Most of the biggest things in life started by being small.

This is not a saying of who-knows-what-smart-personality from the past. This comes straight from my personal wisdom well, and it was issued with the occasion of getting tired to submit stories to Digg to see if I can make it to the front page. After Digg, there was Sphinn: another enigma, another trial. Here I noticed from the start that I cannot find an appropriate category for my submissions. There’s no wonder that very few members actually cared to vote for those stories, although some of them were not bad at all.

After two years of being a submitter, I decided to become the one who receives submissions. No, I haven’t got hired by Digg, nor by Sphinn. I’ve just launched my own social networking website, BlogLancer.net, a place where there is no specialization: there are lots of categories, so all readers would find a suitable place to submit their work. If they can’t find it, I’ll create it for them.

On BlogLancer.net, all members are equal and all stories are accepted. Who cares if you choose to publish them on a Squidoo lens, or on a HubPages hub, or on a free Blogger blog? If you thought it to be good for publishing, then I think it is good for reading. All you need to get promoted on the front page are 5 votes from the other members. There is also a Wordpress plugin, for those of you who may want to include the “vote” button in their articles.

As the site is only four days old (or maybe I should say four days young), it is small and ignored by search engines. But Digg and all others must have looked the same in their first week of existence: small and ignored.

So, if you have stories craving for attention, I invite you to submit them to BlogLancer, so we can all read and comment them together.

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• Your Measure of Reader Satisfaction
• Blogging for Money - Stockholders and Customers
• Allow Your Readers to Vent
• Two Reader Appreciation Initiatives Compared

If you are able (and have a few hours of spare time), please listen to the podcast below:

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• WordPress Weekly Podcast
• November 2007 ‘Readers First’ Awards
• I’ve Found the Holy Grail and It’s Blue
• Peeve Week 3 Update - One Month Left

It’s a busy time of year for everyone, and it has affected quite a few other group writing projects. Peeve Week 3 was no exception to this.

It’s a few days before the deadline and almost half the contributor slots are filled. It’s been difficult on how to weigh sponsors, prizes, and incentives for the filled slots. As a result, Simonne and I have decided to call Peeve Week 3 off. If you are a sponsor, your contribution will be refunded.

The decision was difficult, as some have already completed their posts. If that is the case, I will still gladly post what you have on RAP. I will also work with you individually to compensate you for your time and effort.

I’m sorry this didn’t work out. When I began to launch Peeve Week 3, I told myself, “There’s a possibility this will fail.” However, I’m glad I did try, rather than just wonder.

A big “thank you” to all who helped out with Peeve Week 3, and also a big “thank you” to all you readers out there. There’s still big things ahead of us.

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• Peeve Week 3 Update and Sponsors
• Allow Your Readers to Vent
• Three Ambitious Group Writing Projects YOU Can Participate in NOW
• Peeve Week 3 Update - One Month Left

1. All guest writers need to know nothing about the topics they write about. The less you know, the better you’ll in-appreciate your readers and they will thank you for that.

2. All guest writers should have a cool slogan, something like “The King Of Free Traffic”, or “The GoneSense Queen”, or “The Niche Princess”. Just be hot and trendy, and don’t think that you actually have no clue.

3. All guest writers should write in bullets, think in bullets, and even speak in bullets. Bullets, like in lists, not like in guns.

4. All guest writers should have an exaggerated self-esteem and show it off like every two paragraphs or so. Your readers need to be reminded how good you are, how nice your feet smell and how fast is your latest car paid for with their money.

If you cannot do these, don’t think to apply for a position. We want to hit 1000 feed subscribers over the first three weeks from launch, so we cannot afford even the smallest mistake here.

We shall also have a 5-times-a-day newsletter, which will point to highly useful ebooks and courses about chasing the wind around while making mayonnaise, and we promise you they won’t cost more than $7 per piece, and they will be very easy to read and digest.

So, let the guest authors list begin to build up. You are invited to pitch for one of the 3 positions in the comments box below.

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• Reader Appreciation Initiatives
• Focusing on Appreciating Your Current Readers More Than Prospective Readers Is Good
• Things to Avoid Series
• Are Readers Going to Kill Guest Blogging?

