We didn't switch hosting providers yet - so if the site still runs slow, we will consider it soon.

simply bizarre.

People who run blogs and forums don't get enough credit for the time and energy they put into them so that others can use and enjoy them.

Thanks again.

A bunch more stuff to do:

• put back the menu at the top (about, faq, etc)
• special topics
• recent comments (for each of you personally)
• subscribe feature
• remove the requirement to type anything in the comment body

And some other stuff that I am still looking at. But that's the plan.

Note the "notify feature" below the comment when you are typing it in.

I think we need to start thinking of moving to a different host if you guys think it's too slow.

Everyone, please provide positive and negative feedback for our copyright policy Ender asked me to work on over the weekend.

Swords Crossed is protected from any copyright violations by the DMCA and the associated "safe harbor" provision. However, it is in bad taste to violate anyone's copyright in the course of discussion. Copyright law does allow for the fair use of copyrighted works for scholarship, criticism, etc., but the line between a wholesale infringement on copyright and a fair use of the material is vague. To that effect, a more concrete, site-wide policy should be put forth.

Quoting policy:

Users should refrain from copying entire articles to Swords Crossed. This is almost always a violation of copyright even if a link back to the original website is included. Instead, users should limit themselves to copying only what is necessary to comment on the article or news event. This can usually be done by quoting or copying no more than two paragraphs of a particular article or web page. When quoting from a book or substantially large article, users should limit themselves to quoting or copying no more than four paragraphs of the book or article. Obviously this rule won't fit everything as some articles will be very short or will require quotation of most of the article, but please use your best judgment.

In addition, users should use blockquotes, italics, or some other method to prominently set apart the quoted portion of their posts from their original commentary. A link back to the quoted article is not always possible, but is highly advisable in most cases.

User copyright:

Users retain the copyright over their original works as is customary under US copyright law, so Swords Crossed is not responsible for any of the works made by users of the site. Of course, utilizing Swords Crossed will necessarily require the copying and transmission of users' works over the Internet, so by using the service users implicitly agree to allow their works to be so transmitted.

One thing I have noticed is that the new "system" doesn't automatically add line breaks like it used to. Now I have to explicitly put in either two <br> tags or a <p> </p> pair to separate paragraphs.

I assume this is not the way you want it.

Perhaps this will be better! It is a bit large so I hope it doesn't slow anyone down, but it sure looks good. Please let me know if you have problems with it.

Ender,

I noticed that trying to post the following link

http://www.grandforksherald.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D93PHQN80

gave the new system a headache.  After linking inline, Drupal decided to make the link

http://www.grandforksherald.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&amp;id=D93PHQN80

It seems the html conversion code is a bit off, as it is trying to convert ampersands in links into the html equivalent "&amp;"  Trying to fix it by hand in the plain-text editor did not help.  I'll look into it when I have the chance.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D93PHQN80

I need to keep track of how far I am falling behind you and Miss L in comments ... :)

 for my taste. Is there anyway to make the space for the main text of the open threads, etc. wider and more spacious? 

And I especially don't like having the main text be in colored box.  If you want color could it please be a lightershade of grey The main subject page just feels too crowded to me.

Does anyone else feel this way?

When I "Switch to plain text editor" and try to have a sentence start the paragraph, everything jumbles together into one paragraph.