Continue reading: Do you like this feature?
Have you noticed that blog posts appear shorter now? Unfortunately, I haven't yet received the gift of conciseness in my writing (my muse holds higher the values of thoroughness and explicitness!). Perhaps you have noticed that posts only appear shorter, because the recent longer ones now have a "Continue reading" link. Some blogs, such as Adrian Warnock's, regularly use a continue reading link (Adrian's is called "..show complete post).
I decided to try a work-around for Blogpost blogs, one which I read about somewhere on the Internet (I can't find it now). The other contributors to this blog and I have been discussing pros and cons of the "Continue reading" link on this blog.
Continue reading
I decided to try a work-around for Blogpost blogs, one which I read about somewhere on the Internet (I can't find it now). The other contributors to this blog and I have been discussing pros and cons of the "Continue reading" link on this blog.
Continue reading
posted by Wayne Leman at 7:17 AM
7 Comments:
An advantage is that a visitor to the blog is not overpowered when they scroll through recent posts and they encounter a long post.
On the other hand, for some people there is a visual disconnect when they start reading a post with the usual background color, then click on "Continue reading" and see a popup window with a white background. Further, it may actually bother some blog readers to read the continued text on a Comment page (which is the work-around for Blogpost blogs).
I'd like to have what serves your reading needs best on this blog. After all, we make a big point on this blog about what kinds of translation serve Bible readers best. We might as well put the overall principle into work for reading blog posts about Bible reading!
What do you think? Have you thought, "Hurray! Finally, the Better Bible Blog is giving us a taste of a blog post, so we can see if we want to read more, and then we can click "Continue reading" if we decide to read more"?
Or have you received a visual or mental processing jolt when you click the "Continue reading" link and try to complete reading a post?
I'll put up a simple poll for you to answer; it will be the first poll in the right margin. I'm happy to remove the "Continue reading" feature if it is more of nuisance or processing problem for a majority of our blog visitors. And I'm happy to keep the feature if a majority like it.
Have a good day. We'll return to our regular programming after this station break.
I don't think your new poll is entirely fair, because it has along explanation (and a capital N) for "No" but just a single word (and a small y) for "yes". That could easily be taken as leading people towards the No answer - although the few results so far don't show people being led that way.
Wayne,
I REALLY like this feature, shortening the topic and if interested clicking to continue. I was beginning to be overwhelmed/discouraged trying read and keep up with blogs and comments. After 2-3 days it became impossible to remember the topics or comments. This new way allows me to quickly scan topics and see if further comments have been made on previous topics. For someone like me who is very busy 12-16 hours a day, this saves me time on such an important issue.
Excellent, excellent!
BTW, did I mention that I think this is an excellent feature?
Wayne,
Don't bother using/evaluating the poll. I voted, then realized that the automatic "yes" was deceiving. Normally in a poll of this type, the "yes" means to approve of the change; "no" means "I don't like the change". But the wording is exactly backward.
So, while it shows unanimous for "yes", my vote is in reality "no".
If that isn't a definite-maybe-perhaps with inverted logic, that I am absolutely sure I don't fully understand, nothing is... LOL
I find the abrecviated posts a real pain, I read blogs in an RSS feed, I only go to the blog itself to post a comment, this new way unless a post REALLY grabs me I won't be able to scan to see if the third paragraph and beyond are interesting...
As a possible compormise many RSS systems allow you to publish both shortened and full text, that way users could choose...
Great comments from everyone! Thanks. Peter, I was not sure how to word the poll question and the answers. I did not want to tilt the answers toward a "yes" if blog visitors really did not like the "Continue reading" format. And I thought it would be simplest just to have a straight "yes" if that is how poll respondents felt. I intended no difference when I lowercased "yes" and uppercased "No." I was under the pressure of my work load, typing fast, and what is on the poll is what came out. I would have preferred not to have any further comments with the negative poll choice, but I thought it might be helpful to indicate some ways that someone might feel that a "no" answer might be appropriate.
BTW, I did have a comment to go along with the "yes" in my first edition of the poll, but I deleted it, trying to make things more concise.
And, yes, to Rich, I realized the poll was worded backwards from how we normally read polls. I hoped that that would not confuse too many. I just was trying to avoid tilting people toward a "yes" answer to a question "Do you like the "Continue reading" feature?" or something like that.
It's difficult to write good poll questions.
In any case, I am getting the feeling so far that more blog visitors dislike the "Continue reading" feature than like it. I'll keep the poll up a few more days and hope that others vote as well. If the voting trend continues, I'll revert to the original formant, which, as you may notice, I used in my latest post.
I'm just trying to make the blog as user-friendly as possible. I'm willing to try different formats to get it to be as user-friendly as possible.
I agree with Tim with regards to RSS feeds. The "Continued reading" format makes it much more difficult to read complete posts. If a user clicks on the link in the RSS feed, the comment page is loaded and there is no link back to the main entry.
Also, if you ever wanted to move your blog off blogger and keep the old entries, my guess is that having content in the comments makes this nontrivial.
I do understand the concern over long entries. I wonder if other blogger users have found different solutions for this.
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