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• Reflections From Dallas, TX
• A Picture on the About Page
• WordCamp Dallas Photos
• Feeling Like a Rockstar
• Lots of Changes Coming Your Way

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• WP Ajax Edit Comments V1.06 Released
• Please Upgrade to Ajax Edit Comments V1.065
• Regarding Alternate Ajax Edit Comments Download Locations
• Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 Released
• Ajax Edit Comments 1.1 Beta Testing

I’d like to introduce our newest guest contributor, which is Isabella Mori from Alphablogs and change therapy. Isabella is a writer and a therapist, and her blog change therapy has been recently named the best psychotherapy blog.

Please keep a lookout for Isabella’s first guest post, which will go live tomorrow.

If you haven’t already, please also check out Andrew’s and Vivien’s guest contributions:

• Care in the Community
• Where Are the Weekend Bloggers?
• 8 Conscientious Ways To Use Your Readers

If you are interested in providing your own guest contribution, please apply or send me an e-mail.

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• Privacy Policy
• Isabella Mori
• Peeve Week 3 Update and Sponsors
• Peeve Week 3 Update
• Invite Guest Bloggers to Disagree With You

This post will go into some of the changes that have already happened or are going to happen soon.

Monetization Poll Results

The results from last week’s poll are in. Nine readers voted, and eight voted that they were fine with monetization. One reader was against it.

It looks like RA Project will soon be on the road to monetization with the upcoming re-design.

RA Project Re-Design

RA Project will be getting a new theme soon. The timeframe is tentative since the theme has yet to be released, but we plan on transitioning to the Mimbo Pro theme.

It is my hope that the theme will help the readers find information faster, and provide incentives for past and future contributors to contribute to the project.

New Contributors

Andrew Rickmann has kindly agreed to post the project’s first ever guest post. The post should go live tomorrow.

Vivien from Inspiration Bit has also agreed to do an occasional contribution to the project.

I’ve approached several others, and plan to approach several more for possible guest slots. If you are interested in helping out the project, please consider applying.

In note of new contributors, I’ve re-done our contribution policy and also added a contribution application form for those who wish to help spread the concept of reader appreciation.

The post schedule, with the exception of guest contributions, is Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and news posts on the weekends.

Other Things to Look Forward To at RA Project

Peeve Week 3

On my personal blog I ran a very successful group project entitled, “Peeve Week.” Peeve Week provided a nice venting mechanism and broke the ice towards guest contributions.

Simonne and I agreed to host the third Peeve Week here and have it deal with reader appreciation topics. The tentative date for Peeve Week 3 is March 17-21 April 7-11. I will post more details in a few days.

WordCamp Dallas

I will be attending WordCamp Dallas on March 29th and 30th. If you’re going, I hope to see you there.

Reader Appreciation Week 2008

The final thing I will mention is Reader Appreciation Week 2008. Last year’s Reader Appreciation Week was a lot of fun and is actually what helped found this site.

The tentative date for this year’s Reader Appreciation Week is April 21-25. I will post more details sometime towards the middle of March.

Other Miscellaneous Changes

The following pages have been updated:

• Our About Page.
• Our Comment Policy.

I’ve also added a new section in the sidebar to highlight our guest contributors. This section will display the authors based on the date of their last contribution.

Conclusion

I appreciate all of your help and contributions during this trying time for RA Project. Thank you for being a reader, and thank you for being here.

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• The Six Shapes and Colors of Blog Readers
• When Angry Readers Turn Into Writers
• 9 Things to Know When Launching a Niche Blog

My main drivers towards this decision are:

The Ajax Edit Comments page took “forever” to load

After removing comments, and moving the screenshots and changelog, the page loads significantly faster.

I rarely solved problems through comments

The majority of the problems I’ve helped people with were through e-mail. Some people did alert me of problems through comments, but I would actually prefer an e-mail in the case of a problem or issue.

I set up a new support form to handle plugin inquiries.

The comment e-mails didn’t apply to other authors here

Here at RA Project, all authors receive all comment e-mails so we feel like we’re apart of the site conversation. With plugin comments, this wasn’t the case.

A lot of the comments were “test” comments. I tried to remedy this by posting demonstration videos, but that didn’t stop the test comments.

I encourage those who wish to test the plugin to leave a relevant comment on any one of our posts.

Support Requests Are Time Consuming

Support requests are time consuming, so I have set up a support form to filter all the various requests I usually get for the plugins here at RA Project.

For those who have urgent support requests, a donation to RA Project is encouraged.

All monies received will go towards the contributors of the plugin (I would “love” to compensate the wonderful translators and testers) and back to RA Project and its readers.

The Issue of Disabling Comments

There were lots of comments left on the Ajax Edit Comments page. More than three-hundred the last time I checked (they’re still alive and well in our database). But cutting them out sped up the page significantly (night and day difference).

