I’ve just unleashed a bunch of updates to Inventing Situations that bring it in line with the state of the art maybe five years ago. For a side project, that’s Not Horrible, I suppose. Some highlights:

• Navigation free capping: No more shuttling between the gallery and the newest screengrab. Everything’s on one page, the gallery still autoupdates, and now as soon as a new grab is available, a thumbnail appears that you can click to cap.
• Chat! After years of resisting and arguing against, I’ve finally given in and added chat. In part because I figured out what I think is a sufficiently unobtrusive way to present it that still doesn’t require cappers to switch it on. With things like the favorites gallery making captions available out of context, I should’ve given cappers a way to remove their chat from their captions ages ago. You do need to be mindful of the caption/chat button, and I’m not crazy about it appearing before the gallery, but it was the best compromise I could come up with.
• The autocappomatic is in a transitional state. I’m tempted to remove it all together, but for now, editing one of its captions means you get full credit.

Feedback and bug reports are welcome. Keep in mind that while I’ve made an effort to make the site usable without javascript, a lot of the new features hardly translate without it.

I’m guessing at least some of the very many 7 clicks Tommys_Dad got for this cap:

“What’s the deal with these icons?”

Weren’t just because it was clever and visualized all the icons that would show up, but because well, people might just be wondering what the deal is. So, just a quick rundown from the info page:

: Lets you e-mail a copy of the caption below to a friend.
: Lets you vote for the caption as one of your favorites.
You must be registered and logged on to vote. Voting is anonymous and you can vote for
your own captions, although doing so is considered gauche by some. Favorited captions appear on the favorites page for up to two days after they’re capped.
Once you’ve voted for a caption, the thumb becomes a medal - -to indicate your choice.
: A link to the profile of the capper who made the caption.
The profiles are hosted at the Capper Wiki.
Actually, there’s no guarantee it belongs to the same user, but if I catch people linking to other people’s profiles, I won’t be happy. Once you’ve created a profile there and registered here, you can set up a link on your preferences page (also linked from the greeting in the upper left hand corner). You can choose between having it show up on any caption you make while logged in, or just the ones for your regular handle (which is useful for holiday handles).

: Edit a caption you made a typo on. Appears next to any captions you’ve made while you’re logged in, even if you changed handles like a sneak.
: Saves your edits.
: Cancels any unsaved edits to a caption.

: The logo of the Autoccappomatic 4500.
In the links, clicking it will ask the AC4.5K to write a caption for an image it picks, and share the credit with you. In the gallery, it denotes a caption written with the AC’s help.

Note: the Cappomatic does not become available until after you’ve written a caption and taken our cookie.

[The blue number]: Shows how many cappers have favorited the caption below.
And of course the [f] lets you share the cap on your Facebook profile.

Check it out kids, known capper Matteus (back right)  attended Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu’s  recent appearance at MIT. Check out Matt’s barely visible visible t-shirt, it’s one of the old limited edition* Inventing Situations t-shirts that I used to sell @ cafepress. (Not the new ones that don’t sell).

[alt link to the photo]

Wow, an indirectly mst3k inspired t-shirt I designed in the presence of Trace and one time t-shirt factory employee Joel. At the school whose rejection letter sent me into a nearly two decade long downward spiral. This means something.

* Limited to the tiny number I could sell.

Thanks to everyone who came and capped with us during our BYOTurkey Week festivities.

(word cloud of the captions made during Turkey Week, courtesy Wordle.)
I’m thinking of scaling things back next year to four or five days, which I know means some people may not be able to get to a computer during the festivities, but I hope will mean we’ll get more concentrated crowds and a more festive atmosphere.

And in other news, for those of you who’ve long wondered what the F in HanoverF is for, apparently it’s for Farm. I’m as surprised as you are.

Well, Turkey Week is in full swing. Leave your thoughts about it for your fellow cappers and for your idiot webmaster.