I'm in the middle of adding a new plugin to the website. I'm a little proud of this one, because I'm designing and writing it from scratch. The big question is,
What do the negativespace.net authors want?
That was a bit big. Sorry. Big question...
So, the description so far (All of this would be entirely optional, of course.):
It is called AuthorInfo. The idea is that there is a page where you enter some information about you. Then you can add some special
The information I think would be intersting to include:
- A description of yourself (as long as you wish, within reason) for an aboutme.html page or something.
- A brief description of yourself (some short summary or "quip") that you can add to your main page, or any other page (much like Joy does on her blog (it might be half way down the page, depending on your web browser))
- Your name, location (city, country, your choice of description) and maybe email (doesn't have to be public if you don't want it to be) or some other contact information
- A quick little copyright statement (© Michael S. Joyce, 2004) for example
- A longer copyright statement, which would be linked to from the short copyright statement
- A picture?
There will be a new template to bring all this together, and a new link to it. There'd be a way for you to update the information in the system whenever you choose, just with a simple web form.
So the big question is, what would you like to see it do? I can't promise to be able to add everything you'd like, but I'll try.
Comments (11)
Perhaps set it as a link beside each of our blog descriptions honey? I think it pretty much covers everything - sounds cool.
Posted by dan | June 8, 2004 12:12 AM
Posted on June 8, 2004 00:12
Sounds good to me. What would be great would be an image gallery. Now if I only had a digital camera. That's it. I'm buying one -- in September.
What do I want? Hmmm. . . I think that the features you're talking about should be installed, and then let the negativespace.net authors use it themselves and see which ideas work more than others. Hopefully that doesn't sound like too much work.
Posted by matt | June 8, 2004 8:55 AM
Posted on June 8, 2004 08:55
posted earlier in postcards:
fuck the rules! Unless you don't want to, of course.
Why not just post postcard stories as they are, with a feeder line optional for those who want one.
Or here's an idea: what if the postcards blog was like a forum, where we could post a topic, put a postcard story in there with a feeder line. If people want to respond to the feeder, then they go and do that. If they want a new postcard story without a feeder, then they go and create a new thread.
We could do that with the comments feature, but I think some stories would be left behind. Unless there's a way to archive comments.
If a forum type idea was possible, then people would be able to see new postcard stories as well as delve into past postcard stories where there would be more feeder lines.
That's what *I* want!
As it stands, it's hard to categorize things right now. No structure.
Posted by Post Card Matt | June 8, 2004 1:47 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 13:47
Another oddity with the new system is that the responses to the lead get a higher priority than the actual postcard, so it takes two or three reads before the reader knows who made the original post. Could be a factor that's adding to the CONFUSION!
Posted by Post Card Munt | June 8, 2004 1:58 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 13:58
I noticed that there's the master archive index. What if that was the post cards main page? Would it be possible to add dates to the topics?
Posted by Post Munt Matt | June 8, 2004 1:59 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 13:59
If http://negativespace.net/postcards/archives.html was the main page, things could be a little more squeezed together, and whatnot.
Okay, that's all I have to say.
Posted by Post Post Munt | June 8, 2004 2:05 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 14:05
You know what else would help to make MORE SENSE? If the categories were divided in a way. Because right now all of the topics are bundled together without much in they of seperation. The different themed postcards are too close together, and the italicized sentence, while aesthetically pleasing, wouldn't make much sense to the onlooker, or reader. So if there was a way to seperate the different themes. . .
These are just ideas, brainstorming.
Posted by Gerald (Matt) | June 8, 2004 2:09 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 14:09
The main thing for me is the content, and more specifically, the volume. Postcard stories are fast, easy, reliable, but if there's one thing that I'm counting on it's the volume that 11 people can create. It doesn't take much to scribble a shitty story down and post it on the internet.
So while it's easy to get caught up in doo-dads, it's also easy to comment on Michael's blog.
Posted by Kwai (Munt [Post Matt]) | June 8, 2004 2:17 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 14:17
Whoa there Matt... one at a time...
Image Gallery: would love to, but don't have the storage or bandwidth or real database needed to keep it fast enough to be usable. This site is a labour of love, I don't want to spend too much money on it.
Postcard Stories: Comments can be archived, but not very well. The basic problem is that postcard stories aren't a good fit for movable type. MT is designed to be used linearly, but postcard stories aren't that at all.
You've posted a lot of ideas. I'm finding it really hard to get a clear message right now. Do you want the blog redone from scratch? We could work on it together some time. Or are you suggesting specific changes to the way things are done now?
Sorry I'm not making more sense, it was a long day at work.
Posted by michael | June 8, 2004 5:19 PM
Posted on June 8, 2004 17:19
I didn't want to seem pushy, I was just brainstorming and had a lot of free time on my hands. The image gallery makes sense, and we should probably leave the postcards the way they are.
Posted by matt | June 9, 2004 10:20 AM
Posted on June 9, 2004 10:20
here is what I was getting at:
postcard stories accessed via archives, squeeze the different categories closer together, et voila. Easy to access, easy to "get."
Posted by matt | June 9, 2004 11:01 AM
Posted on June 9, 2004 11:01