For Comment Sorter, I’ve disabled the comments from the beginning. And already the support form has been used and used successfully.

Hopefully in the long-run this will prove beneficial to the reader, the users of the plugin, and the RA Project authors.

If you would like to weigh in on this, please leave a comment below.

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• Happy Thanksgiving From RA Project
• WordPress and WordPress Plugins
• 10 WordPress Plugins to Improve a Reader’s Experience
• RAProject Support

Now there is one place where readers and bloggers can go to see what kind of group writing projects are available. I find a service such as this invaluable.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The site is called Group Writing Projects and remedies a number of frustrations that bloggers have. “Group writing projects are a great way to get links and drive traffic to blogs,” says Jacob Share, SVP of Share Select Media, “but bloggers simply had no easy way of knowing when and where group writing projects were taking place. Until now.”

Besides helping bloggers stay on top of group writing projects from around the blogosphere, Group Writing Projects aims to be the premier resource for group writing project creators. In addition to profiles of successful bloggers, the site will furnish tutorials, how-to guides, project case studies, takeaway lessons and of course, its own group writing projects.

So do yourself a favor, head over to Group Writing Projects, and check it out. What an incredible reader service.

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• Why Trackbacks Are Unnecessary
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• What Else Do You Do With Your Readers?

Today’s post may be an interesting one for some. This is my last post at RA Project. I would like to announce, even though it is something that one tries to avoid, that I am leaving RA Project and moving away from it. This is a “moving away” action instead of the typical “moving on” action. Good by everyone.

From now on, you will be seeing Simonne and Ronalds’ name on this site only, until the future brings in someone else. This was a personal project for me, something that was part of my life, so it is not easy to let go in small bits. Among some other important things, RA Project is headed in a new direction now that will do better without me and vice versa. This is a very good way to explain a lot of things for me. I am hoping all of you will give Ronald and Simonne the same courtesy that you have all shown me either directly or indirectly.

Thank you Ronald and Simonne for helping run this site. Thank you Shawn for helping start this site before. The current team has been told of my decision in private also.

I will not be around this site to read comments here anymore, nor will I be around to answer any questions related to this project anymore through this site. Since this was a personal project and not a business project, it is better for me to simply stop a lot of things instead of letting strings attached to different things. If you need to contact me with anything, you can do it through channels outside of this site; my RA Project email will cease to exist within a few hours of this post.

I apologize to anyone who feels any kind of a bad surprise because of me leaving, and also to anyone who feels that they are not appreciated with this post and would have instead preferred a post that talks about appreciation: please be happy. To those of you that do not know me at all and are wondering “Who the heck is Bes? He/she is leaving? I didn’t even know he/she existed!“, rejoice! Now you can be completely sure that what you thought did not exist does not exist here anymore.

Please note that I would choose not participating in something, because I do not want to be biased, over posting and participating simply to keep others happy. That is something that comes with things that are personal and non-business and non-monetary. Appreciation and its concept will be around in different or modified forms whether or not I am around, so I hope you will not take my “bye-bye” as a sign of impending doom on this galaxy.

I am hoping you all will get used to the other posts here, since lately I have been away from time to time anyhow because of different things in life. If you do still miss me after a while, you can easily find me elsewhere online or even offline. As an appreciation project, you can consider this the perfect post in my view where I feel no obligation to anyone as to whether or not I should leave at this point, but I feel obligated to many of you to explain myself as much as possible, even if it is all vague in the eyes of many, of why I am or may be leaving, or as to what is happening.

I would like to thank everyone who interacted with the messages and with me and others at RA Project, including Jeff, Andy, Liz, Andrew, Snoskred Matt, Jayne, Stacee, Valerie, Pelf, Chris, and many others : that includes all the readers, commentors, and e-mailers.

Just like any relationship, it can be very hard for me to say good bye and not wonder later how I could have said some things better. “I could have explained this too”, “I should have mentioned her/him too”, “I should have thanked more”, “I should have thanked less and focused on specifics”, “I should have explained the actual reasons more”, “I should have left a bit later”, “I should have left sooner”, “I should have never left and should have simply hovered in the background decisions at least”, and many other thoughts are already starting to live in my mind, so I would like to stop here and let those life-thoughts and regrets become part of me from today onwards.

It was a very interesting ride for me, everyone. It is time for me to get back to my old car and continue the same journey through a different road. I am hoping you can help drive this RA Project car towards a direction where it can keep providing something mentally useful to everyone.

