Weight Watchen Blogs! & Boards

We seem to be getting an influx!! This should not be happening!

One this to help curve it is to not allow comments from non0-members.  Go to options from your dash board and check the…

Users must be registered and logged in to comment

Box. That will help IMMENSLY!!

Now, for all you guys worried about the new vs. old site. I am still around but I have to admit I’m starting to get stretched a bit thin. HOWEVER, there is no reason you cannot continue to blog here if you like it and sign up there for the forums and chats. Honestly, it’s what I’m doing. If you notice I still blog on my blog at weight watchen but I participate in the community. It’s a nice balance!

Sorry about the SPAM, but I’m really out of ideas!!

Just in case you didn’t get my email (Man, I feel like a SPAMMER!) This is what I sent out tonight….

Hello Fellow Weight Watchen Blogger!

Roni here and I’m emailing all blogs.weightwatchen.com members to tell you about our new community. If you haven’t been following the news, I have decided to build a new system that has more features, better spam management and more privacy options.

This does not mean I’m closing blogs.weightwatchen.com. I am still going to maintain the site and allow people to continue to blog if they choose too. However, I will not be allowing new signups after this week. We get about 1 new sign up for every 10 spam blogs and I just can’t keep up.

If you have NO idea what I’m talking about. Check out my old news posts here…

http://blogs.weightwatchen.com/blog/category/uncategorized/

As a current member you are getting a special invitation to join the new community early. I have a welcome message on the main page just for you and I started some discussion to help everyone get orientated.

So please take a look and let me know what you think. I’m really excited for some of the new features like the who’s online and chat!! Oh and the new name… blogtolose.com Isn’t that FUN!?! ;~P

I’m hoping to you see you all at our new place! Click on the following link or cut and paste it in the address of your browser for the invitation…

http://www.blogtolose.com/?xgi=2MN4DcK

-Roni
http://weightwatchen.com
http://greenlitebites.com

P.S. I’m sorry for the mass email I am NOT planning on making this a habit. I promise.

Ok, Guys! It’s almost here!!!

I’m finishing a few things up and I hope to have it ready to go tomorrow.

Here’s the plan. I’m going to send you all (everyone who is a member here at Blogs.WeightWatchen.com) an invitation to join the new community. I want you guys to get in and check it out, give me feedback, make suggestions, etc. Then after a few days I’ll announce it on my blog and “open it to the public” so to say.

After which I will no longer allow sign-ups here at Blogs.WeightWatchen.com. Now, have NO fear! I still plan on maintaining this site and you can still continue your blog here if you like. The New community will have a blog feature but if you like and have a nice set up here there is no reason you cannot continue to blog here and participage in forums and chat there. The great thing is you can display your RSS feed on the “My Page” at the new place so people can find, read you posts and offer support. It’s really a great solution, even for those who have blogs on other systems!

I hope that makes sense.

Please let me know of you have any questions and as always, I’ll keep you posted!

-Roni

I don’t know if you guys saw my post about the hacker but we were attacked last night. Then over night we were attached by some crazy SPAM blast that took our home page hostage. MAN! It just makes me so mad that there are mean people in the world. I mean, can’t everyone just leave us alone?!?!

Anyway, it’s seems to be over now. I took care of the SPAM and the hosting company tool care of the Hacker. You may notice some inconsistencies as the hosting company had to roll back to a backup-ed version.

So this has propelled me to release the new community a little early. Both of these things probably wouldn’t have happed if we were on that system. Not that it’s impossible to anything to go wrong but the security is much higher and I’ll be paying for support.

I will post an update and progress in a few days.

Thanks you guys for understanding and begin patient with me.

-Roni

Hey All!!

I’ve been working feverishly on the new community. It’s becomming quite an obsession to be honest. I love it!

I have learned so much already and the community features are even better then I thought! Here’s a quick update…

• You will have a “My Page” where you can change the theme, add blog posts, widgets, photos, your favorite RSS feed. You could even display your own blog feed (from another blog) on your “My Page” and continue blogging where you are blogging while participating with the community! How cool is that?!? :~P
• The Who’s online and chat features are working like a charm!
• I’ve designed a whole new look and created the same board structure there that we have here (although they will be called forums-which I actually like better).

Once I feel ready to have you guys test, I will send you out an invitation first before announcing it on my main page and opening up registration to everyone. This way it will give us a chance to create and custimize our main pages and become orientated. I would also love to get feedback from you as well!

And have no worries, I do not plan on shutting down this blog community. I will continue to host and support it. I will just prevent new sign ups once the new community is live. This way I don’t have to manage the spam blogs anymore.

If you can’t tell, I am SUPER EXCITED. I’m having fun developing it and I can’t wait to share it with you guys!!

I’ll post another update soon!

You guys ARE the best.  Ok… here’s what I think I’m going to do (this after some planning last night).

