Yes, I've already talked to Lane about it. The problem we're having is that there's no ONE place where all the URL's of participating bloggers are together on one page so they can be entered into a database. This was the huge pain of last year's NaBlo and it will take some time to solve this year. But we're working on it!
If everyone entered his or her address into a shared google spread sheet, would that make it easier? it would be a self sufficient database of participants.
Shared Google spreadsheet? What are these words you speak? I will have to check that out, because if people could enter their own URLs that would be AWESOME.
I looked into the Google spreadsheets, but I need to invite all the NaBlo members to become collaborators on the document and Ning doesn't give me a list of everyone's e-mail addresses.
It seemed like the perfect idea, but I'm facing the fact that I'm going to have to do the whole thing by hand again. And I'm okay with that, I still have a few weeks.
Half of the sites I continue to visit today are ones that I pulled from last year's randomizer. I'm sure it's a pain to get set up, but it's definitely worth it to all those who use it. Thanks for the extra effort!
Hey, quick side question. I've been exploring through the randomizer from last year and it's shocking how many people from last year's event have completely stopped writing. Will this year's randomizer completely override last year's set of blogs (as in, will last year's randomizer still work and there will be a different one this year at a different address)?
Could we start a thread with all the URL's in it - so you'd have them in one place? It might make it easier for you to put them into a spreadsheet or whatever (yes I'm so technical)
Eden, have you asked the Ning guys/girls for help? I'm sure this whole site is run on databases. It seems like it'd be easy for them to run you a list of all the links people have put into the "website" entry on each of our pages.
Of course, I know very little about these things so insert warning here about out-of-ass-talking on my part.
jessica -- that might work! Only, how would everyone be notified of the thread URL? Eden doesn't have everyone's email addresses..
streaksonthechina -- that's a really good idea. With what little technical knowledge regarding the Internet, that is doable. I just don't know how long it would take (my guess is, not very long), and if Ning is even willing to entertain this idea/request.
Sweetisu - My guess is that everyone who signed up for this will check the website at least once before the month of November is over - make it a front-page discussion and perhaps Eden could mention it in the blurb on center page...
There has to be a easy way to list them all. I'm not sure Ning would be able to release all that info to a third party, even if she did create the thing to begin with...
There are SO MANY of us -- I couldn't believe the number I saw when I signed in -- this would be extremely tedious to do by hand, even using the one-click Blogroll This would be too much.
I hope there is a solution that would have us each enter our own blog url's.
Good news! I've been working this afternoon, and I've made a way to extract the 'website' profile field from here, and from there I should be able to write a PHP script to send users to the different blog.
Great news again! - In case you missed the link up the top, I've coded a Randomiser that interacts with the Website URL in your Ning profile. So if you haven't set one in your profile, do it now, otherwise, click the Randomizer tab (I hate writing that with a z) up the top and get browsing
