About Umb-Rella Reviews
Information about Umb-Rella reviews! Come on, you all want to know what it’s all about. If you have a question about us that is unanswered here, feel free to contact us, using our contact form.
Q. Tell me the Umb-Rella story…please?
A. Well, when Umb-Rella first started mid-July 2005, there were four reviewers. Amanda had asked her good friends Tracey, Susie and Ruth to join her in this endeavour (they had all met on a tennis fan forum). Since they always knew what a success Umb-Rella would be, they started almost from the very beginning, to look for more reviewers. Thirty something reviews later, they found two brilliant new reviewers within the space of a week - Jenny and Mandie. Some reviewers had obviously been declined during this time, and Amanda had gone head-hunting for reviewers during this time, but to no avail.
After a very slow period at the end of that year (December 2005-January 2006) due to the holidays, Umb-Rella swung back into force in February with a new reviewer, Jennii, on board. They reached another slow patch in May of 2006 as half their reviewers suffered from end-of-school-year-itis with exams and last minute assignments, but were once again out in force for the summer, with two more reviewers (Sarai and Ranjani) on board.
The end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 was a very slow period indeed, however we gained a new reviewer (Amber!) but very sadly, lost our founder Amanda and reviewers Susie, Ruth, Mandie and Sarai.
Q. Why are you called Umb-Rella Reviews?
A. Well, why not? Basically though, it stems from some long and wacky conversations over MSN, where Amanda decided that the umbrella emoticon (um) was her weapon of choice when chatting, given the lack of a bazooka emoticon or even a dagger emoticon. When time came to create a review site (because we all know that it’s inevitable for anyone with a smidgen of coding/internet knowledge), it seemed natural to buy a new domain name as http://www.umb-rella.com, to keep in touch with the “vowel + r” trend that our little ‘group’ had/has. (Tracey owned Electric Ribbons, Susie owned Inner Reflection and Amanda owned Obsidian Rhapsody). Umb-Rella then moved to a subdomain on Amanda’s site, and again to Otamop but the name remains the same.
Q. What do you use to run Umb-Rella Reviews?
A. Umb-Rella Reviews is run entirely on WordPress 2.1 Ella. Running a review site means that new pages are frequently being created by different reviewers, and WordPress is one of the better programs that allow you to maintain a site through the Internet, rather than uploading pages through FTP.
Q. Can I contact you via instant messenger to get help?
A. We will only offer additional assistance to our reviewees if we judge the situation to be suitable. First, we would expect the reviewee to have fixed up their site, as per our suggestions. If the reviewee feels that they still need help to fix up their site, they can always contact us through the contact form. Any additional help will be given at our discretion though, and more likely than not, it will be conducted via email, not instant messenger.
Q. Are you looking for any more reviewers?
A. Yes we are! Just have a look at our “Now Hiring” page.
Q. Why is your procedure for hiring new reviewers so arduous?
A. We pride ourselves on being thorough, fair, and semi-elite reviewers here at Umb-Rella Reviews. Understandably, we want to make sure that any new staff measure up to our own standards before we hire them. By asking for a sample review, as well as instigating a four-review probation period, we can monitor a reviewer’s progress, and make a final judgement after they have been given a fair chance.
Q. I don’t have enough time to be a reviewer, but I’d like to help out with Umb-Rella Reviews. Is there anything I can do?
A. Of course! We value any feedback that our reviewees and visitors have for us, and encourage you to submit your suggestions to us via the contact form. We will consider every suggestion submitted and make any changes to Umb-Rella that we feel necessary.
Q. Where are all of you from?
A: What a question! Well, one of us currently resides in Australia, another two are in England, one is in the United States and another is in Canada. As a result, you may notice some differences in spelling across our reviews, as we all use different forms of English.