Keep on reading, keep on thinking, and keep on eating!

Regards, good luck, and good bye!

Bes

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• New Side Project - the Reader in-Appreciation Project

Plugin Description

How many times have you been to a blog where Trackbacks/Pingbacks were interspersed with the regular comments? Or perhaps you wanted the comments to be displayed with the latest one on the top instead of the bottom. With Comment Sorter, readers can disable Trackbacks and also decide what order they would like to read the comments.

As an admin, you also have the ability to assign global options to your comments that you can’t normally do in the WordPress admin panel. For example, if you want Trackbacks to not show on all of your posts, you can do that without modifying any template files. You can also change the default sort order of the comments.

Demonstration Video

Download and More Examples

• To download the plugin, please head over to the WP Comment Sorter page.
• To see screenshots and demonstration videos, please head over to the Comment Sorter Media page.

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• Comment Sorter Media
• Would You Like to Help Test Out WP Comment Sorter?
• RA Project Comments and Plugins
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• Reader Appreciation Week (2007) Participants

The Reader Appreciation Project is now on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, please consider becoming a fan of our Reader Appreciation Page.

As a fan, you will be able to interact with the RA Project authors, receive news that normally isn’t published here, make suggestions for future articles, and show your general support for the appreciation movement.

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• RA Project Re-Design Launched
• Simply Saying ‘Thank You’ Pays Dividends
• My Year at the Reader Appreciation Project

• Sort comments by date.
• Sort comments by name.
• Disable trackbacks.

See below for a screenshot:

To see it in action, please visit this post (it has a good amount of comments and trackbacks): Google Disabling Comments for Un-Registered Users Plugin disabled here until the near-final release.

If you are interested in being a tester for this plugin, please leave a comment below. I will send you a copy with instructions as soon as I get a little further along with the plugin. Consider the one installed here a proof-of-concept.

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• Announcing WP Comment Sorter
• RA Project Comments and Plugins
• Comment Sorter Media
• WP Comment Sorter
• WP Ajax Edit Comments 1.1 RC1

If you want to hear me, Jeff, and Brad (from StrangeWork.com) talk about WordPress related issues, please check out the post and listen to the podcast.

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• Lorelle (Queen of WordPress) on WordPress Weekly Tonight!
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• Peeve Week 3 Update and Sponsors
• Where Are You When You’re Not at Your Blog?

Here are some things you can display:

• Sites
• Post Series or Flagship Posts
• Plugins or Scripts

So please check out the Sidebar Banners post for more details.

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• Peeve Week 3 Update

The below sites are under no obligation to show any RA Project badge or to link back to Reader Appreciation Project. The people and the sites listed below have exhibited a healthy interest and appreciation towards their readers. Because of such a behavior, many readers have benefited a lot because of the blogger not always viewing other things as being more important than the readers.

Without further ado, I present to you the October 2007 “Readers First” Awards Winners.

October 2007 “Readers First” Awards Winners

• Middle Zone Musings

  

  Robert Hruzek is a talented and amusing blogger who has mastered the art or sprinkling humor throughout his blog posts (sounds of crowd cheering). He is great at organizing his group projects and getting his readers to interact in the comments.

• Clever Dude

  

  Mike is great at giving financial advice and looking out for his readers when spelling out how they can get free money by applying for certain credit cards.

• Fresh Perspectives - aka Interesting Observations

  

  Pearl writes about interesting things, more or less blogging-related. She is very careful with her readers, she answers every comment, and if one of her loyal readers forgets to keep in touch for a while, she would e-mail him asking if she did something wrong (actually I got such a message from her some time ago, and I was impressed that somebody cared whether or not I read
  her blog). Her blog has an original page, Introduce Yourself, where her readers are invited to write a few things about them.

• Pelf - aka Pelf-ism is contagious

  

  Pelf is a grad student trying to save the turtles. And the environment. And humankind… And she does it in a very friendly and impressive style. She would thank her readers for stumbling or digging her articles, and she’s always ready to help.

• Spoken-for

  

  On her personal site Spoken-for, Valerie writes about different things that happen to her, ranging from business to personal stories and happenings. I [Bes] know Valerie for a while now, and she has helped me a lot online since I met her. Valerie is a very good friend, and she has always taken extra steps to give me advice or offer help in both online and offline things, even when she herself did not gain anything from such actions. Since she helped even before we became friends, I think she is a person who knows how to literally appreciate and interact with some reader by treating that reader as another human being, and not as an online pixel.

