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The Archives, August 2002 – April 2009
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New: Word It

Word It has been a fixture of Speak Up since April of 2003, a visual respite from the generous amount of text that typically adorns this web site. Since then, more than 1,250 people have generated more than 4,400 Word Its, and it remains one of Speak Up’s most popular and active features. But it has always been more of a sideshow than a main attraction, and as we were going through the full archives it was evident that Word It needed to be a main attraction. So we have moved all the archives into a new, independent blog. Introducing: Word It.

Word It

We have painstakingly tagged all Word Its to provide a new way of experiencing the oldies (and not so oldies) but goodies. Like the image above, which shows most of the Word Its tagged with “Isotype.” The options are endless, well, for now, they end at around 2,500 tags like “Cooper Black” and “Comic Sans”, “George W. Bush” and “Dick Cheney”, “Red” and “Blue” or “Exclamation Point” and “Question Mark”. And as new Word Its come in will be dutifully tagging away.

At this point it’s worth giving a much deserved shout to Steven, who more than two years ago, when we launched Quipsologies, called it. He even got the URL right! So, anyway, we hope that all you Word It creators follow us on over to the new abode and keep the little squares coming.

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ENTRY DETAILS
ARCHIVE ID 5913 FILED UNDER Speak Up Announcements
PUBLISHED ON Mar.16.2009 BY Armin
WITH COMMENTS
Comments
Andrew Klein’s comment is:

Great idea!

Props for tagging, that adds another level to the experience, though I'm slightly unsettled over the format change. Some of the charm was seeing an array of Word-It squares in a grid - some people even took advantage of this fact and stretched their concept across several squares. Maybe have an option for viewing in "old-school grid view"

Also, not to be too critical, but, the type on either side seem a little distracting for it's size compared to the image - particularly the ones that are mostly type based. I could see it being half the size.

On Mar.16.2009 at 10:12 AM
Jason A. Tselentis’s comment is:

Amazing. The sheer work involved with the site, its tags, and the database management looks impressive. It tires me just thinking of how much work was involved with this.

On Mar.16.2009 at 03:14 PM
Kevin M. Scarbrough’s comment is:

Armin,

Would it be possible to turn author's names into a tag? So one could search by author? Just a well meaning thought by someone who can relate to, if the idea is taken up, how much work it may be.

Hm.
Better get second and third (and fourth) opinions if it'd be worth it.

Hm.

On Mar.16.2009 at 10:12 PM
Kevin M. Scarbrough’s comment is:

...and then we find out the young man's observational skills need to tune slightly to the right! Apologies, and a second round of congratulations on a job done rare (well is overcooked in my experience).

On Mar.16.2009 at 10:17 PM
Armin’s comment is:

Kevin, our initial intent was to make the name on the left clickable to see all of his or her Word Its, but we couldn't dance around the MovableType formatting to make it work properly, and that's why we included it as the first tag on the right, not ideal but it works.

> It tires me just thinking of how much work was involved with this.

Our numb fingers can attest to it.

> particularly the ones that are mostly type based. I could see it being half the size.

Andrew, point well taken. We'll keep it in mind. We wanted to make sure that names were prominent so that it would be quick to know who did what.

On Mar.17.2009 at 05:43 AM
Pesky’s comment is:

I'm having fun just looking around these.

Thanks Armin and Bryony, this is pretty cool - anything further would be over-icing the cake (speaking in designer/pastry chef lingo...)

... now to wash the obsequiousness from my mouth: IT LOOKS LIKE CRAP! Is there a funeral going on? I'll bring wreath.(joking)

ps. Maybe, in a phase 2, sometime, you'll add the early wordits...they may be redundant, being in your book, but a lot were great ones.

On Mar.17.2009 at 11:22 AM
Nicholas Ceron’s comment is:

this is great
[and a lot of work!]
as a form of retribution I am going to buy the wordit book;
and the other one also
:D

no, really, this is a good thing
thanks

On Mar.21.2009 at 07:13 PM