The Orphus system: make C&Cing easier for your readers.

[Cheb]

I apologize for bringing this technical topic here, but it is most closely related to comments and corrections.

In short, if you have your own website where you post your stories, there is such thing as Orphus. You add a little code to your pages and your readers gain the ability to easily report any spelling/grammatical errors. The key word here is "easily". Even the most lazy reader won't find it too hard to highlight the error with his mouse and press Ctrl+Enter. A pop-up window will show, allowing to add a comment, then the site master will receive the error info via e-mail.

Our main site "Ranma 1/2 - translated fanfics" employs this system for years, I'm using it for my web-site. Uncounted typos fell victims to it. I, um... sort of slacked in applying the corrections so they were accumulating in my inbox since 2005. About 160 of them currently. But I swear, I'll find yet a time to correct all those typos!

The only question is: would it work outside of Russia? It involves connecting to some sort of server, after all. I only know that it becomes more and more widespread and has its interface translated to a few other languages like English, Tatar, Lithuanian Portuguese, Ukrainian and so on.

I welcome you to check how it works at my website.

The Engrish version of Orphus home is http://orphus.ru/en/ The interface translation is... skewed, but the script still works as intended. Then, you can always correct the message strings yorself.

[Sunshine Temple]

Hmm, I think fic research is a better place for this, but I'll leave a shadow thread back from C&C

Neat idea.

Another downside I can see is that it requires alot of trust in your readers as it's very open to spamming and other mischief.

Though I do like the ease of use on reporting comments.

The downside is that it's optimized to flagging one error at a time.

[Makoto]

I take it the system requires Javascript? (Or at least PHP.)

It didn't work for me, but that's because I have NoScript running in Firefox, and probably have to (at the very least) add the site domain to the whitelist.

[Cheb]

It's a simple javascript (you can see it here: http://www.chebmaster.narod.ru/orphus/orphus_en.js )
So yes, your reader must have javascript enabled.

The downside is that it's optimized to flagging one error at a time.

On the other hand, people can do that without interrupting their reading: they don't need to build a list or keep the previous error in their mind.

An additional plus: you just leave it attached to your pages forever, so if there are any typos left they'll be eventually all found.

[Cheb]

P.S. It works I just got two reports: "rlatively" and "alowed"

[Makoto]

You probably should have a notice that it requires Javascript, then. Some people do usually like to keep JS off. (Mine's 'off' only due to NoScript, of course.)

Wonder if the system could be modified to throw up a message stating that since JS is off, the commenting/reporting feature won't be/isn't available?

[Spokavriel]

It's a decent tool from what I'm reading but I don't see anything about it that makes it one I would want to use.