We had the pleasure of meeting Stuart Duff, the brains behind the new Pligg-Template.com, not too long ago, so we thought we would do a small interview with him and introduce him the Pligg community.

Pliggs – Who runs/owns Pligg-Template
Stuart – Hi my name is Stuart Duff, Pligg Template is run and operated by my myself. We wanted to create a template provider for pligg that is transparent, dedicated and crucially one that provides great support which we think pligg templates have been lacking until now. We manage to purchase the domain name in September 0f 2009 and worked on our plans for launch in January 2010, taking a deserved break for the festive period of course.

Prior to starting Pligg Template we have done design work for clients using Wordpress, Drupal and Pligg, our favoured CMS of choice when creating designs in the past has been wordpress and we have already built a successful web design business based around that system.

Pliggs – How many people are using your video template?
Stuart – The PliggTube Template has only been available for under a week at the moment, so far however sales figures look promising and already it has seen some cool updates happen to it.

Pliggs – Do you have future templates planned, if so how soon and how many?
Stuart – We certainly do and also so much more than templates in the works. As we mentioned we come from a wordpress background so we want to bring some of those premium goodness template features to Pligg.

We don’t have a static release schedule for template’s we develop and release templates when they’re ready approach could describe it best. This allows us to test template and not be pushed into rushing things along to meet an announced release date, it also why we provide individual sales and support rather than a template club approach. We see it being and exciting journey over the next few months

Pliggs – Do you do custom work?
Stuart – At Pligg Template the answer would be no. We want to concentrate on designing and releasing some cool templates, for us to take on custom work we feel it would take time away from designing new pligg templates and more expensive to us cut into our support time.

Pliggs – What Pligg projects do you run?
Stuart – We don’t run any at the moment; we simply don’t have enough hours in the day to design templates, work on new ideas, provide support and enjoy some downtime. We are however well versed with the system overall.

Pliggs – As a whole how do you find the Pligg code to work with?
Stuart – Not bad actually and since v1.0 it seems to be easy enough to work with and pretty much stable. Also every template or module we make is developed via SVN so updating is fairly easy as is general maintenance.

Pliggs – Did you use Pligg prior to v1.0 release?
Stuart – Yes think we first used it around v.9.7 or thereabouts.

Pliggs – Can you give an example of a Pligg site you think has been well done?
Stuart – To be honest there aren’t too many that initially spring to mind http://tipd.com is clean simple and functional though and probably my favourite.

Pligg-Template.com is home to the fantastic Pligg template PliggDZine and PliggTube. They also have an affiliate program for site owners, you can sign up here.

You can catch of Stuart over at his blog, at WPScoop and on Twitter.

What do you think of the themes released by Pligg-Template.com.

What’s the biggest annoyance with running a Pligg install? Dealing with SPAM. This is unique to Pligg, but because of the type of site that Pligg enables you to run, SPAMMERS love to abuse it.

Most SPAM is submitted via a script, therefore, making it super easy for SPAMMERS to riddle every Pligg install they find with their garbage. If you are like me, I spend about 3 hours a day removing SPAM from FAQPAL, that’s time I would rather spend doing almost anything else.

I have compiled a list of 1787 domain names that have been blacklisted for SPAM.

Many new Pligg owners aren’t aware that Pligg has a feature built in where you can have the script check the domain being domain to see if it has been blacklisted, if it has been, the submitter won’t be able to complete the submission.

All Pligg site should be using this feature.

Admin – Configure – Anti-spam – Enable spam checking (set this to true)

The file that lists all sites you blacklist is located in the root folder of your Pligg install and is called local-antispam.txt.

To add a site to the list, you can manually open the file and add the URL or you can have it added by clicking the ban link in the story admin panel.

To get you started, here is the list of sites I have compiled.

In this post, we look at a simple tool to help monitor all of your backlinks, which is especially good for links you have purchased, and it also lets you make sure those links stay.

There a few things that all websites need in order to succeed, one of those things are backlinks. Backlinks create a source of traffic and can also help with increasing your Google Pagerank.