  Valerie has also traveled in and around her state, Missouri, to meet other online people in order to make friends. That is a huge form of appreciation. Valerie has also written posts which have drawn more criticism than you have ever seen on sites like ProBlogger or PhotoMatt. For many people, some of Valeries’ posts can define the standards on how to treat or react to criticizing readers who literally attack you on a personal level. Valerie usually writes about anything, including any sponsors she may have; if she notices something bad, she will not hesitate to point it out simply because someone may have an ad on her site. Valerie has also gained some online stalkers, and despite all that, Valerie still wants to make friends with her readers and keeps in touch with many readers. Valerie deserves a Readers First award since she has made sure she becomes very good friends with many of her online readers, including me.

Badges

The blogs and people listed above are not obligated to display the following badges on their sites or to wear printouts of these badges as hats in real life. Similarly, no one is required or even asked to kindly link back to this site. Please go ahead and kindly display these badges if you feel like it. You have earned it. The blogosphere unfortunately usually recognizes only those people who brag about raking in a lot of money. We want to mark you down in history as those who at one time appreciated their readers honestly and nicely enough to set an example for others.

More ‘Readers First’ badgespage are also available, in case you want something in a different color or size.

Want to set an example? Know someone who is setting an example?

If you are doing good or know anyone doing good for both themselves and others as selflessly as possible, please let us know about it. We will give you credit for your referral too.

Thank you for reading, and let us hope that it becomes very hard for us to decide which people and blogs to choose for the November 2007 “Readers First” award, not because of scarcity but because of the many more examples that we know and examples that we will find.

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• September 2007 ‘Readers First’ Awards
• A Blog Is Not a Community in the First Place. Or Is It?
• Your Measure of Reader Satisfaction
• Placing Readers First - Daniel Ha From Disqus

Sites which are awarded this award have no obligation to display the badge and/or link to the Reader Appreciation Project. The sites below currently show an exceptional dedication to their readers and have proved that it is indeed possible to put the readers first and grow a wonderful site atmosphere.

Be Inspired with Inspiration Bit

Vivien from Inspiration Bit was the one who inspired Ajax Edit Comments and also the text for the very award she is now being awarded. She’s been a big supporter of the Reader Appreciation Project from the beginning and is an invaluable friend. She also introduced Simonne to the project, who is a superb RA Project contributor.

With all of Vivien’s contributions, how could we not give her this award? If you head over to her site (inspirationbit.com), you’ll find a plethora of inspiration posts, and the warm and friendly conversations of the hostess. Vivien is an exceptional blogger and is truly a great example of someone placing her readers first.

Liz Strauss, the Queen of Reader Appreciation

I don’t know how Liz does it, but somehow she finds the time to respond to virtually every comment and e-mail received from her readers. She builds reader confidence by handing out awards such as the SOB and B.A.D. awards.

She provides sound relationship-building advice to her readers, organizes blog conferences, and provides real-life experiences that are sure to benefit just about anyone.

Liz Strauss is the queen of Reader Appreciation. With her hectic schedule, she still finds time to place her readers first.

Fight Back at The Fight Spot

Shawn Blanc is a full-time intercessory missionary, on top of being a husband, blogger, musician, and a host of other talents. He helped found Reader Appreciation Week and inspired the formation of the Reader Appreciation Project.

The Fight Spot is a good example of a blog where the readers have banded together to form a community and driven the blog in a certain direction. The topicality is primarily Christian-focused and the readers provide terrific commentary to the many great articles Shawn churns out.

Shawn has nurtured his community on The Fight Spot and put the readers first by giving them a great voice. He routinely spotlights a reader or reader’s comment and is very approachable in the comment and e-mail section.

Just Thinkin’… About Readers

I first had contact with Kirk from a bug report on Ajax Edit Comments. I’ve since subscribed and dig how personable he is and how much he interacts with the readers on his site. He describes himself as an ex-Cold War submariner in his late forties who spent most of his life in computers, peripherals, R&D and anything else technical.

He’s not afraid to try new things on his blog (in a gutsy move, he upgraded to WordPress 2.3 on Beta 1), and admit his mistakes. And he is excellent at responding to reader’s concerns in the comments. He’s also not afraid of spotlighting his readers.

What’s Life Like in the Country?

Snoskred describes herself as a 32 year-young female who lives in NSW with The Other Half and two kitties. She has also been a big supporter of the project since the beginning and is very generous with her weekly link posts (example).

