Some of you have noticed some changes being made in Author Buzz UK. Under the hood, this is not a big change, but I hope it will go some way to making the site nicer to use.

Groups

Up until now, there have been blogs, groups, profiles, forums… Now there are only groups. Well, kind of.

All of the forums, including General Chat, have been moved to groups. Groups have been given categories so you can find what you want. Some of the group types are forum groups (where the forum is the group home page), groups for headlines by feed (aka “outside blogs”), group blogs (for groups with an attached blog), and some assorted others. Fan groups for fans of particular authors, poets, publishers, etc., publisher groups, help and advice groups, support groups, and writing groups.

All groups allow subscription by email.

The only downside of the change is that if you want to comment in General Chat, you will need to join the group. Anyone can add themselves to most groups whenever they wish.

New Decoration

I wrote recently about giving the site a fresh lick of paint. I’m still planning to do that. I want to create a custom theme that is light, fast, and suitable for all parts of the site.

With this change, I hope that the site becomes simpler to use. Join, add yourself to the groups you want, enjoy. As always, you can see the content only from your own groups on authorbuzz.co.uk/activity. Now, however, you can see all your forums there too.

Side effects

Given the order I went through the groups with, the last are now first, and the first are now last (ish). Regular activity should re-sort the groups over the next few days.

All the old links should still work. Like, for example, the old link to General Chat.

I look forward to reading any feedback you might have.