Hi Andrea – I noticed that links to Prompt 7 and Prompt 8 are not on the main page which may be hard for any children who are following the contest. (I also moved the picture of the “Sparkly Snowflakes” up to the top of the page so that it is easy to find).. Fun prompt in a fun challenge. Thanks again for a nice idea! 🙂
Pearl, it’s because I wanted to have hits on our blog. I think that this explains why other websites/blogs want writers to write directly on their websites/ blogs. Only on our blog I wanted the poets to be in control in case they want to publish their work somewhere else some day. Here you can delete your poems when the challenge is over. You are in full control of your room – and that’s why I wanted the rooms created. I wanted the poets to be in complete control – because I, too, don’t like the feeling of writing directly on other people’s websites having no control whatsoever.
But Pearl, if our poets only respond to their email notifications, well, then we don’t get any hits. And that’s what happened.
Anyway you have a good point. It’s important that the children can see the prompts. So I guess that Ina and I must find other ways to get hits. But of course I had hoped my work had given us hits so if you or anyone else can come up with some good ideas, I’d like to hear them – because I like to give you, the teams, full control of their work.
Hi- I am completely confused. My comment referred to the fact that Prompts 1, 2, 3, 4,5, &6 appeared with a link below them on the opening page. I think this challenge has been both adorable and enjoyable. As far as hits go – I know that I have been posting AS EXPLAINED BY ANDREA AND INA in the original instructions on the NOTICE BOARD as well as on the blog I created for my young team-mates.
I thought that others were commenting on the NOTICE BOARD as we were instructed. Is that no longer happening? Mhmmm. Again – I did not mean my comments to in any way disparage either the lovely challenge or to limit hits to InOurBooks.com (doesn’t the blog get hits when the teams open the blog to get to the prompts? – hits are not my area of expertise).
Anyhow, my comment meant to reflect a change in the way the prompts were appearing from the beginning of the challenge – I know my team-mates have been delighted with the interaction and seeing their poems and the poems of others ON THE NOTICE BOARD.
Have a great evening and looking forward to more prompts and poems!
Hi Pearl, ina here again. I apologize if this is a repeat comment. The notice board is still the place for people to post poems.
The reason Andrea switched to putting prompts in the comments is because some people get email notifications that a prompt has been posted; the notification includes the prompt. If those people go directly to the notice board, then the blog doesn’t register hits/a visitor. With the prompt in the comment, people have to stop in at the blog part of this website. The blog machinery then “counts” that person as having visited the blog. That lets us know how many people the prompt has been accessed by (there are people using the prompts who aren’t in the challenge for example).
This all started because while this all looks like one entity, the notice board is actually separate from the blog. I’m trying to fix it right now so that the hits to the notice board get counted, but I’m no hacker so it’s a bit like wrestling a large and slippery butter covered bear 😀 In the meantime, I hope it won’t be too hard for your beautiful cowriters to access the prompts (I know my phone which is a droid doesn’t register the comments either. ARGH).
I’ve been tossing around ideas for how this could be run so that you would get comments and more hits and while it’s a bit late to try this now, if you do this again, I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth trying something similar to what Brenda Warren does with the Sunday Whirl – using Mister Linky for people to post a link to the exact post on their blog (not just the blog but the individual post each time, which you get easily and can be explained if you decided to go this way) and, every week (but it could be oftener I think) there is a place to add comments on her page – where some people also put the link to their blog as well but which definitely increases traffic to her site.
Another good example of this working is dVerse.com – they are also using the Mr.Linky system and comments on their main page and they use various “authors” of the page throughout the week so the comments pertain to each topic and/or author … It’s just a suggestion but maybe worth checking out for future reference. Oh – I know what I wanted to mention … for anyone without a blog – most people who run these sites allow the poem to be published in the comments section I believe (eliminating the need for those particular poets to use Mr.Linky) the rest tend to like the system as it encourages people to visit their blogs and also to visit others’ sites and do commenting – a win-win situation.
