Comments on: The BA Newsletter is dead. Long live the blog!

By: L Forman

L Forman — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 14:02:38 +0000

This a wonderful Blog to visit. About the FTL it is necessary to be a Skeptic!
It still sounds like SciFi.

By: Mickal555

Mickal555 — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 11:32:33 +0000

Feedbiz is great!

Except the brocken images…

I was to lazy to migrate myself, so thanks for doing it for me

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 18:42:12 +0000

Hmm, how do you count who tranfered over? I got the old newsletter, and came over here when it changed into blogformat, but I didn’t sign up for anything

By: Alex Lyman

Alex Lyman — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 15:53:42 +0000

I only picked up on #56 because it happened 3 days before my monthly 15th “check to make sure nothing important or cool was marked as spam” clean-up routine. It had been so long since #55 (8 months), that my spam filters didn’t even recognize it as a newsletter I was subscribed to (actually, to be more precise, my spam filters were cleaned out in June when I got a new computer).

I’m also not too sure if I would’ve shown up in your stats — I tend to read blogs more on a come-as-I-can basis, and don’t tend to subscribe in any way (FeedBlitz, RSS, Atom, or otherwise).

Hopefully, those other 4.7k folk fall into the same category as me.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 09:56:00 +0000

The only problem I have with FeedBlitz is this:

=?UTF-8?B?W1RoZSBCYWQgQXN0cm9ub215IEJsb2ddIFRoZX
JlIGlzIDEgbmV3IHBvc3QgaW4gIkJhZCBBc3Ryb25vbXkgQmxvZyI=?=

It’s what appears in the subject line on Demon Webmail where I delete spam before downloading e-mail. So I have to be careful I don’t delete it as spam too!

But with my e-mail reader – Evolution – the subject and content is fine and it’s very convenient to just click on the link and open another tab in Firefox.

By: Spike

Spike — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 06:38:44 +0000

Wish I’d known there had been a newsletter. I bookmarked The Bad Astronomy site years before I found the blog and subscribed to it.

Abstracts are evil. 99 times out of 100 I skim an abstract, think what a shame I can’t read the rest and move on. This is a rare time I clicked through the abstract because of the intriguing newsletter title. My RSS reader feeds images in posts, and if the comments are syndicated (as they are on this blog) I can get those too. What I can’t get is text that’s not syndicated.

If you want to know how many people read the site use Feedburner; you can even use it for your FeedBlitz stats.

WordPress codex on using Feedburner http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_FeedBurner and Feedburner’s instructions about the recent WP upgrade http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?t=2448&highlight=wordpress

Do an experiment. Try Feedburner and see if you get more or less hits with abstracts or full feeds.

By: Kinjal

Kinjal — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 04:06:18 +0000

True Knowledge (specially astronomy!) is welcome anytime and efforts to deliver that knowledge will always be appreciated!
Keep up the spirit!

By: George

George — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:45:10 +0000

Hi there BA!

Before I address the subject of this blog, let me say a little about how much I appreciate your efforts.
I got started with you when I purchased your “Bad Astronomy” book. I was so glad to see someone out there was trying to offer reason and sense to explain phenomena to which many people simply apply superstition.
It is surprising to me how ignorant some of the otherwise well educated people I know and work with are of what we on this blog probably take for granted as common knowledge. The seasons, eclipses, precession of the equinoxes, the times of moonrise and the different shapes the moon has at those varying times, the several (simply marvelous!) trips our probes have taken to other moons, and the July 4th comet impact are all examples of subjects upon which I have offered my now rusty “expertise” to these people.
I also have loaned out your book to spread a much better source of education, and have pointed people to your old Yahoo! newsletter. And these folks are amazed and awed at the truths that emerge when they hear them. Anything you can do to get the truth to the common man (and common woman) on all the subjects you touch upon is great work Phil. Love this blog! Keep it up!
Now, don’t feel abandoned, but I am going to off Feedblitz too. Not you… but the notifications from Feedblitz get a little annoying. So I now have your RSS fed blog prominently located in my “My Yahoo!” front page where I will instantly see your new posts and will continue to read, and quite possibly come back to write more comments.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 19:13:53 +0000

I used to get the newsletter and was frustrated by the infrequent delivery. When you (BA) sent the last one and notified me of the RSS feed of your blog, I was grateful. I kept forgetting that you have a website, let alone remembering to look at it. I didn’t even know you had a blog. This will help me keep up with what you have going on. I much prefer using RSS to getting the newsletter. Keep up the good work!

