Clikits Advent Calendar - Day 24
Posted by Huw,
Huwbot has asked me to post this photo of all the stuff in 7575 Clikits Advent Calendar that he started reviewing at the beginning of the month, and also to apologise for stopping half way through, particularly to his friend jackiebritton who took the time to build and photograph it for him.
As you can see it was full of jewellery, hair accessories, picture frames, cards and a nice box on day 24 to put all the little bits in. I think any little girl would be very happy with it!
Posting individual articles for each calendar seems like a good idea when we discuss it at the end of November but I know some of you got a bit fed up with them all every day, and I count myself among you.
Next year we will probably consolidate them into one post, particularly if there are four of them again. Having said that, I've just tallied up the number of views they received and it's well over 420,000 which equates to quite a lot of advertising revenue, so perhaps it's not such a bad idea after all...
52 likes
28 comments on this article
"Next year we will consolidate them into one post, particularly if there are four of them again."
Sounds like a good idea.
If any hardcore Clikits fans would like to see *all* the photographs, you can find them here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmKdBZPC
Memes come and go, but Clikits is on another level for Brickset. I'd have liked every post and made a comment every day had it continued. It would have helped my creativity to try and find something new to say each week.
Keep the separate articles - if only not to make a mess of the comment section. People who don't like these articles need not click on them (or should filter them) so I can't quite understand why they seem so peeved.
The main issue from my point of view is that the four articles obfuscate the other stuff we are posting and push it down the page too quickly. It's been a particular problem this year because of all the new set reviews we've been able to publish before Christmas.
I was so looking forward to a whole month of Clikits reviews, too. Alas.
Thank you @jackiebritton for the wonderfully detailed photography!
@Huw: Maybe take some inspiration from the mini HP vs SW calendar contest thats been running in the comments section of the advent calendar posts and turn it into a 4 way 'Calendar-Off' with a daily vote between the two best builds that day to see whose won that day overall? You'd run it so the mods doing the review for that days build would decide out of all the calendars which two to put forward, then us members would vote between them as to whose won.
Think it'd keep up add revenue with people wanting to see how the votes going and vote themselves etc, plus you could still consolidate them down into maybe just two posts. The 'Todays Builds' and then the 'Vote-Off'.
I understand Huw's point, but I have really enjoyed all the calendar reviews (and was sad when clikits stopped). Maybe it would help it people could just follow specific advent calendars rather than all or nothing, but I suppose that would only work for members anyway and doesn't help the article density for non-member site visitors.
Perhaps if there are four Advent Calendars again in 2020 the countdowns could be combined into two sets of posts, one for licensed Advent Calendars (i.e. Harry Potter and Star Wars, which became entangled in an amusing competition) and classic Advent Calenders (City and Friends). Covering all four of them in one post seems a little cramped, but I understand why you don't want other news and reviews swamped in the Advent flood. In any case, thank you for once again doing such a good job of this delightful tradition!
Please keep the calendar reviews separate. I was still able to read other articles and really enjoyed the calendar reviews and SW vs. HP competition. Thank you for such a great website.
As for the Clikets Calendar, I agree a little girl back in 2004 would have been very satisfied with its contents, but it doesn't hold up very well against the standard expected of an Advent Calendar fifteen years later. I finally broke down and bought a calendar for myself once they were discounted--so next year's Advent postings won't spoil any surprises for me, as I'll have forgotten what was in this year's one by then!
I enjoy to read these Advent Calender articles every day, but I agree, that they drown all the other news articles. @Huw , would it be possible to have a single button on top of the page, or in the side bar, which links to the four daily articles? Have no idea, if it's possible in the beautiful designed website.
Is there a way to publish the individual articles but keep them off the front page? Then you could have just one pinned single post on the front page, with links to the individual articles on that. Or have one article per advent calendar that you update each day? (Although I guess the second one would get quite long.)
Thank you for the advent calendar reviews. I like the separate posts - I started out reading just the Harry Potter ones, but have dipped into all of them over the month, especially Star Wars, as I really enjoyed the battle of the licensed advent calendars that was going on in the comments!
I think next year should be much the same as this year with separate reviews for each day of each calender by different reviewers but should be consolidated into a single post per day. I like reading each one, but it does make it hard to keep up with all your other posts. I agree that there should be a vote between all the calenders for each day, which is tallied up at the end too!
Huwbot clearly lost interest in Clickits halfway through the month and wanted a Bionicle advent calendar instead, in honor of the Great Spirit and our island paradise.
I liked having 4 articles a day. It makes the fun longer. "Okay, I saw Friends, there are still 3 to go." Don't change it!
The Clikits calendar looks great together!
@Alatariel:
My iPod is allergic to cookies, so where my laptop can keep me signed in all the time, it would get really annoying if I had to log in every day just to access these articles.
@Block_n_Roll:
I was thinking the same thing. Post one regular review article for each calendar, but keep them off the front page. Post one summary article each day with links to that days individual articles, as well as the Advent Countdown page for anyone who missed one or more days, and lock the comments on the summary articles. Other sites can get away with grouping them together each day if their comment sections usually don’t get into double digits, but here I could easily see a combined article hitting 100 comments, especially if it picks up a bunch of crosstalk between the themes.
"well over 420,000 views"
I see what did you there ??
Here’s a bit of a daft shower thought I just had for next year: what about a random advent calendar gift of the day? Sorta like Huwbot’s random set, but instead it pulls up one of the past advent calendar gift articles each day - no idea if it’s actually feasible but thought it’d be worth suggesting.
hey i bought the calendar because of those first few posts
Thanks for allowing this calendar to live on, that is a good idea of consolidating the calendars and I am glad to have contributed to the viewings.
The Clikits calendar looks fun together and looks bigger/more than I thought. Thanks for including this final picture.
I think the earlier post about two articles, licensed and non-licensed could be the way to go, it's worth doing next year to see people's reactions. People can always deselect advent countdown if they really aren't interested.
What if, like others are saying, the reviews are still posted (and separately too) but they are not posted to the main feed? It would be really cute if there were a little calendar widget in the sidebar or perhaps in place of the “recent articles”, where you could click on a number and it would take you to the reviews for that day. It would be like a mini advent calendar for Brickset! Plus, it would solve the problem of yesterday’s reviews being pushed off the front page, as you’d have access to every day right from that link.
I would like to combine all per day. In the end I opened the others to compare so in one article would save me 3 extra reviews.
I like them all separate to each other.
Then I can check out the three I want to, and ignore the 4th
I also like the separate comment streams, I can follow a comment stream on one of my calendars, it would get really confusing having comments on all 4 calendars in the same page.
Is there a way you could have a separate advent feed, separate to the normal news feed, to keep the advent reviews off the first page, but so you can keep your 420,000 page hits?