Changes to Plagiarism Today

By Jonathan Bailey • Feb 29th, 2008 • Category: Articles, Housekeeping

It’s been a somewhat slow week here and I’m sorry for that, personal issues have kept me away during my usual writing time in the mornings. However, today I took some time to make some much-needed tweaks to the site, many of which were recommended by my friend Lorelle from Lorelle on WordPress.

A short list of changes include:

  • Added comment count to all “Read More” links on the home page.
  • Re-Added MyBlogLog on all pages save the home page.
  • Re-Added my Twitter to all pages.
  • Added arrows to items in the top bar that produce a drop down.
  • Removed the full category list (was not being widely used).

The result should be a much cleaner and easier to use site. The Twitter and MBL additions are on a trial basis only though, so if you use those services, add me and let me know so I’ll keep them around this time.

Please let me know what you think about these changes and feel free to make any suggestions you have. More tweaks will probably be coming in the next few weeks.

Short URL to this Post: http://copybyte.com/z/1n

Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
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  • Sue & Lorelle: See the latest post, Twitter & MyBlogLog are both gone.

    Thank you both for your feedback and suggestions!
  • Actually, removing the social bookmarking clutter is ALWAYS top of my list of things to get off your blog. It doesn't help as those who are into social bookmarking always bring their own. So it's embarrassing when you both show up for the party wearing the same dress. :D

    As for incorporating MyBlogLog, if you are going to do that, remember, it pulls a heavy load on your page loading, but shove it towards the bottom. It really isn't important unless it's your picture in the box. If it ain't your picture, no one cares.

    The issue with Twitter someone mentioned is also important. Unless EVERY word in the tweets is blog content and reputation specific, it's clutter. The 500 watt light bulb is clutter. An article or note about plagiarism is definitely appropriate. Never give a visitor or a reason to think "WTF is that doing here?" because they will leave and dismiss what you have to say.

    Good on the rest of the changes and the look. It's really coming together. Takes a while, though, doesn't it. People always think that web design and Theme tweaking is a 10 minute job. HA! It's looking better and better all the time, my friend.
  • Oooh, I like the arrows. Much better. And way more intuitive.

    I looked at the orignal (Vs) in Firefox on Windows.

    About Twitter. I know a lot of people use it, and the new style minus Flash looks a lot more newsy. Almost like asides. I could live with that one. If only more people would go that way.

    And although it may be a blog/reference hybrid, this is still THE place to go for copyright and plagiarism help. Which is why you're bookmarked under "References" in my list. :)
  • Sue: Thank you very much for the feedback! Greatly appreciated!

    I tend to look at this site as something of a hybrid with both blog and reference site elements. I admit my reluctance to posting the MBL widget (why it is only one some pages as I don't think MBL has really helped this site. Still, I wanted to give it a one-week trial.

    Twitter is a bit more difficult. I have actually leveraged it somewhat successfully in the past but have converted the widget to text only, away from Flash, so that it is less distracting. Once again, it is a trial basis.

    The arrows are going to be a challenge. It seems to be a font issue. I did the initial work on my Windows comp using FireFox and it looked fine. On my Mac with Safari, they did look like V's. I've changed the character used but I am limited in what I can do, let me know what you think of the new arrows.

    The value of the comment count is, hopefully, to encourage more comments. It worked well on the old theme but we'll see if it translates to success here as well, if not I'll get rid of it.

    Everything is an experiment and that's why your input is so valuable!
  • Well, I just have to chime in on this one. I think of this site as more a reference site, not a blog. And too many bloggy widgets in the sidebar do not appeal to me, even if they're only on individual pages. Sorry, but a thumbs down from me on those two changes (MyBlogLog and Twitter). And I'm not sure of the value of comment count under the read more links, but it's just my opinion.
    Removing the full category list is good. I always thought of it as just sidebar clutter.
    I like the drop down arrows, but it just looks like a v. Not necessarily intuitive.
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