Opening Page changes to blogs

[tgreer]

Seems some tidbits disappeared from the way blogs are presented on the opening page. I miss "number of comments" - it's a quick way to see if a blog posting is hot, if it has new comments, and if someone has replied. Otherwise, it's just "hmm, I read this one already, so no reason to click through."

[happygeek]

Not sure which opening page you mean here, the main blog page here shows number of comments same as usual. As does the blog posting page itself, such as this one.

[Dani]

As you know, I've been working very hard lately trying to draw more attention to the blogs. After speaking to numerous people, I think one of the main things holding them back is the confusing navigation unique to DaniWeb, with a steep learning curve.

For example, it seemed that for everyone I spoke to, I had to give a 5 minute long explanation as to how blogs are divided up into six categories corresponding to the forum categories, but there are also member blogs, and member blogs can be started by any member, but each entry of a member's blog belongs to one of the category blogs, and then individual blog entries can be featured, and featured blog entries appear on the homepage, but featured and non-featured blog entries appear on the category blogs, and then there are staff writer's blogs, and staff writers can feature their entries and other people's entries ... and then blog entries and blog categories can be sorted by views and comments and trackbacks and that's a whole thing just in itself ...........

And, well, you get the idea.

Last night, I redid the layout of the blogs section to be as completely simplistic as possible. The main goal was to put all of the focus and emphasis on the actual blog entries without diluting that content with weird navigation like category blogs and member blogs and featured blogs and sorting blogs.

So we'll see.

[happygeek]

It's looking good to me.

The only page where number of comments disappears is, I have discovered, the individual blog entry page.

[Dani]

First line in the sidebar when reading a blog entry.

[tgreer]

Daniweb home page. Featured Blog Entries. Displays title of the blog post and the first few opening words.

The typical blog tidbits, such as "Comments: 1" has disappeared. This gives someone like me, who has already read the blog, no incentive to click it again. At the very least, I would like to know how many comments there are, without needing to navigate further.

It used to be there, now it isn't. I'm giving the opinion that this is a bad thing, please put the info back!

[John A]

I too liked the feature of being able to see how popular a blog entry is. The clean design looks nice, however now the only easy way to keep track of comments is to subscribe to entries, which fills up my inbox. (and I'm too lazy to navigate to the "featured entries page")

[Dani]

Mostly all of the traffic to our homepage are guests. Most members go directly to the section of DaniWeb they're interested in. My first destination, for example, is always the today's posts link :)

However, not clicking the "Blogs" link to see information about the blogs is no excuse :) There is also a new My Blog link in the dropdown navigation menu which will take you directly to ... you gueesed it ... some random member's blog.

[tgreer]

Is your post a response to the issue? I'm talking about the default Daniweb home page, not the Blog home page or the Member Blogs page. Nor am I talking about guests... I'm not sure we're communicating.

You changed the homepage. Featured Blogs are now missing some useful information that was there previously.

[Dani]

Yes ... I'm talking about the site homepage, which was designed to give an overview of what DaniWeb is all about to the first time visitor, and to be a brief overview as to latest happenings for the return visitor. Very few registered members spend much time on that page, preferring to begin their visits on the category portal they're interested in, using the today's posts / new posts links, etc.

[tgreer]

Ok... so, umm, on the HomePage. Featured Blogs. Where have the blog posting stats gone, and are they coming back?

[Dani]

I'm currently doing some testing with this new, cleaner format which puts the emphasis on the actual content and postings as opposed to all the navigation and statistics. Why, for example, would Joe Blog Reader take the number of other sites linking to a particular page on DaniWeb into consideration when deciding whether a particular news entry is interesting reading? It just didn't make sense.

I can understand having this information available, but it just seems like secondary information, which adds little true value other than cluttering up a page supposed to be latest IT news and happenings at a glance.

So, to answer your questions:

Is this current format permanent?
Answer: It's currently a test. It will or won't change depending upon the results.

Will all the statistics be returned?
Depending upon the results of the test, some statistics may return. But in all probability, all of them won't.

[tgreer]

Ok, fair enough. I don't agree that removing useful information and requiring an extra navigation step to see it enhances the user experience, so count me as 1 vote in favor of putting the stats back where they were.

[tgreer]

I notice also that we've lost the username/member profile links on the blog entries. So now at first glance we can't see who wrote the blog, how many views it's had, if there are any comments or not... I'm baffled at how this is making the site better.