Blog-A-Thon!

[shadesong]

Hey, it's August 1! Payday for a lot of you. So pay those bills, and then...

Click here to sponsor me for Blog-A-Thon 2005!

(This is a partial Blog-A-Thon, daylight hours only, due to my health.)

This Blog-A-Thon will benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in memory of tx_db8r.

This year's theme: My characters answer questions. :) The hardest thing right now is not writing some of this up yet. Like the days before NaNoWriMo...

Current total is $280. Thank you, anonymous donor, gwynraven, australian_joe, kimeepower, and cathawk! Other person - what's your LJ name?

Anyone who donates, whether it's $5 or $50, gets to ask specific questions of specific characters. (The rest of you, well - you just take what you get, sorry.) I'm also working on another incentive. I'll post as soon as I have info on it.

I know this isn't going to be as huge as in previous years. And I'm not doing 24 hours, so I don't really have the right to demand that it be as huge. But Blog-A-Thon's important to me. So please throw a few bucks in the pot - it means a lot to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and it means a lot to me. And please, even if you can't donate, tell your friends. Thank you. :)

Comments

[kimeepower.livejournal.com]

Well this is the thing. I've been kicked out of the blogathon :) I totally believe if is unfair since I have not DONE anything wrong, but I am not going to go there.

They deleted any trace of me in their system. My campaign, my forum account & of course my sponsor account. So I can't donate via the stupid blogathon link. So I will need a URL to donate via the web.

I am doing my own Blog-A-Lot, not allowed to use Blogathon, they threatened legal action, yea they hate me THAT much.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Eep! What happened? I'm not up on my LJing...

[kimeepower.livejournal.com]

Well I don't really want to get into it... OK I will :)

I am less mad about it than I was the other day. The short story... I was soliciting for Globat, my webhosting company of which I am an affiliate for. Not uncommon for me to do so in my blog. Apparently this is wrong & because I am using my own personal blog to do the blogathon, that gives the blogathon people every right to monitor my blog BEFORE & AFTER.

I am blogging for a very special charity, one that I am sure LJ=docorion I am sure knows about, Health Care for All & the Sharewood Clinic in Malden. More information about my rogue event is here... http://www.kimeeklutter.com/blogalot.html or on my main blog site, http://kimee.blog-city.com

The long version of the story with exact details of everything...
Last year this is what I did... http://www.kimeeklutter.com/blogathon.html Last year there wasn't a blogathon, so there wasn't really any rules. I know it would be bad if it was offical & I even wrote, first thing, this is not affiliated with Blogathon. Well then I wrote an entry about my participation last year & then in the same entry about the globat deal. They flipped out. It's all right here... http://kimee.blog-city.com/been_kicked_out.htm Only after all that did they clarify the FAQ, & list it on the main page.

This is what I do, I sell webhosting. It's my blog, I feel I should be able to do whatever I want in my own personal blog, up until the blogathon. They never even gave me a warning, just shut me out. Which I think is bullshit. But I am ok with it. I am going to do exactly the same thing & hope that I get some sponsors. I did it last year without any sponsors, it sucks but it's still important to me.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Well that sucks. I talk about my work in my own LJ and I do sell stuff to the public on the web site I'm regularly talking about and linking to. So I guess that could be a problem too? Even if I didn't do it during blogathon? Sigh. And I was thinking about giving it a (very late) whirl.

While we're on the subject, blogathon's interface might be nice for blogathonners, but it really sucks for one-shot donors. And that's stupid. I had to make an account even though I'm just trying to give money (um, hello). Then I had to come back to song's journal to figure out what her campaign number was again, because of course blogathon didn't keep track of what I was really trying to accomplish, just dumped me at a generic "you are logged in now" page. Then I get to pledge money. Next week I'm supposed to remember to actually give some.

Way way way better idea: handle it like any charity handles pledges in the name of people participating in, say, a cross country bike ride or similar event. Take the money, for the charity, up front, and just note in whose name it was donated. If the actual blogger wimps out and doesn't blog for 24 hours... so fucking what? You really want your money back from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society? Of course not.

(Actually, one friend did once ask me if she could get her pledge back if I wasn't able to complete a charity event, but it wasn't hard to convince her that it was best to let the cancer patients keep their chemo instead. 'Cuz, y'know, she was all smart and stuff.)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

A few of us are working on a charity-blogathon site of our own for next year that'll be a lot more user-friendly. Site design won't begin til after this is over, but we'll solicit opinions when the time comes.