Snoskred is a good example of a blogger who blogs on a hard-to-comment platform (Blogger), but still can build a good community and respond directly to the readers (example post on losing feed subscribers). With her weekly link posts, she spotlights her other readers and is very loyal to the blogs she enjoys.

She makes contacting her easy, and from my observations, addresses each reader individually as needed.

Reader Appreciation Technology with Jeffro 2.0

Jeff is a good example of a blogger who can blog technology-related topics, yet still show a great deal of reader appreciation. He periodically runs polls asking for his readers’ opinions, and takes a look at his site from a reader’s perspective (and follows up with action).

Jeff responds to almost every reader comment (as necessary), makes himself easily contactable, and provides a balanced view on providing full feeds for his readers.

Jeff’s site is all community, with recent comments displayed prominently, and the MyBlogLog widget placed high on the sidebar. He also has a neat little widget that shows who all is online. He also is trying to promote and give back to his readers through a photography contest.

Jeff is a big supporter of the Reader Appreciation Project, and has left some very supportive comments on A-Lister’s sites trying to promote the project and the concept. Jeff is a shining example of someone placing his readers first.

The Badges

The winners of the ‘Readers First’ awards are under no obligation to display the badge and/or link to the Reader Appreciation Project. The ‘Readers First’ award is our way of spotlighting other blogs and/or readers who show exceptional reader appreciation.

Please Check out the ‘Readers First’ page for badges for multiple background colors.

Know of Someone Who Places Their Readers First?

Let us know about the site through our contact form. It’s always encouraging to see other sites out there who have embraced the concept of reader appreciation.

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Related Articles at The Reader Appreciation Project:

• November 2007 ‘Readers First’ Awards
• October 2007 ‘Readers First’ Awards
• Your Measure of Reader Satisfaction
• Placing Readers First - Daniel Ha From Disqus
• Reader Appreciation Initiatives

I’d like to thank every single person who has downloaded the plugin, and especially those who still use it on their blog. Furthermore, I’d like to thank all the people who have reported in bugs and feature requests. An extra, extra special thanks goes out to all who have volunteered to test out the plugin on numerous occasions. Without you, this plugin would not be what it is today.

And the absolute kudos goes to Vivien from InspirationBit. Living up to her blog’s name, she inspired me to write the plugin through a comment on this site.

Last, but not least, I’d like to thank those who have translated the plugin into other languages. Thank you David May (German), Nicky (Chinese) and Lise (French).

Wow, I feel like I have just made a speech at the Oscars (music playing). But again, thanks. I never thought this plugin would be as popular as it is. It’s really a nice thing when you randomly comment on a blog and see your plugin in use, or browse a post and see someone recommending your plugin.

So thanks again, and hopefully if I ever meet you in person, I can give you a big hug (or a handshake).

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• WP Ajax Edit Comments V1.06 Released
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• Ajax Edit Comments and WordPress 2.5

A developmental version (v1.1.1.1) is released for anybody having charset issues. Please let me know if this works for UTF-8, and other WordPress charset configs.

The following issues were addressed in this release:

1. Admin were able to edit, but non-admin couldn’t. This was caused by the timer offset in the WordPress admin panel.
2. MySQL errors resulted in the comment unable to save. This was caused by blogs and MySQL database not in UTF-8.
3. Some characters were being screwed up when saving to the WordPress database. This issue was caused by non-UTF-8 back-ends.
4. The blog would be inoperable in Internet Explorer due to multiple session headings being called.
5. Random loading comment failure on WP 2.2.2 installs.

The issues (with the exception of issue number 4) can occur on a case-by-case basis depending on blog configuration and character set.

Several users have had character encoding issues. Ideally all blogs and backends would be in UTF-8. With v1.1.1.0, hopefully all character issues have been resolved, but this may be a little unrealistic. I will try to help people out on a case-by-case basis for non-UTF-8 blogs, but having a character encoding different from UTF-8 seems to cause a lot of issues. If you do install this plugin on a non-UTF-8 blog, make sure to throughly test out the plugin on various characters.

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• WP Ajax Edit Comments V1.06 Released
• Ajax Edit Comments 1.1.0.8 Release Candidate

Since a good chunk of code has changed, I want to just put out a release candidate for now for those wishing to try the plugin on their blog.

• Ajax Edit Comments 1.1.0.8 RC.

The following issues were addressed this weekend.

