This forum arose from a request during Clacton’s 2012 end-of-season meeting. As nobody volunteered to provide this it went on my ‘to do’ list, though it did fit in to an existing objective – to provide a mark up mechanism for linking games with move details and player/author annotations, where available. Suitable ‘blog-tools’ are one way to provide this and more to players who wish to extend and share related content.
Club secretaries/general-admins already had the facility to create notices, add link-menus, event-calendars, upload documents to link to etc. which appear (if used) as part of their necl.org.uk club page. The league general secretary could similarly edit the league profile and maintain notices, the league officer list, upload AGM/LCM minutes etc. Alongside each season’s reported results, the combined facilities provide essential club/league operational and reference information. This forum extends on that.
Any NECL player can register to post articles and comments for colleagues to read at club level (via the club-blog) or at league level, in general or specialised categories. These may range from news about ‘events’ of general information, detail/analysis of notable games, chess items for sale, articles offered up for discussion etc.. New sections can be dedicated to growing topics as needed. e.g. in 2012 there was concern about funding due to changes in ECF membership/grading fees and the league was considering member opinions to determine the best course of action so ‘ECF’ became a category in this forum. Other categories will be created as appropriate, or as requested and further suggestions are welcome.
Melvin
Answers to possible queries:-
Updated Jan 2019:
Q: Why is there no longer a link to register?”
A: I did not expect interest beyond the target audience of a few hundred local chess players with a smaller number registering in order to provide content through articles or comment, but soon found it necessary to initialise new subscribers to ‘contributor’ status (can post articles/comment via approval) and then set them as ‘author’ (can publish directly) if I recognised name/email as a bonefide chess player, as I had no intention of vetting all content. This was purely a preventive measure after spammers tried signing up to produce cash-click advertising and other content that is well outside the scope of the site. Since then, the number of inactive “new users”, mostly international, registering but not drafting articles nor comments was approaching 2,000 as of end of 2018. As you do not need to register and log in to read most content it is likely some were dubious, maybe bot-generated, and just didn’t revisit when unable to publish. I won’t pre-judge who may/not be intending to actively contribute with relevant material, but we need to limit possible future exposure (and not sure anti-bot plugins are reliable), so just email me to confirm your intentions if you would like to register (include name, email and preferred username) and I’ll create an author login key for you (or an editor key if you wish to run your own sub-group/section of special interest).
Q: An initial query concerned “who can see what?”
A: You do not need to register and log in to read most content.
Content is visible to everyone unless the author has password protected an article to restrict readership.
There is no other in-built mechanism that limits certain users to reading or writing into certain blog-categories.
So if you have content you need to restrict within a group/club the simplest method is to protect it with a password that is shared with your target viewers. (or use email instead)
Q: “I already have an NECL key, that didn’t work when I tried to log into the blog”?
A: You need to register for a separate personal key to submit content to the blog.
NECL keys for captain/secretary/admin belong to the role rather than the person.
Your blog key belongs to you – regardless of any role.
Q: “What happened to the side-bar”?
A: Browsers on tablets/phones sometimes render differently, compared to your desktop (often resulting in numerous “aps” being written that should not really be needed?) e.g. It was noticed that our “sidebar” seemed absent on ipads (Safari) – but could in fact be found by scrolling way down the page below the main frame! – even though Safari on the desktop clearly renders a left sidebar.
Assuming a bottom-of-the-page-bar is less useful, one solution was to use the WordPress server-plugin “Auto mobile theme switcher”. This restored the side-bar, albeit on the right instead of the left! (and setting wordpress, 2011 theme, on the server to show a right-sidebar for consistency was abandoned because the plugin then produced a blank page on the tablet instead). So for now we settle for L/R positioning being device-dependent, though in all cases it should be at one side or the other. If you find otherwise, or know a better solution let me know.
Q: “A protected item needed a password, so I registered, but my password doesn’t let me read it”?
A: In general, you do not need to register in order to read posted items, only to comment or submit items that you write as author. If an item is protected by a password, it is NOT your registration password that is required to read it. It means the author has chosen to set a password and shared this with the target reading group. To read such items, you can contact the author who may give you access or send you a copy of the content.
Q: I entered my registered username and password in response to “Autorisation Required” but it failed.
A: Did you read the text of that login panel? If the server is using two-stage login, to confuse auto-login software attempts, enter the username and password stated in the brute force protection panel to access your login page.