Re: The Inception of the Edge

Posted by Orinoco, 2011-10-07 14:18 BST

I'm a little bit more confused now,

I'm approaching this project from two angles: as a developer & as a user. When I talk about this site I'm obviously not distinguishing which point of view I am coming from.

When I said I want to replace rec.juggling for myself on a personal level I was speaking as a user. I mean I want to wake up in the morning & instead of thinking, "I must check rec.juggling" I want to think, "I must check the Edge". I don't like using rec.juggling anymore & I get very little value out of it. I use it because it is what I have always used & there are no viable alternatives. I am ready to jump ship. I don't think I'm alone in this. But there are no other ships that I want to jump to. No one else has stepped forward (although the recent announcement of a new IJA site sounds promising) so I'm giving it a go.

I'm speaking as a developer when I say that I understand that other people like yourself still do get value out of rec.juggling. I would be delighted if I could replace rec.juggling for you on a personal level, but I am not going to be badgering Colin to shut down the IJDb portal to do so. I want to attract users by being better than the competition, not by removing the competition. Hence the succession comment. Still speaking as a developer I don't see the point in creating a carbon copy of rec.juggling, that's just not going to work. Which is why I am tying something different.

I am a very abnormal user - I'm on dial-up (yes, seriously) I browse with images, plugins & javascript off, my browser is set up with shortcuts that allow me to enable these features when I want them. On this site I have embedded videos & images turned off, I find writing html & css simple, & I can follow small talk very easily without aids (which are coming I promise!). I think I am pretty much the polar opposite of most web users today which may explain some of my more conflicting statements! This is why I have invited you normal users to help me along.

So to address your idea of 'Medium Talk', the topics you suggest (festival announcements and reviews, prop reviews, show announcements) I would put in small talk - which yes at the moment could get lost, but as other sections come online I want to provide the user with a way to link these conversations to the festival/show/manufacturer/whatever listing. These conversations will then be easily accessed from the listing it is attached to.

I note there are currently 16 upcoming festivals/workshops in the events database coming up in the next month, only one of which has been announced on rec.juggling & on headliner this has disappeared to page 3 with no replies. Very few people are discussing events on rec.juggling either & that's what I'm concerned about.

I've previously said to LP that my only qualification I have for this job is that I'm willing to give it a go. I've never done anything of this (potential) scale before & I am working things out as I go along. Every page is hand coded in notepad using references from a teach yourself PHP book published in 2000 & frequent Googling. I think the code side of things is going pretty well, but my ability to communicate what I'm doing is obviously lacking. Already I feel that I'm spending too much time talking & not enough time coding! Perhaps I'm not keeping enough of a distance? Have I made a mistake in inviting people to take a look so early? Should I have waited until I had a more complete package to show people? Do you feel that I am wasting your time? I really hope that you'll stick with me on this, there is still much more to offer.