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What does a post under the fold signal?
Lee, a loyal MR reader (by RSS, it seems), writes:
I am also protesting these partial posts! They are mildly inconvenient!
Sadly, when part of an MR post is below the fold, only the top part is fed into RSS. The vast majority of our posts are full posts, I use partial posts for two reasons.
First, sometimes I wish to keep a more important or more typical post close to the top of the page. This signals to new readers what we are about; I don't want Eric Maskin visiting MR for the first time and thinking it is a blog mostly about romantic piano music. Keeping an older post toward the top of the page also keeps the comments flowing.
Second, putting a post under the fold signals that the post will not interest most of you. In equilibrium, only those of you who really care about the post title should incur the cost of either clicking on the bottom part or leaving RSS and visiting the site, and then clicking, to read it. You are supposed to be put off from reading it (except for the few dedicated Nyiregyhazi fans who read MR, are there any?; it does not suffice to share his addictions). But perhaps I am naive here, and telling people "this is quirky stuff that won't interest most of you" in fact generates interest.
But not today: Ideally, I would have put most of this post...er...under the fold.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 29, 2007 at 01:06 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Can you fix the RSS feeds to make it obvious that there is more below the fold? Lots of blogging software does this by default.
Posted by: Eli at Oct 29, 2007 1:12:56 PM
Classic MR.
Posted by: sa at Oct 29, 2007 1:14:29 PM
when I clicked through to read the Nyiregyhazi post, which I greatly enjoyed, my first thought was "I wonder if they are trying out some sort of selective click-through scheme for ad revenue". when freakonomics went to forced clickthroughs for 100% of their content I of course unsubscribed, but clearly they can get away with it, although selecting some percentage of posts that are clickthrough only makes far more sense to me than all or nothing.
Posted by: paul at Oct 29, 2007 1:16:10 PM
Not sure if TypePad offers anything similar, but WordPress users can install the Inline More Link plugin to get around this problem. For readers on the site it instantly expands the text without loading a new page, and it provides RSS readers with full content. Definitely the way to go if there's a way to do it with TP.
Posted by: Jacob Grier at Oct 29, 2007 1:17:58 PM
Yes, I think you jump too quickly to the "sadly" part. You can and should serve the whole entry via RSS.
Posted by: Felix at Oct 29, 2007 1:32:30 PM
I like the under the fold posts more than typical post. I am not typically especially interested in the subject but in the same the way that the very best book about the history of gardening will probably be interesting, these less typical, more in depth posts tend to be more interesting to me than your 11th best post about the pitfalls of national health care. I knew nothing about Nyiregyhazi and I am much happier for knowing the little bit about him that I do than I would be about learning a little bit more or (in some cases) nothing at all about a subject that I already know something of.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Oct 29, 2007 2:00:35 PM
I can understand Tyler Cowen's viewpoint. However, I think that this should not be done abruptly, and the readers should receive a clear notice about when this is done.
Personally, I'm like Felix Salmon (two comments above mine), I would prefer to have everything in the RSS feed.
Posted by: Chris Masse at Oct 29, 2007 2:17:58 PM
As a casual, non economist reader of MR, thanks for putting the below post. It makes things easier, and if I want to know more, I can.
Good work, sucks to RSS people's ass-mar.
Posted by: Chris at Oct 29, 2007 2:27:59 PM
I don't RSS yet still do not like the fold. It's hardly an issue, but I think it hurts the flow of a post. If something you write isn't intriguing me, I just stop reading it. Of course with MR, that is hardly the case. Also, if something is just mildly interesting to me, I'll perhaps continue reading it if I see it ends in a couple paragraphs. With the fold, I can't judge how much I'm going to have to go through before a conclusion unless I click and wait.
Mild inconveniences, but inconvenient none the less, and since we're talking about it, I figured I'd chime in.
Posted by: Hollywood_Freaks at Oct 29, 2007 2:52:20 PM
I always thought you posted under the fold to see how many extra visitors the homepage would attract; thus providing a rough estimate of the number of rss subscribers.
