In this week's edition of Zero Impact Posts, we consider the importance of the title and first words of the posts here at DailyKos.
As the readership scrolls down the Recent Diary List or their Stream, they read the titles to see what they would like to read next. If the title looks promising, then some readers will momentarily rest their cursor over the title, which will bring up the first words in the post. Then, after a split second of considering this initial text, readers will either decide to click on this post or move on to the next post.
Thus, there may be many interesting posts that scroll off the Recent Diary List with nary a comment or recommendation — their only shortcoming was that the initial text did not draw in the readership that would have appreciated their content.
Zero Impact Posts (ZIPs): April 21-27, 2012
Welcome to the ninth edition of "Zero Impact Posts" (ZIPs). If you missed the first edition, you may want to read it in order to learn about the many positive aspects of ZIPs and thus the inspiration for the ZIP series. See the fourth edition for the raison d'etre for the ZIP series.
According to jotter, during the previous week, there were 1327 posts, of which 1296 received recommendations and 898 had more than 9 commenters.
And according to me, there were only 9 posts that had no recommendations and no comments. See below for a table with these rare and beneficent posts.
(By the way, to see the first few words in a post, rest your cursor momentarily over the post title. To see the full name of each category, rest your cursor over the category letter in the "cat" column. In general, wherever you see underlined text, you can rest your cursor over the text for more info.)
Store Fronts and Post Fronts
Bakery in New York
|
The "store front' is the part of the store that faces the street, and it is what people initially see of the store as they walk down the street.
Like a store front, the title and first words are what people initially see as they scroll down the Recent Diary List or their Stream to check what they want to read next. For brevity's sake, let's call it the "post front".
|
Farmstand in Missouri
|
Unlike many store fronts, the post front does not have a broad window with which many enticing items can be displayed as well as artful signage. Instead, you can have a lengthy title of 100 characters, but only about 190 characters for presentation of the first words. Also, any special formatting of the first words is removed.
|
Grocery in Paris
|
A few years ago, I recall there was a long format for the Recent Diary List, wherein the whole introductory section (i.e., all the words, pictures, and video of the introduction) could be displayed and seen by those reviewing the list of recent diaries. Yet, it looks like that feature was removed (perhaps to prevent a few posts with pictures and video from dominating the space).
|
ZIP series is trying a new post front
In previous weeks, the ZIP editions were seen from the "street" like so:
Zero Impact Posts: April 21-27, 2012
Welcome to the ninth edition of "Zero Impact Posts" (ZIPs). If you missed the first edition, you may want to read it in order to learn about the many positive aspects of ZIPs and thus the ...
(In the above quote, the boldfaced words represent the post's title, and they are followed by the post's first words.)
As an alternative, this week features a street view as follows:
Zero Impact Posts: April 21-27, 2012: Before posting, review your post's title & first words
In this week's edition of Zero Impact Posts, we consider the importance of the title and first words of the posts here at DailyKos. As the readership scrolls down the Recent Diary List or their St ...
For aesthetic considerations, I like the former since the title is shorter and the whole post front more closely parallels the "High Impact Post" series. With respect to practical considerations, it also has an introduction that is helpful for people new to the series.
On the other hand, I like the latter since it more fully describes the topic of the week. With a fuller description, this may bring in more readers who happen to be interested in this week's topic.
Just like a store front, there are many considerations and plenty of room for judgement and personal preference. In other words, there's no way to definitively determine the best option, but through contemplation and discussion, opportunities for improvement can sometimes be found.
In that spirit, I will make suggestions about a couple of recent ZIPs, more to stimulate thought and conversation, than to attempt to come up with any irreproachable conclusions.
Descriptive Titles
From the second edition of ZIPs, there was a post about the remarkable life of a judge and civil rights leader, who had recently passed away. If you were to read it, you might wonder how several days went by before it was recommended.
