The comments rss can always be found at the bottom of the post, where the tags are.

It’s how I know to come back here and reply to you, because I’ve got this comment feed in my blog reader.

This way, you can keep a discussion going no matter where it is on the front page.

In fact pretty much the only other blog I have subscribed to that updates at a comparable frequency to this one is Pharyngula, which has an RSS feed length of 15 posts, as compared to a mere 7 here. Front page there goes to 9 posts, admittedly not much longer than here, but it doesn’t feel like such a breakneck race off the front page.

This doesn’t appear to be an issue with Discover: Cosmic Variance has 10 posts on the front page and in the RSS feed, and that blog does not update at nearly the rate that this one does.

Or Andy and others could do what I do. Subscribe to the RSS of the comments. I have a special folder in my reader just for the comment feeds. Allows me to keep abreast of interesting topics no matter how old they are, or where they appear in the main page.

Personally, I think extending the number of posts is moot. Phil updates so much that one day’s posts quickly become page 2 by the next day. Increase the number of posts to 10 instead of 5, for instance, just means that on average the last post of the day before is at the bottom of page 1 instead of top of page 2.

Extend it to 15, and the page length gets ridiculous. (And where does it end?) There’s a reason why web designers use 5 posts on average: brevity is rewarded on the net. People don’t have the attention span to scan 15 posts per page. It makes for a much longer page load time. All that scrolling is annoying, just to find a single thing you want to read. For those of us who find every single post worth reading, that’s what feed readers are for. And if Andy has trouble keeping up, then invest in a feed reader that doesn’t delete the posts after a certain length of time. (Ie. not Google Reader) I have about 100 posts or more in my feedreader from BA alone, going back to early last year. I read the hot topics as soon as I can, and leave the astronomy stuff or less hot-button stuff to when I have more time.

Web design is about finding a good middle ground that people can understand and use. I don’t see how increasing the page length will make the blog any easier. I can understand Andy’s comments in terms of a forum, where things turn over quickly and it’s hard to find topics of discussion. But this is a blog, not a forum. It’s not designed for the use as a forum, but as an archive of one person’s thoughts. As such, navigation needs to provide access firstly to the archive of posts; not the discussion that ensues.

My two cents anyway. I don’t personally see what the fuss is about. I like to say in terms of design: “there’s no wrong way of doing it. But there might be a better way of doing it”. Andy has made a suggestion, it’s not wrong, but I don’t think it’s necessarily better.

The majority of Phil’s post on the first page are STILL astro-related, which seems to invalidate your original claim that the astro-related posts disappear quickly. I stand by my comment that the location of the post (whether its on page 1 or page 20) has no bearing on how much discussion that post generates.

Actually, I think you’ll find that by the time a post reaches page 5 or 6 it is very nearly dead. I’ve occasionally had what felt like one-to-one conversations with another commenter on page 5 or 6 of Phil’s blog because – despite the initial popularity of the topic – there are only a handful of diehard commenters (obviously, I cannot comment about lurkers as I d o not have the data) who will follow a discussion back to page 5, 6 or further.

In fact, off the top of my head I cannot recall ever following a discussion beyond about page 8. Usually, by the time a discussion reaches that point, there are many equally interesting entries that I view (and may wish to comment on) before I get there, especially since there is currently no “Older posts” link at the top of the page, the link is only at the bottom, and only appears once the whole page has loaded.

So, although I don’t think it’s a truly big deal, I think Andy kinda has a point.

I found it interesting that you chose a “hot-button” topic to bring up your comment about not seeing enough astro-related posts, when the majority of the posts on the main page were astro-related.

Go back to Andy’s original post. This is not his gripe.

IIUC, Andy’s gripe was that too few topics remain on the front page ‘cos Phil updates prolifically and things rapidly get shunted to page 2. He wasn’t asking for more astronomy-related posts, he was asking for a longer front page.

One good suggestion could be to see if there is a way that Phil could rank posts by popularity and provide a page that would let you see the most popular posts. I’d love something like that actually.

Nooooo![/Luke Skywalker]

Please please please do not do this.

Such lists generate self-fulfilling prophecy, just like Amazon, Google, YouTube, DiggIt, Flickr etc. etc. Listing stuff by popularity simply brings the stuff that is slightly more popular than the other stuff to most people’s attention more readily, thus pretty much guaranteeing that it becomes most popular.

I can tell which posts are most popular from the number of comments. Popular does not always mean interesting or valuable, so I’d much rather they just stayed in chronological order.

OK, rant over, for now.

No worries! I will be happy to clarify.

My argument was, and maybe I didn’t make this clear, that the posts that generate a lot of discussion do so regardless of what page they are on. Conversely, the topics of Phil’s posts that don’t generate a lot of discussion still don’t even if they are on page 1.

