patrick.net

I observed today

1, different and less bold headline font
2. threads-pop-open-in-new-tab
3. references to underlying links appear in listing

Also recently but maybe not today

4. When editing a comment it would create a duplicate comment of the edit.

Number 2 I find a bit bothersome. I would (before) usually instead reopen a specific thread as a new tab if I needed to stay with it for a while (I currently have about 70 of these accumulated). One of the problem is that the "new" tab will open at the BOTTOM of a long list (I use firefox tree-style-tab with vertical tabs). That could maybe be fixed with a FF or TST setting, but that would affect other default uses.

freespeechforever says

Patrick, these latest changes have made patrick.net user-unfriendly & there are bugs

Agree. The latest makes the site a bit of a chore to use.

Not user friendly, please go back

I think the Discussion link needs to be an obvious glyph then it would become apparent the link is the news story and the icon is the comment thread.
Maybe a Comic bubble or something unique only to Patnet. Could be your defining feature. Know any decent branding graphics people?

I don't like the direct link to articles. Prefer to open the comments thread.

freespeechforever says

Threads are opened by opening separate window, which is awkward on my tablet as I go from one window open, to two windows open.

I almost always open threads in a new tab, but I do so by explicitly holding down the control key while clicking. Although it's a minor convenience not to have to hold down control, in general it's a good principle to leave it up to the end user whether or not to open a link in the current tab or another. This means two things. First, never force a new tab in the link. Second, always use a link, not a JavaScript handler as that forces the new page to be opened wherever the handler says, usually the same tab.

The general principle is let your users' decided how to interact with your site.

freespeechforever says

Patrick, these latest changes have made patrick.net user-unfriendly

Another unfriendly change recently is displaying posts by CIC instead of redirecting to his goat porn site.

OK, it's a failed experiment.

Titles now point to the patrick.net discussions again.

I kept the external links in parentheses. That should not trip anyone up.

Nothing pops open a new tab anymore.

Thanks for your feedback! More advice?

FP says

I don't like the direct link to articles

Not so sure it's a failed experiment. THe same issue exists with reddit, but people are used to it. On reddit one linc gives you both and the top link gives you just the image, video or link.

Maybe TPB is right. Try having the two links but somehow sort of at an equal level ? I wouldn't give up on it. I like the idea of a lot of links to things people are sharing. If you do that well. The ideal would be if you have both of these:

1) a place with a lot of good shared content

2) optional discussion tied to the content.

This is what works on reddit, youtube and many other places. So don't give up just becasue of negative feedback form people that find the change difficult.

marcus says

Maybe TPB is right. Try having the two links but somehow sort of at an equal level ? I wouldn't give up on it. I like the idea of a lot of links to links to things people are sharing. If you do that well. The ideal would be if you have both of these:

Wow, you guys agree on something?

Can I improve on the way it is now, where the main title is the link to the discussion, but then if there is an external link in the original post, the external host appears in parentheses just after the main title, like this:

Israel approves settlements in new capital, Jerusalem (www.bbc.com)

rando says

Wow, you guys agree on something?

HE's an idiot savant. With all the work he's probably done on fake news websites, you should respect his opinion on the limited subject of "information architecture."

rando says

Can I improve on the way it is now, where the main title is the link to the discussion

How about a unique glyph as TPB said, with mousover saying "go directly to linked content" or something to that effect.

I guess the link on the right showing the top level part of the URL serves that purpose now.

I improved the favicon.ico (shows up in bookmarks, etc) by making the background transparent. Now it looks like this:

I could put that on post lists before each title, but maybe it's just clutter and people will figure out there are two links:

post title goes to discussion
(host) in parentheses goes to an external link

rando says

OK, it's a failed experiment.

Titles now point to the patrick.net discussions again.

There remains a link to the hostname of external links. That should not trip anyone up.

Nothing pops open a new tab anymore.

Thanks for your feedback! More advice?

Agreed with OP.

It's much better/easier to use now.

Thanks Patrick.

*block quotes and indentations still aren't functioning 100%

THe asterisk for making things bold doesn't work inside a bockquote, and never did. For that you still need to use the 'b' tag

Ah, thanks for telling me!

test of bold within blockquote

wait, worked for me just fine above

rando says

OK, it's a failed experiment.

Always good to try to improve. And wise to listen to your "customers."

Well, when it didn't work for me, maybe there was something else going on. IT was maybe a week or more back. So I've used the b tag since then in the quote. But the tag is sort of a habit anyway. Easily user error on my part.