1. Admin were able to edit, but non-admin couldn’t. This was caused by the timer offset in the WordPress admin panel. This issue was fixed in the release candidate.
2. MySQL errors resulted in the comment unable to save. This was caused my blogs and MySQL database not in UTF-8. This issue was fixed in the release candidate.
3. Some characters were being screwed up when saving to the WordPress database. This issue was caused by non-UTF-8 back-ends. This issue was fixed in the release candidate.
4. The blog would be inoperable in Internet Explorer due to multiple session headings being called. This issue was fixed in the release candidate.

For those who have previous issues with any four of those issues, please re-install and see if your issue is resolved. If all is well, I’ll release this thing officially. I’ve also updated the PO files for any translators wishing to translate the plugin. Every part of the plugin should now be able to be translated.

Thanks again for everyone’s help in making this a better plugin.

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• Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 Released
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• A language pack is included for easier translation. Hopefully a German and French version will be released soon.
• Security keys can now be deleted. You can find the option in the admin panel options for this plugin. Unfortunately ones added before this version must be deleted manually.
• Plugin is compatible with a spin-off version of jQuery. Please visit this jQuery Ajax Comments site for more details.

Unfortunately I still haven’t figured out the bug that occurs with some themes. Hopefully the next release will have a fix.

For those wishing to delete the security keys manually, you will have to log into phpMyAdmin and run this query (after backing up your database):


delete from wp_postmeta where length(meta_value) = 96


There is a chance that other things might be deleted, so be sure to backup your database.

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• Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 RC1 Released
• Ajax Edit Comments 2.1 Released

Please head over to the official plugin page for the download, screenshots, and much more.j

Overall Features

Admin Features

• Admin and Users Panel Options
• Can edit all comments inline in posts.
• Can delete and mark as spam from a post.
• Can edit inline in the Comments admin panel.
• Can edit inline in the Akismet Spam admin subpage.
• Can edit inline in the moderation subpage.
• Can disable inline editing in posts.
• Various admin options including.
  • Ability to set comment time.
  • Can enable or disable a countdown timer.
  • Can receive e-mails when a non-admin edits a comment.
  • Can enable edited comments to be checked with Akismet.
  • And more…
• Various admin user options including.
  • Can turn off comment editing in the Admin panel.
  • Can turn off inline editing.
  • And more…
• Absolutely no theme or file manipulation needed. Works completely out of the box.

User Features

• Edit comments inline without page reloads.
• Users without JavaScript disabled will see a regular comment page.
• Has a countdown timer to show how long a comment has left to load.

Plugin Features

• Utilizes the jQuery library.
• Comment editing times out after 15 seconds.
• Better error handling.
• Graceful deletion for compatible themes.
• Compatible with many plugins, including Akismet, WP Cache, Better Comments Manager, WP Grins, TinyMCEComments, and many more.

Special Thanks

A special thanks goes to the testers of the beta and release candidate: Ben, Bes, Gene, Helen, Scott, Simonne, and Vivien.

Download

What are you waiting for? Get over to the main plugin page and download the plugin!

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• WP Ajax Edit Comments 1.106 Released

Please note that this version is very different from v1.065 and you will not be able to revert back if you install this version. The 1.1 RC1 is currently installed here, so feel free to leave a test comment on this post to see what happens from a user’s perspective. The main changes are on the admin side, however.

• Please download WP Ajax Edit Comments 1.1 RC1

New Features

• JavaScript overhaul to jQuery
• Times out after fifteen seconds.
• Other Plugin authors can hook into the plugin via JavaScript
• Fixed style bugs. Everything is controlled by external CSS file.
• Timer shows up on each comment left by non-admin.
• Can turn off and on the countdown timer in the admin panel.
• “You may edit” message shows up via JavaScript instead of PHP
• Can customize the “You may edit the comment…” message in the admin panel.
• Able to Edit|Delete|Spam from a post.
• Can turn off the Edit|Delete|Spam buttons from the User’s panel.
• When you make an edit, the comment is re-checked with Akismet (if installed). This only affects non-admin. If a comment is flagged as spam, the user is alerted and the comment can no longer be edited. You also have the option in the admin panel to customize the spam message a user sees.
• You have the option to have an e-mail sent to you everytime a non-admin user makes an edit. This is disabled by default for obvious reasons.
• The admin panel now tracks the number of edits made by non-admin users.
• Other numerous security and bug fixes. Too numerous to name.
• CSS issues fixed to be compatible with *most* themes.

RC1 is currently installed here, so feel free to leave a test comment on this post to test out the timer feature.

