Write On! :: Discuss the art and craft of writing

Site updates and requests for comments

by janra
Posted to Site News, Musings on Wed Feb 04, 2004 at 10:58:44 AM PST
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This issue of the Write On! site news includes site updates, layout, and images, as well as several requests for comments on different aspects of the site.

Also, apologies to the new members who created accounts then tried to set their user info - that was broken on the last update, but it's fixed now. Go set your user info.

Updates

So, just updated the site today. There have been a whole pile of bugfixes in the last few weeks. The majority of it is stuff you won't see, because it's either more admin-related or it's for features that I haven't turned on here.

User prefs are fixed, as I mentioned above
The article voting has changed; previously there were four options, "post to front page", "post to section only", "abstain", and "dump it". Now there are three, "Publish", "Abstain", and "Reject". Yes, "reject" - it is a publishing term, and despite the fact that this is not a paying market and has all members as editors, you are choosing whether to publish or reject each article you vote on. Authors will please remember that as with a paying market, having an article rejected does not mean you're a bad writer, but that the article does not fit the site for one of any number of reasons.
All articles posted will be posted to the front page, and all past articles posted to section only have been promoted to the front page.
You've probably noticed it already, but the user menu has been reorganized from a largely unsorted list of links into three groups of links: "Things to do", "Your stuff", and "Options". All the same links are there, but some of them have been re-worded to more accurately reflect what you can do at the other end of the link...
I have turned off external RDF feeds. All of six people (myself included) were even using them, and I'm trying to clean up the interface to make it less cluttered and less daunting for those who aren't complete computer geeks like me. Write On! is still publishing an RDF feed however, so anybody who wants to show our headlines on their site can grab them from /backend.rdf.
Spell checking seems to have broken in a very strange way with the last update, so it's turned off until it's fixed.

Layout

A while back I mentioned that I was re-doing the site design. As you may or may not have noticed, nothing has actually changed. I got most everything CSS-ified, but as I'm a sucky visual designer who doesn't know how to make graphics or pick good colours, I CSS-ified it to have the same layout as it did before when it used tables within tables and was generally really ugly and hard to change. Now, while it looks the same, it is much easier to change and the code behind it is much less complicated and much easier to read.

The graphic designer who agreed to re-do my logo and stuff got really busy with better paying contracts so that's not going anywhere. Any of you folks good at web graphics? I'd like a new site logo, icons for each of the topics, and a better colour scheme...

I really want to simplify things, but at the same time I really like those sidebar boxes... if you have any comments about boxes that you particularly like, or ignore, or find annoying, or can think of ways to change, please speak up. Note that they can very easily be moved to other parts of the page and/or reordered in the column they're in.

Edit Queue

I have been contemplating closing the edit queue, based on a point somebody brought up on another, much larger site that uses the same program (Scoop) to run it as this one does. In short, the argument was that with the presence of the edit queue, people are encouraged to post half-hearted first drafts knowing that somebody will point out their errors; without it, people know that what they submit is what gets voted on, barring a few typos that the site editors can fix, and therefore will polish before submitting.

I think that this is a very interesting point, and I know that I've been guilty of posting first drafts to the edit queue here for feedback instead of practicing my self-editing skills and submitting a polished, publishable version. Especially for us as writers - when submitting to a paying market, we have to submit our writing as polished as we can make it, never as a first draft for feedback. Even though this is not a paying market, having the edit queue which allows that promotes bad habits; not having the edit queue and having high standards for what does get posted would promote good habits (and would make us practice our self-editing, a skill that every writer needs to practice).

If you did want feedback on an article idea, you're more than welcome to post your outline or perhaps an early draft in the diaries, asking for comments on how to improve the article, or subjects people would like to see covered. This has been done very successfully on other Scoop-based sites.

Comment ratings

Nobody seems to rate comments. And really, do we need to? Obvious garbage can easily be deleted by an admin. On the other hand, it's one way to try to keep comment quality high, by marking those that are good and bad, but that requires more than just one person rating. I'm undecided about this one. I did put labels on the ratings, so that it's clear what each one means. If you have any comments about comment rating, please speak up.

