LOLSaints

I've been working on the algorithms for the Highest Rated and Up-and-Coming sections in the right sidebar... hopefully they will help people find the best content even easier; Up-and-Coming will display the top rated postings from the past 15 days, while Highest rated will show the posts with the most votes + the highest rating (amount of stars).

In a way, the site is still like an infant... it's only been three months since our first LOLSaint, and a lot of little things have changed from then to now. One thing I'd like very much to do is get the sidebar styling a little toned down. Right now it screams red... I'd like it to be a little lighter or another shade of red. We shall see...

In watching traffic to this website, I stumble upon interesting forum topics and discussions from time to time, and yesterday I found an especially interesting one with a discussion about why some people may be offended by LOLSaints, while others are perfectly fine with the idea, over on ChristianForums.com.

Basically, it seems to be that those with a more Eastern or Orthodox mindset are offended by the 'profaning' of sacred icons and images (although not all of them are sacred, mind you), while those of a more Western bent take part in the humor without thinking of sacrilege.

In the forum topic, some images of Pope Benedict XVI, along with some humorous captions, were also displayed. To those who laugh at the captions in these pictures yet scoff at the images here on LOLSaints, I ask: What is the difference? The communion of saints includes those in Heaven, in purgatory, and, yes, those of us still here on Earth trying to make our way into Heaven. Including Pope Benedict.

Will the captioned images of Pope Benedict XVI become sacrilegious if he is someday canonized as a saint? If so, that seems like a double-standard to me.

Expanding on this, are images of saints that are painted (rather than photographic representations) somehow more sacred that photographed or lifelike representations of saints? Is there any difference in an ancient icon of one of our saints and a picture of Saint Gianna?

Now, unanswered is the question of whether any image of any member of the communion of saints—living or dead—is sacred; and even then, is the profanation of such an image morally inappropriate in all situations, or can exceptions be made? I will be approaching these question in the coming days... stay tuned!

Hmm... that title might not be quite appropriate. It brings back the memory of a certain campaign from last year, which has resulted in the upheaval of many laws protecting human life in it's most vulnerable stages. But that's besides the point.

LOLSaints is proud to be nominated in the no-longer-so-obfuscated Canonball Awards from The Crescat. Go ahead and rock the vote over there - we're in the "Best New Kid on the Block" category (a throwback to a great band from the 80s... right? ;-).

Vote for LOLSaints, and we'll pray a Hail Mary for you!* Continue Reading »

A neat little site in a similar vein to LOLSaints:

The Adventures of Joe Catholic — seeker of mystery

LOLSaints was informed by a good friend and website user that LOLSaints.com was nominated for a Cannonball Blog Award (from the Crescat), given to Catholic blogs of less notoriety than Fr. Z's blog, American Papist, and Whispers.

Spiffy! This is the first we've heard of the cannonballs (besides the obligatory poolside splash), but we'll keep an eye on them.

We've been making some minor changes to LOLSaints, and will be making a few more changes over the next month or so.

Some goals:

1. Make it easier/quicker to moderate submitted saint entries (right now it takes 10-15 minutes to take an entry and edit it to the point that it is ready to be queued for the front page).
2. Make it easier/quicker to submit saints to the site.
3. Add a glossary of LOLspeak terms (with the ability for anyone to add new terms).
4. Help people navigate the archives (both via tags and via a calendar of feast days (possibly...).
5. Get some basic things available to purchase (which will help offset the hosting and development costs of the site), such as mouse pads, coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc.

Do you have any more ideas for making this website smashingly brilliant? Anything you'd really like to see that's not yet here? What kind of things would make you want to visit the website more often?

Tonight I finally added a sidebar which I was hoping to have on the website from the beginning, but didn't have the time to integrate. This site runs on Drupal, and uses the 'Fivestar' voting widget and Voting API to collect votes on each posting; unfortunately, these modules for Drupal don't provide a simple block that can be posted to the sidebar showing the highest rated content.

So, I was putting off manually making the block for quite some time, but finally installed the Views module on this site, then created a view to display the highest rated postings — it sorts first by the number of votes, then by the average rating of the post. Hopefully it will help new visitors find the best of the best here on LOLSaints quickly!

Any suggestions for further improvements to the website are always appreciated! Also, if you're interested in helping maintain the website and moderate comments, I'd love for you to help! Let me know in the comments below.