You can acquire backlinks naturally, or by purchasing them. In order to acquire natural backlinks, you will need to write some killer content or by using linkbait, and then just wait until people link to that content. The other way is by purchasing banner spots or text link ads, this way typically will show results a lot quicker, but it can get costly.

One issue with backlinks is keeping track of them and ensuring they stay active. While there are tools out there that can help you find backlinks to your site, there is only one that monitor backlinks for you, and did I mention it is FREE.

Backlink Monitor

One of the other advantages of this tool, is it helps you determine which keywords you are getting links for, this as you know is key for search engine placement.

Since this service is FREE, they require a link to them on your site.

Give it a try, it’s FREE.

Much like Wordpress and with some knowledge of HTML and PHP, you can use Pligg for almost any type of website.

Most Pligg based websites use it for what it was designed for, a Digg style website. But, there are many things you could use it for. For example, an image gallery website or even an article database like Article Alley where users can Submit Articles or find Free Articles for use on their sites..

Article databases are great for attracting traffic from people looking for articles to people writing them.

Using Pligg to run an Article Alley would require minimal effort and almost no code changes.

Basics steps to accomplish this:

Five star voting:

Admin > Configure > Voting > Voting Method > Set to 2

Remove URL field on submission process to Submit Articles:

Admin > Configure > Submit > Require a URL Wen Submitting > set to FALSE

Admin > Configure >  Submit > Show the URL Input Box > set to false

Admin > Configure > Submit > No URL Text > set to say Article

Admin > Configure > Submit > HTML Tags to Allow > add whatever tags you want here

TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor:

I would also add the TinyMCE WYSIWYG Editor module available from Pligg.

Monetize it:

For this you will need to edit your link_summary.tpl file.  As you can see on Article Alley, they have added Adsense to their articles, you can do this as well, simply by adding the Adsense code where you want the ads to appear.

SEO:

One thing Article Alley doesn’t do is make their URLs search engine friendly http://www.articlealley.com/article_964583_4.html is their URL structure, this not only looks better but also makes it easier for searching for Free Articles, make sure you use URL method 2 in the Admin panel at

Admin > Configure > URL Method > set the value to 2

If you are up to the challenge give it a go, use Article Alley as your inspiration if you need to and see what you can come with and post a link to it in the comments below.

What other use for Pligg can you think of?

After you have designed your end product whether it’s a Pligg install or not, the next big hurdle is traffic and getting backlinks to your masterpiece.

For most site admins, the hardest part is getting links pointed to their new site.  Backlinks give you exposure to potential members and of course search engines.  If you going after Page Rank, backlinks are critical.

I recently started searching for tutorials, articles and resources to see what else I could do to increase the number of backlinks to my projects and was overwhelmed by the number of results that all said the same things.

Then I came across a site that seems to have a huge compilation of articles and resources to aid in picking up backlinks all in one place, Link Building Wiki.

Backlink Wiki

If you haven’t heard of the site, like me, or have never checked out what they offer, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to peruse the list of article and tutorials they have that are sure to keep you reading for a while.

I especially enjoy their section on Link Building Tools, as I discovered a few that I haven’t used before.

Anyways, let me know what you think.

I browse the Pligg forums daily, mostly looking for what Pligg owners are looking for and questions they have. I will soon be launching a forum of my own so stay tuned for that.

Browsing the Pligg forum is like a sitcom, between the number of sarcastic replies by the infamous chuckroast, who I am sure has issues beyond repair,  and the number of people told Pligg 1.0 can already do that when it actually can’t, it’s a wonder anyone uses their forum.

Why can’t people be straight?   If a user has a question or a problem, don’t screw them around, tell them the truth.  Perhaps the issue is the developers, namely chuckroast, has no clue what Pligg 1.0 can do.  He is too busy producing modules that are worthless and trying to scam members out of paying for them.

If Yankidank left the project would be dead.  I honestly do not know how the project keeps going.  Oh wait, the members keep it going, bloggers like Lincoln over at Social CMS Buzz who keep releasing news, modules and hacks are actually keeping the project alive.

