Heavy As Hell Blog

If you’re just now checking out the site, you might have noticed some changes! Heavy as Hell has been upgraded to version 2.0 of OpenVoter.  With this release there are plenty of new and exciting features.

1. Sharing

You can now share submissions with your friends.  Just click the share link, enter a personal note if you choose to, and click share.  Other users will now get an alert telling them to check out the submission.

2. Distinction Between Stories, Photos, & Videos

You can now submit a story, photo, or video as the actual submission, and browse by type.

3. Alerts

You can now be alerted either by e-mail, or on-site alerts, or both about new shares, comments, and private messages.  All you need to do is set your preferences in your account page. By default, alerts are only on-site.

4. Private Messaging

You can now send private messages to other users.  Just click the envelope button on the bar on the top of your screen.

5. API

Heavy as Hell now has a basic API. If you’re a developer be sure to check it out.

6. Subscriptions

You can now subscribe to comment threads to be alerted when a new comment is posted on a thread you’re subscribed to.  By default you are automatically subscribed to the thread when you submit the story or when you leave a comment, but you can change this in your account page.

7. Filters

You can now enter keywords in the filter page to hide submissions with these keywords from view. Don’t like stories on Radiohead, just add the word radiohead to the filter box and those stories will vanish from site.

8. Blocking Users

You can now block users to hide their submissions and comments from view.

9. Nested Comments

Comments and replies are now nested for easier reading.

10. General Improvements

The site has been generally improved and hopefully it shows.

Well thats a basic summary of the changes, and new features, let us know what you think and what could use improvement.

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News 2.0, newfeatures, openvoter

It’s been a year since the launch of Heavy as Hell using the SocialVoter CMS.  We’ve seen some active spans, and some not so active spans.  Truth be told, we like the more active time spans a lot better as more content gets submitted so we end up seeing a large range of stories of all types.

Anywho, in the next couple of months, Heavy as Hell will be getting a major overhaul complete with tons of new features and a brand new look.  The SocialVoter CMS will still be the management system behind it, but it will have a new name…OpenVoter.  I’ve been working on it steadily over the course of the past several months and hope to have it finished up in the next month.  Then it will be tested and released here for your enjoyment.  I don’t want to ruin the suprise of all the features that it includes, but suffice it to say, the number of changes and everything will make it feel like a brand new system.

In the meantime, enjoy the site, become more active, submit more stories, post more comments.  This site isn’t about us the admins, its about music, you and the community!

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News newversion, openvoter, socialvoter

Hey guys, if you see some spam lying around on the site, don’t just downvote it…report it so that we as the admins see it. It just takes one click.

Thank you,

Management

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News reporting, spam

In case anyone didn’t notice, Heavy as Hell got some updates this evening! Here’s a quick rundown of the new features.

1. Automatically parse and retrieve story titles and descriptions during submissions - You know when you’re submitting and you have to fill in the title and give a description for your submission? Well now if you just want to copy paste, that’s pretty much all taken care of for you. Upon submitting a website, it should pre-populate the title and description for you. You can then either modify them to your liking, leave them as is, or if you want to enter your own, just clear the fields and enter your own. This might not work for every site, but for the majority it should.

2. Dupe Detection - Tired of seeing what is essentially the same story 5 times? Well now upon submitting a story, Heavy as Hell will search for potential duplicates as to try to lessen duplicate stories. Don’t worry if it pops up for your and your story is original, there’s a link to submit your original story instead…it’s a computer its not always perfect, but we’re trying to make it as perfect as possible.

3. Change and Canceling Your Vote - Accidentally vote a story up or down when you didn’t mean to? Well have no fear, now you can change your vote or if you want to cancel it, you can do that too. To change your vote, simply click on the opposite arrow. Cancelling your vote is done from either the story’s page or from your user profile.

4. Bands - Now bands can have their own profile unique to them. Bands can register on the site and create a profile letting users know their website, MySpace profile and more. Sorry, but as a band you can’t vote on stories, but if you want to participate as well, just create a user account! Now what do these bands mean for users? Simple, as a user, you can become a fan of the band. When you become a fan of the band, your sins transfer over to them (don’t worry, you keep them too) so try to get your favorite bands at the top of the sins list! To view what bands are registered with the site, just click the ‘Bands’ link in the category bar and you’ll be given a list of the bands registered.

As always keep enjoying the site and have fun promoting music that rocks!

If you happen to stumble across a bug, please let us know at http://www.heavyashell.com/about/bugreport

-Keith (DarkNemesis618)

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News, New Features heavyashell, newfeatures, socialvoter, update

Well I’ve started work on the next version of Heavy as Hell / SocialVoter and I’m curious to see what people want to see in the next version. So go on, comment, let me know and you just might get your wish when the next version rolls out!

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News, New Features changes, development, heavyashell, socialvoter

Mark Carras, the one who just LOST his challenge will be cutting his hair today at 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern! He is planning on streaming it so be sure to check it out at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rockmymonkey so be there to check it out.

Saturday Night Monkey will be airing at the normal time (9pm Pacific / 12am Eastern) at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rockmymonkey

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News challenge, heavyashell, locksoflove, markcarras

At 10:38am EST this morning, the 1,000th story became popular. What this means is that Mark Carras, who issued the Heavy as Hell Challenge to get 1,000 stories front paged by October 1st. If that was done, then Mark will shave his head and donate his hair to locks of love, as well as $1,000. Well like you can see, we have 1,002 quality popular stories so guess what, Mark will be cutting off all his hair.

Congratulations everyone. Before and after pictures will be posted as soon as they become available.

Also, keep submitting stories, just because the challenge has been met, doesn’t mean that this site is going anywhere. We want to see Heavy as Hell become a key destination for your social music news!

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News challenge, heavyashell

I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but Heavy as Hell was down for about 15 minutes today while I worked on incorporating a new feature into the site.

On your account page, you will see a new field called “Favorite Bands”. In here you can enter in your favorite bands to let your friends and fellow Heavy as Hell members know what bands you like and listen to the most. Simply enter the bands seperated by commas.

The cool thing is that when someone views your profile, they’ll see your favorite bands and by clicking on any of them, it will take them to a page that shows all articles tagged with that band’s name!

So, go on, update your profile and let us know who you like listening to the most!

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News, New Features favoritebands, features, heavyashell

Mark’s challenge has been in full swing since the launch of Heavy as Hell on the 1st. Currently we have 13 popular stories, 987 short of the stories needed to fulfill his challenge which is definitely for a good cause.

So help both Mark make his challenge and help Locks of Love help kids who are less fortunate than most of us. I would totally shave my head for Locks of Love with only 500 popular stories, but alas my less than 1″ of hair doesn’t do much.

Anywho, post, vote, comment, lets make Heavy as Hell the one stop shop to share links, photos, stories, interviews and videos of the music we all love.

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News challenge, heavyashell, locksoflove, mark, music, popular

Heavy as Hell got its first spam submission, I guess we’ve been noticed by someone. Anywho, if you see Spam on the site, don’t just vote it down, we have a handy link on the submissions and comments, and users for that matter for you to report them for spamming, or violating the terms of service, or for something else not mentioned. It lets us admins know about it in case we don’t see it to begin with. So please, let us know if you see something posted that shouldn’t be.

Currently there is no option to explain why you’re reporting something, but that is coming.

Keith Wagner Heavy As Hell News abuse, comments, reporting, spammers, submissions