tl;dr: Anything that gets in the way of information-density is evil!
"batching notifications for posts"
The only notifications I allow in my life are phone calls. Interruptions make me throw things.
Not sure how people can handle them.
"Removing suggested posts after one post is done."
Those are actually very helpful to me.
A very interesting blog with genuinely novel ideas (to me) takes me maybe a day to read, before all the conceptual "interesting stuff" is harvested. Suggestions give me a straightforward next place to explore.
The value of a blog does not lie in a single article, but its network of ideas and the unique perspective of the author.
So sidebars and suggestions like here, were really helpful in making sense of those:
"Removing infinite scroll on your blog."
That means pagination, please don't. If that means this terrible "I scroll, it loads", definitely get rid of that. Both impede my reading flow. Makes it really hard to scan large amounts of info quickly. For me, pagination is people burning the commons.
Though this might depend on the reader, too. I'm 28 and grew up with the internet.
Definitely one of Cowen's infowhores :)
So everything I'll read, I'll have read before, the memes just stated or combined differently.
Parsing an article often takes me literally seconds, before I move on.
So any friction really hurts.
What I really appreciate is a list of titles sorted by date.
This blog is cool, but I will never fully read it:
https://www.calnewport.com/blog/archive/
It hides everything behind months. Even finding that page was by manually entering the "archives".
This is perfect, lets me look back at hundreds of articles over 16 years:
[most of which isn't interesting to me, but there are some gems there]
https://stevepavlina.com/archives/
The new one, though....
is terrible, because I can't ctrl+f for all posts.
At least I don't think I can, since it generatively scroll-loads for the pictures.
Title pictures are neat I guess, but I'd prefer seeing text loaded instantly.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/archive?sort=new
Honestly, even when it's not loading, it's still very stupid. Why do I have to scroll at all?
When I scroll to see things down, I no longer see the things that were up.
That's terrible, too.
I have a 4k monitor, I should be able to see houndreds of posts at once. But the web sadly has a bad one-dimensional line fetish. Scrolling needs to die in fire. Maybe we'll see the end of it, when 8k monitors spread and this will be even stupider.
Till then, I yearn for the day, when people realize, things can be put side by side in columns!
PS: Also why do you give a commenter only eight lines? You know how cumbersome it is to write & edit in this small slit?
Hey owenshen, I'm the founder and creator of Remarkbox. Remarkbox is now "pay what you can" and Namespace owners have access to all Namespace settings in the dashboard now, including CSS. Furthermore if you have ideas on how to make the UI feel less cramped for a better overall reader experience, please contact me if you want to help! Thanks for using the service and the support.
As for the particular issue, I thought most browsers allow for extending textarea tags by grabbing the right-bottom corner and dragging down. My assumption was that people planning to write a longer comment would use that. Perhaps that assumption is flawed.
Comments
tl;dr: Anything that gets in the way of information-density is evil! "batching notifications for posts" The only notifications I allow in my life are phone calls. Interruptions make me throw things. Not sure how people can handle them.
"Removing suggested posts after one post is done." Those are actually very helpful to me. A very interesting blog with genuinely novel ideas (to me) takes me maybe a day to read, before all the conceptual "interesting stuff" is harvested. Suggestions give me a straightforward next place to explore. The value of a blog does not lie in a single article, but its network of ideas and the unique perspective of the author. So sidebars and suggestions like here, were really helpful in making sense of those:
https://meditationstuff.wordpress.com/
https://sinceriously.fyi/
"Removing infinite scroll on your blog." That means pagination, please don't. If that means this terrible "I scroll, it loads", definitely get rid of that. Both impede my reading flow. Makes it really hard to scan large amounts of info quickly. For me, pagination is people burning the commons. Though this might depend on the reader, too. I'm 28 and grew up with the internet. Definitely one of Cowen's infowhores :) So everything I'll read, I'll have read before, the memes just stated or combined differently. Parsing an article often takes me literally seconds, before I move on. So any friction really hurts. What I really appreciate is a list of titles sorted by date.
This blog is cool, but I will never fully read it:
https://www.calnewport.com/blog/archive/ It hides everything behind months. Even finding that page was by manually entering the "archives". This is perfect, lets me look back at hundreds of articles over 16 years: [most of which isn't interesting to me, but there are some gems there] https://stevepavlina.com/archives/
Or SSC does this too. Not exactly a self-help blog, but some of his stuff is really helpful: https://slatestarcodex.com/archives/
The new one, though.... is terrible, because I can't ctrl+f for all posts. At least I don't think I can, since it generatively scroll-loads for the pictures. Title pictures are neat I guess, but I'd prefer seeing text loaded instantly. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/archive?sort=new
Honestly, even when it's not loading, it's still very stupid. Why do I have to scroll at all? When I scroll to see things down, I no longer see the things that were up. That's terrible, too. I have a 4k monitor, I should be able to see houndreds of posts at once. But the web sadly has a bad one-dimensional line fetish. Scrolling needs to die in fire. Maybe we'll see the end of it, when 8k monitors spread and this will be even stupider. Till then, I yearn for the day, when people realize, things can be put side by side in columns!
PS: Also why do you give a commenter only eight lines? You know how cumbersome it is to write & edit in this small slit?
i unfortunately do not control remarkbox css because i was using the free plan.
i might be able to upgrade soon.
apologies for the cramped UX D:
Hey owenshen, I'm the founder and creator of Remarkbox. Remarkbox is now "pay what you can" and Namespace owners have access to all Namespace settings in the dashboard now, including CSS. Furthermore if you have ideas on how to make the UI feel less cramped for a better overall reader experience, please contact me if you want to help! Thanks for using the service and the support.
As for the particular issue, I thought most browsers allow for extending textarea tags by grabbing the right-bottom corner and dragging down. My assumption was that people planning to write a longer comment would use that. Perhaps that assumption is flawed.
Reference: https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can.html