But like me, Lincoln is not welcome at Pligg.  At first I wondered why, but I soon learned why.  Anyone exposing the developers for the hacks they really are is banned, namely chuckroast.  I personally have great respect for Yankidank, but chuckroast will be the death of Pligg.

What will the next module be that will rip a member off.  This developer is  a rip-off artist and Yankidank is sitting by enjoying the money brought in by these modules.  Maybe Yankidank is in  on it, who knows.

The original mission of this blog was to be an off shoot of the Pligg forum, offering help and FREE templates, the purpose has stayed true, but it soon turned into what it is today, a whistle blower.  Aside from Yankidank, I have serious issues with chuckroast as do many people and other TRUE coders.

Browse the Pligg forum and you will soon see that chuckroast is not only a sarcastic person, scam artist, liar and incompetant.  I say this stuff because it’s true and because I know he doesn’t have the guts to post a comment refuting it as I know he reads this blog.

To make my point that he has no clue about what he is talking about take a look at “select images for submission in development“, this thread is asking deveopers to help with adding the Digg function of scrapping images during the submission process and using them for displaying the image in the story.  This is a great feature that the original poster has made great headway on, but the developers showing their true knowledge show, they have no idea how to do this.

This is no reflection on their expertise, but one has to wonder why a group who has come with such a great script like Pligg and cannot tell their members that they need simple save method to make the module work.  Instead, like true fashion, chuckroast comes on and says:

Pligg 1.0 has this feature.
I would recommend updating since Pligg Beta 9.9.0 is almost a year and a half old and the person that started this modification is no longer around or supporting it.

Wow, Pligg 1.0 has the feature, good job guys getting it working.

Wait a minute, no version of Pligg has this feature including the current realease.  But one of the developers says it’s there, so I search, actually I didn’t search.

The feature doesn’t exist!

The thread proves it, here is the entire chain of events:

chuckroast: Pligg 1.0 has this feature.
I would recommend updating since Pligg Beta 9.9.0 is almost a year and a half old and the person that started this modification is no longer around or supporting it.

kevin4uguys:

////////Pligg 1.0 has this feature.
I would recommend updating since Pligg Beta 9.9.0 is almost a year and a half old and the person that started this modification is no longer around or supporting it///////
but am using the pligg 9.9.5 i have those modules but most of modules are not supporting for me

chuckroast: To be clear. Your profile says you are using Pligg Beta 9.9.0. If you are not, you should set it to the correct version you’re using so when you ask for help people can assist you better.
Regardless if you are using Pligg Beta 9.9.5 you still can’t use this feature. To do this you will need to update to Pligg 1.0.

oobie11:RC4 has this feature? You can have your “submit” crawl and find images from a the page? How do you implement it? I’m using the wistie template on RC4, what do I do to get this working?
Yankidank: If you’re looking for a feature similar to how Digg.com finds images from teh submitted url and crops them into a square that has not yet been developed for Pligg 1.0. I know of another company who developed a version of this, but it was never as clean as the Digg procss.

oobie11: damn, thats too bad

chuckroast: yes, sorry for the confusion I was thinking “select” as in “browse and select” from your computer.

Not sure how chuckroast got confused as the entire thread is about  a mod to scrape images like Digg does.  The thread even starts out with a way to scrape the images but needs a way to save the image selected.
But hey, chuckroast says the new version does it, so awesome.  Wait, no it doesn’t.

chuckroast is an idiot, period.  Instead of trying to rip people off with worthless modules, maybe he should ask the current REAL developer to tell him what the current version  can and can’t do.

I guarantee neither chuckroast nor Yankidank are coding the core files of Pligg right now.  Neither of them have written a line of code for the recent release.  With the exception of the useless modules that they have released in their Pro Shop that I have already shown to be useless on my FREE Pligg modules post.

Another example of members running Pligg and not the so called “developers”.  Perhaps Pligg will someday allow memebrs who actualy have a clue like Lincoln to help move the project forward instead of the current direction.

Ooops, it did move in anew direction…Social Web CMS, thats better.

Please go away chuckroast so Pligg can move on and actually be the CMS it should be.

As previously stated by myself and many others, Pligg can be a major SPAM magnet if you let it become one. There are ways however to combat this, namely reCaptcha.

