LTB Editorial System Upgrades Overview

Many distractions, a few thousand lines of code and Two Weeks(tm) later, the blog updates are finally starting to come together! As usual there is still some things left to do, but as of yesterday we have applied the latest upgrades, so I am going to go over what's changed and what's new in this post.

Feedback, suggestions etc. are welcome.. I will be away for most of next week, so now would be a good time to get together a list of changes and requests (also make note of any bugs that might pop up).

My Blogs - aka "multi-blogs"

My Blogs

This is a new section (not yet public, admin only) which allows management of multiple blogs within the system. So far, LTB itself has been just one singular blog, but with this new module we can have several blogs within letstalkbitcoin.com and each with their own owners, categories and content teams (which we are calling "Autonomous Content Teams").

This has a fairly basic interface that allows you to change the title, description and logo of your blog. More importantly, you can add in team members to the blog, which gives them various management permissions. Just enter in a username and choose one of the following options:

Writer: Can post submissions in any category within the blog, including non-public categories.
Independent Writer: Same permissions as regular writer, but can self-publish to any category, bypassing editorial queue.
Editor: Can see submissions for the blog in the editorial queue, permissions to approve post categories and view + request contributor access to a post.
Admin: All of the above + has access to manage blog title, description, image and user roles, as well as manage available categories (but cannot delete the blog).

Once this area is publicly available to all accounts, you will be able to create and start managing your own blog(s) for an LTBC price (similar to Token Societies, but these won't have token controlled access). The idea we are planning on is to have an option for blog owners to define a "reward share" for any posts which are submitted to their categories. So if a blog wants to take a 5% cut from all posts, any posts it gets published which end up on the main LTB front page will split 5% of their Proof of Quality/Value rewards with the blog owners. Individual posts can also be submitted to more than one blog.

Newsroom

The Newsroom is the replacement for the old clunky "Blog Posts" section that our editors have been using up till now. Only blog owners, admins or editors can gain access to this page, and each user only sees what's relevant to them (i.e, you don't see info from blogs you have no association with).

Here is a run-down of features and functions in the Newsroom:

Shows posts for each blog you are a team member of. Expand/collapse icon to show or hide posts from an entire blog.
Updated table format, looks a bit nicer and now shows post ID, title, status, primary author and publish date. Posts sorted by publish date
Posts are paginated, can be sorted by any table column, can change the # of entries to show and can easily search for posts (just searches table data, not checking keywords in content or anything like that)
Filter drop down allows you to show only posts which are pending editorial review or category approval, are in "draft" status, or have already been published
Server time in the top right corner for reference (since dates are currently based on server time, not your local time). This auto updates
Colour coded statuses. Green = published, orange = pending review, blue = pending category approval, black = draft.
Publishing stats for each blog including how many participants/contributors there have been, how many posts published, how many article views received etc.
List of ACT members for each blog. Hovering over their user names shows what their role is (e.g Admin, Editor or Writer)
"View All Contributors" link - click this to see a list of all authors and contributors that have participated in the blog, ranked by how many posts they have contributed to.
A little speech-bubble icon is shown as an indicator beside each post if there is any new editorial comments which you have not yet viewed. Another indicator is shown as well beside any articles which you are listed as a contributor of.
Clicking on "Edit Copy" beside a post brings you to the post submission page. Clicking on the post title also does this. Editors must request to become a contributor before being able to actually make changes to a post (more on this in a moment)
When you click on "Manage", a box pops up which contains some extra details about the post including when it was submitted, when it was published (or scheduled to publish), when it was last edited and by who, how many views and comments it has received and who all of the post contributors are. It also has quick links to edit post copy or view a draft.
The "manage" links also shows you any blog categories that the post has been submitted to, with options to either "approve" or "reject" each one, or keep it in pending status. Authors/post contributors are notified of any changes in category approval.
In order for a post to be considered published and show up on the front end, it must have a status of "Finished" and be in at least 1 approved blog category (also as usual, posts need a "cover image" to be included on the main front page)

Blog Submissions & Contributors

Submissions

The submissions page is where any user can go to create their own article submissions. Basic stats such as posts published, article views, comments etc.. The list of posts includes both submissions you have made and also any submissions made by others that you have contributed to.

Here is a breakdown of submission area features. A bunch of this is old / already known stuff, but I'm going to list it out anyways.

