John August

Meta

Spring Cleaning results

Follow Up, Meta

spring cleaningI’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction with our first-ever spring cleaning challenge. Readers have spotted issues with roughly one-third of our 1,440 posts, which we’ll be resolving over the next few weeks.

We’ll be keeping the spring cleaning flags available another week or two, but I consider the contest portion complete. More than 40 different users submitted reports. Thanks to all of them.

In the end, our top ten spring cleaners caught 92% of the bugs:

Name Flagged Posts
Lauren Ocean 104
Tyler Leisher 89
Jared 59
Patrick Bowman 45
Peter 43
Ryan Stauffer 39
Matt 34
Chris 15
Mike 10
Shaun McKinnon 8

Lauren Ocean and Tyler Leisher were the top two throughout, pulling far ahead of the pack. They’ll both get Related Schwag Prizes, with Lauren getting first pick.

What people found
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The biggest issue readers encountered was [link rot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot). Many utilities can detect when a link is dead, but it takes human eyes to recognize when a functional link is now pointing somewhere unintended, such as a general catch-all page. This often happens when a domain is sold, or the underlying CMS changes.

In most cases, we’ve simply removed the bad link. Other times, we’ve found a better source for what was there.

A thornier issue was what to do with posts that were out of date. A one-sentence post from 2008 explaining that I was [too sick to picket](http://johnaugust.com/2008/condition-marginal) doesn’t seem have a lot of value. No reader is likely to find that useful on its own. But as part of the larger context of [all my posts about the WGA strike](http://johnaugust.com/strike), it has some historical value. So I’ve kept it.

Some older posts had formatting issues arising from a long-ago change in character encoding. These are the happiest problems, as global search-and-replace can work wonders.

What’s next
—-

Several users wanted the opportunity to rate articles, so that other readers might come across the “greatest hits.” That’s certainly something we’ll try.

It’s also clear that the site’s blogginess can make it harder to find answers to very basic questions, like “How long is a screenplay?” I have some ideas for addressing this Screenwriting 101 material in ways that won’t dumb down the site for normal readers.

Sincere thanks again to everyone who participated in helping polish the site.

Spring cleaning

Hive Mind, Meta

spring cleaningThis site has 1,440 posts, stretching back to 2003. Unlike many blogs, most of these articles are still relevant. The basics of screenwriting haven’t changed much in a decade.

Yet some problems inevitably creep in with age. Links break as external sites vanish. Formatting glitches arise. Graphics get misplaced.

To help fix these issues, we’re doing a few days of Spring Cleaning on the site. And if you have some free time, we’d love your help.

At the bottom of this post is a list of articles that need checking. (It generates a fresh list each time.) Click on an article, read it, and look for mistakes or issues. Repeat as often as you choose.

If you notice any problems (typos, missing graphics, broken links or other mistakes) click on either the “Flag for Spring Cleaning” button at the end of each post or the Send To button. This will send a report to Ryan, who will verify and correct.

Use the "Spring Cleaning" links at the bottom of each post, or in the "Send to" menu.

Once a post is marked “Flagged for Spring Cleaning,” you can’t send additional reports on it until Ryan checks it out.

Yes, private, this is a bug hunt. Twice daily, we’ll be posting results showing who has caught the most mistakes.

Ryan is the final arbiter of who gets credit for what.

**UPDATE:** You can see the leaderboard [here](http://johnaugust.com/spring-cleaning-leaderboard).

We originally had a checkbox marked “Outdated,” but too much was getting flagged. Some posts are old and not exactly actionable (e.g. anything related to the 2008 WGA strike). That’s okay. History counts too. The publication dates are there for a reason.

As with the Scene Challenges, the winner gets public acclaim and bragging rights. But I’ll also happily send the victor his or her choice of movie swag, such as a signed script, DVD or poster.

I’m sure there will be issues we haven’t yet considered. Feel free to ask questions in the comments. Thanks, and happy hunting.

A reminder on comments

Follow Up, Meta

Let me offer a quick refresher on policy and procedure here on the blog.

For most posts, I turn comments on. I enjoy discussion. You’re welcome to express your opinion and disagree. But it’s my house. If you’re being uncivil to me or the other people here, I may warn you, or simply kick you out.

When new users post a comment, the system holds it in moderation until Matt, Ryan or I have a chance to review it. This helps cut down on spammers and scammers.

Far too often, I’ll find something like this in the moderation queue:

> The fact that you deleted my post but kept Synthian’s just shows how you don’t care about rude or downright insulting comments as long as they support your agenda. Anyway, good luck with that, John. Hard times ahead for hacks and studio pets like you.

This charming person’s prior comment wasn’t deleted — it was in the moderation queue right above it. The fact she couldn’t wait *one hour* before going apeshit helps explain why comments are moderated in the first place.

(I don’t leave anything lingering in moderation, by the way. A comment is either approved or trashed.)

There is also an automated spam detection system (Akismet), which will occasionally flag a valid comment as spam — particularly if there are more than two links embedded in it. If your comment hasn’t shown up for 24 hours, send us an email and we’ll check for it.

When necessary, I delete comments. Here’s a guide for making sure your comment doesn’t get deleted:

* Stay pretty much on topic.
* Don’t link to your own sites, except in the URL spot.
* Be polite. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in my living room.

When a comment violates any of these three points, I’ll happily delete it. It’s one click for me. So keep that in mind before you spend 10 minutes writing something that won’t show up.

These are all fairly standard [Living Room Rules](http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/living_room_com.html), but some people seem unfamiliar with them, so I thought it would be better to state them explicitly.

A few other helpful tips:

**Use your real name.** We will take what you’re saying much more seriously if there is an actual name attached. Plus, I want to say, “Hey, I know that person!” when you set up a project at Fox.

**Use an actual email address.** I understand the temptation to use an imaginary email address when filling out a form, but there are at least two reasons not to. First, while the public doesn’t see that address, I do. If it’s clearly fake, I’m less likely to take you seriously. Second, I sometimes need to follow up with readers, and I can’t if I don’t have a valid email address.

**Get a gravatar.** These helpful little icons follow you around from post to post, blog to blog, and help us remember who you are. They are incredibly [easy to set up](http://gravatar.com).

Lastly, if you’re posting a tag-along comment (“Me too!”) on a post that’s months (or years) old, I’m likely to trash it. We keep comments open on old posts because readers sometimes bring new information. Simple agreement isn’t enough to resurrect a dead thread.

Same site, new metal

Geek Alert, Meta

You’re reading this post on the new server Ryan transitioned us to over the weekend. It should be much, much faster.

Nothing in the site has been redesigned yet — that’s still a few weeks away. I wanted to hold off the transition to a new host until we were ready to unveil the revamp, but load times got to be incredibly slow, and the old provider couldn’t provide any explanation or solution.

If you come across anything that got broken in the move (something that worked last week, but doesn’t this week) please leave a note.