RSS Feeds: Hari's Blog Review: More Than Scratch The Surface
Screenshot at time of review
I will be completely honest about this: I wasn't really impressed when I first saw More Than Scratch The Surface. For one thing, WordPress and blogging are extremely crowded territories: I've seen tons of blogs which are dedicated to the same topics and I saw nothing really new about it. To be visible in such a field, you have to be really good at the job or be well connected. The theme was also a simple variation of the default WordPress theme and it wasn't exactly standing apart calling attention to itself. However, these are the negatives and I'm through with them.
If you do bother to scratch beneath the surface though (and pun is intended :P ) Stephen's blog is actually quite informative. I wouldn't call it a blog though: it is more like a collection of articles and I fear that the current format is not ideally suited for such rich content. Articles tend to get buried over a period of time and the author really doesn't get his due because people would tend to perceive it as I initially did: as yet another "blog about blogging." So my suggestion would be to customize WordPress to look more like a real CMS website.
Even though the theme is default, I liked its simplicity. It wasn't overcrowded with a lot of widgets unlike a lot of blogs I see these days. The author writes quality articles which will definitely have an audience. I did read a couple of articles, and in particular WordPress – Taming The Advanced Editor. Most of the content is readable and if you like WordPress and customizing WordPress, you will benefit from perusing his articles. The author is a programmer and is modest about it, so that's another quality I appreciate about this blog. There is no presumptuousness or attitude which works well in technical writing. I did get the feeling that he has just touched the elementary subjects though and it should get interesting when he starts dealing with really "techie" stuff.
On the whole, I have to appreciate Stephen for his honest effort. He will definitely have a dedicated audience, but it would be difficult to attract people from the really heavyweight WordPress-focussed writers. As I said, the area is heavily saturated. This is not discouragement though. I think with the level of knowledge and expertise that he has, all he needs is the right connections. If Stephen remains focussed and continues development in PHP and WordPress I think there is a lot of scope for readership and growth in the future.
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Hari, Thanks for the review. I'll try to address the problems you found – I appreciate you pointing them out.
My theme is just a variation on the WordPress theme and I would like to do something about it. My main problem is the time needed to do it properly (I'm busy working on plugins).
You are correct: many of my posts are really articles and I do need to make them stand out. I know there is an articles plugin for WordPress, so I will look at that shortly. If that's not enough, I will do something else to make them stand out (once again time may prevent me from a full overhaul of the theme).
Anyway, thanks again for the review – it's great to receive feedback like this.
No problem, Stephen. I was just a bit worried that your good content would get buried over a period of time.
Try having a sidebar with 'best articles' links at the least.
[...] to create an Articles page, so my articles are not buried over time, as pointed out by Hari when he reviewed my site. I will supplement this with some extra article features in future (such as a Most Viewed Articles [...]
I like quiet themes that don't shout at people. However, I also like the extreme, where you know exactly what you are getting, like Ed Dale's TubbyNerd.com