Make a new account

Poll

Votes: 7
Results	\|	Other Polls

Related Links

Site updates and requests for comments | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden)

community spam moderation (4.00/3) (#1)
by hellish on Fri Feb 06, 2004 at 07:49:40 PM PST

Nobody seems to rate comments. And really, do we need to? Obvious garbage can easily be deleted by an admin.

When and if this site grows, it'll be more and more difficult for our singular beloved admin(janra) to delete waste. If everyone can moderate, the load is distributed. I think it might be better to simply have a mark as spam checkbox, and once a comment got a number of marks equal or greater than a set threshold it could be hidden.

not a bad idea (4.00/1) (#2)
by janra on Tue Feb 10, 2004 at 08:48:00 AM PST

but incomplete, I think. Having a single "this is spam" checkbox isn't a bad idea in itself, but what if people decide to mark something as spam that isn't? The system as set up right now allows certain people (based on how they contribute) to vote to hide comments and to look at the comments others have hidden and vote to un-hide them if they feel the comments were unfairly hidden. However, this system only works if a people rate comments.

And as for the site growing and making it hard for me alone to delete garbage... well, I can give members editorial privileges as needed, so I won't always be alone :-)
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

re (3.00/0) (#16)
by MP3DJAY on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 09:25:24 AM PST

Hey all.
I use "bigsam guestbook" but lately i got some spam messages.

they say stuff like: "add spam protection and be happy"

ok... wat kind of protection can i use?
mp3 dj mix
[ Parent ]

: I don't know, sorry (3.00/0) (#17)
by janra on Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 06:58:01 AM PST

I'm not familiar with bigsam guestbook. Perhaps you should contact the people who wrote it if you want to find out what anti-spam options you have?
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

I like the changes (4.00/1) (#4)
by pkej on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 01:17:36 PM PST

The choices abstain, reject and publish are sensible. Don't give people too many options, let the task be as simple as possible, at least when we want the site to grow; for a larger audience more choices might apply.

The user menu is great in it's current incarnation.

I miss the spell checking, now I actually have to write everything in an external window and do some work on it before posting. I think it is a good thing that it is broken.

Keep the two column layout. When logged in the user menu have a natural place to appear in. I also like the boxes, they are other views into the activity on the site, they reveal more to new users.

The Edit Queue should go, let's use the diaries as suggested, except, how will people notice the diary entries? I'm not sure how many use the diaries or know they exist.

I usually suggest that sites should add features as they grow. Some features are seldom used when the information conent is manageable, other features are used by more experienced users. I like the idea of comment ratings, but I seldom use them, and with a small community they aren't needed as much as in a larger.
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage

: the sidebar (3.00/0) (#6)
by janra on Fri Apr 16, 2004 at 11:53:48 AM PST

well, the two-column layout would stay I think - it is a good place for the necessary menus. I was more thinking of which of the parts could stay, which should go, and which could stand to be cleaned up and simplified.
I think adding a "recent diaries" list to the sidebar would help people find them. But that makes the sidebar even longer...
I miss the spell checking, now I actually have to write everything in an external window and do some work on it before posting. I think it is a good thing that it is broken.
hah! that argument sounds surprisingly like my argument for canning the edit queue. :-)
I usually suggest that sites should add features as they grow. Some features are seldom used when the information conent is manageable, other features are used by more experienced users. I like the idea of comment ratings, but I seldom use them, and with a small community they aren't needed as much as in a larger.
Well, I'm not sure how well I articulated this in the article. The main reason I kind of want to get more people rating comments is to build up a culture of rating comments appropriately, and not as a "reward/punishment" system that some people seem to consider it (*cough*k5*cough*). The more people used to rating comments, the less likely it is that a small group of active raters can misuse them in a meaningful way. And as the site grows, there will inevitably be a few members with an infantile sense of humour and way too much time on their hands.
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

Some suggestions for the new layout and redesign (4.00/1) (#5)
by pkej on Thu Apr 15, 2004 at 01:44:26 PM PST

Please, please make headlines clickable, it is a much larger target to click. Or make the link right justified, something a bit more distinct than centered. I think part of the problem is the number of comments and words in story parts, that information should be separate from the link to click, as it takes the reader's attention away from the link. At least this reader...

