SharperIron

Sharper Iron has a new look—and some new features.

Welcome to the latest iteration of Sharperiron.org. Since nobody knows what iteration we’re actually on, ‘23 it is!

First, thanks for your patience over the down time. Second, thanks for your continued patience as we work out bugs, finish construction in places, and tidy up a lot. Third, thanks for being a Sharper Iron reader, or—if the shoe fits—participant.

Some months ago, I announced that a site update was in progress for the near future. Though an update never seems quite “ready,” I’m here to announce that we’re going to do it anyway!

The plan at present is that sharperiron.org will go offline Thursday February 16, transmogrify, then open for business again Tuesday morning, February 21.

How it’s going

A few random thoughts on the process:

Though I had hoped to hand the site off to another individual or group a few years ago, that still hasn’t worked out. Meanwhile, web technology has raced on. The CMS (Content Management System) SharperIron.org is built on will soon reach, as they say in the software biz, end of life.

For that and other reasons, a new site is going through its birth pangs and, Lord willing, will deliver “soon.”

How soon? That is yet to be determined.

As of January 2020, SharperIron is fifteen years old. I’ve been involved to some degree for about fourteen of those years, and “in charge” for about a dozen. It’s time—maybe well past time—to seriously explore big changes for SI.

Hence, this Request for Proposals (RFP)—specifically, proposals for taking the site off my hands and into a new future.

If my notes are correct, SI’s last design update was about three years ago. That would make us way overdue for a face lift! It turns out one has been in the making behind the scenes for several months, and the site will go offline for much of the weekend to transition.

The underlying framework, for those interested, is still Drupal 7, but theming for Drupal — and for websites in general — has improved a good bit in the last couple of years. There are some powerful tools available now for themers … and I don’t how to use any of them!

But the good folks at More Than (Just) Themes provided a great starting design and excellent support along the way so, Lord willing, an updated look will be operational and about 90% actually “finished” before Monday morning October 30. Most of you probably won’t notice the 10% that will still be under construction.

If my calculations are correct, SharperIron is now in its 12^th year. That would put me in my 11^th year of involvement and, as of sometime this month, my 9^th year at the lead.

It’s been a ride, and sometimes I think it’s time I stepped aside. But no, we’re not there yet. However, life changes have resulted in my having less time to be involved in the same ways I used to be. There is a need for new volunteers and some changes in the division of labor.

So I’m looking for volunteers, with three goals in mind.

Coming soon: updates to the blogroll. Your help is needed in a couple of ways.

1. Whys & wherefores

First, I’d like to hear your thoughts on some concept questions. What is a blogroll for? Should blogs/sites listed there be seen as “endorsed” in some way? If so, by whom—SI users in general? The admins/moderators? And if these sites are selected because we want to commend their content in some way, how far should that commendation be seen as extending and how do we communicate where it ends?

As you can see, we’re back!

Our regular content schedule will resume shortly.

Some things to be aware of

• If you have registered at SI, your old password will no longer work. If we had a valid email address for you, you have probably already received notification of this, but in my tests, the automatic email link won’t work. Regardless, you can launch the reset process here.
• For any problems logging in, please send a message using the site contact form (category: technical problems or account/password)
• A few parts of the site haven’t been completely restyled yet. So we’ll be under construction for another week or two.
• Feel free to post question, missing features, error messages, etc. in this thread.

The reads counters are currently not working correctly, sometimes even counting backwards! We’re looking into what broke. The counters may disappear entirely for a while.