wild thoughts: my experience on the NDP moblog
Intro | have the objectives of the NDP blog-for-a-cause been met? |
technical and support issues | what Real Bloggers think about the NDP blog

I've detailed these in the hope that the engine could be improved for future blogging events. Many of these comments had already been conveyed to the organisers, but eventually I was told there would be no changes to the blog engine during the blogging period. So I just gave up and compiled them here for record.

Better navigation for readers:
To encourage readers to visit the blogs, there should be better navigation.

Navigation bars on the BOTTOM of the page is more intuitive. Having it only on the top means people have to scroll ALL the way up. Worse, they may not realise that there are more pages in the blog.

Summaries for ALL entries should be available some place so people don't have to scroll from page to page, and can go directly to entries of interest.

Ability to link to blog entries from existing blog entries, both in our own blog and other bloggers. This makes for a richer reading experience. Currently NOT possible at all. Fortunately, I had set up a web version of my blog so I was able to do this at least for my own entries.

MMS uploads: it should be possible to upload them into folders or "categorise" them into a series, so readers can start with the first upload for the series instead of reading the last one first. This will also allow bloggers to "lead up" to a Big Finale. If readers see the latest entry first, the punchline is often lost.

The feedback@contentcraft.com.sg email address on the NDP moblog site bounced back in the last few weeks of the blogging period. I've tried to send test messages but don't get any reply. So I'm not sure if it is working, or if it is, whether there is a human being at the other end of the address.

Ironically, readers were told "In the spirit of progress...there will be room for improvement, so please do feedback to us via email on both the technology and the policies of this service." But readers couldn't send feedback.

Btw, the feedback channel on the main NDP website was closed down after National Day and visitors were directed as follows..."Although our formal feedback channel is closed, we're still around in the MoBlog section of our website. If you would like to contact us informally, why not drop us a line there?" Thus the failure of the feedback@contentcraft.com.sg email address also affects feedback on the NDP website.

Better navigation for bloggers:
The last MMS upload should be listed first. I ended up with nearly 900 MMS uploads and I had to scroll all the way from MSS upload #1 to upload #900 EVERYTIME I updated the uploads, which was EVERY DAY....aargh. On dialup, I can almost commit suicide.

As the blog developed, it became nearly impossible to track down the new comments amongst the hundreds of blog entries. The only usefulness of the blog-for-a-cause counter to me was that it told me I how many new comments I should seek out. But I didn't know WHERE these new comments were.

Other annoyances:
The url for the moblog was a set of numbers long after it went live. And when it was changed, bloggers were not informed until we panicked when we failed to get into the blog engine. The urls for our individual blogs never became something simple that we could pass on easily to friends; the long url often got truncated in emails, so that the link led to the main page and not to the blogger's page.

The ability to "jazz up" entries with colour and photos is severely limited unless bloggers are willing to learn and use the html function. This results in dull and boring entries which hardly encourages visitors or bloggers alike.

The Logged In Status window that pops up VERY regularly is annoying and at times has hung my computer. It pops up even when I am typing comments and updating the blog...surely at this point it's VERY obvious that I'm logged on? Is it really necessary to have it?

Although I submitted mss downloads to offer to the public well before "go-live", these were never posted on the NDP blog site even up to today. If this was the case, the panel of "downloads from bloggers" should have been disabled. Otherwise it looks as if we had offered nothing. Since I had already gone through the trouble of preparing these, I simply offered them free on my website version of the blog.

Better support for bloggers:
Moderators should keep bloggers informed of key technical and procedural changes BEFORE these happen. I feel this is not only basic courtesy to bloggers, but also necessary for bloggers who take their responsiblities seriously to adjust their content and workflow accordingly.

If there are going to be changes to the blog engine or if the blog engine is going to be down for any reason, it should be common courtesy to inform users well ahead of time. This avoids the panic arising from blogs unexpectedly being unavailable, entries and categories disappearing, etc. It is not really satisfactory for explanations to be given only AFTER bloggers panic.

Although BG Chin, Chairman EXCO NDP 04 said on the NDP website "the online community we have painstakingly fostered the last few months is too precious to shut down", bloggers were not kept informed of the very basic information such as when the blog would actually go live, and when will it end. I often only obtained these specifics after I initiated repeated emails and sms messages. I was misinformed about the golive period twice, and to this day I have not been told directly and in detail about the plans for the blog after 31 Aug.

If bloggers are not treated seriously, is it fair to expect bloggers to treat their NDP blogs seriously?

While I remain honoured to be have been invited to moblog for the NDP site, and it has been a useful platform for our work, it has involved a great deal more effort than I earlier expected. The technical issues made the process unnecessarily difficult and very painful at times.

(written 30 Aug 04)