• I am going to create a new community on the new system (as I said this may take a some time).
• Once it’s finished I will invite all of you to join
• blogs.weightwatchen.com will remain active for a few months. After which I will not allow any new sign ups, but I will keep the current blogs active so you can access your old posts even linking to them if you want.

Sound like a good plan?!?

I have to admit, I’m SUPER excited about this!

Ok, everyone I have a real serious question for the community.

You may or may not know I’m a one women show. I’ve created and launched the community all on my own and it is larger then I every thought it would be. I stayed up many a night staring at computer code trying to figure out weird bugs, stressing over upgrades, and adding new templates. The community requires a pretty hefty time commitment and where I used to be spending that time reading and meeting all of you I now spend it fighting spammers, debugging and worring about running out of space on the server.

Anyway, I think you know where I’m going with this.

Honestly, my intent with the community was to offer people a friendly environment where they could blog about thier weight loss jounrey as I did, make some new friends along the way and reach their goals. I truly believe blogging made all the difference in my weight loss success.

Ok, I’ll get to the point. I want to upgrade us. I’ve been researching other community platforms and I think I found one that is perfect!! It offers all of the community features I’ve wanted to add here but haven’t been able to becuase of time and my techical knowledge. Hoever, just with everything in life there are some pro’s and cons.

The Pros! The new community would have….

• Member profiles with pictures
• See who’s online
• CHAT!!!
• member blogs
• forums
• upload media
• Users can have blogs elsewhere and still JOIN and be active by placing badges on their other blogs. (I have seen this as a problem of ours for awhile)
• Easier to share photos
• More user friendly
• Weight loss tables are easier to add (no more visual/code displays)
• Uploading images would be easier.
• I can build widgets easier - like a weight tracker!!
• This ones for me…. Management of the data would be easier.
• Super easy to sign up
• A main page that would show all activity in the community, not just blog posts.
• built in SPAM CONTROL!!!

The Cons

• No way to import users
• You’re blog posts can not be imported (at least I can’t find a way - although you could manually copy and paste)

I know the pros are really out weighing the cons but those are really 2 big cons, I think. For me not bing able to upload my currents posts would hurt a bit but I’m not sure it’s a deal breaker

So I pose the question…. Should we upgrade if it requires you to sign back up in a different system?

Be honest. I want to hear all your pros, cons, thought, complaints, questions, etc.

OH! and this wouldn’t be an overnight thing, it would probably take me a month or two.

I TOTALLY forgot about our Frappr map and look at how many of you are up there! Geesh! I don’t know where my head’s been.

I wanted to post it here so we all knew it existed.

I also wanted to tell you I’ve been working on the templates. I removed some obtrusive google ads from some, like skeletons. The only ads I’m integrated in are from the blog her network. I’ve been saving up so we can upgrade our hosting. I think the site is starting to drag a bit with all our users!

Don’t worry, any updates I’ll make I’ll keep you posted on!

Hi Guys! I know it’s been awhile since I posted a community update. I have to admit this semester it’s been a bit tough for me on time and I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the blogs. However, I know many of you that are really supportive to all our members and I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate it. I really created this community to help people find an outlet for their weight loss journeys and by having loyal readers that take the time to support and post comments on other blogs we are helping ourselves reach goals! I think it’s really amazing.

That being said I made a few changes to help us keep the community strong.

1. I updated the Blogs page to list the blogs in order of last updated instead of when they were created. This way we have a list to click through if we want to support those that posted recently. This list is also different then the “Most Active Blogs” as it will list by updated not by number of posts.
2. I removed one ad and moved the BlogHer ad on the main page over to the side bar. This pushed the recent comments up and allowed for a new section below titled “REALLY May Need Help” which are blogs that haven’t been updated in a LONG time. I thought maybe, just maybe, if they have fallen off track we may be able to help them back on with a few comments and support.
3. If you remember the, “May Need Help” list on the top are community members that haven’t’ updated in about 2 weeks. Which I think is about the time when people get frustrated with the program and give up.

My idea with all of these edits was to get the most exposure to the most blogs. You’ll notice the “Most Active Blogs” are still there, just moved down a bit. I didn’t do this to punish those that post a lot, I did it to bring attention to those that may need help. Those of you that are really active have an established readership already and I don’t think you are going to lose that any time soon!

I hope this helps those of us that need it and gives us a nice way to reach out to others. Remember if you are new, post comments on other blogs so people are aware you joined. This way community members can click on your name and support you as well.

Thanks to everyone for making this an AWESOME community. As always, post any comments, concerns, questions, ideas or what have you, in the comments or on the boards. I’m here, I just may be a bit quiet for a few weeks until my schedule dies down.

I FINALLY got a new theme up. It is AWESOME, totally customizable, simple, clean elegant with some really neat header images and options.

You can even flip the sidebars from left to right.

Check it out, it’s called Tarski. I hope you like it!!

Sorry it took me so long.