Young Writers Society

A lot is going on recently, so rather than make a post every time I change something on YWS, I'm just going to group it all together in a weekly update post on Tuesdays. Why Tuesday? Because most of what I do is done over the weekend and Mondays I get quite busy.

So what is new for the week of January 15 to 22, 2008? Lots...

Graphical Changes:

- New top header with scissors, pencil, and junk on the default template. Saw it on another site, thought it looked cool and so decided to do the same thing here.

- Your profile pictures are now slanted and have a reflection instead of the glossy effect.


Loopholes Closed:

It's long been known that there are loopholes in some of the things we do at YWS to encourage reviews. They were never badly exploited, and almost never purposefully exploited, but they nonetheless had a distorting effect. Thus....

- No points are given for posting a reply to your own work
- No reviews are given for posting a reply to your own work
- No reviews are given for posting your work

Previously, every time you posted a story, your review count went up by one. Then every time you wrote a reply to that story, your review count went up by one & you got points. Those loopholes are closed.

Note that this is not backwards. I could go through and apply the changes to everyone's review count, but I imagine that would just anger a lot of people & confuse others. So it only applies from this point forward.


YWS Publishing Projects:

- Squills editorial control is currently in the hands of Suzanne, and it may indeed stay there. I'm still handling the design and layout, but if you're interesting in writing an article for Squills, contact Suzanne.

- The YWS Journal is coming along very nicely, if a lot behind schedule. It'll be out before the end of February, though, and I promise you that you are going to love it. I gave half of the stories/poems to Meshugenah to review, and she couldn't believe the quality of the work. So if you don't believe me when I say that the quality is going to surprise you, then believe Meshugenah!


Removals:

- Quick Links: Was redundant and got in the way. All the links, save Suduko, have been moved to the header.

- Suduko & Chess: In the process of removal. I really only like to do things if I can do it right, and neither were done right, especially in the case of Chess. If you liked these two, my apologies. However, I know that http:///www.washingtonpost.com has a great Suduko puzzle every day, and Yahoo Chess is excellent. In fact, if you like Chess, then start a Chess club on YWS & run tournaments on Yahoo. I'm surprised there isn't a Chess club already.


Review of Recent Policy Changes:

- 150 points to post stories/poems: This appears to be working, and working well. I think a large number of people haven't been affected by the change, and it's reduced spam stories/poems while drastically increasing reviews.


January Stat To Note:

- YWS reached 10,000 posts thus far for January yesterday; far earlier than it ever has before. It should finish the month with between 14,000 and 15,000 posts, or at least 2,000 posts higher than the current record holder (November '07 with 11,800 posts). That number is almost double the posts made in January last year.

Hurray Nate. This is late but thanks for all your super hard work and I can't wait to see the Journal. I know it's going to be splendiferic!