Thanks for all the hard work you’re all putting into making your sites so exciting! It’s nice reading through everyone’s blogs – we’re fast-approaching the point where we have enough content to start streaming directly onto the front page instead of the current, slightly clunky ‘click here to see Tim’s new post’ bit.

Some of you have been looking for more control over how your blogs look. I’ve uploaded a whole new load of themes so you can style your blogs however you’d like, but remember you can search for whatever you like at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. Find a style you like, use the ‘contact us’ bit, and we’ll install it for you site-wide. Sorry that’s a little clunky, but we’re working on it!
The same goes for plugins. If there’s something you want, have a look for it at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/, then ask us to install it. For security reasons, we’re unlikely to let you just install anything without checking with us, but I’ve never said no yet!

Finally, some of you have been worried about the anti-spam settings we’ve had installed, complaining that they’re too hard to read and might be putting people off registering. So, they’re gone, replaced with a system that requires you to have JavaScript enabled on your system to register. No JavaScript? No problem, you/I just check someone’s request to post a comment/get a blog respectively. Problem solved!

Thanks for all your feedback – keep it coming! We’re listening!

Welcome to the site! Thanks for your patience while everything gets going in earnest everyone, and thanks for the wonderful blogs you’ve already started putting together! I’ve just put together a mini-explanation on how some of the basic features of Wordpress work, and if you’re having any problems getting things working or want to know how to do something please do just go ahead and ask!

One thing I’d really recommend is that everyone tries to get a unique blog theme as soon as possible – the basic layout that comes with Wordpress looks a bit samey after a while, and there’s a really cool and easy-to-use interface for finding and installing new ones built into the site itself. Just go to the ‘appearance’ section and click ‘add new themes’!

Until then… keep writing!