Review: Revelling in Ravelry

It’s a rare post where I don’t post pictures, but I do hope some find my review to be useful. Feel free to add your own thoughts on Ravelry too.

So now that I’ve been using Ravelry *for a while, I can state unequivocally that I am a fan. Even more, I suspect that when it’s finally out of its beta stage and completely open to the public, it’s not just fiber artists who will find it useful and want to give it a look. For those of you wondering just what Ravelry is, what it does, and why it seems so many people want to get in so badly, here’s my two cents.

First it is important to mention that despite how well it runs, it is still definitely in the beta stage. In fact the thougtful design is so seamless in places that when something doesn’t work it’s almost jarring. Founders Jess and Casey have tackled an impressive variety of features, and at times it seems like they are buried in an avalanche of requests, suggestions and bug reports. I find the reading the forums nearly exhausting and I’m just visiting.

I have to give serious kudos to Casey whose technical chops are nothing to sneeze at. If I were his previous employer, (he recently left his job to work on Ravelry full time) I think I would have offered to double his salary to get him to stay. Both he and Jess are almost constantly active on the site. More often than not, I’ve noticed that their chat buttons are visible, indicating that they are online, and their avatars pop up in the forums. Reports of broken buttons and links are often fixed or addressed as fast as people can report them when they can be, and at least acknowledged even if they have to be moved to the back burner for the time being. As a newer user I found that almost all of my questions could be answered by browsing the active forums. Ravelriers are not a shy bunch, and someone’s bound to have addressed your concerns. If not, the atmosphere certainly encourages everyone to speak up.

Which brings me to another point. I’ve seen criticism about about the invite system and the fact that the very first members where friends of Jess and Casey. Frankly, I don’t really see a better way to start out than to tell people you know, so that’s not a criticism I understand, but at this stage, the invites are automated anyway, so rest assured that if you haven’t received an invite, it’s not because of some personal flaw on your part. In fact, since in order to sign up all you have to give is your email address, and there are reportedly over 7000 people on the waitlist, I doubt they’d be able to pick and choose users even if they wanted to.

The upshot of being able to start small with the beta testing is that the tone of the site has been established by it’s founders and by extensions their friends. It’s a setting that is creative, forward-thinking and vibrant, and not tied to traditional craft outlets or even other online venues. Make no mistake, there are a lot of tech savvy users on Ravelry who aren’t afraid to ask for all the bells and whistles. Checking for updates to your stash from the iPhone you don’t even have yet? Potentially possible. These are not users afraid of technology. You say the techno stuff doesn’t appeal to you? Well then you can just relax is the easy automated atmosphere and pretend it’s magic.

As I mentioned, Jess and Casey are very visible all over the site, and they are not just troubleshooting and fixing things. They seem to enjoy participating in the forums and seeing everyone else’s work as much as everybody else. Casey even has a project page even though I suspect his fiber skillz are not quite as impressive as his programming ones. (Jess’ fiber skills on the other hand are pretty sweet.) They started with a core group of users that were really excited to participate and are also active in kind. The result is a forum that rarely lags and a flood of ideas for projects and techniques, that only rolls faster as more people join and feel free to join into the welcoming atmosphere. I think their biggest problems now (in addition to the technical stuff) are managing all the people who want to help, be hired, or possibly even adopted. There’s also the inevitable fatigue by older users as excited new people come and neglect to read the threads (and there are a lot) before chiming in resulting in a few retreaded conversations.

So far, it also seems to cast a wide net. I’ve seen users on Ravelry that I previously have only seen mainly in one place, like say, predominately in the Knitty Coffeshop or Craftster, or the Lime ‘n Violet Messageboard of Doom. Now this is just my personal theory, but I think it’s easier to establish a sense of community since with one easy click you can jump right to a person’s page and see just what you have in common, the love of fiber arts. Most forums have links to blogs or pictures of projects, but this system largely strips away the politics and personal quirks of blogs and shows us immediately what does draw us together. Plus if people want to investigate deeper, there is not only a link to your site, but a preview of the RSS feed and a screenshot so you can get a taste of what you may be in for.

The uniform nature of the site design is democratic. It makes everyone’s projects look good, from the most humble cup cozy to an intricate heirloom wedding shawl. I personally love this and pray that they never offer skins, because I think that may inhibit the cohesive feel. People are encouraged to show off their successes and their failures and offer as much or as little detail as they like. If they’ve blogged about their projects, they can also link to a blog post they’ve already written to save duplicating work. (This is one of my favorite features, though I have found it to be buggy right now.)

