New Things

New England Online has grown up a lot these last five years. Originally written as a means of salving the wounds of electoral defeat, it has changed in nature to become a treatise on the merits of traditional conservatism. That’s quite a leap, as I’m sure you can appreciate. But to be truthful, New England Online was always slightly more conservative in outlook than my pinko liberal beliefs might have been willing to admit. I am fortunate that this change in the political affiliation of the beast means very little of the content has had to be adjusted to suit.

For five years, the site has been intellectually confused. One can see this in the some of the stranger notions that existed in the earlier drafts. There was no marriage, yet national service was compulsory. A strong faith system was seen as essential, and yet the largest religious group were the largely godless Unitarians. These examples probably prove that despite my best intentions, the site was, and I suppose still is, without purpose. That raises the question, what is the raison d’être of this enterprise?

The philosophy of traditional conservatism provides the intellectual bedrock to the entire exercise. It gives me an opportunity to craft stories that are both entertaining, while at the same time providing a sound explanation and account of why traditional conservatism is the only way the build a prosperous society. But even more than this, having re-engaged my brain and found a philosophy that impels me to serve my God, my Queen and my Country, I find that my life is open to me again in a way that it has not been in many years. From such a sound place, the quality of the work I do here can only be improved.

As I mentioned in my last entry, there can be little doubt that New England Online has become a subversive influence on my life. Apart from burden that the website has placed on my long suffering fiancée and friends, it is telling that my interest in the affairs of the real world have taken a back seat to the affairs of the two and half million fictitious New Englanders of my imagination. Whatever I have taken an interest in has only been so because it might form the basis of a new page on the website. I think by anyone’s appraisal, that it a far from a healthy way to live one’s life.

But in the ten days so far of my four month mental holiday, I have come across a range of new things. As a reward for being prepared to think and explore, this afternoon came the first flowering of an intellectualism that has been dormant in my mind almost since I took up writing the behemoth in 2004. When you look at it, it is hard to argue that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree just yet, but just the fact that ideas are finally reaching into my mind must surely be a source for celebration.

I have at last discovered new things.

Subversion

There can be no doubt that New England Online has been a subversive influence on my life over the last five years. Originally written as a panacea to the electoral misfortunes of the political left, it has grown into a beast, consuming a huge part of my every day and occupying almost all my idle thoughts in between. Everything else in my life has suffered as a result, and to what end?

About ten days ago, I found I needed a break. A huge break. It has become too much. Not a day goes by when I am not digging around in it, and almost everything else I do is done because the website. So, I have to stop, take a breath, and rediscover life. I don’t expect that I will open the website again until January, and updates probably won’t come around for another month after that. It will do me some good to be away from it.

Like all addictions, getting away from it is hard. I have prayed for strength to break this addiction and while I have had some luck, I understand that these things take time, and the ‘cold turkey’ option is not always the easiest. I suppose you could argue that writing this entry is proof that I am not succeeding. I think I am getting there, because the points I raise in the next post prove that my brain is beginning to see the outside world again.

Please wish me luck.

MediaWiki on New England Online

It has been over year since New England Online went over to using the MediaWiki platform. The difference this upgrade is making has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Making the Deadline

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by

So said Douglas Adams. He was right of course, and in the case of New England Online, it has proved to be correct as well. The target of getting 3.2 up by Easter was a long shot, and in the end, I am nowhere near having it complete, and the deadline is two months gone.

So, as it stands, I am aiming to have it up by June 2009. Yes, this time, I’m going to get it right and not fluff around with half-arsed pages and poorly written text. What you’ll see in June ‘09 is a complete site, with no rubbish and no half written pages. I owe to anyone you reads the site, as well as myself to finally get it right.

A Radical Realignment

About two weeks ago, I decided to completely overhaul the story of New England Online. I believe that they mark the most significant changes to the site since it was first published in 2004. Therefore, I have decided to wipe the slate and freeze version 3.1 of the site. Things will now start at new version, 3.2.

• Increase the population from 2.4 million to 3.3 million. New England will now have about the same area and population as Lithuania.
• A redistribution of the population, with Port Macquarie and CoffsHarbour becoming the largest cities, and Greater Armidale, including Uralla and Guyra, reduced to about 350,000 people
• Introduction of an upper house of parliament, the Senate. This new chamber will have 40 members.
• The House of Assembly is reduced to 76 members.
• The Witan is now moved to a more suitable location as a constitutional convention only.
• Changes to the electoral system, with IRV used for the House, and STV for the Senate. This is essentially the same system used in Australia at the moment.
• Introduction of a new local authority, the City of Port Macquarie.

