveJournal. Can I import my old entries and comments?

A: Entries, yes. Comments, … not really. There are a couple very experimental methods of doing that, but I haven’t seen them be very successful.

Q: I use Xanga. Can I import my old entries and comments?

A: Entries, yes, although it’s a pain. There’s no way at present to get Xanga to give you a dump of your data, so you have to import them either by hand [which is a pain] or by using an RSS importer … which means that you have to delete entries from Xanga in batches, which scares lots of people [and understandably so].

Q: I don’t want to lose my LiveJournal / Xanga users … any way to keep them in touch?

A: Plugins exist to cross-post to both LiveJournal and Xanga; I’ll help you set those up.

Q: I’ve never used WordPress. Do I have to install it?

A: Nope. I do the installation for you, and I also maintain it by keeping up with the latest releases. Why do I take this on? Chances are that I know more about WordPress than you do, and I’d rather do it than have to fix someone else’s screwups. [Trust me, I've made plenty of WordPress screwups myself!] By the time I get around to upgrading [rmfo-blogs.com], I’ve worked up a sure-and-certain upgrade path, and it’s better to just let me go at it.

I’d like to thank everyone for their patience in the long period where I had to suspend signups for [rmfo-blogs.com]. The upgrade from WordPress 1.2 to WordPress 1.5 is great for our users, but it took a lot of time and effort on my part, more than I’d honestly imagined in the first place. Not having signups competing for my attention made it go faster.

Anyhow, signups are now back open. Understand that the limitations on signups are the same as they’ve always been: you still have to be a member of the community, and I have to trust you. These are admittedly low barriers to entry, but I have to have some barrier.

If you have no idea what we’re talking about, perhaps you should look up the rationale for creating [rmfo-blogs.com] in the first place.

I’ll be extending these FAQs as time permits over the next few days.

This FAQ has a two-part answer, so let me just dive into it:

1. You need to be an established member of the [rocksmyfaceoff.net] community that I trust.
2. You need to give me a small amount of data and information in order to have me efficiently process your request.

As you might know, we use stylesheet sets from Alex King’s stylesheet repository. They aren’t all the best—many of them have flaws—but they get the job done and let you get off the ground with something that’s not as ugly as the default stylesheet. So, if you request an rmfo-blog, you’ll need to review the options and let me know which you’d like.

Update: As of WordPress v1.5, themes have replaced stylesheets. Fear not, however, for there are many theme repositories, including Alex King’s from his Theme Competition. While all extant RMFO-Blogs have had their 1.2-era stylesheets reformed into the basis of a 1.5-era theme, themes can do so much more than the old stylesheets did.

To facilitate you installing plugins and other things, we also provide FTP access. You will need to supply a password for this FTP account. I suggest using something that you don’t mind another person having; I forget these passwords regularly, but you are passing along a password to another people. Three can keep a secret if two are dead, etc.

From there, I do all the installation work and create the users necessary to run the account. I will have an “admin” account in your installation, but only so I can intervene if necessary [to stop comment spammers, etc.]. You will have an account that has full admin rights save for the ability to delete my admin account. You’ll be able to change the links, add your own, create post and link categories, and post to your heart’s content.

To review, I need the following from you, via PM, before I can create an account:

1. A pasword.
2. If you don’t want to use the default WP theme, a selection from Alex King’s repository.

That’s a short version. If you need more information, let me know.

Some have asked what this place is all about, so I figure it’s worth spending a little time discussing what the service is and is not.

An Experiment in Community Weblogs

Some people might fear the word “experiment”, thinking that [rmfo-blogs.com], being a FREE service, could become a non-FREE service. That’s just not true.

What [rocksmyfaceoff.net] has been about since its inception is building community. We’ve done this in a variety of ways:

1. The Rumor Forum was the first big community effort. Based around the [caedmonscall.net] Rumor Mill, the Rumor Forum was originally a place to discuss Caedmon’s Call that was a technological improvement over the Guild forums. Bryan put a lot of work into building a community around more than just the music of the band, asking off-beat questions as conversation starters. Today, the Rumor Forum is, in many ways, the backbone of the community.
2. [rmfo-pics.net], our collaborative community photo gallery, allowed us to share personal and shared memories through photographs. We do this much in the spirit of the title track from Andy Osenga’s Photographs: “Take a photograph / if you’re wanting this to last”.
3. [rocksmyfaceoff.com], our collaborative concert photo gallery, allowed us to share our concert photos.

The experiment in community Weblogs is just a reasonable extension of this concept. Also, I was tired of seeing people use what I consider to be substandard logware. Also, aggregating Weblogs in one area allows us to keep up with everyone more easily. Having your own RMFO-Blog allows you a certain command of the floor that you really can’t get in a Web forum environment; here, your voice dominates the conversation on your Weblog.

FREE v. free

I’m personally a bit of a zealot when it comes to data ownership and such truck. Not only is [rmfo-blogs.com] FREE, but it’s also free in the sense that the words are yours and that you own the data. I also chose WordPress for this project because it is both FREE and free; we are protected under the GPL from proprietary code and data lock-in.

RMFO-Pro

That said, server resources really aren’t free. That’s why we offer a hosting option for people who want to host their own domain with us and use it for a Weblog. That’s what the RMFO-Pro system is all about. It’s certainly not a requirement, and it’s not as if we have a ton of Pro users to balance the server costs of the non-Pro users, but really, it’s not about the money at all. If it were about money, I don’t think [rmfo-blogs.com] would have ever come to fruition.

The Future of [rmfo-blogs.com]

In the future, I see us going forward and further weaving together the community of Weblogs through technological support. One planned piece of information architecture is a Web-based front-end that acts much in the same was as Wondergeeks.net does for some friends of mine and me—showing who has updated the most recently, and with what. If you don’t use a syndication feed aggregator to keep up with Weblogs, this is a good substitute; also, a front-end like this will quickly show people what we’re saying. I think that’s key.

If you have questions or comments about the service, fire away in the comments.