Studio Tour, Burke
Eb's Writings by Elizabeth Barclay (ProjectProposalElizabethBarclay)
The first thing that struck me about this blog was its similarity in form and content with many of the original class blogs. I don?t mean this negatively?it was just my first observation from the perspective of a Weblogs and Wikis student. Exploring the ?about? page and Eb?s project proposal, I found that Eb hopes to use this blog not only to develop her own writing, but to present it to the wide world for feedback. I got the impression that she wants to try writing for more than herself or a small workshop?to find a larger audience, and wants visitors and contributors to her blog to both help her with her art and be helped as well, whether through useful links, communication or inspiration.
While scanning her posts, an interesting and unique pattern popped out at me. At least half of Eb?s blog entries begin with the words ?Let?s Talk? in bold, followed by a paragraph of text, then another few words in bold?the story?s title?and the beginnings of a story. These posts are formulaic, eye-catching and work very well to introduce her essays. I also noticed that the template she chose for this blog truncates long posts, allowing readers an introductory paragraph to ?taste? a story before clicking ?read more.? She could enhance this by choosing custom excerpts from her stories to represent them on the posts page via the ?optional excerpt? field on the Wordpress ?write? page. As for ?Let?s Talk,? I found these casual introductions to her essays to be very useful; they give a background for each essay, thoughts about writing it and how each essay relates to her own life. (She is, after all, a non-fiction writer.)
However, just as Eb posts her work, she posts an equal amont of personal entries about her life and about the project itself. She talks with the reader about her upcoming wedding (congratulations!) as well as the difficulties and benefits of generating content for the site, and writing in general. One of her biggest hopes and concerns is getting the community involved in this project, and I?d like to know what she?s doing to get her blog out in the open. Is she bringing it to the attention of her friends, peers in workshop classes, or her professors?
Taking a step back and looking at her presentation, I have to say that she did pick a very appropriate template for her work. Though not very unique, it does fit the writing with a clean (but far from clinical), light theme and a beautiful custom header. I certainly approve of her use of an inspiring quote as a subtitle. I like that she has a picture of herself on the posts page and would, if anything, want it to be bigger. After all, this is a site about her writings, and her writings are about her life. She is a main character. She makes use of this kind of thing by posting media of her family and adorable dog as visual aides to her stories.
My overall impression of Eb?s Writings is that it?s shaping up into a place that really stands behind the essays posted there. If I were huge a fan of her work, I?d love a place like this. The site offers instantly recognizable postings of new work along with insights into the stories and characters, besides just conversationally giving us as much information about the writer herself. Again, if I were a big fan, this blog would be bookmarked for sure.
Feathered Wiki by Briana French (ProjectProposalBrianaFrench)
Briana French and I happen to sit within a few feet of each other during class, so in addition to reading through her proposal and browsing her site, I've gotten to hear her own opinions on the Feathered Wiki. Before getting to that, though, an overview: The Feathered Wiki is intended to be a searchable reservoir of first-hand bird care information. From what I've seen, her WetPaint wiki has a sidebar sorting nodes into general bird care info and a very useful, expandable species-specific menu.
When Briana stated in her project proposal that nodes ?will contain individual postings separated by horizontal dividers between the individual contributors.? and ?I hope that the contributors will sign their postings.? I thought immediately that what she was really looking for was a message board. However, looking at this site an an outsider, I can now clearly see how a wiki would be more advantageous than a message board. While wikis can be as hierarchical and post-friendly as boards, they also tend towards revision. Oh, how wonderful it would be if forum threads?especially on informational forums?were summarized into essays explaining the discussion to date in the first post. Though Briana's wiki is going to be personal-story-specific and (though not necessarily chronologically) sequential, there's no reason why people's stories about their living and caring for birds ought to remain unedited or unquestioned.
