This is something I’d never experienced before with StumbleUpon, but it’s quite striking how much of a difference it makes to referrals.

Normally when one of my articles gets added to Stumble, the ratings shoot up for 24-48 hours, then tail off with just the odd extra stumble through later on. That’s how I noticed this occasion, I’d looked at the stats earlier and the predictable spike had begun when some kindly soul stumbled me; but suddenly had stopped almost completely in the hour before I checked.

At first I was stumped – I knew my site wasn’t down because I was drafting an article; and stumbleupon wasn’t down – I was using it at the time. I went and checked the article specifically, no problems there. Then I hovered over the tags… “pornography”. Apparently one random user decided to tag the site with that reference and suddenly my article is tainted; now, if this person simply gets very overexcited about Java I might let them off; but the article in question was about Swing – hardly the most exciting topic.

I couldn’t see why it would be malicious, the site the article was on is technical – there’s very little opinion and just about no criticism. In short, nothing to annoy anyone. Naturally I tried to report the problem when I noticed it, but it’s still there nearly 48 hours later, and the traffic to that article has all but dissapeared. So why, dear Stumble Upon, do you insist on taking the word of one user? Surely it wouldn’t be too much work to prompt a second user to confirm/refute the tag; or maybe just rely on the standard ability to report the site as adult in the original discovery or under the tools->report this stumble as… section.

Come on Stumble, give us some fairer quality control.

Up to now I’ve gotten hold of two domains for myself, but I’d really like at least one more. The one the blog currently resides on is quite standard but has the professionalism I want to have.  jonathanstory.com, it gets the job done ™ without too much faff, but without the memorable element I’d quite like. The plan is to use this as a portfolio and place to host the myriad of projects I start or get involved with. Generally I think it will be followed as a link or just typed straight off a document, CV or (I hope) business card.

TminusTen.com is the second domain, planned at the moment as being the lighter side of my life. Facebook gets the quick updates on what I’m doing when I feel the need to announce things about myself to the world; this should hopefully be a place for me to rant, rave, discuss and generally have my say. Along with all the brain-splosion I’ll probably upload a few videos and photos and get a bit of a gallery going, and use it for any lighter projects or things I don’t want to be part of the professional side.

In terms of the name I like TminusTen a lot more as a domain. It’s a bit nerdy, but most people know the phrase making it, hopefully, short and memorable. I’m still looking for a better name for my personal site; something a bit more about me, at which point this may become either the blog or perhaps something for OpenTTD or Continuum creations. Something of that ilk anyway.

Enough about domains, hopefully I’ve developed my organisational skills far enough to make something more of this site than the “I’m 14 and have nothing much to write about” stage. More to come