Roller integrated into blogs in 2.1?

On Communityserver.org, which is running 2.1, it appears that the roller has been integrated into blogs. It looks as if Syndicated Blogs are pulling from other sites while allowing full blog functionality (comments, ratings, etc.) within Communityserver.org. I haven't seen any information about this, but perhaps I missed the announcement. Could someone confirm what's happening with the roller in 2.1? I like the idea of integrating external feeds in this way, but it will affect plans I'm developing for a site, so would like to know for sure what's happening.

Thanks,
Simon

See Kevin's post here: http://communityserver.org/forums/permalink/530031/530031/ShowThread.aspx#530031

Thanks. I'd really like to learn more about how this is working. For example, how are the tags applied? Manually by a site admin? Or are they being read from the RSS? Also, can mirrored items be deleted on an item-by-item basis? Can they be published on an item-by-item basis, so that a blog moderator can review items in an RSS feed and accept only those deemed most interesting? And for the future (because I've heard rumors of this), will site users be able to "digg" items from the mirrored feed in order to determine what items get most prominence?

I don't know who (if anyone) can answer these questions, but I'd really like to know more about this change with the roller. It makes me even more excited about the direction in which Telligent is taking Community Server.

• For example, how are the tags applied? We read the tags/categories specified in the category rss element. In addition. we scan the body of the post for any anchor elements with the attribute rel = "tag". In short, they are automatic.
• Also, can mirrored items be deleted on an item-by-item basis? You can definetly delete items, but on the next refresh, we may accidently re-insert it. You will probably just need to mark an item as unpublished to keep it from showing up on your site.
• Can they be published on an item-by-item basis, so that a blog moderator can review items in an RSS feed and accept only those deemed most interesting? Not in CS 2.1. There is currently no moderation process. You could probably add a CSModule which would mark all "roller" posts as requiring moderation.
• Digg features. Not directly. We have some ideas to help assure interesting/popular topics float to the top and stay there for awhile which we are prototyping/testing now. Hopefully we will have an update in a week or two.

HTH,
Scott

Thanks for the great feedback, Scott. One more quick question: Can we edit the body of mirrored blog posts without having the body overwritten on refresh?

Thanks again,
Simon

One more quick question here. Can I have a blog group that contains both mirrored blogs and "regular" blogs?  I'd like to set up a  blog group called News. In this group I'd like to have a News blog to which I and other members can post, as well as a Syndicated News blog with mirrored blogs from around the web. Is this doable?

Thanks,
Simon

simons:

One more quick question here. Can I have a blog group that contains both mirrored blogs and "regular" blogs?  I'd like to set up a  blog group called News. In this group I'd like to have a News blog to which I and other members can post, as well as a Syndicated News blog with mirrored blogs from around the web. Is this doable?

Thanks,
Simon

Yes, this is possible (in 2.1 of course).

simons:

Thanks for the great feedback, Scott. One more quick question: Can we edit the body of mirrored blog posts without having the body overwritten on refresh?

Thanks again,
Simon

I will look into this. At the momemnt, I am pretty sure the post will get overwritten.

-Scott

simons:

Thanks for the great feedback, Scott. One more quick question: Can we edit the body of mirrored blog posts without having the body overwritten on refresh?

Thanks again,
Simon

Yes, the body can be edited and it will not get over-written.  You can also delete posts and they will not get re-written on the next re-fresh.

Thanks,
Jim

Jim and Scott: Thanks. These features make me a very happy customer

- S