Have you seen our new on line magazine at www.word-worth.com? Check it out, and send us an e-mail from the site with your comments.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), November 24, 2000

Answers

What a wonderful on-line magazine you've created! I do hope that others are visiting it and sharing their comments.

I'm choosing to share some thoughts publicly in the spirit of collecting perspectives from various people. My thoughts are my own, influenced by people like Edward Tufte and Philip Greenspun, with whom I've studied.

Navigation Scheme You have created a consistent navigation scheme through all of the site except the welcome page. It uses a textured, unobtrusive background and a color scheme involving various shades of green. Given the environmental focus of many of the pieces, the color choice seems particularly appropriate. I noticed that you have set followed links to display in green, and that, too, is a subtle and nice touch. So the one thing I'd change is that welcome, or "cover," page. Actually, "Welcome," or "Home" is probably a better title for your initial web page. You might add one paragraph about the mission or purpose of Word Worth. And then, as suggested earlier, switch the navigation from the left column to the horizontal structure you use on the other pages.

Use of Images The photos you use load quickly, they are nice compliments to the material, and they add information. I was curious what a Voo Doo Lily looked like, and I recognized the Giant Hogweed, but had not known its name. I'd recommend using your webpage creation software to name the images so that when someone passes their mouse over the picture, a caption appears. That would be particularly helpful with the picture of the turf-covered cottage and, on the Arts page, the little train set. On the last mentioned, when you click on it, it expands to a very large size. I'd suggest following Greenspun's standards for mounting pictures, explained in one chapter of his guide to interactive sites. You could probably go with the small, quick-loading .gif on the main pages, but then have a click blow it up to a photo-quality image.

Collaboration Your Future Issues section begs for interactive features. The ideas are neat, and would be certain to attract some folks with interest in contributing. Why not set up a Word Worth site using eGroups or Lusenet (used for the Kentlands Forum) or intranets? Then individuals could post their ideas, building on your initial ideas. You'd be sure to find neat collaborators from around the world.

As I said at the outset, these are my immediate thoughts. I'd be interested in other folks' perspectives. And I think it's great, Marion, that you chose to use this forum to solicit reactions and encourage people to check out your on line magazine.

-- Michael Berney (mgberney@yahoo.com), November 30, 2000.

Thanks, Michael, for that fantastic feedback. We didn't expect anything that well thought out. Some of what you said, we're already dealing with for the next issue--for example, the pictures being sized correctly. Others, we'll definitely consider. I like the idea of a mission statement, for example, and the editor-in-chief and I will have to think about how we would want to do that.

It's interesting that you like the green for the followed hyperlinks. I had been thinking that they looked too drab and had already changed the color [not to something too bright] for the next issue. I'll have to reconsider that since you think that that works.

We already have letters from people from such places as New Mexico, Connecticut, and England, and have had a request to reprint the editorial.

Thanks again for your very helpful, thoughtful response.

Marion

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), November 30, 2000.

The second issue of Word Worth is out. There is a column and pictures about Havasupai by Susan Johnson, and a tribute to Hale Chatfield.

Michael, we have incorporated most, if not all, of your suggestions. We had to cut down on the links in order to consider load time for slower systems.

We hope that you all enjoy the magazine.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), December 23, 2000.

The February issue of Word Worth at www.word-worth.com is out. I hope that you enjoy it.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), January 20, 2001.

The March edition of Word Worth has been posted at www.word- worth.com, and now back issues are available in the archives page. We get several thousand hits a month, but we don't know where they are coming from. Send us a note from the site, if you get a chance. If you don't want your note published in letters to the editor, type, "don't print" on your note.

I think that everyone will enjoy David Clark's photography on the Arts page. We look forward to hearing from you.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), February 20, 2001.

Word Worth is dehyphenated! The hyphen had seemed to us to be a good idea because it clearly separated the words, but the web doesn't work that way and it caused everyone difficulties in finding us. The old address still works, but the new one is www.WordWorthWeb.com

Of course, all lower case works as well.

We are just about at 10,000 hits per month right now, and the new edition will be posted by Tuesday, we believe.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), March 18, 2001.

The new edition of Word Worth is posted. You may notice that we are now taking ads--but we will not do any of the annoying in-your-face banner type ads. After all, that is not the major purpose. We have decided that we will do the type of ad that we have done for the Georgia home for sale for Kentlanders who are leasing or renting their home by owner for only $10 per month--But that may not be possible when our web space gets taken up. You can preview the Georgia ad by clicking on the picture on the cover.

That would be one page of five to six pictures. We recommend mostly inside shots because then someone from out of town can see what your place looks like on-line if they can't get there soon.

Our office will be closed, however, from a week from now to April 18. If you have questions during that time, you can e-mail the editor in chief, Susan Johnson by clicking her name on the cover of our magazine.

-- M H Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), March 20, 2001.

The May issue of Word Worth has been posted at www.wordworthweb.com I hope those of you who have visited it have enjoyed it and continue to do so.

We had a problem recently with people on this list getting autoresponses from Word Worth who had not visited the site. This was due to a combination of factors ranging from changes in the hosting site to our domain update. I apologize for the confusion; it's the last thing we want to happen. The problem should be solved now and can only recur if things are sent to the old hyphenated address.

We appreciate the interest that we have had in Word Worth; we've gotten up to more than 13,000 hits per month. We will soon be doing an article on TNDs, a hot topic here lately.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), April 23, 2001.

Just as I clicked on the submit button for the last message, I saw that a response would be sent to my old address. This generated one of those autoresponses. Although I don't know why that gets sent to everyone on this list, I've made changes that should make it impossible to generate the autoresponse. If it happens one more time, I will delete the autoresponse from the site entirely. Thanks in advance for your patience.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), April 23, 2001.

The new issue of Word Worth is out at www.wordworthweb.com . The editorials page is about 19th century villages, specifically Gaithersburg; East Aurora NY; Barnstaple, Devon, England (a 12th century village) and Kentlands, a neotradional community.

-- M H Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), May 23, 2001.

The July issue of Word Worth at www.wordworthweb.com is out with an interesting brief note from the mayor on the letters page.

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), July 05, 2001.

I was asked when the August issue of Word Worth would be posted. It was posted on July 28 at www.wordworthweb.com , and the next issue will be posted Monday night or Tuesday [the past issues are available on the Archives page].

The August editorial is the first one in which we deal with a controversial issue, something which we stated in our mission statement that we wouldn’t shy away from, but we feel that the topic is dealt with respectfully and rationally as we also stated we would try to do in our mission statement.

I probably will not continue to post notices here when the issues are posted. In the next issue there will be a box to send your e-mail address if you would like a reminder. The e-addresses will not be used for any other purpose and will contain an opt out link should someone decide that they no longer want reminders later.

Marion Perry

-- Marion Perry (MHPerry@WordWorthWeb.com), August 25, 2001.