The developers of the module that I use to run Sympoze have just released a massive update. I installed it this morning, and after a brief scare things seem to be running smoothly. I’m still sifting through all of the updates to see what new goodies have been added, but here are two of the noteworthy improvements.
Automatic Redirect to Already Submitted Stories!
This one is the biggie. In the past, when users submitted links that other users had already submitted – they would get an error message. Now they will be redirected to the page for that story so they can vote on it. Awesome!
Now when you want to use your Sympoze Bookmarklet – you don’t have to worry about whether the story has been submitted or not. If it hasn’t been submitted, you’ll be the one to submit it. If it has been submitted, you’ll automatically be taken to the page to vote on it. This makes submission and voting way easier and more efficient.
URL Improvement
The old version of the software would block submission of certain URLs. This was especially problematic for philosophers since the kind of URLs being blocked were common among the philosophy journals. It was very difficult to submit links to philosophy journal articles in many cases. This seems to have been fixed.
Great!
Oh, but is it possible to not merely redirect, but automatically add a vote in addition? (It’s annoying for users to click twice when once should do.)
Richard,
I know. That part is a bit annoying. I’m going to play around with this update version when I get a chance, and if it doesn’t already have the option built in – I may do a feature request.
However, it’s worth noting that if the user was already committed to submitting the story with their “Sympoze This!” bookmarklet – this still should be a pleasant-surprise time saver, right? After all, they were going to have to fill in a description, scroll down, hit the submit link – now all they have to do is click twice and they’re done.
Oh, and next on the agenda is trying to figure out a way for philosophy bloggers to put an external vote button on their blogs. That should help.