Hi Sharon – Thank you so much for this comment – it brought something to the fore I’d been wondering about, namely Mr. Linky. I’d thought about using Mr. Linky because it doesn’t have the problem with hits. I was reading Wordgathering and this exact conversation came up because of a post Margo has that discusses Mr. Linky and how well it works for Wordles. The discussion sounded like:
Yay! We get links to our blogs, more traffic, less muss, less fuss!
Boo!: Less discussion, especially multi-person discussion, more isolating.
I added to the pros and cons a request Andrea had, which is that she wanted people to have control over what they posted e.g. if you decide you want to replace your poem with a newer one you could do it; for people posting in the comments (because they don’t have blogs), that would not be possible.
So I decided against it, but now I’m wondering if that was a mistake.
I’m curious – do other readers have thoughts about Mr.Linky? Because if the pros outweigh the cons, I think we should consider it for future challenges…Hm. I think a poll for the audience may be in order 🙂
Oh my… thanks Ina, for the clarification. I am so sorry if I caused any ruckus – I was just wondering about the change …. Actually my “grand girls” (as I’d like you to refer to them rather than granddaughters for slightly complicated reasons) are negotiating the site just fine and if not that’s what the grown-up is here for – so no worries on my end. I am truly sorry if I gave either you or Andrea that I was complaining about anything or trying to minimize the hits to your blog. Again, I think this was and is a lovely idea – and the girls are having a wonderful time. I can a write a book (maybe not a good one!) in the time it would take me to figure out how to create a challenge such as this. I think you’ve done an extraordinary job and again – apologies if I ruffled any feathers on this beautiful bird in flight of the InOurBooks – Brighter Light challenge! 🙂
Thanks Ina – in terms of Mr Linky vs open posting – how about following Wordles format where Mr Linky is used AND a comments section where poems could be posted and most importantly the option for multi-person discussion would be available. In this way you don’t have to decide – poets can have both options.
🙂
in our books 
We’re on Long Island. We are with the Sparkly Snowflakes.
Go to: http://sparklysnowflakes.blogspot.dk/2012/12/welcome-to-sparkly-snowflakes.html
Scroll down and I find this wonderful picture of the 3 Snowflakes sitting in front of a fireplace.
Now, write a poem about hair, too much or too little, combing or not, washing – hair!
Hi Andrea – I noticed that links to Prompt 7 and Prompt 8 are not on the main page which may be hard for any children who are following the contest. (I also moved the picture of the “Sparkly Snowflakes” up to the top of the page so that it is easy to find).. Fun prompt in a fun challenge. Thanks again for a nice idea! 🙂
Pearl, it’s because I wanted to have hits on our blog. I think that this explains why other websites/blogs want writers to write directly on their websites/ blogs. Only on our blog I wanted the poets to be in control in case they want to publish their work somewhere else some day. Here you can delete your poems when the challenge is over. You are in full control of your room – and that’s why I wanted the rooms created. I wanted the poets to be in complete control – because I, too, don’t like the feeling of writing directly on other people’s websites having no control whatsoever.
But Pearl, if our poets only respond to their email notifications, well, then we don’t get any hits. And that’s what happened.
Anyway you have a good point. It’s important that the children can see the prompts. So I guess that Ina and I must find other ways to get hits. But of course I had hoped my work had given us hits so if you or anyone else can come up with some good ideas, I’d like to hear them – because I like to give you, the teams, full control of their work.
Good discussion. I wish I had a good idea but I am clueless.
Hi- I am completely confused. My comment referred to the fact that Prompts 1, 2, 3, 4,5, &6 appeared with a link below them on the opening page. I think this challenge has been both adorable and enjoyable. As far as hits go – I know that I have been posting AS EXPLAINED BY ANDREA AND INA in the original instructions on the NOTICE BOARD as well as on the blog I created for my young team-mates.
I thought that others were commenting on the NOTICE BOARD as we were instructed. Is that no longer happening? Mhmmm. Again – I did not mean my comments to in any way disparage either the lovely challenge or to limit hits to InOurBooks.com (doesn’t the blog get hits when the teams open the blog to get to the prompts? – hits are not my area of expertise).
Anyhow, my comment meant to reflect a change in the way the prompts were appearing from the beginning of the challenge – I know my team-mates have been delighted with the interaction and seeing their poems and the poems of others ON THE NOTICE BOARD.