"Post Credits" required in order to create a new submission. 1 post submission = 1,000 LTBcoin this is explained further on the submissions page, and is primarily an anti-spam mechanism (pretty effective so far actually)
Ability to move your own posts into the "trash". From there they can be permanently deleted or restored again.
Quick links to view draft (or the live post, if its published)
On the edit post form, form fields separated into tabs, "Content", "Status & Category", "Meta Data", "Discussion" and "Versions".
Both markdown and wysiwyg content formatting types available, live previews for markdown formatting
Post excerpts are automatically generated, or you can create a custom one
Available statuses now consist of only "Draft", "Ready for Review" and "Finished", Ready for Review still notifies any blog editors to check out the post (as long as you select at least 1 category, only relevant blog editors notified)
Upload a cover image for the front page
"Requested Blog Categories" - you must choose at least one category in order for the post to actually get published. Once a category is approved by an editor, you will notice a little green thumb as an indicator beside the category name. Users which have self publishing permissions (e.g are "Independent Writers" for a blog) get to have any of their chosen categories automatically approved.
"Meta Data" tab allows you to set up extra info such as Bitcoin tipping address or Soundcloud Track ID (if you are a podcast). Also can view how many views/comments/magic words the article has received, and an editorial notes field.
Discussion tab allows you to discuss the article with editors and contributors. @mentions work here now but only for users which are either part of a relevant ACT or post contributors.
Versions tab shows a version history of all content changes for the post, who changed what and when, and the ability to revert to a previous version. Also includes a handy tool that lets you compare changes between multiple versions.
"Preview Draft" option to see exactly what it will look like when published

Contributors

One of the main changes in these upgrades is the introduction of the "contributors" system. This allows you to invite people to help with your article in exchange for a share of the weekly LTBC rewards from Proof of Quality or Proof of Value. Clicking on the "Contributors" button in the Edit Post form brings up a popup which shows who all the current contributors are, what their roles are (Author, Editor, or something custom) and what % of any rewards they will receive.

As an author, you can send contributor invites to any user by entering in their username, what their role will be, and what their reward share % will be. They will receive a notification and can choose to accept or decline the request. If accepted, they are added to the list and given access to both view and edit your post. Authors can cancel pending contributor requests, and users can remove themselves as contributors.. however beyond that, contributor lists are locked in and can only be changed by a site staff member/administrator. Authors can change the Role titles of each contributor though

As a blog editor, you have access to view any posts within your blog in ready-only mode. This means you can go in, see the draft article and participate in the editorial discussion, but cannot make any changes. Instead of an "Invite User" form, editors have access to a "Request to be a Contributor" form. This sends a request to the primary author for you to become a contributor with whatever role title and reward share % that you chose. Author can accept or decline this, allowing for some negotiation to occur. Once accepted, the editor can make content changes as needed.

Once a post is set to a status of "Finished", it cannot invite or accept any new contributors, and also everyone except the primary author gets put into read-only mode when viewing the post submission.

To Do

Still a few further upgrades on all of this, but it's getting close! Here are some things on my list at the moment:

LTBC stats for each article
Content auto-save feature
Arbitration system for when contributor lists need to be changed
"Create a Blog" page for paying an LTBC fee to create your own blog
Article curation module for creating custom post feeds (for instance, a post feed which powers the LTB front page)
Individual blog home-pages and some other frontend changes for the new multi-blog system - this is one of the main things we need to figure out, I'm not sure how we want this to look at all..

I think that pretty much covers it! Questions, feedback, bug reports etc... let me know. Will continue on all of this when im back next friday.

Cheers

Fantastic work Nick, a couple of things I want to get in your brain before you go.

I believe you made a very important breakthrough when you suggested we flip our model and instead of having editors have to decide amongst themselves who would work on a piece, rather they apply to be part of the specific piece of contents team and can be rejected by the author initially.

Rather than having the curation module be one where you look through the upcoming content, I think we should flip it. Each front page will have a submission fee, and ideally this would be operated through the "Manage" menu or a new "Publicize" menu that lets you pick through the various front pages, see their submission fees, be able to look at their statistics both in terms of traffic and pageviews but also how often they reject submissions and various statistics on how they operate within the LTB ecosystem.

It's important to note that only the LTB front page has LTBCOIN in great quantities to distribute as a reward for people posting on our front page. Other front pages will have their own coins, and indeed blogs will have their own coins too because each participant can accept everybody elses token and still have their own to serve their particular needs.

An article can be submitted to as many front pages as you want to pay the fee for, although it seems less likely later front pages would carry the story unless it was really interesting to their audience because the submission fees are always non-refundable.

So the proposal here is to add a "Publicize" menu option next to each post from the Newsroom view which opens up the list of front pages, when you click one it displays their specific stats and rules, you select the ones you want to submit it too and are presented with a total bill in whatever token you choose to pay with. You pay the bill and all the front pages you selected have your story pop up as a pre-paid submission which they can throw on their front page with one click. If they reject it, they are prompted to write a note explaining why. If they accept it, the post qualifies for the front pages rewards program which might be quite like LTB's or might vary.

Users who run front pages will need a new interface that lets them quickly preview content as it would appear on their page (remember, front pages are links only back to blogs), accept or decline submissions and do styling/cosmetic work/tweaks to correct any issues with the post auto-formatting for their front page. Also meta and per-piece stats.

Front Pages are not like conventional websites, they're most closely analagous to https://drudgereport.com, they are intended to be high volume and the opposite of "sticky", users visit front pages often because they have very frequent interesting content and are essentially curated directories based on the curators tastes and mission.

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My Blogs - aka "multi-blogs"

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Newsroom

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