Young Writers Society

With the March 2023 Review Day under our belts, March '23 is now well on track to beat March '22 in terms of pageviews. That's huge. For those unaware, the email system broke down last year, and the last full month where it really worked was in March '22. So for YWS to bounce back so strongly is pretty big, and that's due to everyone here.

Really looking forward to a great April, and to checking out all the NaPo threads. If you haven't started yours yet, get on it!

2023 NaPo Information

I'm about to head out, which means I won't be online when Review Day ends. But just wanted to thank everyone who participated! We didn't quite reach the goal, but we did do at least 115 reviews, which is awesome. In addition, there's only 75 works in the Green Room, and only 3 works still left from 2022.

Great job!

Eight reviews in the last 30 minutes!

100 reviews!

We're not going to hit 150 reviews, but it'd be cool if we end this Review Day in a good position to beat March 2022's total of 441 reviews. Right now, March 2023 has 353. Just another 15 reviews would be great.

Just 70 reviews to go!

GET ON IT PEEPS

Eight reviews in just the first hour! Keep it up!

So, the "And the top two reviewers will earn YWS Swag" in the header is actually a mistake, but I'm just going to roll with it.

So, the top two reviewers will earn YWS Swag!

I feel very lucky to live where I do as my normal, routine 6-mile run means I get to run by the US Capitol Building, the Smithsonian, and around the Washington Monument. But on some days, I feel luckier than others.


Cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin with the Washington Monument in the background

Gifted by Tokyo in 1912, the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC reach peak bloom around this time of year. Despite the throngs of people, I highly recommend going to see them if you ever get the chance. It's something else to be able to walk past all these incredible monuments under a canopy of cherry blossoms. This morning, actually drove to the Tidal Basin (the Jefferson Memorial, FDR Memorial, and MLK Jr. Memorial are all located along it) with a couple of friends to do a short run as it would've otherwise been an 8 mile run, which none of us felt much like doing. In between picture taking and navigating the surprisingly large crowd, we went slowly, but it was well worth it.

In terms of pageviews, March '23 has been YWS' most active month since March '22. If activity were to continue like it has over the past week, then March of this year will be more active than March of last year.

I've made a few simple edits to hopefully improve the user experience when accessing YWS via a mobile device. Mainly, when clicking on a text area, the phone should zoom in just enough to match the width of the main content area.

I'm testing this out only on my iPhone, so please let me know how it works on other mobile devices.

Spam

Every day, YWS blocks a minimum of 500 attempted registrations. Some days are worse than others though, and yesterday YWS blocked 1500+. This doesn't even count the spambots that are blocked by Cloudflare before they even get the site.

The primary way spambots are blocked is via Google reCaptcha. That gets about 75% of all attempts, but many still make their way past that. After reCaptcha, the second most effective is a hidden password confirm field in the registration form. When you register, you don't need to confirm your password. But, spambots don't realize that field is hidden and try it anyways. Anyone (anything) that does that is blocked. The third most effective is a hidden website field that does the same thing.

Beyond that, YWS also checks the validity of the email address. This method unfortunately does block a few legitimate registrations every week, but it's unlikely those people would've been able to activate their account anyways. Most of the false positives are school accounts, and nearly all school accounts heavily restrict sources of email.

Last but not least, if the IP address of the registration request has had recent spam activity as listed in stopforumspam.org, then that attempt is blocked.

Despite all this, some occasionally get through! I think these are mostly actual people though who are paid to post spam.

In less than a week, the clock on my oven will finally be correct again.

Back when I was designing the current template of YWS way back in 2011, I was designing it around the idea that tablets would be the main way people would access the Internet. I thought tablets are much more portable than laptops, so people would naturally gravitate to them for any sort of casual activity. And I thought it'd be ridiculous for people to regularly access the Internet on a smartphone because the screen is so tiny. I mean, it's just so much easier to browse stuff on either a desktop or a tablet.

Well, out of 7,000 plus unique users in the past three weeks, just 121 people accessed YWS on a tablet. Honestly, I'm not sure why tablets never took off. I have one, and I like it, but I almost never use it. Instead I'm like the rest of y'all and use either a smartphone or my laptop for accessing YWS. I guess the problem with tablets is that they're portable, but also kind of heavy. Of course they're lighter than a laptop, but a laptop you can place in your lap. A tablet has to be held (mine is actually a Surface Go, so it comes with a kickstand, but that kickstand can hurt if placed on the lap for too long).

Eventually, I'll probably redesign YWS to be more mobile friendly, but that's dependent on a number of factors, and the thought of re-doing all the template files scares me.

YWS is currently running 25 reviews behind February. So, we need to catch up!

I haven't done any reviews yet this month, but I will do at least one today.