Autumn (in North America) is usually a slow time for cicadas and this Cicada Mania website, so I have time to clean stuff up and decide what to do next to the site.

Now I turn to you, cicada fans, enthusiasts, and researchers: what would you like to see more of (or less of) on CicadaMania.com ? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

Looking forward, there’s the Brood I emergence next year in Virginia and West Virginia which should generate some buzz, and then Brood II in 2013 in the east which should be a big event.

I’ve been “tweeting” the latest cicada news on Twitter. Follow Cicada Mania on Twitter…

People have asked for “free” cicada images in the past, and many simply “steal” images from this site. I’m providing a selection of cicada images you can embed on your web page, Facebook, twitter, etc. All we ask is that you give credit to cicadamania.com. The images are released under a “Create Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic” license.

Example:

Crippled Tibicen

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/39/75718854_4f374e90bd.jpg

More Cicada images for your site

If you visit this site frequently, you might notice that I’ve switched to a new image gallery format. The new gallery is more visual, easier for me to maintain, and has better features. It will take me about 3 months to get all the image information sorted out, and all the links fixed, but it’s pretty good as is. Take a look.

I’m using Gallery for the gallery software. It’s better to find something someone else has coded well, then try to code something yourself.

Also, I cleaned up some old links on the site that were linking to the old .net and .org version of this site from 2004. I don’t own those domains anymore, so don’t bother visiting them.

By January the site should be in good enough shape to coast until the next 13 or 17 year Magicicada emergence, but of course I’ll continue to post and add more content to the site.

Please excuse our appearance…

…while we make some changes to the site.

I’ve been making subtle changes to the site lately mostly moving links to the cicada links page, rebuilding the navigation (at the top of the page), link checking, rebuilding the video page, deleting orphaned files, creating a page just for cicada audio — subtle changes that I hope will make the site easier to use, better organized and less cluttered looking.

Over the next month or so, when not working, swimming, eating watermelon or watching cable, I’ll continue to refine the changes I’ve made.

Changes to come:

In the past I’ve focused on the speed of getting information and photos up on the web, while sacrificing good scientific information — while I don’t see that changing, I am going to spend some time labeling the cicada photos on the site with more substantial information, like actual species names (not just genus or “this is a cicada”). By no means do I expect to venture into the level of detail of my friends in the scientific community, but I do hope to improve the quality of the site.

I’m also investigating better management of the cicada photos on the site. Again, I’ve often sacrificed organization and labeling for speed of publication.