I believe these changes are pretty significant, and they have to be done now before the site becomes more popular and therefore will need to settle on a consistent storyline. In a perfect world, I want this penchant for radical change finished in time for the production of version 4.0, although even I admit that version is still a fair way off.

That is not the case with version 3.2. I’m now embarking on a mission to have it done by Easter (23rd March). As for version 3.1, it will be frozen, copied and archived. If version 3.2 fails to work out, or if there is some use for it in the future, it will be here just like version 3.0.6 is when I replaced it last year.

The Big 5-0-0

Late yesterday afternoon, I created the 500th page of New England Online. The page’s subject was SH Smith House. This marks a pretty significant milestone for the website, and i’m really happy the site has grown so quickly and so easily these last few years.

Ahead lie some more challenges and some of those big changes I have been promising. But the biggest change will be in the way the storyline is handled. Up until now I have placed pages into a category of complete or incomplete, with content that was incomplete supposedly prone change at any time. A recent wave of changes through the site affected whole sections, so this dichotomy was a flawed way of looking things. From now on, the version of the website will determine it’s completeness, and I am hoping to make version 4 a stable copy that will endure for the rest of time.

Some Stats:

Pages: 502
Images: 1,021
Page Hits (Jan 08 MTD):  1,439

Striking a Blow

For a long time, I have felt that New England Online is in the top three for the most comprehensive and largest geofiction site on the internet. Given that geofiction is usually the haunt of children and those of us with childish imaginations, I suppose it isn’t much to boast about. Typically, a piece of geofiction will be built on a free web hosting site, such as geocities, and consist of six to ten pages. They often fall out of use after a short period as the author reaches an age where there are more important priorities. For what it’s worth, I feel that New England Online shares a pedestal at the top of the pile with Bergonia and Verduria, both of which are remarkable and the continuous creations of adults.

I think the time has come for me to challenge the status quo and go for a complete package, the likes of which haven’t been seen much in this genre before. This week, I have settled on a course that will see what is currently New England Online become the Encyclopedia of New England, which more content added with a view to having around 1,000 pages. In addition, I plan to add multimedia, news, and weather. The site will become a portal, and contain a full package of information aimed at selling the Kingdom of New England to the world. It will be a massive undertaking, and will take some time. However, New England Online is now three years old, and needs a massive reinvigoration to bring it up to date with the technologies that now exist in the so-called “Web 2.0″ world.

Changes

The site continues to come along quite nicely. Since 3.1 went up in July, the site has also undergone some radical storyline changes, which better reflect the direction of the site and the stories within it that I am trying to tell. While there has been little change in actual events, many of the names and places have been updated. This therefore means that some of the content is now out of kilter, but over time these bugs will vanish for good.

The second big addition was the creation of a large amount of content that is set into the future. This has proven to be a great way of incorporating changes without upsetting the storyline. The best example is the new counties. Instead of changing the way I have had the counties set out since 2004, I have created a future event that will reform the counties. In a way, this is a storyline without changing the storyline.

Version 3.1 – Coming Soon

After much promising to me and others, new version of New England Online, version 3.1, will be going online real soon now. This new version will be the culmination of six months work in developing a new site template, removing some incomplete text and generally cleaning up the site and story to bring it more into line with

What’s New?

Names - Many of the characters have been renamed or reassigned a photo. This was done for clarity and to allow for more than one photo of the character to be put to use. For the most part, this has not led to a major change in the character’s personality or role.

Storylines – Many of the storylines of the site were out of date, unrealistic or inconsistent with the overall story of New England Online. Many of these have already been changed, and as the site progresses on toward version 3.2, these changes will continue to be written in.

Site Template – The look and feel of New England Online has been unchanged since version 3.0 went online in September 2004. It was time for change, and that has finally come to pass. The site is (I hope) cleaner, more attractive and more colourful.

Lions

A couple of weeks ago, I made a startling discovery on the origin of the New England Lion. Since I began working on the project, I assumed the lion was an original creation of the New England new state movement, but it would now appear that this is not the case. Someone in the movement (probably leader Ulrich Ellis, but I can’t be sure), seems to have purlioned the design of the lion from the arms of Finland (pictured, left):

The Finnish Lion (left) and it’s New England counterpart.

I find it very interesting. Deep down I always supsected the design of the lion wasn’t entirely original, but I had no way of knowing for sure. It was only by chance that I found it at all. There is a lesson in this, of course. Always be careful where you source things from.

I beleive my next port of call will be the personal notes of Ellis himself, which are in the National Library here in Canberra.

I have no plans to change the design.