Hi!

Checking in on possible blog progress. (:

Cool! Currently there is a recruitment call for potential contributors.

Think y'all can handle like a post a week?

Hm that's a good question. =P

hehe

Most of our great members are online on a daily basis, so I don't believe we would run out of material.

but are they willing to contribute to the blog on a somewhat regular basis? (:

I'm not the most indicated person to vouch for them, but I believe so. In the list of potential contributors, all of them are very active members (except me, I'm still learning the ways of the TeX force ). I strongly believe they are eager to contribute to the blog.

@PauloCereda I'm already holding back already :-) I just get also some up-votes from older answers of mine.

@RebeccaChernoff One post a week in total shouldn't be a problem.

@MartinScharrer Certainly between a team of say half a dozen people

@RebeccaChernoff I think we can probably do one post a week. That's one post every five weeks per contributor currently on the list. Once we've got some momentum, we could probably attract a few more...

@Seamus One post every five weeks I can certainly handle

I am now within one days rep-cap of 10k... Let's hope there are some easy questions for me to pounce on today...

Are any TeX.sx folks on google plus? Has anyone worked out what niche it's trying to fill?

How do I add a link in a comment? I seem to have forgotten how this worked

@MartinTapankov You need to do the following: [link text](http://link.com)

@Seamus I'm on Google+. I don't think it wants to fill a niche but simply be like Facebook, but better.

@MartinScharrer I wonder if a TeX.sx group on google+ would make sense?

@Seamus A TeX.SX group not I think, but a general (La)TeX group maybe. However I'm not sure if Google+ has groups.

@JasperLoy plus.google.com Googles newest try to start an own social network

Is it ok when I write "recreation"?

Or "programming LaTeX packages" (which I really do more than writing actual documents :-) )

Thousand thanks goes to @PauloCereda for the TeX Community Polls Ad:

How can you make comments shorter than15 characters?

@Seamus You can add invisible Unicode spaces

@MartinScharrer Aha. I tried doing this: [](fake link) but that didn't work...

@Seamus They improved the detection algorithm for this :-D

when I tried to create the above chat root I got the following message:

:-D

@MartinScharrer haha it made my day!

Anyone ever heard about scribtex.com (Online LaTeX editor)?

I can go ahead and set up the blog and a couple admins. We'd like at least one mod to be an admin on the blog, but if there's another trusted trusted user on the site beyond that, that's fine then.

@RebeccaChernoff Great - I'm happy to go down as one of the admins if needed, but don't let that put others off!

@RebeccaChernoff I'm happy to be a blog admin as well.

hmm, well let's see what I can whip up then.

@AlanMunn: I tried Aquamacs yesterday and found it very useful. Do you know it? ;-)

tex.blogoverflow.com

@egreg Nice to hear that! At first, I tried TextWrangler, but due to its general purpose philosophy and no LaTeX support, I gave up. I was using MacVim, but Aquamacs is very productive. =)

@PauloCereda If one could manage to edit something with Vim, it would be very productive as well. :) My first experiences with Emacs were painful, with Aquamacs it's another thing: no need to learn complex sequences of keys to begin with, but one can always learn them working with it. I admit that Emacs regular expressions always do different than I believed.

@egreg hehe that's true. It took me some time to learn a few Vim commands. I once had some problems with a weird file encoding, I spent one whole night to figure out what was happening to my file (ssh'd from my lab PC). =) My Emacs experience was also painful, I couldn't make things work (and I love Lisp!). Aquamacs puts some spice on Emacs, and I like that.

@MartinScharrer, @JosephWright - check yo email! (:

@RebeccaChernoff Thanks!

@RebeccaChernoff Awaiting data ...

@MartinScharrer Who wants to do the first post?

@Seamus suggested a blog, so perhaps it should be him

so, couple things - you can use markdown, make sure you're on the html tab in the editor

@JosephWright I was just going to ask you the same question! :-)

codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities - I'd say a couple admins, a couple editors that help drive things, most people as authors but probably contributors

@MartinScharrer Perhaps one of us should start off with an introduction

contributors can't post their own posts, but mark them as pending and then editors (/admins) can schedule/post

@RebeccaChernoff Interesting point - my WordPress experience is limited to 'just me' stuff at the moment

@RebeccaChernoff We can start simple and work up!

I starred this room...will idle. Here to help with whatever I can!

@RebeccaChernoff: Could we have a "blog" entry in both main and meta TeX.SX bars?

@MartinScharrer I guess we will need to add other people to the blog, initially based on the list from the meta site

@JosephWright Exactly my idea.

@PauloCereda hm?

I'm just trying to figure out if we can change the theme easily

don't worry about the theme

@MartinScharrer I guess this is a network decision

I put you up as sketchy for now just to get started

Jin will make the blog look like the site.

I can spin up a blog on sketchy in about 5 minutes...takes him a bit longer (:

@JosephWright Of course, I was just looking if is can be changed to the TeX.SX layout

Consider the blog in a bit of a beta phase now, much like the site went through.

@RebeccaChernoff I meant a link in the top bars.

We'll give it some time to grow first

@RebeccaChernoff Ok, that's great!

Then we'll replace the blog link to point to blogoverflow instead of blog.so.

ie, graduate it (:

in the meantime, the community promotion ads would be very much appropriate once you've got some content.

Cool!

if you don't have them already, blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/05/community-promotion-ads

once your first post goes up (@lert me if I don't see it myself), I'll add you to blogoverflow.com and hook up the site's twitter account to tweet new blog posts.

Interesting point about the 'contributors' - should make it easy to allow a range of content without having to 'know' all of the authors really well

@JosephWright Mmm, at the beginning we might want to have a review stage.

