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Blog entries are not visible for long enough during busy days.


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We just got 12 new blog entries in the last 4 days. I get the feeling that people actually do look at the New Blogs widget on the forum's front page, but do not look at the main blogs page. Blog views seem to drop sharply as soon as a blog entry leaves that widget. Since the last few days have been so active, it was entirely possible for a blog entry to only have a few hours in the spotlight, before it gets forgotten and nobody views it again. This can be a problem and discourages people from putting effort into their posts. The last few days have been an anomaly, but more people seem to be trying out the blog feature, and if the feature continues to grow in use like you would want, we're going to run into this issue much more frequently. 

 

I suggest one of two things (or both): A scrollbar on the widget so you can see many entries without taking up too much real estate, or expanding the list to include more entries at once. If you are concerned about taking too much real estate, I have one other suggestion, only display the latest weekly spotlight post by Rose, as I don't see much benefit in showing weeks-old posts there.

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I believe Eclipsed made a topic about "moar scrollbars" a few days ago but it seems to have vanished. In any case I'm pretty sure this won't be a problem. (read: it will be implemented once Nayleen or Tay has some time to do it)

 

This aside there's not much more to do about the spotlight dying quickly. That's just how blog feeds work nowadays.

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Yeah, the main problem is that nobody seems to visit the community blogs hub, so their only point of access is the sidebar. There is pretty much nothing you can do to change people's behavior about that, you just have to increase visibility for the entries on the front page to compensate. Unless something weird happens like with Satsuki's Sakura Fantasy review. What's up with that, anyways, was it linked off-site anywhere?

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This aside there's not much more to do about the spotlight dying quickly. That's just how blog feeds work nowadays.

Too quickly, in fact. If you had a bad post-timing, then your post would disappear right off the widget after 5 minutes.

 

Yeah, the main problem is that nobody seems to visit the community blogs hub, so their only point of access is the sidebar. There is pretty much nothing you can do to change people's behavior about that, you just have to increase visibility for the entries on the front page to compensate. Unless something weird happens like with Satsuki's Sakura Fantasy review. What's up with that, anyways, was it linked off-site anywhere?

No, I didn't PR my post anywhere, beside some random threads in Fuwa.

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I've noticed that my blog posts get surprisingly high rankings in Google search results.  I posted an article on Lewdgamer yesterday simultaneously with a brief post on my personal blog linking to it, and guess which ended up higher in the search results (Kagura Douchuuki Lewdgamer)?

 

https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=kagura+douchuuki+lewdgamer&gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&pws=0&q=kagura+douchuuki+lewdgamer

 

So if it's a topic of general interest, like a just-released game for which Steam denizens are excitedly searching for reviews, then it's entirely within the realm of possibility that web searches are driving all the traffic.

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That checks out: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sakura%20fantasy%20review

 

Satsuki's review is #3 for "sakura fantasy review". That's pretty good!

 

edit: and it is still on the first page for "sakura fantasy".

That's why I created a forum topic about it: the review got such positive attention from external visitors that I thought I'd highlight it for forum browsers!

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I suggest one of two things (or both): A scrollbar on the widget so you can see many entries without taking up too much real estate, or expanding the list to include more entries at once. If you are concerned about taking too much real estate, I have one other suggestion, only display the latest weekly spotlight post by Rose, as I don't see much benefit in showing weeks-old posts there.

 

Heh, if Tay would also *cough* remove the "Today's Birthday" section then more real-estate would be available.

 

The widgets on the side need a revamp, too many short term solutions is making it unsightly and cluttered. And it's not working very well imo.

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I suggest one of two things (or both): A scrollbar on the widget so you can see many entries without taking up too much real estate, or expanding the list to include more entries at once. If you are concerned about taking too much real estate, I have one other suggestion, only display the latest weekly spotlight post by Rose, as I don't see much benefit in showing weeks-old posts there.

Glad to see others are coming up with similar ideas. The amount of snark that was in my thread was unreal, so I moved it behind closed doors  <_<

 

Nay was able to get a scrollbar for the Recent Topics box no problem, so I'm assuming he can do that for the other sections as well, soon. I think the bloggers would appreciate getting a bit more time in the spotlight~

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In my case, I can usually count on 30-60 views in the first three days, but it is - ironically - the non-reviews that get the most attention, for some reason.  lol

 

Well, considering I only mess with untranslated, reading my blog is like staring at perfectly-formed plastic figures of a delicious meal that also have scratch and sniff.

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