Rumfish.net 2.0

This is the documentation for the new version of the site. It will be under development for quite some time, but will hopefully become usable well before it is "finished."

Home page / Index
This is the hub that brings the rest of the site together. It pulls relevant content from other sections of the site and presents it is a clean and helpful manner. The powerful system known as Drupal makes this possible. The main page has a system for displaying "stories". Stories are staff (The Council) postings ranging from event announcements and coverage to highlights of content and discussions. RSS feeds of hot forum threads and recent wiki appendages are displayed for quick access. A calendar is present so you can keep track of events and Rumfishian holidays.

Forum
The forums are currently the center piece of the site, however, they should not be our only attraction. A major goal of the new site, in addition to overhauling the forum, will be to emphasize other equally important features. The forums are over due for a major revamp (re-sectioning, cleaning out unused accounts, patching it up, theming it, ect).

New features will include but are not limited to:


 * Custom BBCode including Wiki, Story, and Gallery tags to integrate media from other areas of the site directly into forum conversation.
 * New, restructured user groups and titles.
 * User Control Panel
 * Friends list. (may be disabled, we are all friends here after all)
 * Ability to track discussions and activity
 * Automatically integrated wiki page for a new level of profile customization and detail
 * Overhauled PM system
 * Conversation view
 * Ability to save drafts of a message
 * Using Friends List as a contact list
 * Mass PM
 * Reorganization of misplaced content including new sections.
 * Overhauled attachment system enabling much more versatility.

Chat
Chat will be an important new feature on the site. Potentially available as a side bar, it will be seen at every major outlet the site has to offer. The goal is to create a more active communal environment.

Wiki
The wiki has a lot of potential, but is currently very under used. The goal is to integrate it into the site and make it more convenient to use. The addition of a BBcode wiki tag will enable users of our forum to effectively quote a wiki article with ease. Discussion about wiki articles may then ensue within the forum. This feature will work especially well for members who frequently create large textual works such as poetry and short stories. The writings can be placed in the forum where they need to be but they also may be discussed openly. Other such tags will be available for quoting "Stories" and the gallery. Also, all user profiles will have associated wiki spaces automatically integrated. This will add new flare to user profiles and attract attention to the wiki.

Gallery
This powerful new feature addresses the problems with media sharing. Currently our users use the forum to post images one at a time in a forum environment which is not optimal for viewing. The new gallery will enable not only the easy submission and viewing of images but also videos and music.

Addressing
Switch to using a common, consistent addressing scheme: [section].rumfish.net = rumfish.net/[section]
 * forum.rumfish.net (rumfish.net/forum)
 * wiki.rumfish.net (rumfish.net/wiki)
 * events.rumfish.net (rumfish.net/events)
 * ect.

Home
See above

Forum
See above

Wiki
See above

Chat
Not so much a section as a feature. See above

Blogs
Not sure how to handle this part yet. This may well be changed to a "User Content" area that integrates information from blogs, recent site changes (such as myspace), user wiki pages and other content that can be related to our members. This is something I need to look into and do some prototyping of. Don't look for this section right off the bat

Media
Ok, we have some creative people. Also, sites with just text get boring. Combine that with 200GB of space and 2TB/month of traffic we are allowed and we could have a lot of engaging media. Some ideas
 * Pictures!
 * We need to have a picture section. There is no getting around it, it would just be too danm cool.
 * Video
 * Video is just too damn cool to not have, and there have been some good creations from some of our members. We could also like this to discussion of other videos (e.g. liking it into google video or something?).

Events
Believe it or not we do have events. Some times we even plan them in advance. It would be good to have a calendar system too keep track of it. It would also be nice to be able to chronicle past events.