By: cenotaph

cenotaph — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:10:55 +0000

I switched over to Feedblitz since I always forgot to check the site and I still dont understand how RSS feeds work :/ I think this is so much better than the newsletter. We get to hear from you Phil our favorite astronomer much more often. Personally Im not crazy about YahooGroups and I think its days may be numbered…

By: Josh Newton

Josh Newton — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:00:26 +0000

Hey Phil, thanks for taking the initiative. I can only blame it on a combination between laziness and being extremely busy over the last several months that prevented me from coming over. I swear it was on my to-do list. I promise, right after…uh… well, it was on there. (I can’t beleive I just admitted to somewhere between 300 and 5000 people that I am in fact lazy… meh, worse has happened)

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:38:45 +0000

You know what I like about the blog vs. the newsletter? The comments! I enjoyed the newsletters – your writing is lively! but they were a relatively passive experience, not to mention being somewhat buried since one had to subscribe to read them. Now you’ve created something of a community through this more public medium, and I think you’re also likely to reach more people.

keep up the good work!

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 15:35:52 +0000

I can’t believe that I am doing this…but. here I am signing on. I enjoy reading your blog and the comments that your readers make. Of course, as you know, I don’t understand very much of it. Whatever it is that you are doing, it seems to be the right thing. So, good luck and keep it coming.

BA Mom

By: Chicago Astronomer Joe

Chicago Astronomer Joe — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:15:15 +0000

Phil,

I am pleased to see your efforts expanded here on the blog. Together with the Universe Today partnership, you are reaching many people – membership or not. This membership number thing going on is a good wake-up call and reinforcement of actual and live numbers. I check, verify and adjust my membership occasionally, it does go down, but I would rather have a good sense of real numbers than pretend fluff. You are a solid presence on the net.

I also do not like the yahoo chats much either. Very restrictive and clumsy. I haven’t jumped into the RSS feeds yet, but examining the option.

Thank you for your work and devotion to astronomy and space exploration endeavors.

Joe
Chicago Astronomer
http://www.chicagoastronomer.com

By: Justin Long

Justin Long — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:12:37 +0000

Oh wow! Are you really Paris? What happened with Latsis? Are you single now? I’m an actor too.

By: Ray Martin

Ray Martin — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:54:48 +0000

Great Phil,
I’ve been a long time fan, ever since the “we never went to the moon” nonsense started. I set myself up as nemesis to Seethruart (remember him ?) and emailed you, to which you kindly replied. Love the new look and currently receive updates via Feedblitz. Keep it up
Ray aka Occam

By: Beche-la-mer

Beche-la-mer — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 05:24:46 +0000

I didn’t switch to feedbltz right away, because I check your blog daily anyway. But since you’ve signed me up automatically, I’ll probably stick with it for a while and see if it works for me.

You might find that you get a better reaction from an opt-out system rather than an opt-in one — especially if everyone is as lazy as me!

By: Ender

Ender — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 04:42:04 +0000

I was signed up as well on Yahoo Groups however I found that I never looked at it much – perhaps a lot of the subscribers, like me, signed up and then never went back very much. The 300 that did were most likely the ones that read it every week.

The blog is heaps better – I like the audio interviews as well.

By: mln84

mln84 — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:16:03 +0000

BA, Not alienated at all by the transfer of addy’s to feedblitz, but you might have mentioned what happens to those of us (evidently 300 or so) who had already subscribed to feedblitz after the not-last-newsletter. Will we be getting 2 notifications? Based on some comments above and the fact that I didn’t get another feedblitz confirm e-mail, I don’t think that will happen. If you know for sure, please let us know. Thanks.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:46:56 +0000

Hey Phil, I signed up for the blog a few weeks ago. So count me in! I read the blogs through My.Yahoo as well as Thunderbird!

By: Randall

Randall — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:47:00 +0000

Just casting my vote as another person who’s not going to use Feedblitz because I’ve been reading the blog through Google Personalized Homepage for the past few months anyway. If not that many people use Feedblitz, you should keep in mind that many of them might still be reading the blog through other means.

By: Babbler

Babbler — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:16:43 +0000

Never knew you had a Yahoo! group; always just read you website/blog.

Just for the record, I dislike Yahoo! groups to. It just doesn’t seem user friendly to me.

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:45:10 +0000

That livejournal thing is interesting. I wonder who set it up? Well, since I have it set to only excerpt the blog, they still come to my site.

Yes, I know, excerpting seems evil. But I do want people actually coming to the site to read the whole entry. That way, they get the images, as well as a chance to see the comments, peruse the archive, and all that. Plus, I can figure out how many people actually read the blog!

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:39:33 +0000

I’m one of the 3 using the livejournal RSS feed– when you sent out the previous newsletter article about having a blog, I jumped right onto it. The livejournal feed is a much better way for me to keep track of it, so I opted out of the Feedblitz notifications, but I’m very glad to be reading this blog!

By: Adina

Adina — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:20:31 +0000

When I first subscribed to Bad Astronomy newsletter a few years ago after hearing Plait speak on a radio station, I was fascinated by the topics discussed (although I hadn’t a clue what was being said… I was only 12!). Since then, I’ve been reading the newsletter every time I discover one in my mail box. I’m very much looking forward to reading this blog whenever I get a chance – the live interaction is a great idea.