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script furnace
The description given for Script Furnace is: "it's about personal publishing. it's about building community. it's about collecting your personal spew and presenting it in a web accessible format that others can digest and comment upon... there are no expectations here. just write what you feel."
I really liked the concept. I'd have liked it to be more international though. In the "what is scriptfurnace.com all about?" section, we are told "face it. community in america is bleeding, it's an endangered species." This weblog certainly is very American at the moment, what with the war, and I couldn't get over the amount of times the word "patriotic" was used. If you're non-American, "patriotic" gets boring.
Just as I felt everything was getting too "patriotic" I found posts and comments from authors with different opinions. This is the good thing about having a group weblog open to anyone. You get real variety and debate, rather than a one sided opinion and little chance to respond. Further down the archives, and away from war, the posts began to vary more as well. It is understandable that all recent posts are political, but it is nice to see ones about entertainment, sports, carrot vaginas and the personal lives of the contributors too.
The layout works well. Very simple and just right for the type of weblog this is. You have lots of choices too. You can access archives by month, week, day or category. This fits in with the concept of the site: to place the weblog into the public's hands. The only complaint I have is that I work on a broken 12in screen [so a square 10in] and whilst most sites show up fine, this one required quite a bit of scrolling to the right.
Whilst I did find a few issues with the site, there were enough redeeming features that I've got to give it a 5. What really pushed it up there were the attempts made to make it accessible. You can post anonymously if you want [although I'm not sure if this is such a good option, but a brave one all the same], the "add a link to your site" button has a "show me how" link underneath, there is a "how do I post" section. This is how a community website should be. I'll definitely be back.
This site was reviewed on 2003-03-23 by Bluiser.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
Bluiser felt that script furnace deserved a rating of 5.
First and foremost, 'script furnace' is a group weblog. The site states that there are twenty-eight authors in all, but currently only a handful of those twenty-eight post actively.
Most group weblogs are either news/links blogs, or center around a main issue. Not the case with 'script furnace'. This is a group weblog under the Personal category, which means that everyone posts about his or her life and his or her thoughts, independent of each other. As can be imagined, this leads to a certain amount of confusion as to who's-who (not to mention what's-what, where's-where and when's-when) for the new reader.
The best feature of 'script furnace' is how the authors ask for feedback regularly and encourage discussion. They also interact through the comment system. I would say that a visit to 'script furnace' is not complete without also going through the comments after each post. Although there are some pretty interesting entries about the authors' personal lives, the most engaging posts are those concerning current events and issues that most people can relate to, because, lets face it, reading about someone getting laid off in between opinions about the war on Iraq just doesn't have the impact it would normally have on a purely personal website.
Layout wise, 'script furnace' is clean and simple, with a neat archive system that every group weblog should have. The archives can be browsed by week, by month, and by category, which makes reading a whole lot more easier and fun.
To readers who are not familiar with the authors' personal lives, the random and sporadic entries about what happened to them and what they did seems somewhat mundane, considering we are given brief and disconnected glimpses of different persons' lives, all thrown in together. Perhaps 'script furnace' should add one more feature: allow readers to go through the archives by author. 'script furnace's strong points are its authors ability to strike a chord with readers, to get readers to response, and to touch on issues that readers actually care about. It is, after all, a group weblog, and any group weblog without some form of bond between its authors is not a good group weblog.
This site was reviewed on 2003-03-23 by yz.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
yz felt that script furnace deserved a rating of 4.
2 reviewers gave script furnace an average rating of 4.5000
Site Stats
Site Category: Personal
Reader Rating: 1.3125 based on 4 votes
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