Take for example these three latest, “hot topics:”

blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/09/the-immediate-aftermath-of-tragedy/#comments

blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/06/texas-creationist-mcleroy-spins-the-educational-disaster-he-created/#comments

blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/05/breaking-bmj-calls-andrew-wakefield-a-fraud/#comments

They are currently on pages 2 and 3, yet all have plenty of comments today and yesterday, and I would bet they continue to be discussed for many days or weeks to come. For more fun, do a search for UFO or Autism, and you will find posts that had people commenting for weeks or months, and I know for a fact those posts got buried 5 or 10 pages deep and still had a great deal of discussion.

I did originally wonder if andy had another motive for requesting more discussion, since there are always some folks who demand that Phil only post topics which they agree with, but since andy claimed this was not the case, I said I was wrong and let that matter drop.

It doesn’t matter to me if Page 1 has 5 posts or 25 posts. I personally have no strong feelings one way or the other. I sometimes use the RSS news feed, and sometimes read Phil’s blog directly. I have no objection to andy’s request, I only questioned his logic. Andy apparently likes to argue, and he did a pretty good job, except for the few ad hominems. He claimed I lacked reading comprehension skills and called me stupid, but I try not to let those things bother me. I’ve been called worse.

If that doesn’t answer your questions, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to elaborate.

My apologies, but I’m afraid that I think Andy has a point, and I would – politely – like to ask you to clarify your point.

Andy has given a reason for his opinion – he would like there to be more posts visible on the front page so that people can scroll down and see them for longer, as frequent updating can push a post off the front page; and whilst the ability to see older posts of course exists, it is hard to deny that once it is off the front page it gets a lot less attention.

You, on the other hand seem to be arguing “no”. I can not see that you have made a reason for your argument, beyond a simple denial. I can imagine a couple of reasons – saving the web administrator the time required to make the configuration change to display more posts, reducing bandwidth on the server by displaying fewer images (assuming Discover has bandwidth issues) or page load times (though they seem to load fast enough to me).

Is one of the above your reason, or is it something else? To me, the request to see a few more posts per page seems relatively harmless, and I would like to ask you what you think I’ve missed.

Would you support an alternative, such as just displaying titles/links to the next (say) 10 posts at the bottom of the page, without images or text?

Back on topic, I think its amazing that Wakefield is still speaking out and claiming there was no fraud:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/study-tying-vaccine-to-autism-was-not-a-hoax-researcher-says.html

Do I really have to elaborate on those points again? I believe I have covered them already. I really cannot convince myself anymore that you have any interest or capability for actual discussion beyond tendentious nitpicking. I see your point, but it has virtually nothing to do with the original suggestion.

Jeez I never knew suggesting that articles should remain visible on the front page for longer could be so difficult an idea to communicate, or start needless controversy from those who deliberately try to interpret everything I say in the most stupid way possible.

Clear the front page! Clear the front page!

Why assume I don’t understand your point just because I disagree with it?

You said,

You update so frequently that topics disappear extremely rapidly and it might help build up more discussion on the astro-related stuff,

1) Topics don’t disappear, they just go on to the next page.
2) The location of the post has no bearing on the amount of discussion.
3) Why pick out astro-related stuff specifically? What about the topics that don’t generate a lot of discussion, but are also not astro-related, such as Phil’s Caturday posts? Do you want them to get more attention too?

Do you see my point?

The majority of Phil’s post on the first page are STILL astro-related, which seems to invalidate your original claim that the astro-related posts disappear quickly

It doesn’t do anything of the sort. If all posts disappear quickly, then the astro-related posts disappear quickly. I never said anything about different types of posts disappearing at different rates. I just said the speed at which posts get moved off the front page is perhaps too fast for some of the more moderately-paced discussions around here (and a large fraction of astro posts do have discussions that proceed at quite a moderate pace).

Really I just made a suggestion that more posts should be displayed on the front page, so that posts would be easily-visible for longer. This would apply to all posts. It is like having two conveyor belts of different lengths going at the same speed – items will stay on the longer conveyor belt for longer. (Just to clarify the analogy a bit in case you are still perplexed by everything I say – the conveyor belt represents the front page, the items represent blog posts, and items dropping off the end of the conveyor belt represents blog posts moving off the front page.)

How hard is this to understand? I guess you are so convinced I must be trying to argue for special privileges for astro posts that you keep making the assumption that I don’t know how blog software works in moving articles off the front page.

You’re going off the deep end. Relax. There’s no need for personal attacks.

Please re-read my 1st and 2nd comments on this post.

* 1) The majority of Phil’s post on the first page are STILL astro-related, which seems to invalidate your original claim that the astro-related posts disappear quickly. I stand by my comment that the location of the post (whether its on page 1 or page 20) has no bearing on how much discussion that post generates.

