We have finished polishing the blog sign up process and Author Buzz UK is now ready for community creation.
Today two new features have been open to the public. User blogs and group creation.
Groups
Groups allow you to create a mini community. You can create groups about whatever you want (within reason). This makes groups an ideal niche extension for your platform.
Groups are a feature that you may have seen on the site for a while. Due to some technical issues, it has not been possible for you to make your own groups. We’ve fixed that. Now anyone can make one.
If you are an author with an existing blog (or a fan of one) you can drop the RSS feed and see your posts appear as news notifications. If you are an author in need of a blog, we have you covered there as well. When you create a group, you can add an external blog RSS feed to the group; as well as a forum, a wiki, and a group blog.
Blogs
Up until now, if you wanted a blog you had to ask nicely on the forums. Now you can generate your own any time you want. You will need to create a group but you can opt to make it private and hidden just for you, or public and open to others. Furthermore, you decided just how much access (if any) the moderators, admins, and members of the group will have on the blog.
If you want the blog to be just for you, then dial back the rights to just yourself. If your community or writing club want to work together, open the doors and let them all in.
Let the blogging begin.
Acceptable use
There is no nice way of saying it but we do expect there may be some spam. Author Buzz is not a community free-for-all so low value, spammy looking groups (and blogs) will be reviewed on a case by case basis. The best way to avoid that sort of attention is to write some high-quality content right away.
We do prefer content that is safe for work. If you feel that your blog may be about to stray into not so safe for work topics, please chat to us before you go there. Art is fine, that is what we are here for; spammy junk is not okay.
Other than that, use your common sense, don’t be evil, and have fun.
Decided to be a guinea pig with these new features and have some observations –
I can’t figure out where I’m able to create my group / blog and it’s not stated in this post.
If we really are able to create our own blog the section in Help & Support should be edited to reflect that
An awesome beta tester to the rescue again. I will update the help and support group.
In the meantime there is a link at the top of the groups’ page that says creative a group. Or click here.
Ok, blog is set up, I’ll investigate further when I have more time. It’s a shame you have to set up a group to get a blog, I’ve set mine as hidden because I have no interest in having a group.
Might be a little while before you see anything on my blog, bear with me 🙂
Can’t see my blog in the sites list, not sure if it’s connected, but I set the group as hidden (didn’t want a group anyway). You might suggest changing the group to public, but I can’t even see the group!!
There can be a delay before a site shows up. I’m seeing it in the list now. Let me know if you cannot.
I’m seeing my blog now, still can’t see my group. I set it to ‘hidden’, but even so I thought I, as the owner, should be able to see it. Doesn’t matter much since I never intended on using it.
[…] that group creation is live, all you have to do is create a group. Say no to the free blog if you don’t need it. Take […]