@MartinScharrer I think that's the point of 'contributor': they can create a post, but it's held for review by someone 'more powerful'.

en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-status

@RebeccaChernoff That side doesn't load for me (keeps loading ...)

):

@JosephWright: Would you write a short first post? I would take longer to do it.

@MartinScharrer First, I need a password - it will be somewhere in the internet, I'm sure

@JosephWright Didn't you got the email?

@MartinScharrer Not as yet

@RebeccaChernoff What e-mail address did you use for me?

@MartinScharrer Alternatively, as you obviously have a password, could you check?

the one listed on your site account

@RebeccaChernoff Odd. If I try the 'reset password' system it claims 'There is no user registered with that email address.' (I soon found the WordPress login page!)

@JosephWright I was just going to :-)

@JosephWright yeah, you don't have an account until you click the confirmation link in the email you're supposed to get. |:

@JosephWright I got "That username is currently reserved but may be available in a couple of days." when I tried to add you myself.

@RebeccaChernoff I see - as I said I'm not used to multi-user WordPress

I'm sure it is, but mind double checking what you have in the email field on your profile for me?

I guess the mail must still be making it's way to me via the redirect I have to my ISP

Do you get the mod emails like the ones about the chat-cast?

@RebeccaChernoff Yes

@MartinScharrer For the moment, it looks like you will have to 'do stuff'. I'm sure the e-mail will appear by the morning (UK time)

I retagged some global questions to grouping, and now ask a moderator to add "global" and "local" as tag synonyms for grouping.

@lockstep Done

There are probably some other questions for which adding grouping is proper ... but not today. ;-)

Waiting has been rewarded - e-mail recieved

\o/

I'm working on a first post now. I've already added a 'contributors' page, which currently just features me. @MartinScharrer: Perhaps add a potted biog for yourself?

Oh crap, I forgot to do the about and archive pages

Is the style okay: tex.blogoverflow.com/contributors

@RebeccaChernoff Oops

We should be consistent in naming: is is 'TeX.sx' or 'TeX.SX'?

(These seem to be the two popular choices)

@JosephWright Done, but it doesn't appear yet. I need to write a post first, don't I?

@JosephWright I would go with TeX.sx. Some people also use TeX.se

@MartinScharrer No, shouldn't do. The first post will be about 15 minutes

people refer to you as *.sx?

tex.blogoverflow.com/about << make sure you edit this to your tastes.

@MartinScharrer Did you edit the 'Contributors' page?

@RebeccaChernoff Yes

I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to Stack Exchange site as *.sx

(or *.SX)

@RebeccaChernoff It may well be a 'local convention'

.se => Sweden

We have the symmetry from 'TeX'

did one of you edit the theme options or was I just an idiot and forgot to fill in the css folder? css was broken. |:

fixed now at least. (:

@RebeccaChernoff Not me

I'm probably just an idiot. (:

@RebeccaChernoff Ups :-)

alright, lemme get the twitter feed hooked up

I change it from "stackexchange.com" to "tex.stackexchange.com" but then hit the reset button. Sorry for that.

yeah, I forgot to do that step. hides

oh, right, I can't add the twitter feed when there isn't a post. I knew I usually waited for a reason.

@RebeccaChernoff 5 minutes!

@JosephWright I added it on the profile page which has a field for it and thought it is displayed automatically. I edited the 'Contributers' page now.

@MartinScharrer 'Contributed' is my idea, so it's not automatic. Perhaps there should be an opening paragraph 'Some of our regular contributors'

lol no rush. It'll still tweet the first post even though I activate it afterwards, so no biggie

@RebeccaChernoff First post done - it's just a 'hello world', really

I remember some content of the "Welcome to TeX.SX!" post on meta would be good for a 1st post

@StefanKottwitz I've added you to the blog - 'Editor' at the moment, but I wonder if all three mods should be 'Admin' on the blog

@JosephWright thanks, I'm happy if I can write a post sometimes, don't need to be a admin

Perhaps if this happens, my first blog post could be about that ;-)

@StefanKottwitz I think the idea is that each author chooses their own topic :-)

I will probably add something about the 'unanswered questions' sessions

@JosephWright of course, just took the opportunity to make that topic visible to @Rebecca (;

I just don't see where to login

tex.blogoverflow.com/wp-admin

Standard WordPress layout

ok

I've sent invites to all of the other volunteers, so we should have a 'full set' of people soon.

@JosephWright got the invitation, login worked

Yup, you are now on the users list

Can you edit the 'Contributors' page? (I'm not sure who will be able to)

@JosephWright yes I can edit it

@StefanKottwitz Great

My idea there is that it should be a couple of lines only, just to give a 'flavour' of who people are

Got the invitation too! <3

@egreg: I hit the rep limit today for the first time ... on Meta! The points don't count, but you get a mortarboard badge anyway. :-)

@PauloCereda I do know Aquamacs having been a long time emacs user on Unix systems. But I started using TeX with TeXShop and have been quite happy with it. It's easy to set up macros for my commonly used structures, it completes environments and has regex search/replace. I like the integrated environment. For the limited amount of programming I do (mainly in Ruby plus some R) I use TextWrangler. I tried Alpha a long time ago and liked it, but then gave up as well.

@MartinScharrer Is it for the blog? Good job!

@egreg The votes were all related to the TeX Community Polls page and its discussion page.

@Martin: I guess only Joseph, Stefan and you have permissions to edit the "Contributors" section. =)

@PauloCereda I think so.

@MartinScharrer Well, I scored 335 yesterday, my best except for a 473 in May with an earned 200 bounty (and a downvote because I said that the OP misunderstood what \valign does).

@egreg Well done! (I'm not scared as long your average (168.8) is lower than mine (190.2) ) ;-)