I finally did something! The site's rating system has been changed. Now instead of decimal 0-10 numbers, you'll choose from one of five ratings (well, six, if you count "N/A"): --, -, ~, +, or ++. Terrible, bad, mediocre, good, and awesome. Or whatever you want to call them.

Existing ratings have been adapted to the new system as follows:

0 <= r <= 2.0 -> --
2.0 < r <= 4.0 -> -
4.0 < r <= 6.0 -> ~
6.0 < r <= 8.0 -> +
8.0 < r <= 10.0 -> ++

Thus far there are two slight technological hitches with the new ratings system:

1) Game-average rating images are, well, just blown-up version of the mini ratings icons. Ideally these will be replaced with real, good-looking images.

2) Because of the way I decided to store platform-specific average ratings in the database, these are currently wrong, and correcting them doesn't really seem worth the effort. Probably won't fix this until a total database overhaul.

Don't worry, search crawlers - you're still safe. But, as a late and exhausted response to the hundreds of fake registration attempts I've received, the registration page now features a simple human check. Just check the box.

If this isn't working out for you - it passed my testing, but, who knows - let me know and I'll judge your humanity personally.

So I had planned on putting a lot more work into the Glog after I graduated, but between moving, getting set up in my new job, and configuring my new computer, I've been pretty busy. Only just recently have I been able to pick up my gaming habit again. But this leads to Glog posting, and so I'm already thinking of new ways to improve the system.

I can't say when, but I do have some thoughts on what I'd like to work on next:

• A revamped status system, so making Glog posts is not necessarily tied to your "status" on a game
• More meta-information about a game (probably from an external source), to display release dates, automate groupings, etc.
• Relatedly: better integration of game ports and remakes and multiplatform titles
• More options for user data, e.g. Friend Code listings
• A better feed system
• A robust relative-comparative ranking system for game ratings
• An improved administrative backend so I don't waste so much time sifting through logs and deleting spam accounts
• Cool front page with news, popular games, popular entries, et al

More on this as it develops.

This is the debut post of the Glog News system. New to Glog News:

• Glog News!

Comments can be attached to a news post in the same way as Glog entries. There's also a separate RSS feed for Glog News available here.