MaineLAN.org A casual Maine based gamer group

Welcome friends. Stillcrazy, my Mom and frequently our host, has been pestering me for the longest time to create a website so we can grow and get sponsored for larger gatherings. So, here we are! MaineLAN.org, an extension of our other websites of our start-up company of the same name; MaineLAN.com, which will eventually be the website for our brick and mortar cyber cafe and LAN hall and sell PC repair services, and MaineLAN.net, where we build and host websites.

For the uninitiated, we are a group of friends, family and acquaintances thereof who gather once a month or more to hang out and play video games. We generally get together on the second full weekend, starting on Friday, of each month. These are our 'official' events. Aside from that, some members host console and PC LAN parties at their individual homes. We have been posting past events, as far back as December of 2005, on 3rd-shift.net and by word of mouth. This website is an effort to bring that information and the results of our parties to one place where we can focus entirely on that one subject.

This website is using Drupal, which is a little different from our past software packages. We've tried Postnuke, Bitweaver, phpBB and now are on SMF with TinyPortal on 3rd-Shift. For the functions required by MaineLAN.org, I thought this software to be the most suitable.

To get you started, here's a few pointers. Users are broken up into different roles. From bottom to top;
Anonymous user - the Joe Schmo who stumbles across our website and doesn't yet have an account.
Authenticated user - A member of MaineLAN.org who can post to the forums, join polls and upload pictures.
Contributor - A higher level user who has the ability to create new galleries and add books and articles.
Moderator - A user who has the ability to modify and even squelch inappropriate users.
Administrator - The guy who has access to the back-end of the site, and who can fix or break the entire thing.

The navigation is broken up into two areas. To change the section of the website you are on, click a section on the menu at the top of the page. To do functions within a section, add content or make adjustments to your account, use the menu to the left of the pages. New content is posted on the front page, in the middle, unless you select to disable it from showing up there. Upcoming events, new posts in the forums and updates to our sister-sites are listed in blocks on the right side of the pages.

To create new content, click 'Create content'. The menu will expand and allow you to add content to areas in which you are authorized to do so. You should be able to post a blog entry, add a new topic to the forums, upload pictures, create a poll and add events to the calendar. You may also be able to add articles. In Drupal, articles are sorted into 'Books,' much like the wikis we had in Bitweaver.

To edit your account, click on 'My account' in the menu. From there, you can click edit in the new menu at the top of the profile. Within edit, there are several tabs where you can fill out information about yourself. Please fill in as much as you're comfortable sharing with the World Wide Web.