Posted by: JBJ at Oct 29, 2007 2:56:24 PM
There's a handy plugin that will give full posts in the feeds: http://cavemonkey50.com/code/full-feed/
Posted by: Ellie at Oct 29, 2007 3:02:55 PM
I find your assessment to be correct. I have only rarely noticed that there is more to a post, and these occasions were on topics in which I was interested. So I suspect that the piano music posts simply fell off of my radar and would have prevented me from scrolling any further down the page had they been presented in their entirety. Absent another juicy title at the bottom of my screen, I might have simply surfed away.
Posted by: mthomas at Oct 29, 2007 3:03:16 PM
I'd argue that "below the fold" should be reserved for riddles or other sorts of teasers. Personally, I like the quixotic posts, and it costs me more to click through to them from my news reader than if it were just there. Skipping an article halfway through when I'm not interested is cheaper. (Not that bringing up Mozilla via Vienna is expensive; these things are relative.) And even if I find that I don't care about a post, the cost of 30 seconds of reading is marginal, plus, knowing things that I might not have a great interest in is still useful.
Posted by: fishbane at Oct 29, 2007 3:46:05 PM
A few points:
1. I don't get why a post that has bits below the fold should sit at the top of the page for longer than a standard post.
2. Yes, clicking and waiting is an inconvenience, especially if one is in the blog-reading mode (short, quick bits of prose).
3. In my view, the only good reasons for putting something below the fold are: a) the post is veeeery long (I think gnxp handle this about right); b) the content below the fold may offend a number of readers.
4. A majority of posts below the fold is the only reason I don't read TierneyLab anymore.
5. I think the argument "is not representative of MR" is disingenious. The very attraction of MR to me is the variety of content, rather than the quality of the individual posts (although this is great, too, of course): What I like most about the blog is that a post about international trade is quite likely to be followed by a post about your favourite Brazilian poet.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Oct 29, 2007 4:03:30 PM
Oh, and:
6. If a post does not interest me, I'll know after two paragraphs max.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Oct 29, 2007 4:08:58 PM
Erm, I am retracting point 1, which was of course based on my misreading of the post. Off to bed.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Oct 29, 2007 4:11:37 PM
It's true: I really do not care about Nyiregyhazi. I would have only skimmed the post if you'd provided me with the full content in the first place. I read it carefully and all of the comments only because you dared me not to.
I figured your more obscure posts were meant as Nietzschean devices, to cull a readership:
"It is not by any means necessarily an objection to a book [or blog] when anyone finds it impossible to understand: perhaps that was part of the author's intention — he did not want to be understood by just 'anybody.' All the nobler spirits and tastes select their audience when they wish to communicate; and choosing that, one at the same time erects barriers against 'the others.' All the more subtle laws of any style have their origin at this point: they at the same time keep away, create a distance, forbid 'entrance,' understanding, as said above — while they open the ears of those whose ears are related to ours" (Gay Science, sec 381)
Posted by: Lee Beck at Oct 29, 2007 4:56:55 PM
Such quirky posts may be the reason your comment section is so much better than Greg Mankiw's, Becker & Posner's, and others'. MR taxes the impatient.
Posted by: Lee Beck at Oct 29, 2007 5:01:59 PM
I Like putting the more offbeat posts below the fold when viewing MR in a web browser. I like the signaling mechanism that is going on. Is there a way to keep that format for people viewing the blog through a web browser and publish the whole thing via RSS? That would be my preference.
Posted by: Stephen at Oct 30, 2007 2:32:48 AM
For those using Google Reader for your blog aggregation fun and are browsing in Firefox, you can install Greasemonkey followed by this handy script. It will allow you to view full blog items without navigating away from Reader.
It's still kind of frustrating, in the case of MR, because usually the only hint that the post is hidden in RSS is Tyler's ellipsis at the end. Sometimes he does this for non-hidden posts as well.
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