I'm more of a nonfiction kind of guy personally, but I enjoy writing fictional stories because it gives me an opportunity to think outside the box. More often than not, it's a part of a class.

Do you enjoy writing fictional short stories?

This project is about the creation of a fictional, and yes, Earthlike world with a rewritten history. I hope to get more people collaborating, because I'd love to see this take off. I was thinking we could first do a map of the world, and then fancy it up, decide on plate tectonics and that other stuff, and then start writing history. So if anybody has suggestions for a world map, then feel free to share them here! Also, here's a basemap if you want to contribute: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussi...1371083022

I think we should do a modern day map, based off of this: http://i.imgur.com/rBrpNut.png, and then decide on the tectonic plates. I think I also have a good map made by our good great and amazing cheeseSC4, and if he wants to share it, he can.

A little backstory: It was inspired by the collaborative world project at Alternate History.net.

Makestation now has a site blog up and running. The goal is to set up our blog here at Makestation as another dimension of the community here, and we will use it to post many site related announcements and happenings. We will also be showcasing some of the best content posted by members here in the site blog as a part of our representation of what we are as a community. Don't forget to nominate for the most epic contributor awards, as the content that is nominated might be showcased in the new blog!

So far, there isn't a whole lot of content up yet, but more will be posted very soon. Our goal is to represent what cannot easily be represented by a forum in our blog, and we do hope to get a lot of traffic directly to our blog. I think it will add a lot to the community here.

Anyway, this is our community blog, so if you guys have any suggestions, questions, or feedback on our new blog, don't hesitate to post them below!

http://makestation.net/blog/index.php

I can type at about 90 words per minute personally. What's your typing speed?

Also, you can take a simple test here: http://typing-speed-test.aoeu.eu/?lang=en

I found a gallery from national geographic on lightening pictures. I've always been fascinated with lightening and found a love of taking pictures, but of course trying to get a decent picture of lightening is a real pain because cameras are too slow.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.co...00x450.jpg

Anyone else found any good tricks? I want to at least get one good picture in before the summer is over.

Currently, Makestation has been a community that has been aimed at being a hub for creative content of all kinds. However, most of the creative content that has been showcased here has been related to software, technology, graphics, etc...

So, I was wondering what your thoughts were on reorganizing the community board layout to focus a little more on those topics, and to put other kinds of discussion more in the off-topic sections of the forum. I think it will help us to present a more clear picture of what we're about to guests or lurkers in the community, and will also help us to have a more clear direction as a community.

So, what are your thoughts? Be sure to vote in the poll!

I found this on the MyBB mod database.

I'm quite tempted to install it here actually. I think it's an awesome mod.

I thought this was quite interesting. This 97 year old man who is legally blind creates stunning art with Microsoft Paint. It just goes to show that it doesn't take expensive software or an amazing computer workstation to express great artistic abilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVQHeowMdjI

Personally, I never really saw the value in search-engine-friendly URLs, beyond being more pleasant for the eye. I have heard that they aren't even that effective because the URL is longer, and that can hurt SEO as well, but I'm not an expert in the field and wouldn't really know.

Of course I know that backlinks can significantly improve SEO. I do try to make use of signature links and post links to my website at as many places as possible, although it takes quite a lot of time to build a good list of backlinks. I also don't want to spam, and that means that I will end up writing high-quality content at many places to promote my website.

In addition, I don't really want to risk breaking any of the terms of use for Google and get my websites blacklisted. I prefer just to design my websites for the users, and let google take care of the rest.

So, for those who know more about SEO, is there an ethical method (i.e. not blackhat) that does not break any of Google's terms of use and is effective?

I partially run a Nation roleplay site, its like a sc4 union but we don't really care much for what game the pictures come from. Although the roleplaying is legislative and bill oriented, not much *I declare war on you*, but instead *lets come to an agreement/disagreement on an issue and vote on its passing*.

http://www.cinl.org/ is the link.

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Side note:

This is one place I use my maps for (not including the non-earth ones). I also made the webpage, and I still forgot to change some of the lorem ipsum into actual text.