FWIW, I kind of like your use of GMT. It can be a useful reminder of the current delta.

OTOH, I suspect my view is a minority view.

-- DougSundseth - 02 Nov 2005

"The advantage is that all the new day's content appears on the first screen (no scrolling) and forces the reader to click on the link to read the whole article which will include the comments."

Remember, Catherine? This is what we were considering doing to begin with (when I had only three paragraphs up from the post, and then 'read the rest'). We could still do this very easily.

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Nov 2005

Ken, thanks for the input. I'll check into your suggestions.

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Nov 2005

I might be able to change the time displayed from GMT -- but I'd still need to pick a time zone and stick with it. In other words, I couldn't get the time zone to display correctly for each individual 's local time.

Or am I missing the gist of your request...?

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Nov 2005

Since we are suggesting improvemets, how about getting the time corrected? I always look to see when comments were written and I have to look at the time now info to figure it out.

-- AnneDwyer - 02 Nov 2005

Let's break the universe of internet surfers into two groups: those who are familiar with blogs (less than 10%) and those that aren't (the remaining 90%).

Blogger savvy: Most of these people know how blogs work and know about comments. However, they also know 1. that most blogs receive almost no comments and 2. many of those that do have a high signal to noise ratio in the comments. In the absence of a comment counter, readers lose a valuable piece of information that may tip them off that the comments are worthwhile reading. I rarely test the comment link if there isn't a counter or if the comment counter consistely has a low number of comments registered. It's usually not worth the wait with the high signal to noise comment ratio. I would bet it takes a new reader quite a few visits to test out the comments link in the absence of any indication that its worthwhile to read the comments.

Non Blogger savvy:All bets are off with this crew. Until they know how blogs work, I bet most of them will never click on the comments link unless they actually want to make a comment -- and by comment I mean complain.

In my opinion (like what preceeded wasn't), the blogs with the most new content attract the most eyeballs. This is why group blogs tend to attract more readership that solo blogs. Luckily, with Catherines BCD (blogger compilsive disorder) you get the equivalent of 4 extra writers right off the bat. On average there's probably in the vicinity of five or so new posts a day. But when you throw the comments into the mix, you have new content being added all day (and night) long. This gives people a reason to keep coming back. The snowball effect.

Another problem is that with so much new content and some lengthy posts, you get reader scroll fatigue. If the reader isn't interested in the first three articles she may never scroll down far enough to hit post s 4 and 5 which she might want to read.

You might be able to solve both issues at the same time by doing a featured articles fomat. Take a look at this computer hardware site. You're already half way there, due to the camelword title constraint which forces teh writer to think of a title.

The advantage is that all the new day's content appears on the first screen (no scrolling) and forces the reader to click on the link to read the whole article which will include the comments.

my two cents.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Nov 2005

saying 'comments' doesn't tell you that there are comments you can go to?

Seems to me 'read more' implies there's more of the main post on the other page.

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Nov 2005

I think "permalink" has the same problems as "comments" -- your average user probably doesn't know that by clicking on the link can get you to all the comments.

-- KDeRosa - 02 Nov 2005

Actually the official blog lingo is 'permalink'.

Everyone wants something different...

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Nov 2005

How about instead of the ambiguous "comments ..." you can changeteh link to "Read more ..." or something like that

-- KDeRosa - 01 Nov 2005

That's right!

His were actually misleading.

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Nov 2005

Wait.

That's wrong.

Our entries don't say zero; they just don't say anything.

His actually said 0.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Nov 2005

_That's too bad. I'm surprised that the Twiki software doesn't provide a canned module for this very common blog feature.

Have you considered a notice up front so readers know to check the comments?_

I think that's a good idea.

Newcomers won't have a clue there are any comments.

I spent quite awhile reading Harry Hutton's blog, which had the same 0 Comments notice we do, before I realized zillions of comments had been posted.

-- CatherineJohnson - 01 Nov 2005

In the immortal words of Homer: Wahoo!

-- KDeRosa - 01 Nov 2005

"I'm surprised that the Twiki software doesn't provide a canned module for this very common blog feature."

This is one of only two twiki-blogs in existence, unless more have been created. It's the only one that gets traffic -- the other is a prototype that was put up by a twiki author at his personal website. I did a lot of coding to get this site going! I'm actually not averse to significant programming effort and I will probably do it at some point.

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Nov 2005

That's too bad. I'm surprised that the Twiki software doesn't provide a canned module for this very common blog feature.

Have you considered a notice up front so readers know to check the comments?

-- KDeRosa - 01 Nov 2005

I'm sorry, I've been asked this a lot (it's even in the FAQ). I can't do it without some significant programming effort.

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Nov 2005

Any way to get an indication of the number of comments for each posting at the bottom of each post? The front page is deceptive because it doesn't indicate how much activity is going on in the comments. Probably more activity than any other Education related blog.

-- KDeRosa - 01 Nov 2005

what happened to recent changes?

I took it out!

Use the "Whats New" link at the top of the sidebar instead.

Sorry about this -- someone complained about Recent Changes awhile ago, and I promised I would take it out, but I am just getting around to it now. I think the "What's New" format is a little better.

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• Posted by: CarolynJohnston
• LogDate: Nov 01, 2005 @ 12:44

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