Pst... Look at this

[shavethewhales]

One of the reasons I haven't been working on SDCFans much lately is because I'm busy working on a brand new site for the all the midwest amusement fanboys out there. Don't roll your eyes too quickly though, because this will be a little different from the myriad of other fansites already crowding the net. Basically there'll be a small area at the top where I'll showcase a few top news stories written by yours truly, below that there will be a large reddit-like area where you'll be able to submit links to amusement Ind. stories on the web, then comment and vote on them. I'm also thinking about user-driven photo galleries with Flikr-like features and a few other cool little things.

I just figured the net needed a good, solid amusement fan site. At this point all we have is Screamscape and a myriad of forums. This would kind of bring everything together neatly I think.

What do you guys think?

Oh yeah, help me think up a name. The best I can come up with is "Thrill Guru's".  Maybe ThrillNerds, I think that's available now...

[Tom]

Like   

http://www.midwestinfoguide.com/

[Swoosh]

I wasn't going to say anything, but yes that was what I thinking too. 

[shavethewhales]

No, more like this:

http://www.reddit.com

I wouldn't be providing very much content at all.

It'll make more sense when you see it.

[shavethewhales]

Here's a rough mock-up, though I'll probably add a little more gleam to it.

See? The bulk of the site is based around submitting links from other sites and discussing them there. The box at the top will feature a few special articles from time to time for things like major ride announcements and stuff.

This is only the beginning though, I'm planning on expanding the concept to build individual communities around each park, photo and video sharing, and a few other special features.

[Swoosh]

So then it would be just like News Plus Notes? 

[shavethewhales]

Eh, no. News Plus Notes is a simple blog, this is a multi-featured community site. Maybe I'll just have to actually build it and launch it - then you'll see. 

[sdcforever]

I think it's a good idea, and I think I know what you're getting at.  I visit three or four different amusement sites each week to try to keep up with what's going on.  It'd be nice to have a site that brings everything together.

[shavethewhales]

In case anyone was wondering, I'm still working with this, but I've finally decided to call it quits with coding the thing completely by myself and am taking the easy way out by installing Pligg. I will personalize it extensively though, and it will still be laid out like the mock-up. If everything goes as well as I think it might, I may have this up in a little over a week or less.

[sdcforever]

^Cool!  Be sure to let us know when the site is up and running.

[shavethewhales]

Well, it's not quite what I initially imagined, but here it is: http://www.thrillator.com

I still haven't added the top stories box though, so it's not completely done yet. I'll add that tomorrow, then fill the site with stories. By Friday I'll 'announce' it, and start building up some affiliations. It still needs a lot of tweaks and minor upgrades, but this will do for a beta release.

[sdcforever]

^It looks good so far!

[shavethewhales]

Ugg, it turns out that Pligg is just not going to cut it. It's a great program for what it is, but there's just no good way to separate it from everything else. I'm going to have to move back to square 1 and try to code it all myself. This of course means that the actual Thrillator will be devoid of many of the features that pligg offered, but at least I'll be able to customize it and add to it as I see fit.

I'll probably take a little break from it for now and get this site up to par. Thrillator will probably roll out in about 3 weeks or so, depending on how things go.