Evolution of the FTW Blogger Group List

UPDATES AT BOTTOM OF POST
LAST UPDATED: June 23, 2011

With the recent increase in problems with having member's posts dropped or never even show up in the FTW blogroll, I've decided that something must change.
When I received this email I knew this had gone too far...

Gave it a shot tonight, clearing out all my cookies and other junk before starting. I made certain it got timestamped correctly as well, but it hasn't shown up yet. Not that it is such a big deal for me though, after all who's going to be interested in an insane converter with zero time and a Space Marine army with the wrong colour scheme?

You all look to this site to see your stuff posted, no matter who you are or how important it may seem. It's one of the things that I said I would do for members. With well over 200 blogs on the roll, there is far too much at stake here to just "hope it fixes itself."

It's become apparent to me that the current method is unacceptable and something new must take it's place. I recently sent out an email to all you guys making you aware of some of the possible problems associated with the list. Not good enough.

So here's what I've done:
Since the FTW list has not been working correctly and appears to be geting worse each day, I am switching from the Blogger "Blog List" gadget as a way of showcasing members to using Feedburner and combining everything into one feed and then pulling that back into FTW. It's a little more work on this end but it solves the problem.

The Good:
Things appear to be updating much, much quicker now.
The amount of blogs shown has increased to 50 now.
The top 50 posts should be listed and nobody should be dropped, left out, or completely forgotten...

The Bad:
With updates appearing quicker, the turnover is greater.
There is no way to see the older posts that are not listed (51 and older).
There are no thumbnail pictures with posts.

The Plan:
I am going to continue to refine the new listing and see what else I can incorporate back into it so that you guys get the most from it. This is going to take a little time so bear with me, I'm self taught when it comes to these things.
The old list is going to go away as the new list fills it's place.
Some of you will notice that you can grab this feed an put it on your own blog. Feel free, that's why it's labeled v1.0 in the title. As new members join, the feed will have to be redone and I will post the new version for those who want to have the latest one on their own site.

Does this mean that some people may stop visiting? Perhaps, but it also means that the FTW blogger list will most likely spread to even more sites and even more people may become aware of the FTW Blogger Group.

What you need to do:
Nothing except watch the blogroll and make sure your stuff shows up. If you post on your blog and it doesn't appear on FTW shortly after (give it maybe a half hour) then please let me know.

And lastly I need to apologise to everyone who has had their hobby content dropped or left off the list in the last couple weeks. In additional to that, I owe an apology to Tim since his intro post was supposed to go up today and I didn't post it since I was busy with this. Tim's post will go up tomorrow and then it's back to some real hobby content for you guys to enjoy.

UPDATE JULY 26, 2009
Feed 1.1 added. The old feed (1.0) is gone. I think by doning this, it helps Google sort out the new people and start from scratch.

Looks like when someone new is added to the roll, Google has a hard time picking up the correct dates for their posts. Google grabs a bunch of posts off the newly added blog. Now this might get sorted as Google lines everything back up but for the first hour or so, there's lots of posts from the new members for some reason.
When another previous member posts something new, it goes to the top though like normal though.

Another issue I'm working on is getting more than 20 current posts to show. I have 50 chosen but only 20 are showing up right now.

UPDATE JULY 28, 2009: FIGURED IT OUT!
The problem was too many blogs in one list (who knew you couldn't have over 300?).
Now there are two lists, the Command Squad and the Rank and File.

The Command Squad is made up of the top 60 FTW member blogs that support FTW through site traffic. Each month I'll update the list. Only the top 10 will be shown here folks, these are the high traffic blogs.

The Rank and File are the remaining FTW member blogs. Only the top 25 posts are shown here.

UPDATE JULY 30, 2009: NEW CATEGORY!
As a way of introducing the new FTW Blogger Group members, I've created the New Recruit category. New blogs will go here for their first month and then be moved into the Rank and File after that.
This way, readers can see who's new to the group and check them out.

UPDATE AUG 24, 2009: LISTING REVAMPED
In order to make the constantly growing FTW Blogger List manageable, I have collected all of the blogs into 2 "Expansions." One of them is near capacity and the remaining one is filling quickly.

Only the top 10 most recent posts will be displayed from each Expansion.

There are no requirements to be in one Expansion verses the other. As one fills up, I will start a new one. As of the end of August now, there are just over 350 blogs listed total.

UPDATE AUG 28, 2009: BLOGGER LISTING
Corbania Prime did some investigation and has a great explanantion about Google bots and making sure you're listed in any Blogroll in a consistent and timely manner.
Check out his post for the full explanantion.

UPDATE JAN 26, 2010: BLOG LINKS
If your blog is in the roll and you post an insanely huge link (meaning you don't type any text for it, but use the incredibly long strip of text techinically assigned to it) you will be temporarily taken out of the blog roll until you post something without a huge link in it.
The reason is this: That huge link is not able to be broken down into something smaller and so the blogroll tries to show it "as is in it's entirety" and it creates problems with the FTW template. This may make it impossible for readers to read FTW in the correct format. I will try and find a way to contact you by email on your site to let you know if possible.

UPDATE NOV 26, 2010: BLOG ROLLS
The rolls are back the way they were way back when. It is possible to scroll through them now.
In addition, huge links are no longer a problem for the new rolls. Blogs are no longer being temporarily dropped for long links that disrupt the coding.
And... old blogs (inactive with no new posts) are removed from the rolls after 12 months to make room for new blogs.

UPDATE DEC 8, 2010: BLOG ROLL INACTIVITY
Some of you may have noticed the new blog added this week. Each month, I go through and remove those blogs that have not posted in over a year and add new ones in the available spaces. Sometimes I get more applicants than I have space... so the new blog roll was created and then removed. Wrong solution to the problem.

As a way to make sure the FTW blog rolls are being kept current and blogs are not just dying a slow death in the rolls after their initial post, the time period of inactivity has been changed from one year to six months. If after six months without a post, a blog will be removed from the rolls. Any tutorials submitted will remain in the archives.
If after six months of inactivity, you decide to post again and would like your blog added back into the rolls, simply drop me an email with your blog link, blog name and I'll get you added back in.

UPDATE APRIL 15, 2011: SEARCHING THE BLOG ROLLS
With the site getting back up to speed, the blog rolls have really become the main focus. The search function on the site is designed to search through all of the members listed in the blogrolls.

This allows any reader to access the material a FTW Blogger Member has posted.

UPDATE JUNE 23, 2011: SEARCHING THE BLOG ROLLS.2
The previous Search engine started giving me trouble recently so I removed it and replaced it with a Google Custom Search Engine. Slightly different, but it still allows readers to access all the FTW bloggers and this site for additional material.

UPDATE: This post is fairly old and FTW has since experienced a number of changes. Sometimes it's nice to look back at where you came from and where you're going.

Thank you everyone.


Ron, From the WarpIf you've got any questions about something in this post, shoot me a comment and I'll be glad to answer.