Besides being more friendly towards complete stories, the linking of a wiki will certainly help a newcomer find what they're looking for. The node concerning a story about feeding barbecue ribs to bald eagles will come up under both 'feeding birds' and 'species specific > bald eagles.? Each node will contain information about a number of either birds or bird-related activities, making simple browsing around worthwhile. On second thought, will Briana sort the stories from node to node by the activities involved (e.g. Feeding) or the birds involved? Either way, things will eventually start to overlap and a great deal of interlinking will have to be maintained. For example, if a user has a story about trying to feed her eagle ribs while her finches caused a racket, does that story belong on the eagle node, the finch node, the feeding node or the racket node?
Unfortunately, these questions may be moot. As Briana told me, she isn't getting nearly as many contributors as she needs to in order to make this wiki as extensive as planned. There appears to only be one other member at the moment who doesn't seem to have done very much at all. From what I understand, Briana comes from a rich bird-loving community hosted on a message board. This project seems to have an excellent place next to said community?as a source for real, personal stories with a very easy-to-search wiki infrastructure that lends itself perfectly to the task. Why aren't people coming to share their stories?
Briana believes that in order to attract visitors she must first assure them that they are not typing out personal stories on this wiki in vain. In order to contribute to a site confidently, there must be content there to begin with. Briana is working on filling out as many nodes as she can with personal experience, setting an example for newcomers. Her best path to success, in my opinion, is to take it a step further. She needs a pack of regular contributors in order to make it clear that this is a serious project and that being a member of the Feathered Wiki is worth the time and effort. In my older message-board projects, I found that I'd get strangers contributing only to projects in which five or six of my personal friends and comrades in the project were regularly posting.
Youth and their Changing Mentalities by Justin Gagola (ProjectProposalJustinGagola)
My initial concern with Justin?s project had to do with scope. He intends to provide a mix of personal stories as well as responses to relevant articles to discover why 47% of youth in treatment are Native Americans. I?m wondering if this statistic is for the United States, Minnesota or Cass Lake. Assuming that Justin is focusing on Minnesota, I?m not sure whether he intends to comment on any and all articles dealing with youth treatment, or just those that deal with Native youth in the state. Taking a look at his project, he appears to have only posted twice, neither time as a response to an article or a personal story.
One of my first suggestions for Justin is to take the content from the posts he?s made, in which he discusses the observations and motivations that led him to take on this project, and put them in the ?about? page. In these posts, Justin shows that he truly cares about the situations that many Native American youths find themselves in and finds great satisfaction in being able to help. I think that this information is critical to an outsider and would best be placed somewhere permanently accessible.
Looking at the template Justin has chosen, I would also recommend considering something more space-economic and easier to read. After all, this project will likely include longer quotes from articles followed by lengthy analyses and responses. Justin doesn?t seem to intend other media?photos, vidos, et cetera?as a big part of this project. Focusing on making the site more text-friendly is bound to help in the long run. I would also suggest finding a layout that truncates posts as each article response or story is likely to be essay-like. Of course, I?m assuming one direction where Justin may go the other: He may be more interested in simply providing a link to an article with a minimal explanation. If the focus is on many posts with little content, Justin?s current layout may work well enough.
To further take advantage of the layout he has chosen, I would encourage Justin to make more use of pages. As their links appear very centrally and prominently in this minimalist theme, having a separate page for links to institutions, links to articles, descriptions of people, etc. may relieve some of the vertical length (and scrolling) that could hamper readers.
I was impressed by his use of a subtitle: ?Why are youth changing, and how does culture impact their physical and emotional states?? We (the hypothetical web-surfer) are immediately presented with his thesis statement and can judge whether or not we want to continue reading. Having his mission statement front-and-center is an excellent idea, in my opinion.
There?s not much else I can say about Justin?s content, as there isn?t much to talk about! Meaning no offense, it seems that he?s having trouble getting around to posting and has fallen very short of his goal of 30+ entries by the end of March. Though this project has serious potential for collecting information about an issue we both feel is worthy of exploration, this blog doesn?t appear to be going anywhere fast at the moment.
Writing to Earn: 200 points. I hope these are helpful!
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