As Northern nights draw in, the world once again stands poised for the return of the Darkness. Chill evenings make for chillier tales, and Hallowe’en beckons with a bony finger.

So, noders all, gather around the fire that is the Necronodecon: The 2008 Halloween Horrorquest. Bring forth your tales of terror, tell us of those tortured souls drenched in blood and fear, make our souls pray for the daylight once again...

ARRRRRRRRGH! [insert bad pirate joke here]

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, a new E2 Quest! Cast off and set sail on the high seas of the nodegel in quest of unfilled or poorly filled nodes about piracy of all kinds!

You supply the drunken debauchery and off-key sea chanties, we supply the pieces of eight!

Be ye swarthy and stout-hearted enough, head on over to...

Piracy Quest 2008

You may have noted the announcement in the catbox topic but it's now official. Writeups can now be given mark-up (the HTML subset that E2 supports) while being written. In the scratch pad as well as in nodes, you can now select and add tags to your writeup-in-progress without having to do it by hand. The submit button has also been rigged to detect unlinked and unformatted writeups and warn the submitter.

Why is this so big a deal that it's on the front page? Well, because not everyone watches the catbox and the problem that it solves has been a source of frustration and misunderstanding for as long as the site's been around. In some way it's a bit embarrassing that it took until 2008 but I also see it as a token that we're not all talk and are actively working on bringing the site's interface kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Pretty much all the credit for this goes to Oolong, who adapted Alex King's JavaScript Quicktags from Wordpress for use with E2. This adaptation even includes a special pipe link button. The feature has been tested pretty thoroughly but may still have a rough edge or two. Please report bugs with adding mark-up and submitting writeups directly to Oolong. We have not yet decided what to do with the TinyMCE script that JSQ replaces but it's likely that it will eventually be deemed unduly complex and surplus to requirements. For now though, it is at last possible to switch it on and off without losing the contents of the writeup submission box and some other bugs have been removed.

In order to mark this momentous occasion and honour the Britnoders' finest coding hour, we shall demonstrate our gratitude by sending a delegation of US noders to teach them the apocryphal art of refrigerating beer. Peace.

E2 needs your input.

The administration would greatly appreciate it if you took the time to give some thought to three topics that have been posted in the forum under the "Posting about noding" heading. These are subjects that are of substance and significance in the present and, even more importantly, relate to the future of E2. We're looking for answers and opinions on the topics of

• Why we are not noding
• What your vision is for the site's future
• What the role and influence of the staff is

This is part of a drive for substantial change in the way we communicate and operate. We're counting on the straight-talking, opinionated crowd showing up to talk turkey. The staff is likewise encouraged to engage in and contribute to frank discussions. Above all, the intent is to end up with some input that will let those of us who are in charge of code and operations quit talking, roll up our sleeves with more direction and focus, and in the end make the best use of the limited resources at our disposal. The forum is better suited to lengthy posts with the opportunity for discourse than usergroups, messages, or writeups are. It requires a separate account for those who don't have one. Please let me know if you have any issues with it. Thanks.

-a