The NEW youngwritersproject.org

We want your ideas!

What do you think will make this site, youngwritersproject.org, a better, deeper experience for you?
 

This is a wiki. That means any of you can edit this and add your ideas right in this ONE document.  Use the comment section to argue about the merits or demerits of the ideas being presented.

CONTEXT: Young Writers Project is one of 300 selected (out of 1,642 from around the world) for second round of Knight News Challenge. If YWP won this, it would be huge.   A  version of the proposal is attached that outlines our strategy for a major revamp of youngwritersproject.org and much of what we do around, for, with, related to this site. Your input is needed for final proposal. Your involvement should we get the grant will be vital.

So build on this wiki to help us with the grant. And also understand that we will be making changes regardless of whether we get this grant, so this wiki is important.

If you'd rather, you can also join the YWP facebook group: http://tinyurl.com/4ppn6ve

We've set up some categories below, but feel free to add your own or move things around. Try not to delete other folks' ideas. AND PLEASE put your username on your material so we can follow up with any questions.

PURPOSE

• Site originally designed to a) submit work for newspaper series and b) share other work. Purposes now? ....
• How to make writing cool?
• How to bring in others who may not initially be interested in "writing"

NITPICKING

Always good to get these out of the way. What really annoys you about the way the site works right now. Things you think don't work right or don't work the way they should.

• Word seems to send the site bonkers; fix integration of Word
• Photo galleries seem a bit klunky
• Make it easier to embed other applications
• Why do I keep getting bounced off the site when I hit a link?
• Hard to find stuff.
• You have to scroll down a lot.
• Occasionally, pages don't load all the way. (Ironically, when I came to the wiki to comment on this fact, it didn't load - perfect opportunity for an example. http://grab.by/8tIP Note: For some reason this seems to happen extraordinarily often around blog 2579.)

WISH LIST

Here's the positive side of nitpicking -- what do you WISH you could do on this site?

• Wish there was an easier way to upload photos to gallery
• Smart phone app?
• Record directly to blog
• "Private" blogs
• Easier way to submit to Newspaper Series
• Sort by genre
• Way to see "best" stuff
• 'Views' count
• 'Most visited' section, perhaps a selection of ten, organised by view count
• 'Random post' button, similar to Wikipedia's 'Random article'
• Default text box style in profile - WYSIWYG or straight-up HTML options

DESIGN

• Time to enter the 21st century in terms of look
• Too much clutter

MULTIMEDIA

•  Instructions on how to use other apps and embed here
• Way to create ezine of work?

CONNECTIVITY to other applications (facebook, etc.)

• Some things I write I don't want associated with my real name, so I don't like any connection with Facebook. Is there a way to make some posts private?
• Wish there was a way to connect to other kids in other parts of the world through this site.
• Wish I could get more feedback, mentoring.

PRIVACY

• As mentioned above, I wish there was a way I could make some posts visible only to certain friends on the site. Is there a way to have varying degrees of privacy on individual posts?
• Google still connects my name with my username from Newspaper posts a long time ago. Is there a way to fix that?
• Conundrum: If YWP highlights material chosen for Newspaper Series or Anthology, people can figure out username. (So, dissociate username with real name.)

NAVIGATION/ORGANIZATION

• Hard to find material that is good. A lot of angsty stuff.
• Too much material to read... What about organizing it by genre?
• Search needs improvement. Hard to find things. 
• Hrd to find material by specific user.