Observant members have been noticing, and mentioning, some of the changes that have been occurring over the past few weeks. These are to aid a few major changes that are in the pipeline but also to tweak some user-requested features.

I'm keen to unveil a few that you may, or may not, have noticed. So here they are with the reasons for the improvement.

Join instead of Submit
Unless you've joined Blotanical since the past weekend, chances are this one wouldn't have come up on the radar. In fact, it's more of a change for my benefit than yours but will ultimately streamline a few other projects already in progress - namely Reviews which work will start on next week.

The problems that have been remedied are;

1. Bloggers can now become members instantaneously just as a non-blogging Blotanist can. Their blogs will still wait to be manually checked for appropriateness but they can immediately start perusing the innards of this site and meet other members from day one.


2. No more duplicates - bloggers aren't able to add a title for their blog that will conflict with another members on Blotanical. They will now have to differentiate it somehow.


3. The non-blogging membership form is now very lite and streamlined.


4. There is now a form that lets Blotanists add an Additional Blog. If you author another garden-related blog it is much easier to add the details for this blog.

My Posts with easier Ordering options
Until now, My Posts were always ordered by the number of Picks each post attracted. Thanks to Helen - The Patient Gardener, and others, the suggestion was made to order these by date as well. Now it's possible to order them by date (ascending order) or (descending order).

In the future, you may also be able to order them alphabetically and by number of Picks ascending.

TANGENT ALERT!!!!
While we're on the subject of My Posts, some members have been pointing out that they're seeing posts from other blogs showing up in their list. The reason for this is because some of our members are multi-tabbed picking. That is, rather than waiting for the blog post to load they may open multiple separate tabs with different posts opened from the Picks lists.

This happens because each tab opened holds a session variable, ie a piece of data such as the title of the post, the blog id and other information. The problem occurs when these variables get caught up and used at different points in time relating to the wrong blogs. Unfortunately, this is a programming limitation so it is outside of my control.

The way to combat the problem is just to expect that everyone is happy to sit and wait while your blog takes 20 minutes to download all the uncompressed images, sidebar gadgets and title banners. But this probably isn't going to happen.

The solution that I would suggest is that we offer members the option to view picks in formatted text only - as an opt-in/opt-out preference. This would mean that after clicking the post link that takes you to the Picks page you will see only the post as formatted text instead of all the other images and gadgetry. Those who are happy to remain with the current arrangement can do so while those who are on limited time schedules will have the choice. Plus, you can always click the "Read in a New Tab" link to open the page as the owner formatted on their own page. (This will be the only way you could add comments as well).

Until this change occurs, I will have to manually remove any impending Picks meaning that the Pickers will lose points and it may have effects on the Popular Picks as well.

New Garden Blog Posts
This page has undergone some changes in order to help promote those blogs that are new to Blotanical. A list of Popular Picks for the Newest 200 Blogs and also a pictorial survey of some of our new Blotanists are the key improvements. Would love to know your thoughts on this, especially from some of the new bloggers.

Terms of Service (TOS)
Since every other social media site has a TOS, it seemed like something worth offering here as well. Basically it outlines the unwritten community guidelines that we're trying to project with this site - except that they're no longer unwritten. New members have to agree to them before they can join Blotanical and in the next few weeks all members of Blotanical will have to agree and abide by them. They're not onerous but they should clear the air and let you know where you stand in relation to the use of this site.

Also, you may remember the username change that happened just before Christmas. Each member was confronted with a screen requesting them to make their username conform to the new standards and promised that they would only see this once. Well...it seems that I forgot to update the Display Name field in the About Me section of their Plot and some members have gone and changed them back or to other names that no longer conform. For these members you will, once I've fixed the loophole, have to revisit this page again in the near future.