The old Blogathon.org sent you e-mail to confirm your pledge - does this not do that? - and e-mail to remind you to donate after the 'thon.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

No confirmation email so far anyway -- and while I'm ranty, their search function seems to be kinda borken too.

I shall ponder the question of a question. Where can I absorb more Shayara for inspiration? I don't have access to the timeline and guide, and shayara.com seems to be unresolvable today. But even if I don't get a coherent question asked I'll be looking forward to it.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

while I'm ranty, their search function seems to be kinda borken too.

Yep, sure is.

Where can I absorb more Shayara for inspiration? I don't have access to the timeline and guide

*looks one way then the other, like Susanna Hoffs in the "Walk Like an Egyptian" video* You can now.

shayara.com seems to be unresolvable today.

Hm! It's working for me... try again later?

[kimeepower.livejournal.com]

It's not resolvable for me either.

[jmdodd.livejournal.com]

For what it is worth, sponsors can see their pledges (amount and campaign) on the user profile page. I was afraid of overwhelming people with emails. Next time around I'd like to add the option of a checkbox to notify donors via email when they make a pledge (and for bloggers, the option of being notified when someone makes a pledge). There just wasn't time to get these things coded in the week I had to get the backend operational for signups.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

There just wasn't time to get these things coded in the week I had to get the backend operational for signups.

Dude! Yeah, that's nowhere near enough time to get things done.

Do you know why it was all so last-minute? No one seems to be saying...

[jmdodd.livejournal.com]

The organizers were forced to move the site to a new host because the status of the CMS was uncertain (and overdue as of mid-July) and they were unable to contact the previous administrator. I was contacted and committed to completing the backend for registrations to open by the 20th. I'm not very good at staying up late, so creating the system was a way for me to participate.

I'm still building functionality, which is why I'm here. The Wayback Machine had no archived forms on which I could base the CMS, so I've been looking for people's comments on the way it currently works versus the way it used to work, like the absence of notification emails. Now that I've seen it in action, I know what I need to change (and believe me, the sponsor register/log in/find campaign thing is at the top of the list) for future versions of the software.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Ah! Glad to help. The search function is kinda b0rked, also, FYI.

[kimeepower.livejournal.com]

Well I wouldn't let my trouble stop you from doign the blogathon. Perhaps if you do it, they will realize that they can't stop people from doing what they do in their blogs because of that event. What about people that have google ads in the gutter or suggest a book, but are an Amazon affiliate? Like I said, fine I won't mention a thing during that day, but they didn't want to hear about it. I think I had a pretty good theme going.

I am actually doing TWO things. I am going to be teaching HTML lesson. By the end of of the 24 hours, you will have the knowledge to make killer websites. If that isn't amazing enough. I will also be scouring the Net to find amazing websites that you just GOTTA SEE. It could be really weird, it could be educational, it could be helpful, or more. Everyone always asks me where I find all this stuff. Well for 24 hours, I will be giving you the best of the best that I find.

I'm still going to do all that I said I was going to, I just won't be doing it with the confusing interface of the Blogathon. I even have my own graphics & everything :)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Dude. That's fucked up.

As I said to boutell below, a few of us are working on a better way to do this next year. So far as I'm concerned, as long as you're raising money for charity during the 'thon, you can write about whatever the hell you want before and after. I don't see why it should matter.

[kimeepower.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I said. They won't even discuss it with me & removed EVERYTHING, even my sponsor info. Which I think is messed up. I am sooo on board with you guys next year!

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister. :)

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I am not under the illusion that $10 entitles me to porn. (;

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Hey, you never know; depends who you ask and what you ask them....

No guarantees, though. *hug*

Do you have a question?

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

No no, that's the PORNathon, in december. *smiles* More info when that rolls around.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! I can count you! Glee!

Got a question? I don't know how well you know my characters. The post you commented on... Hal's not a character, he's a real person.

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

*poke*

*love*

*smile*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*hug* :)

[zarq.livejournal.com]

FYI: http://zarq.livejournal.com/315014.html I thought you'd like to know.

*hugs* Thank you for doing this. We contribute through the Society every year.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*hug* Thank you for the pimpage!