I decided last Thursday to take some time off from my About.com site (and clearly I still am…) because I was tired of HTML editors, didn’t want to talk CSS, wasn’t interested in updating old pages, wanted to finish a project for my art class, and was upset about a change in pay and how they tried to spin it to make it sound like it was chocolate-coated bad news. (It’s not really that bad of news, it’s just annoying how staff feels the need to spin things. Just be honest with us, most of us are grown ups, we can take it without the chocolate coating.)

Anyway…

So I arrived at my desk this morning chipper and eager to get back to work, or at least not as burnt out, and found:

• 11 CW articles I have to edit and post
• 49 (or more) HTML editors to review
• 4 show and tell articles to edit and post
• 8 long user reviews to edit and post
• 64 broken links
• 61 unread emails
• 1 newsletter to write
• 1 article to write
• unknown numbers of old articles I need to update and redirect with a redirect tool that is broken until later this week

At least with the last one I know I can’t do it because the tool is broken.

What I want to work on: 1 article

What I need to work on: 1 newsletter

What I feel guilty if I don’t work on: 11 CW articles

What I would like to finish: 49 HTML editor reviews

What helps the site if I do: 12 user generated content files (show and tell articles and long user reviews) and fixing broken links and answering email

I guess that clarifies things for me. First I’ll please myself, then do what I need to do, then appease my guilt, then if there’s time do the editors, UGC, and site management.

Wow, I should write a whiny post every time I feel overwhelmed!

I got an email today asking if there were an easier way to take my online class because when she clicked on a link that she thought was the next step, she was taken somewhere else.

I really don’t know what to tell these people.

It isn’t that hard, people!

Of course, it IS that hard if you need someone holding your hand the entire way. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that, step 3 go here, step 4 go there, poof, you’re a web designer!

I like teaching beginners. I really do. But I don’t like teaching lazy people who can’t be bothered to read or follow instructions.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I wrote to her telling her to go to the syllabus for the week and follow the links from there, going back to that page when she’d finished an article.

Her reply:

“That is what I did but could not get back. I saw a lot of links to other
websites. I was reading lesson 1 and it said to type in HTML and I do
not know how to do that yet so I think I registered for the wrong class.
I thought I was registering for the html class but I think it is the
wrong one. “

OH MY GOD! You couldn’t get back? See that fancy button in the upper left of your browser window? That’s the (wait for it) BACK button. Try clicking that. I’ll wait… Or, if that doesn’t work, try going back to the email where you first got the link. Oh, you deleted that already? How the FUCK can I help you then?

I just wrote her again with step-by-fucking-step instructions for how to find the lessons, how to stay on them, how to avoid clicking anything other than what’s on the syllabus. Unfortunately, I can’t fucking control her mouse to stop her from clicking on anything shiny that she sees while she’s not reading the lesson.

Holy fuck woman.

Okay, after calming down a bit I took a look at the articles. I think she’s getting hung up in one of the Notepad articles that says “write your HTML here” and since she hasn’t learned HTML, she’s thinking “but I don’t know HTML” and getting frustrated. I honestly don’t know, as of course, she can’t even make that much clear in her communication to me. So I added a note in that article saying “if you are in the HTML class, don’t worry about writing HTML here, just type a few words and move to the next step.” Or something like that.

Honestly, I think that what is rocket science is writing a course that is easy enough for the people who need their hands held but not so easy that the more adventurous learners aren’t bored to tears and walk away.

I did it! I got my link checker to zero. Or as the tool says “empty container”.

Woo-Hoo! Linkchecker at Zero

Now I suppose I have to go back to writing actual articles! Of course, I also need to finish cleaning up the HTML Tag Library and I should work on updating the CSS Style Properties Library. Those are tedious jobs too.

But for now, I’m just going to bask in the delightful glow of zero broken links. (Until the checker runs again.) Yee-Haw!

One of the reasons I struggle with writing a blog, is the idea of audience. When I write in my personal journal, I know that my audience is me. (Except in the unlikely scenario where Mark picks it up and reads it – luckily I’m very boring…) The challenge with a blog, no matter how much I know that my audience is really just me, myself and I (and, yes, we can be a narcissistic bunch), there is the idea that maybe, possibly, in some outer realm of probability someone else is reading this stuff.

So I find myself censoring. “What if my dentist reads this?” I think, and erase the snarky comment about dental drills. “What if I need to get a job in the coffee industry” and out goes the aside about Starbucks.

It got even scarier on the days leading up to Tuesday this week, because that was the day I was presenting my layout/design to the class. Yes, it was going to be on an overhead projector with very little visible (the projector isn’t big like my iMac…). But what if someone actually read what I wrote in the three minutes it was up on the screen?

And then of course, in the days leading up to the presentation, I sent the URL out to several of my friends, relatives, and colleagues. Luckily, most of them are too busy to come back after the initial “follow Jenn’s link so she won’t be mad at me” impulse.

But ultimately it comes down to this. For me, writing this blog is a personal exercise. It’s just that putting it on the Web makes me hope that someone is reading it, someone is finding it not boring, some one is (dare I ask it?) laughing at my jokes.

I’m trying not to care about whether anyone other than the three of us are reading it. I’m pretty sure Mark never opens it, and he’s the only one I would think might. But I don’t write about PC games or Windows hardware, so he’s not likely to arrive.

The best thing about writing for myself, is that I don’t get mad when I don’t post a new picture or excerpt for a while. I just post when I feel like it.

I have a form on my site asking for people to define what they feel a webmaster is. It asks:

“Share your thoughts. What is a webmaster?”

And I received this reply:

“Title: Webmaster description…OMG                
I just read several responses to what others opinion are regarding what a webmaster is and quite frankly, the grammar, spelling, and English are deplorable. If one cannot master the fundamentals of communication, then the game is over. Webmasters will become specialized because of their skills and not because of a simple desire and a minimal education. How would like to go to a dentist who was self taught and just got by in school? Ouch………..”

I am not going to post it, because it doesn’t answer the question, but it does prompt me to ask the author:

1. Do you really equate building Web pages with dentistry? You’re right, I wouldn’t want to go to a self-taught dentist, but a Webmaster isn’t going to inflict actual pain on me if they do something wrong.
2. Has it occurred to you that perhaps the people whose grammar and spelling you are deploring are actually non-English speakers? Just because they are learning Web design from an English-language website doesn’t mean that they can’t make completely accurate websites in their native tongue.
3. And finally, what does it say about you personally that you feel that a slam on random strangers is a legitimate answer to a completely different question. I asked you to define what a Webmaster is, not what it isn’t or what your opinion is of the other people writing. I could ask you if you are capable of reading and make comments about communication in your favor as well. But I won’t, much…

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that people just feel the need to rant and rave in any forum. But honestly, keep your vitriol out of my living room. If you feel the need to get out your shiny metal grammar police badge, I feel the need to walk away. Go police some other site.

Which brings me to one other thing. Spammers. Who the heck knows how they think really? And yes, I know that it’s all automated. But MAN, why would they think that if one spammy message hawking their enlarging wares got blocked, that 100 more would magically get through. I know, I know, they just set up their spam fire hose and aim it at the universe, and since they’re spewing out such a huge amount of spiced pork, some of it has to stick somewhere. I do feel badly for the false positives, however, as man, wading through the morass of crap is not something I’m particularly interested in doing very often.