The End of The Bold Italic

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Mignon
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How to Pronounce Mignon Fogarty

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Mignon

When I recently interviewed someone with a difficult name, I spent about 30 minutes before the interview trying to find a file that had the proper pronunciation of his name. So I thought I’d make it easier for anyone who is trying to find the pronunciation of my name. (Click “play” below. It’s set to start at the point I say my name.)

How to Pronounce Mignon Fogarty

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The Death of Comments

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Mignon

Today, The Week announced that it is eliminating comments on its site, noting that “[T]he smartest, most thoughtful, and most spirited conversations are being driven not by pseudonymous avatars in the comments sections of news sites, but by real people using their real names on the social web.” The move is part of what’s starting to look like a trend:

Although the sites that more recently eliminated comments note that meaningful conversations have moved to social media, their announcements also included musings about the vitriol that will be familiar to anyone who has run a website—or heck, read a website. It’s no surprise that there’s a popular Twitter account called Don’t Read Comments.

Popular Science had a more interesting reason for eliminating comments: Studies have shown that negative comments, even just ad hominem attacks, can make readers have a more negative view the technology covered in the story.

In the past, website managers believed that a vibrant comment section helped drive traffic to a site and build brand loyalty and community. Today, beliefs are changing.

More Reading

Disabling comments: a debate that cuts to the core of online news

Sources

  • September, 2013: Popular Science “Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.”
  • March, 2014: Copyblogger “[T]he conversation moved to a wider public platform.” [They also make a great argument about how time-wasting it is to deal with spam.]
  • November 2014: Re/Code “But we concluded that, as social media has continued its robust growth, the bulk of discussion of our stories is increasingly taking place there, making onsite comments less and less used and less and less useful.”
  • November, 2014: Reuters “Much of the well-informed and articulate discussion around news, as well as criticism or praise for stories, has moved to social media and online forums.”

In April of 2014, the Chicago Sun-Times announced it was making a major change to its commenting system. “[A]s anyone who has ever ventured into a comment thread can attest, these forums too often turn into a morass of negativity, racism, hate speech and general trollish behaviors that detract from the content.”

Updates

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Get Signed Grammar Girl Books. Order by Saturday

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Mignon

This Saturday I’m participating in Indies First and signing books at the Sundance Bookstore in Reno—and the store can take phone orders! That means you can call the store anytime before Saturday (November 29, 2014) at around 2:00 to buy a signed Grammar Girl book. They’ll take the order and ship you the book. In the past, people have told me these make great gifts for their children’s teachers, their writer friends, and language lovers in general.

To place your order, call Sundance Bookstore at 775-786-1188.

If you’re not sure which book you want, here’s a list of all my books and what makes each one different.

For more information, call the store (775-786-1188) or see the event page.

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Are News Sites Allergic to External Links?

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Mignon

This happens all the time, and it annoys me all the time: A big news site (in this case, The Christian Science Monitor) has an article about a specific thing (in this case, the guy who has raised $70K in a Kickstarter to make potato salad). But there’s NO LINK TO THE KICKSTARTER. (Yes, I’m shouting.) What is this, 1999? (Here’s the link to the Kickstarter.)

The CSM article includes a link to other CSM articles about Kickstarter, which is what you get when you click on the “Kickstarter” link that an apparently naive person might expect to lead to the actual Kickstarter they are discussing. But no. It’s just to a list of other articles on their site that mention Kickstarter. I wonder how many page views they get from that misleading link, and I wonder how short the time-on-site is for that page. I’m guessing it’s less than a couple of seconds from each person like me who clicked and then cursed and left.

Perhaps even more strangely, the article links the words “The Columbia Dispatch” to a page of other articles on their site about The Columbus Dispatch. They seem to realize this is odd or unhelpful, so they put in a bit.ly link to the actual Dispatch site, but here’s the kicker—that link isn’t active. No, reader, if you want to actually visit that link, you have to cut and paste it into your browser. (Kudos to The Columbus Dispatch for including a link to the Kickstarter in the first paragraph of their article.)

The CSM obviously can link to other sites because the last paragraph contains a normal link to a related Slate article. I’m not specifically picking on The Christian Science Monitor. It seems downright hostile to readers to omit a link to the thing that is the main topic of an article, but I still see it happen far too often on news sites, especially sites from publications that started out as print newspapers or magazines. What is the problem? Do they think that if they include a link it will seem like an advertisement for this guy’s Kickstarter? That’s the only remotely logical reason I can think of not to include a link, but if that’s the reason, it’s antiquated.

Give readers links to the things you are covering.

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Peeve Wars: Just Waiting for the Decks

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mignon

Almost everything is here! The posters, bookmarks, postcards, individual cards, cool tokens, instruction manuals, and shipping materials are all sitting in my living room; I’m just waiting for the decks to arrive to start assembling the packages for shipping.

The company printing the decks gave me an estimated ship date of June 17, but obviously, they missed that date. Apparently, they didn’t have enough blank deck boxes for printing when they got my order. They now tell me they expect to ship the decks to me early next week.

One thing I’ve learned through all this is that getting games printed is complicated. On the other hand, I’ve been wildly happy with the company that printed the instructions, posters, bookmarks, and postcards: smartpress. I’ve looked at somewhere between 5 and 10 printers while pulling this all together, and SmartPress was the easiest to work with. You can get accurate quotes online, order online, and see your proofs online; but if you need personal help, a real person answers the phone, and you can also get hard proofs for a small additional fee (which I did). Their automated system also kept me informed at every step of process. They even contacted me when I ordered the bookmarks to let me know that if I placed the order in a different way, I could save about 40%. This is an unsolicited endorsement and they aren’t paying me or giving me discounts—I just love them, especially after all the problems I’ve had with playing card printers. If you need the kind of products they print, check out smartpress.com.