The site is knitting-centric, but crocheters are making a mark and Jess and Casey have stated a desire to be inclusive to anyone who works with yarn, and possibly even more. Understandably, I suspect that specifics for weavers and spinners may take a back seat at the moment while they concentrate on just keeping the basics stable. Still, they’ve been listening to what the community has been asking for and the face of the site continues to evolve.

Another favorite feature is the ability to see designers, some published some not, and see feedback on their work all in one place. And I must add that searching for ideas and info there is a hell of a lot easier than doing a websearch. I think I’ve been able to almost match 2 years worth of link and bookmark collecting in two weeks on the site. Plus there’s a wiki, that’s sparse now, but the potential is encouraging. There have even been suggestions for links and notes for things like pattern errata and mistakes.

Finally, there’s the most obvious feature, the cataloguing of your stuff. The template for projects and yarn is wonderful, and still undergoing active improvement. What you upload is entirely up to you: some seem to be using their projects as a professional portfolio of sorts, some upload every swatch they’ve ever knit. There are some people out there who have projects they haven’t uploaded yet that I’m dying to see. You know who you are. There are mechanisms in place to swap or sell your stash if need be. There are ways to buy books through amazon and eventually patterns for designers though these are all more in the idea stage than actually functional at the moment.

The cataloguing of peripheral tools is spartan at best. At the moment there is an interface to add needles and hooks one at a time to a database that you can access via a portable device or print to carry in your wallet. I’m not dumping my own excel spreadsheet just yet. However, there are plans to possibly add a place where you can catalog items as diverse as stitch markers, spinning wheels and looms.

The library interface is an interesting feature, though I admit I’ve had trouble getting it to work properly or easily. I believe it uses LibraryThing and del.icio.us. I haven’t used it enough to give it a thorough critique, but this is definitely an area where the beta tag can be firmly applied.

As far as the picture interface is concerned, yes, (right now) you will need a Flickr account. Some people seem to thing this means you will need to purchase a pro account, but I would respectfully disagree, and this post aside, I upload a lot of pictures. I think that anyone’s needs can be accommodated well within the confines of the free account. Flickr pro offers very nice features, but it is not a necessity for Ravelry even if your stash fills it own room. If your photos are located elsewhere there are future plans to include more photo sites. At the moment there are several suggestions in the forums and the wiki for ways to painlessly take your pictures upload them, transfer them and and host them.

The last area I’ll address is the messaging system. Right now there is a bare bones system for contacting other users and friending them. It’s functional and it works. There is currently no batch processing of messages, which for chatty members, may mean you’re going to spend a bit of time managing the inbox. You do have to be logged in to see your messages. I haven’t been able to actually live chat with anyone, but the functionality is there and I hear the feature does work, if the other person is aware you are trying to talk to them. I think the most successful feature is the friends log which allows you to see what projects people in your friend list are working on and what they are writing in their blogs. Personally It’s helped me de-clutter my RSS feed a bit. Blogs I used to read only in my feeder, I actually check now on Ravelry. (Before people get concerned that their subscriptions might diminish, I should add that I’ve been much more likely to visit the actual websites, so in my case, no one loses.)

As far as friending etiquette is concerned, if that sort of thing makes you nervous, there is a forum thread and (I think) a wiki page devoted to just that issue that should ease your concerns. The predominant attitude seems to be friend whomever you like and don’t stress about reciprocal friending. Some people may only friend someone they know; some may friend anyone whose projects they like. The friends update page takes some of the onus off of the friending, you can just use it as a tool to keep up with others’ progress. If you participate in the community even on a minimal level, I guarantee that you’ll find friends if you want to, so I’d recommend not worrying about it.

It might seem that I’m not being particularly critical of the site. That’s true, partly because as I stated at the start, I love the site, but also because it’s still at a stage where things are changing quickly. It’s possible that in the next few weeks, much of what I’ve written will be moot. I thought I’d share my experience so far for anyone who might be interested.

I mentioned before that I think Ravelry will be of interest, even to people who don’t neccesarily want to join. Once the site becomes public, I can’t help but think that’s true. It’s a handy place to show off your work and interests to friends. Much like you might admire the paintings on someone’s wall or the sculptures on their shelf. That’s something everyone can appreciate.

Now I’ve got more Ravelrying to do.

* Edit to add: If you’re not a member and you want to see my projects there, please use the RSS feed from Ravelry as the projects page is not yet open to the public.