Posting City Journals in Both Sections

[Scarton 57]

Is it permissible to create the same City Journal in both the City Journal forum section and the other site City Journal section (I'll refer to it as the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" CJ section)? Also, is there an easily viewable area which contains new updates and comments posted in the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section? I haven't found one. This is my primary concern with posting a CJ in the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section because it makes me doubt that both areas attract the same audience. However, I am interested in trying out the CJ format of the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

Yes absolutely, posting an identical or multiple City Journals in both sections is perfectly fine.

These days it seems the dedicated section is more popular, likely due to the blog entry style format and additional options it provides. Such as the ability for comments to be posted, and more recently a sidebar available to add general info, or even use for a wiki infobox. There are some authors who frequently post inside the Showcase forum (previously titled City-Building Concepts). Along with new unseen images, this can be a good place for posting selected images from your main CJ entries, and there are many "Show Us" threads covering various topical themes. The forum section is still available though, where you're more than entitled to start a topic hosting one or multiple CJs.

Another possibility for showcasing your entries is by using the homepage features. Simply upload an image of your chosen city scene, a link to the entry or post, along with a title and caption, then once approved it'll be displayed on the rotating slider for all to see. It's possible to submit more than one feature in succession, though if there are multiple submissions in a narrow timeframe, for fairness we aim to give each an equal amount of exposure.

 

1 hour ago, Scarton said:

Also, is there an easily viewable area which contains new updates and comments posted in the "community.simtropolis.com/journals" section?

This is an area which could certainly use improvements, and the index page of the CJ section isn't the most user-friendly.

To my knowledge, there are currently 3 options:

• Content Activity Stream: This uses the site's feed format to display the latest CJ activity in a list. Check the "SimTopical" navigation bar link to access other default feeds. Also when viewing a given stream, it's possible to create custom ones of your own using specific filters (as shown at the top).
   
• RSS Feed Listing: Ability to subscribe to new updates as they're posted. (Though this does exclude CJ comments.)
   
• CJ Index Sidebar: This isn't ideal, but the index page includes a sidebar with the newest entries and posted comments. Something possible is we can create a dedicated page to have these feeds shown. For instance, to display the 50 most recent entries and comments.

Hope this helps somewhat, and let us know if you've any further questions.

[Scarton 57]

Thank you for the information!

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

This is an area which could certainly use improvements, and the index page of the CJ section isn't the most user-friendly.

I may provide some suggestions for this in the future.