Comments on: A Revisit to Jordan Planet

By: Sabbah’s Blog » Blog Archive » JordanPlanet; what next?

Sabbah’s Blog » Blog Archive » JordanPlanet; what next? — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:45:20 +0000

[...] Isam had a nice post regarding the new revisit of JordanPlanet. So this is my comments to his post, which did not make it there, maybe it is too lengthy. Anyway… [...]

By: natasha

natasha — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 09:16:03 +0000

The new Jordan Planet looks really good Isam. I’m proud of you. By the way the article about the Jordanian blogging community that I wrote for JO will appear in March. So we still have some time to perfect it before then;-)

By: Fero

Fero — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:13:16 +0000

Congratulations for the new look, good work Isam.

I have quick comment about the new site, if any visitor can leave his/here comments/feedback then it would be great. Discussion page plus any other interactive areas like vote will be a great addition.

Wish all the JordanPlant bloggers there a nice blogging and hope I can join you soon.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 14:31:45 +0000

Thanks for the shout out Isam. I don’t consider myself a Jordanian blogger — doesn’t seem my place. But I do consider it my home away from home. I’m pleased to have my efforts considered and appreciated. My motives are transparent: I’d love to have the rest of the world see what a competent, intelligent, complex and fascinating place the kingdom really is. I think “The Planet” can do that.

I have two other buttons near finished, one with a flag, the other a variation of the current spinning globe theme (an animated GIF) that’ll surface on Natasha’s blog soon alongside the one there currently (in the Miscellany sidebar section). Keep up the great work!!

By: Nader

Nader — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 14:27:14 +0000

i meant the names of the blogs from the feeds :)

By: Nader

Nader — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 14:25:24 +0000

It’s Great Isam.
I just had this comment since sometime and it’s annoying me.
I don’t think that the separators between are obvious. I sometimes feel as if I’m reading a continuous blog and the names of the blogs do not appear clear.
Maybe you can add some stylish line or enlarge the name of the blog.
Other than that, everything is cool
I always wanted to thank you for your efforts.
Regards

By: Haitham

Haitham — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 12:51:53 +0000

Or the comment was too long it did not make it here!
I’ll post in my blog then and ping this post ;-)

By: Haitham

Haitham — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 12:47:46 +0000

Sorry, you look to be moderating the comments. I realized that later. Maybe you need to mention that on top of the comment box!

By: Haitham

Haitham — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 12:45:54 +0000

The fact that you are using Drupal gives you a powerful tool in hand, yet it all depends on the mission of JP.
For example, if the mission is to keep it as a reblog of Jordanian Bloggers, then I suggest two things:
1. Reduce the Cron job intervals so that it is updated with latest posts as soon as they are published on the original blog.
2. Instead of aggregating the complete post, aggregate only the headlines.

However, as you said, automated aggregator (auto reblog) is not always a good idea, specially when you think of it as warehouse of all what is posted around the Jordanian Blogs. In that case, you can’t do anything but accepting the fact that that’s what the blogger have to say in his blog. On the other hand, moderated reblog is the solution. But then you may lose the interest of some bloggers coz everyone would like to see his posts reblogged in JP.

Therefore, I believe mission has to be first established and published, then everyone will have to just adhere to that fact. I have two examples which might help. My AraBlog reBlog (http://arablog.net) is a one man show, it only reflects what I see appropriate to publish and what not to. On the other hand, Mahmood and I stared building http://BahrainBlogs.com we first formed a founding members who to the initiative to put together the mission and how we see it should be running. Although bahrainBlogs is not an aggregator, however members of that group can post anything there, but only certain posts can make it to the front page, and the rest will just show at the top of the page as a headline which will take them to the full post. So you see we are using a rating system, when the rating reach some level, the post get pushed to the front page.

Having said all this, I think mission should be first stated, then you can take it from there. If the mission is to have it as aggregator, then maybe it should aggregate the headlines only. I would prefer someone reading the full post on my blog rather than at JP, not that I don’t like JP, I love it, but I like my readers to be in my atmosphere and surrounding, yet discover more about the blog.

What else?… I had something more but I forgot now, maybe later :-)

By: Eman-Aqua

Eman-Aqua — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 08:44:08 +0000

Just wanted to thank you for your efforts in improving Jordan Planet, I love the new version, it’s great. My thanks to Haitham, Natasha, Jeff and all the ones who played a role in the improvement :)

I don’t think I can be much of help here but I like the buttons idea, loved Iyas’ thumbnail suggestion and find a discussion page interesting.
As for your definition of Jordan Planet Blogs, I guess I have to disagree with you. To me it doesn’t have to be a mixture of everything to have a personal touch, a blog should reflect the thinking of the blogger and not the interests of the readers. And when reflecting your own ideas, discussing your own opinions, your blog automatically gets its personal touch, and shows us who you really are. It’s true having a bit of everything will give the blog a better shot in increasing the number of visitors, but a blogger’s goal -in my personal opinion- should be reflecting one’s own thinking in what one finds most interesting, not the number of visitors. So if a blogger is mostly interested in tech, let it be, as long as (s)he is providing helpful info.
Anyway, that was my opinion, and again thanks Isam for everything.

By: iyas

iyas — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 08:09:19 +0000

Buttons linking to JP is a great idea and it helps the technologically-challenged, like yours truly, spread the word about this site. Keeping a standard for the hosted blogs is important and I personally agree with your description of the kind of blogs needed on JP. As for pictures, showing them would probably reduce traffic to the original blogs, yet not having them creates a “broken” post or a sense of “huh! something is missing here” which may seem odd for first-time visitors. I am not sure what the solution is but it may lie in showing a small, low-resolution thumbnail instead or writing a disclaimer about the syndication technology; creative web designers may have better and more feasible alternatives. The idea of having a discussion board is acceptable provided it is moderated and does not deal with the content of any certain post. For that, I think the discussion should be restricted to the original host’s blog. Also with the increasing number of JP bloggers, the number of posts per site update is growing. It is still at a manageable limit but it may reach a stage where there is a whole page worth of new stuff every few hours. Just something to take into consideration for the future.
Otherwise, great work Isam! Gracias (bil lahjeh al mahaliyyeh)