Keep some kind of visible distinction for where one lead in stops and the next begin. As it is today it is great; but I've seen the latest trends where some sites don't keep it that distinct, as well as making the sizes of the headlines smaller.

Move the sections a story belongs in below the headline, it clutters the headline. I know it saves space up there, but it is cluttering. And come to think of it, wouldn't the statistics fit just as well lumped together with this info?

The seconds and the timezone seems to be overkill; heh, sometimes just the year and month seems to be enough here :P Do scoop know of my timezone, and could it be asked (nicely) to adjust the times shown to my timezone (and 24 hour format, now why are you so contrary out there in the west?).

And we need a way to catch those who register as new members. I see some of them haven't posted anything, so it is small wonder that they cared to register. Obviously they have some interest in this site.
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage

: thanks for the suggestions (3.00/0) (#7)
by janra on Fri Apr 16, 2004 at 12:18:14 PM PST

Please, please make headlines clickable
Done.
I think part of the problem is the number of comments and words in story parts, that information should be separate from the link to click,
That, unfortunately, is hard-coded at the moment. More and more of the page's output is configurable, but there's still a lot to go, and that's one of the pieces that hasn't been fixed yet. Right now, I can't change that line without changing the code behind the site, and there are other sites running from the same code - changing it for this site would look strange on the others... that's why I only recently changed the article voting to publish/abstain/reject - before this update, the vote options were hard-coded too.
Keep some kind of visible distinction for where one lead in stops and the next begin. As it is today it is great; but I've seen the latest trends where some sites don't keep it that distinct, as well as making the sizes of the headlines smaller.
I will. I totally agree with you here. The default actually had a line between the article header and the intro text below it, and no divider at all between the end of the intro text and the next article header. That just wasn't good.
I'll look at rearranging the header with some of the ideas you've put here.
The time format is another hard-coded thing. There seems to almost be a way to change the time format, since a format string is passed around in the code, but there is currently no way to change that. But I think the time zone marker should stay, if nothing else it reminds people if they haven't set their timezone preference yet...
And while I'd like the new members to be more active, there is a very typical 10x difference between active members and lurkers with accounts, and another 10x difference between lurkers with accounts and those without...
There's also the fact that the whole concept of a user-driven site is rather foreign to most people. It doesn't surprise me that most visitors will just read articles and that's it - most writing sites with articles on writing present those articles as references instead of discussion starters, and don't exactly encourage visitors to argue with the author!
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

story moderation and layout (4.00/1) (#8)
by Brad Johnson on Thu May 13, 2004 at 10:49:19 AM PST

I've never really understood the "abstain" option on story moderation. It doesn't make sense to me over on Kuro5hin, where scoop was born, and it doesn't make sense here.

Why, if someone wanted to abstain from voting, would they bother registering a vote at all? The idea behind it seems to be nothing more than clicking a button to say, "Hey, I looked at this story, and I really don't care about it at all!" It would be more intuitive to me if the options were merely "Publish" and "Reject," leaving apathetic reviewers the option of abstaining by simply doing nothing.

Just my $0.02.

As for the layout, it's nice like it is. The site is clean and readable, which is the most important aspect of web design. Flashiness should be reserved for sites that don't offer real content, like this site does.

The only gripe that I have with the layout is that most text does not adhere to the font size I specify in my user configuration. As it is, the comments are nice and readable, but the story text is bigger than I would prefer. My assumption would be that this is due to the use of the stylesheets instead of <FONT> tags to set font size. Perhaps you could have separate stylesheets dependent upon this choice in order to rectify this issue.

Other than those two things, the site is great, and I look forward to some serious writing discussion. I'm new to the site and have been reading through some of the older stories and am quite impressed. This is quickly becoming my second favorite book-related website.

