Balkinization: We're experimenting with expandable post summaries

We're experimenting with expandable post summaries

Many readers have asked for only the first few paragraphs of posts to appear on the main page of the blog instead of the full articles, which are often quite long, and so we are experimenting with some code that will do this. As a result, you will be able to see more of the recent posts without having to scroll down a great deal.

Please bear with us and let us know how you like it.

The one drawback of the new code is that all posts, no matter how short will end with the words, "continue reading ...." on the front page. There are workarounds to that problem, but we haven't been able to get them to work yet. Blogger's help desk maddeningly and unhelpfully says that "Modifying this feature is left as an exercise for the reader." Normally the goal of a help page is to help users, not to confuse them further. Perhaps this is part of a social science experiment on Blogger's part to see how mad it can make its users before they switch to Wordpad.

Posted 12:35 AM by JB [link]

Comments:

the specific language "left as an exercise for the reader" is a geek joke, see http://www.faqs.org/docs/jargon/E/exercise-left-as-an.html

What the people who wrote the help docs probably meant was "don't muck around with this stuff unless you know what you are doing" or possibly "if you're reading these docs, you too much be a geek, because only other geeky people are this knee-deep in CSS and conditional tags, and you'll think this is amusing, not weird and obfuscating."

I thought it was amusing, but then again, I'm a geek. (Can't help on that specific issue though, not quite my area of geekitude, and have other exercises for the reader to do.)

# posted by

AmyN : 7:59 AM

I actually prefer your current method showing the full article. I can scroll down to see if it is a long article, which I might leave until I have more time for it, and I can see all your topics in the list on the left. I also do not need to switch pages back and forth to move on to different articles. With the change you propose, I will lose all this. Overall, not an improvement, IMHO.

# posted by

landloc : 8:09 AM

Strange. This may be the only posting that Bart de la Palma has not commented on. Very odd.

# posted by

dah : 9:25 AM

I also prefer the current method. I use Bloglines to stay current with blog postings. I prefer reading everything in one place, with as few page changes as possible.

# posted by

Michael : 11:30 AM

With the new approach, the intro for each post is too short. My interest doesn't get piqued enough. If that problem cannot be fixed, then I don't think the trade-off is worth it.

# posted by

Brendon : 2:12 PM

Just wanted to add my 2 cents-prevents me from skimming. I usually sit down and read all the postings weekly just before Happy Hour at the law school, and I just skim down them. I can't do that now :'(

# posted by

Craig : 11:01 AM

I vote to keep the original system.

# posted by

mm : 3:50 PM

My blog service is the same as yours -- Blogger.com -- and "expandable post summaries" is one of my favorite features. This feature makes scrolling through the posts much faster, and you are less likely to miss a post when scrolling through them. The "summaries" -- I prefer to call them "introductions" because they are often not really summaries -- can be made as long as necessary to be good introductions to the posts. This feature also makes loading of the home and archive pages faster for those with slow dial-up connections. The post list in the sidebar is not adequate because there are no introductions.

>>>>>> The one drawback of the new code is that all posts, no matter how short will end with the words, "continue reading ...." on the front page. <<<<<<<

That is no real problem once you get used to it. Also, saying "continue reading . . . " (or something similar) is actually appropriate if there are comments attached, and on this blog most posts eventually have comments attached.

Another Blogger.com feature I really like is "post labels." These are categories that you can assign to different posts, e.g., Freedom of Speech, Commerce Clause, etc.. I see that you are starting to use these labels -- your post "Hillary's Tears" has the label "emotion and cognition." LOL These labels help bloggers as well as visitors find posts in specific categories. It is a little difficult listing the post labels in the sidebar if you are still using the old "template" mode of Blogger.com (which also has a "layout" mode) -- you have to modify the template coding. If you tell me who manages your blog's software, I could email advice on how to manage the post labels.

One feature I really miss is a list of the most recent comments posted anywhere on the blog. I have not figured out how to create this. Blogger.com is not user-friendly.

BTW, whatever happened to Part 3 of the Fairness Doctrine series? I have already forgotten what I wanted to say on it.

# posted by

Larry Fafarman : 10:01 AM

Did enabling post summaries make them obligatory? Take Brian's post on "What is law?" What's the point of "continue reading" when EVERYTHING is, as they say, "above the fold"?

I do, however, endorse the use of post summaries for long posts; They make the site easier to navigate.

# posted by

Brett : 5:05 PM