Sorry for the non-useful post, but I’m looking for a bit of feedback. Some of you may have noticed that as of a couple of months ago I changed the way I display trip reports on the main page of the blog. In the past I’d just post them as I would any other post, and the entire installment would appear on the main page of the blog, even if it included 100 pictures. Many complained this slowed down the main page of the blog too much.
As a result I now use the “read more” tag, whereby I’ll post trip reports and insert a “read more” link after the first few pictures, so that you can click on the link if you want to read the entire trip report. I do this exclusively for trip reports since they’re often super-long.
Here’s an example with yesterday’s review of the W Times Square, whereby I inserted the “read more” tag after the third picture:
I realize this is incredibly minor and not something most of you guys probably lose sleep over (if you do, I owe you a Diet Coke with lime), though I do post a lot of trip reports and want to make sure I’m posting them the way you guys prefer. I mention this because I got a Tweet this morning asking if I could return to the old method of posting the entire trip reports on the front page.
With that in mind, I have a poll below, and would appreciate if you guys could let me know your preferred method — posting the entire trip report on the main page of the blog so it’s easy to access, or having the “read more” tag so that the main blog page isn’t so cluttered? I’ll go with whichever method you guys prefer.
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September 17th, 2012 at 12:46 pm
AK said,
You read my mind, Lucky, I was tossing and turning over this last night. I guess you owe me a coke.
It still shows up as a full post in Google Reader, so that’s fine. “Read more” will make easier for scrolling through the site. You only need a few pictures to know what the post is about, anyone interested can click through.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
STLSpidey said,
I was going to write exactly was AK wrote. I read your blog almost exclusively through the Newsify app on my iPad, which just pulls my Google Reader feeds.
Your posts appear in full there.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Julian said,
Yeah, as long as your RSS feed has the full post, I’m happy
September 17th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Brian said,
NAY- it should all show up.
How are things “slowed down”. Are these people on dial -up?
This is 2012, not 1999.
September 17th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Jeremy said,
Either is great!
September 17th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Bryce said,
I prefer the “Read More” tag simply because I sometimes am not looking to read the trip reports and want to just see what new news you’ve posted about. Having a shorter version is really nice for that.
September 17th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Joe said,
I think “Read More” on the website, but full content on RSS feed is the way to go! But definitely keep full content on RSS
September 17th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
JohnBom said,
As long as the RSS feed is not changed…
September 17th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Euan said,
I prefer ‘Read More’ on all posts.
September 17th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Douglas said,
I’m in the ‘read more’ camp. I’d prefer if it was at the start of a long post though, so I can choose to open it immediately as reading a few paragraphs and then clicking read more is irritating on my iPad/Phone as it refreshes the page and takes me back to the start! Perhaps that’s a local setting I have though …. Either way, it’s far from a first world problem
September 17th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
BBTBphile said,
“Read More” for sure. If it’s an update on something that I’m not interested in or not qualified for, I can skim faster.
September 17th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Jamison said,
put it all out there
September 17th, 2012 at 1:44 pm
wwk5d said,
Read more.
September 17th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Scott said,
I hate the super long posts in my RSS feed. PLEASE incorporate the “read more” into the RSS feed too please!
September 17th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
DavisCalifJr said,
“Read More” works for me just fine. So if it helps others that have issues with time, it’s not a problem. I wanted to mention the length of your trip reports are great, so please don’t think I’m voting “read me” because I want to skip your TR’s. I never get tired of them and realize it takes a great deal of time to do them. So thanks for all your efforts. You have completely changed how and where I travel now! Between you and TPG, all my bases are covered and my mile/point accounts are building fast because of you guys! Keep up the great work!
September 17th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
peachfront said,
“Read more” stinks. Am I the only person in the world who finds herself in locations where the internet flickers? I want the whole story to load at one time. I don’t want to have to click twice. Often if I have to hit “read more,” then I’m not going to read any, because why get involved in something where I might start reading and then I lose the internet connection and can’t get to the second page? Seems like the “read more” people are not readers anyway…they’re looking for an excuse to bail.
September 17th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Tracy T. said,
I voted for using the “read more” link, but honestly I usually wait until all your installments in the trip report are posted before I start reading. Then it becomes one big, long story.
September 17th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Dax said,
I was actually rather thankful when you started using “read more” to help clean things up a bit. If setup correctly a read more setup should help you see which articles are more popular than others by monitoring the click ratios. Leave the RSS for folks who want everything at once. That’s a win-win-win in my book.
September 17th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
ThatJohn said,
Looks like a good few of us use Google Reader. A tip for that: the automatically generated “read more” link will often disappear in Google Reader (and other RSS apps), so it might be an idea to draw people’s attention to it with some words. “More after the jump”, or whatever.
September 17th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Phil said,
Please no. Want to be able keep reading in goolge reader.
September 17th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Euro said,
I prefer using the “read more” link as it keeps the pages a lot cleaner. If I get home and there is a post I’d like to read that was put on the website before the trip report or a long long post, scrolling through a lot of pictures and text just to get to it is less user-friendly.
September 17th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Rich said,
The Ask Lucky page could use some breaking up since it is so long and on a slow connection can take too long to load. Maybe do something like 100 most recent questions and then read more for the rest.
September 17th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Bryce said,
I really don’t like getting into a trip report, then having to click on a link and find my spot. JMO
September 17th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
RT said,
“Read More” is cool, but I wish you would put it earlier in the post. I already know I’m going to click it, so I’d rather not first read through a couple paragraphs and see a few pictures before having to click it and then re-scroll down in the new page.
September 18th, 2012 at 12:10 am
LIH Prem said,
Who bothers to go to the blogs home page? Use RSS and google reader.
You left out “I dont’ care because it doesn’t matter”.
-David
September 18th, 2012 at 12:20 am
lucky said,
@ LIH Prem — Thanks for your support of the blog. :p
September 18th, 2012 at 1:32 am
Aaron said,
I use Feedly, so a “read more” link is just one click to get to the full article and doesn’t take me out of the app. Wouldn’t make any odds to me
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