Here are the pictures of the items I have so far:

POSTERS

The picture doesn’t do them justice. They’re big: poster-size.

POSTCARDS

They looks tiny compared to the posters. They’re like cute little mini-posters!

INSTRUCTION MANUAL

I’m glad I redid the manual; it turned out much nicer than the original manual, and because it’s a different size, you’ll be able to fold it to fit inside the box for storage.

BOOKMARKS AND COOL TOKENS

I’m sorting the cool markers into plastic bags for shipping so they don’t get lost, but you’ll be able to store them in the box with the deck and instructions.

I wrote funny text for each of the bookmarks—a tiny story about the peeve or hero.

The box that contains one of the mystery-box rewards is also in this picture. It’s still a secret, but I think you’re going to like it!

COLLECTIBLE CARD SETS

The game printer did send the individual cards for people who ordered a collectible set, and I’ve started placing them in their protective holders. This picture doesn’t do them justice; they look fantastic! Seeing the whole set laid out like this was another “wow” moment in which I got that amazing feeling that we have made something real.

Thanks again for your support!

Mignon

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Peeve Wars Update: The First Deck is Here

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Mignon

We’ve hit a big milestone! I received one test deck from the printer, and Joe and I have done three separate test-play sessions with people who have never played before.

The cards look great and the testing went well. The testing also served its purpose of finding previously undiscovered problems, and I’m making minor tweaks to a couple of cards and to the instruction manual before I order the final decks to eliminate wording that was confusing people. I’m also going to make a video showing how to play for people who would rather watch a video than read an instruction manual.

I’ve also been hard at work on the secret prizes for people who got the Mystery Box.

Here are pictures of me unboxing the deck and of one of our test-play sessions. It’s been exciting to hold the game in my hands and watch people play. I can’t wait for all of you to be able to feel the same thing!

MY FIRST PEEK AT THE DECK IN THE BOX. (Imagine me squealing with delight and anticipation.)

OPENING THE BOX (The extra room is for the cool chips you’ll get and the folded instruction manual.)

THE BOX, RULE BOOK, AND PILE OF CARDS. (I wasn’t happy with the rule book, so it is going to look very different in the final version.)

THE FIRST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TO PLAY THE PRINTED GAME. (It was difficult for me not to play myself first, but to thank the test players for their time, I wanted to give them the honor of being first. They were incredibly helpful and played for hours.)

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Peeve Wars, you can see more about the whole project here, and if you want to be notified when it becomes commercially available, please send an e-mail to feedback [at] quickanddirtytips [dot] com and ask to be put on my Peeve Wars notification list.

Thanks again to all the backers. It’s been amazing to hold the cards in my hands and know that the game is a real thing and to watch people play and have fun. You made that possible. You.

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LAST CHANCE: Peeve Wars Ordering Ends Sunday Night

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Mignon

Peeve Wars is now bigger: 72 cards!

Peeve Wars is now better: 3 new hero cards and 5 new peeve cards!

Thanks to everyone who backed the project, I’ve been able to expand the deck. To get the word out and give people who may have been on the fence a chance to order, I’ve extended the deadline to Sunday night. You have only about 24 hours left to get a deck of cards! If you want one, get it now at http://FundAnything.com/peevewars. (See the “Two Decks” reward for a discount.)

What Is Peeve Wars?

Peeve Wars is a card game based on pet peeves: Amass an army of peeve cards to annoy your opponent(s) to death. Start with 3 cool points, and each time an opponent successfully annoys you, you lose a cool. When you completely lose your cool, you lose the game. Peeves have powers or rules related to their name. For example, only one “Very Unique” can be in play at a time, “Could Care Less” lets you ignore an attempt to annoy, and “Gone Missing” lets you steal a card. Hero cards, such as the “Librarian,” give you patience to help resist the power of the peeves—but each hero has a nemesis.

Order your Peeve Wars deck of card today.

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Peeve Wars Is Funded! Get Your Deck Today

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Mignon

In case you haven’t heard, I’m crowd funding a card game called Peeve Wars. It’s fully funded, and you have only a few more days left to reserve a deck before we shut down ordering and start printing cards. Get your deck now while you’re thinking about it. You’re going to want to play this game!

Here are more details:

In Peeve Wars, you amass an army of peeve cards to annoy your opponent(s) to death. Start with 3 cool points, and each time an opponent successfully annoys you, you lose a cool. When you completely lose your cool, you lose the game. Peeves have powers or rules related to their name. For example, only one “Very Unique” can be in play at a time, “Could Care Less” lets you ignore an attempt to annoy, and “Gone Missing” lets you steal a card. Hero cards, such as the “Librarian” and “Teacher,” give you patience to help you resist the power of the peeves—but each hero has a nemesis.

Peeve wars is fully funded and you only have a few days left to get a deck or send in a photo to be an inspiration for a peeve. (See the Immortal Peeve reward.) We’ve already started making the final art, so see the “Updates” tab for more card examples.

Get Peeve Wars on Fund Anything today!

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BTG025 Peeve Wars, Cambridge Talk, and Great Podcasters

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Mignon

Yes, believe it or not, it’s a new Behind the Grammar podcast and video.

I’m making a card game called Peeve Wars. If you’d like to play an amazing card game based on pet peeves illustrated as little monsters, visit http://FundAnything.com/peevewars to learn more and help me make it happen.

I also tell you about a talk I’m giving at the Bridging the Unbridgeable: linguists, prescriptivists and the general public conference in Cambridge (UK) in June, and recommend some podcasters I talked with this week:

Wine for Normal People
Purpose Rockstar
Newbie Writers
Todd-Cast
Podcasters’ Roundtable

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