* 2) If my initial suspicion was that you wanted more astro-related posts instead of things you didn’t agree with was wrong (as you claim it is) then just drop it and let it go. No harm, no foul.

Please, let’s continue on with our normal program.

“I disagree!”

,,,and I disagree with your disagreement,,,:)

“Evolution only undermines religion if you constrain your god into being small-minded and not very capable.”

,,,which pretty well describes most gods or religious descriptions of God. Those descriptions can be no larger than the people doing the describing, which is why I eschew ALL organized religion. I prefer the Grateful Deads description(hey, it’s all done musically and it’s pretty DISORGANIZED, which really elevates MY mood).

My take on Wakefield is that he woke up one day, decided people are idiots and he was going to take advantage of that. I’ve thought of that once or twice myself however, I actually have a few moral/ethical compunctions/scruples. Apparently, he didn’t,,,

Gary 7

Anyone with years of experience reading Phil’s blog would know that there are always posters who want to complain about posts they don’t agree with, be it politically, religiously or socially.

I have years of experience reading this blog. I’m not sure I can say the same about you, as your reading comprehension skills appear to be lacking – you certainly appear to be responding to something utterly different to anything I have written.

I found it interesting that you chose a “hot-button” topic to bring up your comment about not seeing enough astro-related posts, when the majority of the posts on the main page were astro-related.

What complaint about not seeing enough astro-related posts? Can you please quote where I said there weren’t enough astro-related posts?

Additionally, by continuing to object to anyone’s reply to your comments by adding more comments, aren’t you then increasing the number of comments in a non-astro related post, which was part of your original complaint?

Please point out where I said I didn’t want to see comments on non-astro posts. I did say something about wanting to see discussions go to longer lengths, but blog comments are not a zero-sum game.

Kinda ironic, isn’t it?

I have heard songs by Alanis Morissette which contain more and better examples of irony.

Nobody is stopping you or anyone else from having any discussion you want.

To take an analogy that may or may not be helpful, no-one is stopping a wheelchair user from going up stairs. They may find it quite difficult though, and they may end up not bothering. Accessibility and visibility are not binary YES/NO considerations.

And again, the number of comments in any particular post has nothing to do with where the post ends up.

Never said it was. I have no idea what you are reading when you claim to be reading my comments.

This post may be on the first page for days or weeks, if Phil doesn’t create more posts. Or it may be gone tomorrow

This is about the first point where you even vaguely touch on something I actually said. My entire point is that Phil updates frequently and the blog layout used here does not display many posts per page. Therefore posts get shuffled off the front page quite rapidly and thus have a rapid decrease in visibility. (Same also goes for the RSS feed, it is one of the shortest I subscribe to.)

As others have pointed out, all you have to do to see previous posts is to use the < Older Entries link.

See previous comment about accessibility/visibility not being binary.

Hopefully this helps.

Well it certainly has been enlightening regarding some things…

Not to flagellate a moribund equine (or put words in Andy’s mouth), but it seems as though he has been persistently misunderstood. I think his point is clear and probably correct. He is simply suggesting that less controversial topics are less likely to spur people to pursue them to archive pages, so a longer first page might help generate more discussion for those topics. (My guess is that it may not be a practical change, but that’s not my area).

Yes he is off topic, as is my comment, so dropping this whole aside is fine with me – I just was surprised that everyone who responded to him seems to have somehow missed the point.

“Give me money and I’ll explain everything!”

That’s a very good point. Maybe change it to ‘ faux-martyr’. No ,on second thought,shorten that to ‘fartyr’. (I know,I know…a bit sophomoric,but hey!)

I’m not certain who is overreacting here, us or you.

Anyone with years of experience reading Phil’s blog would know that there are always posters who want to complain about posts they don’t agree with, be it politically, religiously or socially. I found it interesting that you chose a “hot-button” topic to bring up your comment about not seeing enough astro-related posts, when the majority of the posts on the main page were astro-related. Additionally, by continuing to object to anyone’s reply to your comments by adding more comments, aren’t you then increasing the number of comments in a non-astro related post, which was part of your original complaint? Kinda ironic, isn’t it?

As to your comment,

Clearly no-one can involve any discussion which isn’t on an über-controversial topic and so such topics should clearly be shunted off into the back pages of the archives as quickly as possible.

Nobody is stopping you or anyone else from having any discussion you want. And again, the number of comments in any particular post has nothing to do with where the post ends up. This post may be on the first page for days or weeks, if Phil doesn’t create more posts. Or it may be gone tomorrow. As others have pointed out, all you have to do to see previous posts is to use the < Older Entries link.

Hopefully this helps.

I wonder why Wakefield went into medicine, and what he thinks of himself when he looks in the mirror. Maybe he’s conned himself along with others.

I’ve never heard an interviewer so completely shut down a woo artist like that.

I want to hear Tracey Spider and George Noory have a debate.