If you check back in to MissPres this weekend, you might see things in disarray, mattresses up against the wall, boxes laying around, people arguing about the texture of the wallpaper, etc. Don’t be alarmed, all your favorite posts full of snarky commentary will still be around, just maybe in new surroundings.
We’re going to be trying out a new format for the blog, one that we hope will help us highlight more posts than just the latest 3 or 4 now viewable on the “Front Page.” Those of you who receive your daily MissPres via an e-mail or on an RSS feed, and go straight to the most recent post when you click on it, won’t notice too much of a change, but those who visit our front page (misspreservation.com) each day will see some pretty dramatic changes to what is called a “magazine format.”
Since we’ve been around for over 2 years now and have over 700 posts under our collective belt we’ve been talking amongst ourselves about how to keep those older but still relevant posts alive while still making our newest post the most visible. Our current format has lots of things to love, but WordPress has added a couple of these magazine formats and we thought we’d try one of them out. If you want a sneak peak at the one we’re looking at, check it out.
Hopefully this confusion will settle down by Monday. We may hate the new format and change it back before then, or you might see something new and exciting and possibly offering a little more in a more organized manner than we’ve had before. If you do have opinions, please leave them here and we’ll see how much we can tweak.
Categories: Uncategorized
Preservation in Mississippi 
Yikes! Given how much most of us don’t like change…and how easy it seems to have been to follow up on current post, plus all recent posts to the side, plus any comments on any posts to the side, I am not too inclined for the change. However, given that several of my regular blogs seem to change their formats with every week and any new format, I guess I will adjust. I can’t imagine that loyal followers will drop you over a new format. But did I mention how some of us don’t like change?
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I’m well aware how some people *cough* Theodore *cough* are averse to change, and rest assured we don’t take this change lightly. We also don’t consider it final, if enough people including us really hate it. Like I said, I think the subscribers who see only the newest post when they click the link on their e-mail or RSS won’t notice a huge difference, since the comments and recent posts will remain in the sidebar on individual posts. We’re just experimenting to see if the front page can be made a little more easily navigable and also bring out gems that might have gotten lost in the daily shuffle. We’ll see how it goes, and please feel free to point out faults when we roll it out. We’re not married to this.
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I think the change will be interesting. Love how the older content is more visible!
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Things I like about the new format:
1. Featured Posts all wrapped up nice and neat on the front page
2. Wide post columns. good for big huge pictures
3. “Home” “About” “Subscribe” etc all taken care of in the top right, off the main menu
Things I dislike:
1. Horrible block quotes: https://misspreservation.com/2010/09/13/misspres-news-roundup-9-13-2010/
2. Weird second sidebar on front page makes the page look cluttered.
3. Can’t show full Newest Post without also shooing full Featured Posts, which kind of destroys the whole point of Featured Posts
4. Font is a little small (EXCEPT FOR BLOCK QUOTES WHICH ARE ENORMOUS!)
5. Gravitars to far right in comments, and name at bottom of comment–should be to left and at top.
Did I mention how much I hate those block quotes? Who’s brilliant idea was that?
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Gotta say – I’m with Malvaney on the text size (both the regular being smaller than average and the block quotes being so big) and that the two side bars on the front page are a little cluttered.
That being said, I love the featured posts aren’t just the ones that were done before the “current” post. I also like the list in the side bar that has the top posts from the past 48 hours – that’s something I didn’t notice (or don’t think we had) in the other format. It’s interesting to see what’s getting the most traffic on the site.
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Does anyone actually use or look at those category or tag clouds on blogs? To me, they are of minimal use and usually ugly…
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That’s a good point, Tom. I don’t usually use them, but I do use the Category lists more often, at least on other blogs. I didn’t put the category list on this format because it turned out way longer than the rest of the page, so that’s why I added the cloud. I’m open to suggestions about what would be useful and not ugly in that space instead of the cloud.
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I like the new format! The content is more compact on the page, so less scrolling. I really like the featured posts/archives, too. Is that something you select or does it automatically rotate them?
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TomL, your comment about the Category Cloud got me thinking in another direction. Check out the home page now and tell me what you think about the vertical strip of photos I’m using as a way to feature even more older posts, but with images instead of text.
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I know you directed this comment toward TomL, but I looked too and REALLY like the photo strip in that side bar – since is images more than text, the two side bars don’t look as cluttered as they did with they were both text heavy.
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I agree.
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the “Whats the story” photos look great! It really peaks ones interest
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I read the blog almost but not quite daily. I’m not sure, but is the new format going to only show the last three posts? That, and the way new posts and old posts are formatted the same, was initially very confusing, and I think it will be an ongoing frustration that I can’t thread through the blog from latest to older any more. So I don’t like that change.
I don’t like the use of “read more” on every post a problem, too. I prefer blogs that show all of most posts.
The look is fine, and the decision to post some “greatest hits” items is a good one, just treating them as equivalent to the old ones seems a mistake.
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I agree about having at least the latest post be full-text on the front page, and the reason I decided to try this new format was that it does offer the option of having the latest post as full text without having to click the “Read More.” But when I actually got into it and checked the “full text” box in the options, I realized that when I have that checked, the “Featured Posts” on the front page also turn into full text, so that the front page becomes even longer than the old way of doing things. That is a definite “con” of this format.
I’m not sure I completely understand your point about new posts and old posts being formatted the same–do you mean the fact that they are all now only viewable as stand-alone posts rather than the string of posts that is more traditional?
My ideal blog format would be to have at least the last 2-3 posts full text on the front page, and off to the side the ability to show some Featured Posts as little blurbs with a thumbnail image. Actually, I might like that as a “secondary” front page that regulars like you could come to instead of the more compact front page this format has.
I’m wavering a bit on whether this format will continue past this week’s trial run, or if we’ll go back to the old format and continue to wait for WordPress to come out with a then that satisfies more than this one.
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