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• Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 Released
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• Please Upgrade to Ajax Edit Comments V1.065
• Regarding Alternate Ajax Edit Comments Download Locations

Here are some of the features you can expect when the plugin goes final:

• Comments now show the time left to edit (non-admin).
• Can customize the “You may edit” in the admin panel.
• Better security and numerous style and bug fixes.
• Can Edit, Delete, or Mark as Spam from a post (admin only).
• Can turn off inline editing (admin only).

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• WP Ajax Edit Comments V1.06 Released

The new version is located at: http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wp-ajax-edit-comments.1.0.6.5.zip

The upgrade is also reflected on the main plugin page.

Once again, if you know anybody that has this plugin installed, please give them a heads up. Thanks.

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• Regarding Alternate Ajax Edit Comments Download Locations
• Ajax Edit Comments 2.0 Editor Screenshot

One feature addition that is worth noting is that the plugin now allows Admin to edit comments inside the WordPress admin panel (under Comments). Of course, this feature can easily be turned off by going to Users -> Ajax Edit Comments.

Thank you to all who have downloaded the plugin so far.

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In our official announcement of the site, we said this:

The RA Project was created because of noticing a lot of bloggers posting on their blogs that they appreciate their readers, yet besides words, they did not do anything more. Bloggers make money and traffic through comments and visitors. A blogger writes content to get a comment, which means both the blogger and the reader have helped each other in some way. However, a reader is also spending time reading a blog on a regular basis and writing, whereas that same reader is not returned any favor by the blogger. A blogger writes a post and gets comments, traffic and money from it. A reader, on the other hand, writes comments, reads and spends time on a blog and does not get much in return.

Here at RA Project, we still stand behind that statement.

Reader Appreciation Week

Reader Appreciation Week was a tremendous success. There were a total of nine participants with many non-monetary and monetary (totaling in hundreds of dollars) prizes given out. Thank you to all the bloggers who participated and we’ll be sure to have RAW next year.

New Posting Schedule

With Reader Appreciation Week now over, Bes and I are going to relax our posting schedule and post only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. We welcome guest writers if anyone is interested.

Comment Policy

Bes and I finally got around to drafting up a comment policy. I’m trying to talk Bes into installing an anti-spam plugin also.

Posts/Comment/Feed Stats

After a month, Bes and I have churned out 40 posts, and had 374 comments. As of today, we have 20 feed subscribers.

Plugin Stats

• WP Ajax Edit Comments currently has 1,071 downloads.
• WP Do Nothing currently has 81 downloads.
• WP Categories and Posts currently has 384 downloads.

Technorati Stats

RA Project is currently ranked 39,027 with 238 links from 104 blogs. Most of the links have been due to our group projects and plugin releases.

Conclusion

The launch of RA Project has been a tremendous success and Bes and I look forward to continued reader appreciation. Please subscribe to our feed to be kept up to date.

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• Reader Appreciation Initiatives 10-20-2007
• November 2007 ‘Readers First’ Awards
• Reader Appreciation Initiatives
• The Reader Appreciation Project on Facebook

This is just a friendly reminder that Reader Appreciation Week is less than a week away.

So far there are nine blog participants. There are some great prizes being offered on these blogs, so I encourage you to check each one out, subscribe, and see how you can join in on the fun.

I just want to say “thank you” to all the bloggers that did decide to participate. You have already made Reader Appreciation Week a tremendous success, and it hasn’t even started yet!

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• Reader Appreciation Initiatives 10-06-2007

My WordPress Background

I’ve been playing around with WordPress since about January of 06. Although this isn’t a long time, I have grown very comfortable with modifying themes, creating themes, and creating and modifying plugins. I have submitted a countless amount of bug fixes to plugin authors and usually modify a plugin to suit my blog. I have about 5 years of experience with PHP (the language that WordPress was written in). I don’t consider myself a master programmer, but I am very dangerous with code.

My WordPress Plugin Background

I have limited knowledge in WordPress plugin creation. I have written several plugins for my own use which I do not intend to release. I have also written one for public use that allows bloggers to style their feeds. If you’ve subscribed to this blog’s feed, you are already seeing Feed Styler do its magic on the images.

RA Project Plugin Release

Here at the Reader Appreciation Project, I will be releasing several “home grown” plugins that are suited to benefit readers. The first such plugin is called WP Categories and Posts. The plugin enables blog authors to easily set up a sitemap that lists all of the categories (and sub categories) and the posts within each of those categories.

Thank you for reading and I appreciate any and all feedback.

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