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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Thoughts — blog, cat, digest, skribit

Answering Skribit suggestions digest

Skribit had shut down on 2011–04–19.

skribit New skribit widget works flawlessly so far (after I whined about it not passing validation and getting that fixed). It shows up to five top suggestions so I decided that I’ll do regular digest posts answering that much (unless some suggestions are big enough for separate thorough posts of course).

It seems brave readers are testing waters for a start so I got some general non-tech suggestions in first batch.

“How awesome people that make suggestions are!” by yours truly

Regular readers know that Skribit is one of toys I am most inspired about. I guess it fits my mindset as blogger – share a knowledge around and get feedback on how good it is and what are topics my readers consider most important.

I thank everyone who made suggestions and everyone who will make them in the future! :) Break that wall and tell me what are you interested in .

“we need to see how this Skribit will works in driving traffic to our blogs” by Lax of TechZoomIn

Lax had mistaken Skribit for a digg clone at first. It’s not about traffic building. I read a lot that it’s important for bloggers to solve problems . And if you don’t know about any you should find some.

I think Skribit is a good tool for finding problems and questions worth answering.

“inside story” by Anonymous

This puzzled me a bit and without contact info I wasn’t able to ask for details. So I am assuming this to be suggestion for inside story of this blog.

I have a confession to make. I refer to myself as newbie blogger a lot but I actually have another online diary running since 2003. I was just following trend in community of text-based online RPG I played at that time. My diary never was ambitious, never got above 4-6 daily visitors and never was more than a tool to throw some info at friends. It fulfills purpose perfectly.

Rarst.net is nothing like that except that it fulfills purpose as well. Purpose of this one is to motivate me and to share knowledge. To turn that motivation and sharing into daily experience instead of rare activity spikes. It’s a journey for a valuable blog. Still not there. But I am working on it!

I only have one cat at moment so not much choice here. I made some “easter egg” mentions of him around blog and made some readers curious. :)

His name is Heighliner (after starships in Dune universe). I like to name pets after sci-fi stuff and my previous cat was called Sylvester (after biomech tiger in Goblin Reservation). Sylvester was really dumb and aggressive animal befitting his literature counterpart so I went for solid and calm image next time.

Heighliner (usually shortened to Lanya or you-fat-monster) is indeed solid and calm animal. I picked him on the street (literally) when he was tiny kitten around eight years ago. He ate so much at first he got himself operated because of overeating. He still eats a lot and moves less than I’d prefer him to.

In early years he was totally silent to the point of being spooky. He never ever made a sound. I doubted if he could meow at all. After some time his street past let him go and he became more demanding and more vocal. But he is still extremely shy of strangers and only trusts family.

cat

cat

Sorry for bad photo quality, Motorola RAZR is closest (both in functions and distance) thing to camera I have at moment.

By the way check post about getting things you want for his latest contribution to this blog. :)

“Something about self proclaim dot com guru” by Anonymous

I wonder if this it testing waters or attempt on getting backlink. :) I am pretty sure I seen person with such nickname commenting on some of blogs I visit. And maybe on Entrecard ?.. Other than that googling is going to be more help than me . If you are really interested in solid post about yourself (or maybe your blogger idol?) give me more info and check my Blogging Idol promotional offers on how you can get free review. :)

So

General stuff, testing waters and I got to write about my cat. Widget is ready for new suggestions – go make yours! :)

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10 Comments

  • TechZoomIn #

    Love your thoughts :)

  • Rarst #

    @Lax Decided to create separate category for such posts. :) btw you had not added Skribit widget after theme change, are you going to use it?

  • Lyndi #

    I think the whole idea is a great one. Getting people to actually leave suggestions is something else though. I used Skribit in the past without any success. After reading this though, I think I will give the widget a try. Thanks for the info.

  • Rarst #

    @Lyndi Yeah, getting suggestion is very tough but I think worth it in long run. Getting comments is just having conversation, getting suggestion means that people acknowledge your authority enough to be curious about your opinion on things. New widget is much better - it can perfectly blend in design. There is also newest side-floating widget (alpha version), I got code for it - may try it later. btw as far as I know there are features planned to make Skribit more networked. People that are not getting enough suggestion on their own would be able to get relevant suggestions from other blogs or something like that. Themed groups to share suggestions are already live but not really working good at moment.

  • Lyndi #

    Sounds great. I activated the plugin but deactivated it again. At present there is no 'no-script' code included. This I do not like. I feel that a user without Javascript should at least be warned that there is something that he/she cannot see. By the way the Entrecard widget has the same problem. When I get some time I will code the necessary stuff for the widget and then re-activate it.

  • Rarst #

    @Lyndi Most of widgets are not using noscript nowadays. I don't consider that very important, what should they write - "Coold widget should be here?" ? :)

  • Lyndi #

    I have re-activated the plugin with the 'no-script' included. A user without Javascript will now have an option of clicking a link to add a suggestion. Now all I need is to convince my readers to leave suggestions. Thanks again for the heads-up.

  • Rarst #

    @Lyndi I've sent one your way to break the ice. :) btw style .skribitSuggestionTitle same as list item of your sidebar - will make it blend better. I'll also mail link to your blog with your noscript mod to Skribit developers. :)

  • Lyndi #

    Thanks

  • Rarst #

    @Lyndi Done. :) Calvin replied that he totally liked that feedback and noscript would be included in next widget release.