-- The world is quiet here.

abstaining, etc. (4.00/1) (#9)
by janra on Thu May 13, 2004 at 02:25:50 PM PST

Well, there are a few things the abstain vote is good for, some not necessarily on this site though :-)

First, it lets you see accurately how many articles in the queue are actually new, because "new" is defined as "I haven't voted on it yet." If you don't want to either publish or reject a particular story, it will stay visible in that nice eye-catching red unless you vote to abstain. If you prefer, you can just not vote, and check the queue to see if that "new" article is actually new or if it's one you abstained from.

Second, if auto-post is used (which it isn't on this site) "abstain" votes are used when weighting the votes to determine if the story should be posted or not. Abstentions count slightly negatively, but not as much as votes to reject, because people who abstained didn't particularly want to see it published.

And third, it lets you see who all has voted on the story and how.

Flashiness should be reserved for sites that don't offer real content

I agree... rather, I have found that flashy sites rarely have content, so on seeing flashy design I already know what level of content to expect.

The layout won't be getting flashy, but it's been getting slowly cleaned up. Having a nice-looking site isn't the same as having a flashy one...

The only gripe that I have with the layout is that most text does not adhere to the font size I specify in my user configuration. [...] My assumption would be that this is due to the use of the stylesheets instead of <FONT> tags

Your assumption is correct. The font size preference that you're trying to set assumes that I'm using font tags all over, which I am not, using CSS instead. Since there are no font tags for the system to modify based on that setting, the font won't change. This is, I guess, a "historical" behaviour of the program, and is coming up in the list of things to fix. Hardly anybody used CSS when it was written, and nobody has gotten to it yet...

Actually, I'm pretty sure the main content text uses your default browser font and size. I'm a big fan of letting people set their own display, which is why the two columns scale with the size of your browser window, too.

I'm new to the site and have been reading through some of the older stories and am quite impressed.

I'm glad you've enjoyed your self-guided tour ;-)
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

: That clears up a few things. (3.50/2) (#12)
by Brad Johnson on Fri May 14, 2004 at 10:16:50 AM PST

Thanks for clearing my head. Now, if only I could clear my sinuses....

First, it lets you see accurately how many articles in the queue are actually new, because "new" is defined as "I haven't voted on it yet." If you don't want to either publish or reject a particular story, it will stay visible in that nice eye-catching red unless you vote to abstain. If you prefer, you can just not vote, and check the queue to see if that "new" article is actually new or if it's one you abstained from.

Second, if auto-post is used (which it isn't on this site) "abstain" votes are used when weighting the votes to determine if the story should be posted or not. Abstentions count slightly negatively, but not as much as votes to reject, because people who abstained didn't particularly want to see it published.

Those are good enough reasons for me. :) I never took either of those into account when thinking of the "Abstain" option, and never saw it explained elsewhere. Personally, I never abstain on an article, as I figure that I should always have an opinion one way or the other. But that's just me, I guess.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the main content text uses your default browser font and size. I'm a big fan of letting people set their own display, which is why the two columns scale with the size of your browser window, too.

Right you were. I had wrongly assumed that there was a hard-coded font size in the stylesheet, and didn't bother to check and see. I'll learn to do a little more digging before complaining next time. :) I guess it was just that nearly every other site out there on the Internet had a hard-coded value and I had never checked my own browser's settings.

-- The world is quiet here.
[ Parent ]

FONT tags (3.00/1) (#10)
by pkej on Fri May 14, 2004 at 07:15:36 AM PST

Font tags are bad and evil. I don't know what you are smoking if you believe stylesheets makes your fonts unreadable, it is the other way around. Stylesheets make fonts adhere to your size preferences and make them scalable. The FONT tag does the complete opposite (as does pixel sizes in stylesheets, I'll give you that).

For more information about proper use of stylesheets and html tags read the specs (of HTML 4.x and XHTML 1.x and CSS 1.x through 3.x) located at http://www.w3.org/ also look at sites which use stylesheets to demonstrate that they're okay, and fonts and tables are not.

