A recent posting in the discussion forum requested the ability for users of the site to be able to post comments directly under stories. You can read the forum as to why I decided against that approach, particularly when the forum is such a popular location for communication amongst users of this site.

However I'm pleased to announce that as of today, you can add related web links to the bottom of news stories, reviews and some other sections, which means you are now able to link a story to a relevant discussion in the forum.

So if you do start a thread in the discussion forum about a story, the process is very easy:

• Create your posting and your comments in the forum as usual
• Copy the URL of the forum posting (you can see an example at the bottom of this story)
• Go back to the news story
• Submit the forum URL as a related link (you can either just post the link, or give the link a more meaningful title/description).

If people are curious, the component I've used is actually a "comments" module (there wasn't a "Related links" component available for Mambo that allowed manual submission of links) and I've noted all the coding hacks I made and am going to send them through to the component's author to publicise if he wants (a few Mambo forums have people wanting similar functionality in a component)

You'll see that I've got a comment below the "Send" button as to what types of links are permitted. You all know that I'm protective (over protective!) of the quality of forum postings and making sure that they relate to Mac use. I seem to receive a daily flood of emails from companies, sites and people asking me to promote products or link to other sites....often that hold no relevance to this site whatsoever.

So please use the system carefully. It's not an opportunity for people to repeatedly point readers to their own sites or to a site selling products. Links are published straight away but I get sent an email about the link. If the system is used inappropriately, I'll activate the need for links to be approved before publishing. Sorry...I've just seen these systems turn into lists of "irrelevant links" so I'll be keeping a close eye on it and ensuring we get some quality links appearing for the benefit of our readers.

Thanks in advance to those that take the time to submit relevant links.

Phil

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a guest said: May 14, 2005   Votes: +0

	Discuss this news item in the NZMac.com forum http://www.nzmac.com/component...temid,259/
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