Have a great evening and looking forward to more prompts and poems!
Hi Pearl, ina here again. I apologize if this is a repeat comment. The notice board is still the place for people to post poems.
The reason Andrea switched to putting prompts in the comments is because some people get email notifications that a prompt has been posted; the notification includes the prompt. If those people go directly to the notice board, then the blog doesn’t register hits/a visitor. With the prompt in the comment, people have to stop in at the blog part of this website. The blog machinery then “counts” that person as having visited the blog. That lets us know how many people the prompt has been accessed by (there are people using the prompts who aren’t in the challenge for example).
This all started because while this all looks like one entity, the notice board is actually separate from the blog. I’m trying to fix it right now so that the hits to the notice board get counted, but I’m no hacker so it’s a bit like wrestling a large and slippery butter covered bear 😀 In the meantime, I hope it won’t be too hard for your beautiful cowriters to access the prompts (I know my phone which is a droid doesn’t register the comments either. ARGH).
I’ve been tossing around ideas for how this could be run so that you would get comments and more hits and while it’s a bit late to try this now, if you do this again, I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth trying something similar to what Brenda Warren does with the Sunday Whirl – using Mister Linky for people to post a link to the exact post on their blog (not just the blog but the individual post each time, which you get easily and can be explained if you decided to go this way) and, every week (but it could be oftener I think) there is a place to add comments on her page – where some people also put the link to their blog as well but which definitely increases traffic to her site.
Another good example of this working is dVerse.com – they are also using the Mr.Linky system and comments on their main page and they use various “authors” of the page throughout the week so the comments pertain to each topic and/or author … It’s just a suggestion but maybe worth checking out for future reference. Oh – I know what I wanted to mention … for anyone without a blog – most people who run these sites allow the poem to be published in the comments section I believe (eliminating the need for those particular poets to use Mr.Linky) the rest tend to like the system as it encourages people to visit their blogs and also to visit others’ sites and do commenting – a win-win situation.
Thank you Sharon! Sounds like a good idea and that’s easy for me to say because Ina does all the technical work. Anyway it looks good.
Hi Sharon – Thank you so much for this comment – it brought something to the fore I’d been wondering about, namely Mr. Linky. I’d thought about using Mr. Linky because it doesn’t have the problem with hits. I was reading Wordgathering and this exact conversation came up because of a post Margo has that discusses Mr. Linky and how well it works for Wordles. The discussion sounded like:
Yay! We get links to our blogs, more traffic, less muss, less fuss!
Boo!: Less discussion, especially multi-person discussion, more isolating.
I added to the pros and cons a request Andrea had, which is that she wanted people to have control over what they posted e.g. if you decide you want to replace your poem with a newer one you could do it; for people posting in the comments (because they don’t have blogs), that would not be possible.
So I decided against it, but now I’m wondering if that was a mistake.
I’m curious – do other readers have thoughts about Mr.Linky? Because if the pros outweigh the cons, I think we should consider it for future challenges…Hm. I think a poll for the audience may be in order 🙂
Oh my… thanks Ina, for the clarification. I am so sorry if I caused any ruckus – I was just wondering about the change …. Actually my “grand girls” (as I’d like you to refer to them rather than granddaughters for slightly complicated reasons) are negotiating the site just fine and if not that’s what the grown-up is here for – so no worries on my end. I am truly sorry if I gave either you or Andrea that I was complaining about anything or trying to minimize the hits to your blog. Again, I think this was and is a lovely idea – and the girls are having a wonderful time. I can a write a book (maybe not a good one!) in the time it would take me to figure out how to create a challenge such as this. I think you’ve done an extraordinary job and again – apologies if I ruffled any feathers on this beautiful bird in flight of the InOurBooks – Brighter Light challenge! 🙂
Hi Pearl, I’ve changed this to “grand girls” as you’ve requested!
Thanks Ina – in terms of Mr Linky vs open posting – how about following Wordles format where Mr Linky is used AND a comments section where poems could be posted and most importantly the option for multi-person discussion would be available. In this way you don’t have to decide – poets can have both options.
🙂