That the font tag still is hailed in this day and age is beyond me, who on earth teaches these kids HTML tags? Pot bellied, pot smoking wannabees, is my guess.

As for the font-tags used on this site, Janra tells me that those will be ironed out in time, because of other issues, so I'm not going to bite in that direction today.

- Grumpy -
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage
[ Parent ]

Allow me to clarify... (3.00/2) (#11)
by Brad Johnson on Fri May 14, 2004 at 10:06:36 AM PST

I didn't really mean that the stylesheet made it unreadable. Having a little previous experience with scoop, I assumed that it's font size selection in the display preferences dialog was based on <FONT> tags, which janra confirmed. I also assumed (wrongly) that there was a hard-coded font size in the stylesheet, which was bigger than my personal preference.

I'm a big fan of CSS and agree that they make much more sense than do font tags. I was not at all suggesting that stylesheets be trashed, but rather a method of using them in conjunction with the existing preferences.

-- The world is quiet here.
[ Parent ]

: And, now that the grumpy phase is over (3.00/1) (#13)
by pkej on Fri May 14, 2004 at 11:05:30 AM PST

You can use relative sizes in style sheets "small", "large", "larger" are valid ways to set font size in a style sheet, as is "120%", "80%". These are all relative to the size set as base for the parent element; which means depending on what the size has been set before.
The best way, though, is to use "em"s which are the width of the "m" in a given font. There is a corresponding "ex" for the height of the "x" in a given font, but "ex" support is poorer than "em" support.
Everything above will scale with the scaling of your browser "ctrl"+"-" or "ctrl"+"+" in IE and deratives, or "ctrl"+mousewheel in Opera (also accepts the IE shortcuts, as does Mozilla, IIRC).
So the best solution is to use the relative measurements, as opposed to the absolute "pt" points and "px" for pixels (which is default if any value is entered without measurement unit).
It is easy to do the right thing when one knows the above stuff; what I'm grumpy about is thast a lot of people still teach the font tag, and a lot of old html pages on the net says the same, etc.
I have an idea, there should be a way to demolish unhealthy sites like old HTML tutorials. Just like it is possible to condemn buildings, we should be able to condemn old websites.
RFCxxxx - Real Time Condemnation Protocol
--
When in doubt,
turn around,
cry and shout

spdyvkng - my homepage
[ Parent ]

hello (3.00/0) (#3)
by janra on Fri Mar 19, 2004 at 08:04:17 AM PST

Who voted "explained in a comment"? I'd like to hear what you think about the edit queue.

I really am torn about the edit queue. As I said in the article, having it encourages people to post early drafts, something I found myself guilty of too (bad me!) and want to discourage. On the other hand, without it the author can't fix typos or clarify sections based on feedback, which is a useful feature.
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?

editing (3.00/0) (#14)
by channing on Mon Feb 28, 2005 at 09:55:28 PM PST

I think I like the editing feature. My philosophy is to get people writing. If the work is sloppy, then the writer can be told it's sloppy. This is how a person learns. It seems to me that the hard part is sitting down and doing it. Plus, free writing can really be valuable. I've seen several comments lately about collaboration. Isn't that what editing is all about?

My feeling is to just go ahead and write. If the writing were perfect I'd be getting paid by the word. I know this is a site about writing technique, but that doesn't mean it can't be a teaching, learning, and evolutionary process site, too.

: that's why it wasn't an easy decision (3.00/0) (#15)
by janra on Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 11:48:45 AM PST

All of those points you raised were things that kept me from just turning the edit queue off immediately.
Thanks for sharing your opinion though. Maybe in the future we might try the edit queue again.
--
Who needs to be big and burly when you can just apply physics?
[ Parent ]

www (3.00/0) (#18)
by duokong on Fri May 18, 2007 at 02:38:01 AM PST

Site updates and requests for comments | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden)

	Excellent point, get rid of it	57%
	Good point, but (explained in a comment)	28%
	Not an issue, keep it	14%