There is a module that Pligg has that enables the Administrator to limit the number of submissions a person can do in a 24 hour period.

While this may eliminate or reduce spam, this has to be the most idiotic thing to use on your site I have ever seen.

This basically penalizes all of your members because of spammers and because you are too lazy to deal with spam and have failed to adopt measures to reduce spam.

Imagine a member who has submitted 2 stories trying to submit a 3rd and then being greeted with this:

congratulations, you just lost a valued member!

Do you honestly think a member will stick around or come back while being placed under these restrictions?  If you do, you have no business running a website.  This has to be the biggest slap in the face for your members I can think of.

While the logic may have some weight here, the use of it doesn’t.

I can imagine Digg or Mixx doing this, they would never hear the end of it.  Folks at TechCrunch would eat them alive and rightfully so.

Don’t penalize your members because your are getting spammed and have taken no steps to eliminate or reduce it yourself.  Don’t be a lazy Pligg install owner and try to take an easy way out.

Would you be a dedicated member of a site that placed such limitations on you just for trying to help the site out by supporting it?  It’s a 2 way street, if you want members to submit and support you, you need to make it easier for them to submit not harder, this backward thinking and I wish anyone who uses it luck as I will not support any site using it.

And more importantly, don’t penalize valued members because of spammers, because if you do all you will have is a site of no submissions or submissions that you are submitting and then I wonder if you would agree with me on this one.

I would love to hear your thoughts and your arguments for actually using this ultimate piece of junk on your site.

Leave me a comment below.

Want to keep people from viewing and stealing your template files? Of course, we all do.

Here’s a simple way to keep prying eyes out of your template files and stealing your layout and functions.

In your .htaccess, add the following to the very top:

Replace all cases of domain.com with your domain name.

The last line you can specify where to send the visitor that attempts to view your .tpl file. I would leave it at your main page.

This will keep prying eyes from viewing your .tpl files.

Test it by trying to view my pligg.tpl file at http://www.faqpal.com/templates/yget/pligg.tpl

That’s it.

This is the best way I have come up with to protect your files. Got a better idea, post it below.

How do you protect your files?

When we think of Hollywood we usually think of celebrities, blazing special effects, red carpet and blockbusters.   But above all Hollywood is a symbol of a multi-billion dollar industry that seeks to create the next formula driven,  tar-powered, mega budgeted production and sell it over and over though marketing that sometimes cost as much as the film itself.   One exciting young man is willing to challenge the status quo.

Meet Nikola Raykov – bright 27-years old artist from Bulgaria.   Nikola is an author of published stories ranging from sci-fi to drama and he has already won a few awards for his writings including best film project award for his screenplay “Enter”.   He says he has always been awestruck with cinema and he finds his ways to shoot low budget documentaries and commercials.  “I do it, because I find it fascinating that sometimes an idea can outplay the big budget” smiles Nikola.   But his artistic CV does not stop there, as he is also a graphic and web designer and a very good one, if we are to judge from his latest project.

About a month ago he has launched an interesting website – 1000wordsforsale.com – as means of funding his first feature film based on the awarded screenplay “ENTER” mentioned above.  On this site he is selling “the most important words on the web” as interactive 3D advertising links.  Purchase one of the 1,000 most popular internet words and it becomes link to your site for the next 10 years for the price of $100.  Considering the amount of traffic that his site will probably receive in the next months and years this might be an excellent investment in the future.

“It (the film) is a search in the depths of fear, as one of the main human emotions.  It was necessary for me to take a journey and research into all registered human phobias, fear neuroses and nightmares that every one of us happens to dream.  I aimed at creating a screenplay that startles the viewer and engages him on a psychological level, without the need to use special effect for re-creating supernatural elements.”  states the young filmmaker.   And he seems determined to make his independent film without the help of Hollywood big budgets.

As part of the new version of Pligg, there is a new feature that enables you to have groups on your Pligg install.

Mixx has done a fantastic job of implementing groups into their site, but not all social networking sites use them.

Will you be enabling the group feature?

[poll id="3"]

You can leave us a comment below to explain your choice as well.