Hey there, Buffalo Rumblings!
It's been about a month now since we made the switch over to our new blogging platform, SB Nation United, and our company's tech team has been hard at work making tweaks to improve performance since the late September cutover. Just last week, a new set of upgrades were rolled out; you may already have noticed many of them, but here's the full list in case you weren't aware:
- Increased the amount the number of recommended and recent FanPosts on the homepage
- Changed the styles to improve scanning of FanPosts and FanShot headlines and new comments on the homepage
- Added author bylines on Articles in the cover
- Reinstated the ability for users to add polls to FanPosts
- Reinstated accurate comment counts on StoryStream updates in the cover
- Trending Stories are now relevant to league of the team or sport the blog covers
- Fixed Facebook login issues
- Added correct author names to the FanPosts page
- Mobile optimization improvements
That's just the tip of the iceberg, really (and it's certainly the list of changes that's most relevant to the community at large). The tech team continues to monitor community feedback and make tweaks as necessary, so if there's something that's still bugging you about the new layout, this is the perfect spot to let us know about it.
Do you like video games?
While we're on the subject of things that Vox Media (the parent company to SB Nation and The Verge) is rolling out, I'd like to quickly point you in the direction of Polygon, Vox's new site dedicated solely to video games. I imagine a great many of you out there play video games to some degree; Polygon is dedicated entirely to that industry, covering it from every angle. If you're anything like me and spend a lot of time gaming, I can almost guarantee that you'll find something about Polygon that you like. I'm posting over there under my Xbox Live handle ('I Fred Jackson' - yeah, it's pretty much the best Xbox Live handle ever), and hope to see some of you over there!
Sections, Hubs, Library and Open Forum
Our only Buffalo Rumblings tutorial since the United upgrade covered the new StoryStream technology, which I believe the community has gotten somewhat used to over the last few weeks. I'd like to take a minute to point out a few other features around which there has been some confusion.
First of all, let's talk about Sections, which you can access from the "Sections" drop-down located in the navigation bar just under the front page cover:
Here, you can access specific categories of content that we've created over the years. We list our Blog Tutorials section there, for example, along with our archive of podcasts and other things. We'll be adding to this in the near future, as well. It's also here that you can access our popular Hubs, which you can think of as souped-up sections.
Unlike a section, which is a simple listing of content, our hubs have covers like the front page. They don't do anything different, specifically, other than look nicer. An example of a hub would be our listing of Chan Gailey and Buddy Nixapproval polls (which link back to one another, in case you hadn't noticed). Functionally, they aren't much different from one another, but hopefully this clears up a little confusion that some of you had expressed about the terminology.
Finally, I'd like to point out our Library section, which is going to be an important location for general blog content, including our Community Guidelines and other long-running features.
Right now, all we've got in there is a constantly updated roster and depth chart as well as the aforementioned guidelines. When things slow down a bit (likely during the off-season), we'll be adding to that with MRW's outstanding yearly history posts, essential Buffalo Rumblings reading, and much more. Don't forget about that Library, folks.
Questions have really ground to a halt in my Inbox, so I'm assuming that most of you have grown more accustomed to the new surroundings. This is a great opportunity, however, to ask any lingering you questions you may have - and that includes questions about the mobile interface. Fire away!