Site Suggestions

meta

Just in case that “meta” isn’t clear enough: This is the place for ideas on how to make this web site look better, and maybe even ideas for content.  If you have suggestions for my books, send them to: Hannityandcolmes@foxnews.com.

 

39 thoughts on “Site Suggestions”

  3. So just to be clear, this is where we leave suggestions for the site? My suggestion is to post directions about it here instead of on twitter. :P

  5. I’d like to drop the whole threading thing and return to a numbered post system. Under the latter arrangement, one could just scroll to the bottom and work her way up to read anything new.

    With the threading thing, not only will a long thread eventually be reduce to an annoying little snake of text as each response is further indented, one has to check every single post to locate the new ones.

  6. In the “Ideas for Content” arena, I stumbled across a quotation from Annie Duke today…

    Q: How can you tell when someone is bluffing?
    A: “Poker playing is storytelling. People aren’t good at telling a logical story when they’re lying. So I call a bluff when I can’t figure out a story about what they’re doing.”
    [http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201106/how-read-people/annie-duke-gut-instincts]

    …and I know you’ve made these connections as well (in the end matter of one of the Vlad novels).

    Do you have more thoughts on that? And do you deal with blog posts in a similarly card-sharking way?

    (I dunno – maybe this isn’t so much of a blog-content idea as just a jazz-riff request.)

    Thanks.

  7. Thanks Scott.

    All: As requested, Felix got rid of threaded comments. He’s working on getting comment numbering to work.

  8. What about a page for appearances? Tell people where you’ll be, and the proper channels to request your presence?

  15. Not quite following that, Will. What sort of change would that involve? You’re thinking of email notifications of new posts or something?

  16. If I wanted to subscribe to the comment thread for, say “Apropos to OSC, a Quick Story” without leaving a comment there, could I do it? There’s a ticky box underneath this reply labeled “Notify me of follow-up comments via email”. The only way I see to get emailed updates on a comments thread is to leave a comment and tick that.

  18. How about some way to buy your books that gets you a larger portion of the proceeds? I’ve bought most of your books, and it would be great to buy your upcoming releases in a way that let more of the cost support the author, rather than middle-men.

    Also, when I search for your site on Google, it says,
    “Steven Brust
    dreamcafe.com
    A description for this result is not available because of this site’s robots.txt – learn more”, followed by a link to https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156449

  20. A short while ago I got a friend to start reading here using a smart phone, and it was fine. But some time last week the mobile layout changed totally, and the link to view the whole site – “View Full Site” at the bottom – doesn’t work. Click it and nothing changes. Can that be fixed?

    The reason I’m posting this for him is the entire right column is missing, including the Site Suggestions link. Well, that and the fact the itty-bitty phone keyboard makes posting less easy than reading.

  21. I know Felix has been playing around with some stuff, so chances are he’s already on it. But I’ll point him to this message just in case. Thanks for the heads-up.

  22. I just played with the phone, and the problem is that the “View Full Site” link won’t work unless one allows cookies. The browser on this phone doesn’t offer the choice of “Ask me about cookies”, nor can one read the content before accepting them, so I had turned them off when I set up the phone for him (I’m big on security and privacy and won’t permit sites to store anything without permission). So unless the gentleman does away with cookies, the link won’t work for everyone.

    And yes, unhappily I noticed the changes he was making some time ago, when the page load time quadrupled from the drag of the new scripts, widgets and whatever else was added.

  23. When I post, my software wants to refuse, it requires me to click on “unsafe upload” before I can. They call it a potential cross-site scripting event. This doesn’t happen to me anywhere else.

    Here is the error message I get.

    ————
    Use of getPreventDefault() is deprecated. Use defaultPrevented instead. jetpack-comment
    [NoScript XSS] Sanitized suspicious upload to [http://dreamcafe.com/wp-comments-post.php] from [http://jetpack.wordpress.com/jetpack-comment/?blogid=43852987&postid=2237&comment_registration=0&require_name_email=1&stc_enabled=1&stb_enabled=1&show_avatars=1&avatar_default=mystery&greeting=Leave+a+Reply&greeting_reply=Leave+a+Reply+to+%25s&color_scheme=light&lang=en-US&jetpack_version=3.2&sig=3eab4659f6b4fe93b14a45ab26d8a0b8e5996f3d#parent=http%3A%2F%2Fdreamcafe.com%2Fsite-suggestions%2F]: transformed into a download-only GET request.
    The character encoding of the plain text document was not declared. The document will render with garbled text in some browser configurations if the document contains characters from outside the US-ASCII range. The character encoding of the file needs to be declared in the transfer protocol or file needs to use a byte order mark as an encoding signature.
    ——————

    I don’t know whether there’s anything here that matters to you, but here it is just in case.

  25. I feel compelled to ask about the Caring Families/Cialis links in your footer. Will they be a permanent addition to the site layout?

  28. I’m still having semi-random issues with the site – particularly on my phone – showing up in what seems to be a default layout – blue and white, kinda ugly.

    Maybe this has to do with the cookie issue mentioned above – I really don’t like peanut butter cookies…(;-) ) but I don’t generally have issues with cookies on other sites.

    But it’s also happened on regular browsers on regular devices – including the browser I’m using to type this. Not as often, but.

    Dunno.

  29. Sometimes it seems like the CSS just doesn’t kick in for some reason. Weird. Only happens occasionally.

  30. When you get the blue mobile layout, and if refreshing won’t fix it, you can add a random query string to the URL (ex. tack on “?q=xxx” to the address). It gets interpreted as the “View Full Site” option and will display the orange layout.

  31. I was wondering if you could include a section titled “Works in progress”. Not just a list but maybe some kind of clue as to what you are currently working on/ projects you don’t hate.
    Something like 15 years ago I sent an email and asked about the idea of a cookbook based on Vlad’s/Steven’s love of good food published as a translated guide from Vlad’s notes or something.
    Maybe a section where fans could comment on things they would like to see you write?
    Maybe a FAQ section where fans could get answers to common questions like What is kethna anyway? or How do you make Klava?

  32. I would like to second Callisto’s request for a works in progress/yes there will be another sequel section. I need to know there will be a follow-up for “Hawk”!

  33. Thanks for the suggestion. Meanwhile, I can tell that the next book, Vallista will be out in September, and is now available for pre-order.

  35. Thank you, Mr. Brust!

    Wickersham’s Conscience, I can deal with nine months. I have some favorite series that have been abandoned by the authors, so a little patience for a promised novel is doable. :)

  36. The RSS feed for the site is not working (comments are OK). From my browser I see the following error:

    Warning: mysqli_query(): MySQL server has gone away in /home/brust/dreamcafe.com/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1811

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