Here is the post from The Opportunity Agenda:
Honoring Justice
On March 1st, I had the honor of speaking at the memorial service for civil rights hero and respected jurist Judge Robert L. Carter. These were my reflections: I had the privilege of serving as ...
Here is one helpful suggestion from fellow ZIP fan 2thanks:
Another thing, maybe titles should be a little more descriptive or eye-catching.
Remembering your admonition not to be negative, Quequeg, perhaps Honoring Justice would have received more notice if it had been titled, Remembering Robert Carter, Civil Rights Pioneer, R.I.P.
by 2thanks on Sun Mar 11, 2012 at 11:41:26 PM CDT
Descriptive First Words and HTML Code
From last week's edition of ZIPs, there was a post describing a free audio book for your listening pleasure.
Since that post, the author SoCaliana has been named as the editor of a new series called "Audiobooks Club", whose first official edition was Thu, May 3rd. If you love audio books, you should check this out: Audiobooks Club: Brave Men Run
But getting back to the ZIP from last week, here is the post from SoCaliana:
The Listening Club: Ravenwood
Ravenwood cover ...
So, the tooltip shows only the two words "Ravenwood cover", even though there are many more words in the post. There are two reasons for this:
- The tooltip only shows words from the introductory section. In this case, the introduction section has only these three words "Ravenwood cover art". So, that is the most that could be displayed.
- The tooltip does not work correctly under some circumstances. Notice that the word "art" gets cut off from the tooltip.
For reason #2, the problem has to do with the html code at the start of the post, as shown here (with some forward slashes removed in order for it to appear on screen):
< center >
< br >
< img src="http://imageshack.us/... >
< br >
< table >
< caption>Ravenwood cover art
< caption>
< table >
< center >
I'm not 100% certain, but I think the problem is that DailyKos does not properly create the tooltip when there is one start/stop html tag within another. In this case, there are two "center" tags surrounding two "table" tags. (Also, there are two table tags surrounding two caption tags.)
Here is another example from the Cranky Users post history published 02/02/2012:
Cranky Users: Streamers
Greetings, Cranky Users! As the [http: www.dailykos.com/blog/New%20Diarists New Diarists group]
Here is the code, which has two "p" tags surrounding two "a" tags:
< center>
< img src="http: farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/6787325561_3004773c2e.jpg" width="320" />
< center>
< p>
Greetings, Cranky Users! As the
< a href="http: www.dailykos.com/blog/New%20Diarists">New Diarists group
< a>
has gotten underway, lots of questions have surfaced, and it's developed that it isn't only brand-new users who don't know the answers. So in this Cranky Users series, we're going to discuss some elements of Daily Kos as it exists right now, and sort out how you can use them. Today we'll start, below the orange rapids, with: The Stream.
< br />
< p>
Here is another example from the
Cranky Users post history published 05/28/2011:
I Can't Stand The F#@king Lies Any More
I really can't. This time of year my focus is Netroots For The Troops ...
Here is the code, which has two "a" tags surrounding two "sup" tags:
I really can't. This time of year my focus is
< a href=" https bos.etapestry.com /fundraiser /NetrootsfortheTroops /teamup2011 /donate.do?sponsor=3721.0.143203345">Netroots For The Troops
< sup >
TM
< sup>
< a>,
but reading < a href="http: www.dailykos.com/user/Avenging%20Angel">Avenging Angel's< a> diary just pushed me too far. We try to keep NFTT apolitical, but rereading Boehner's remarks:
Here is a counter example from
belinda ridgewood's post history, where the tooltip works great. This was published 02/23/2012:
NFTT: The Troops, and How I Got Here
My dad grew up in Michigan. He was interested in engineering, and he completed two years of what was then called "junior college," but he was feeling sort of rudderless and left school. The Korean War ...
Here is the code. Notice that there are no double tags surrounding other double tags. There are two "center" tags that surround one "img" tag, but that's it.
< center>
< img src="http: farm8.staticflickr.com/7049/6777800684_c510be095e.jpg" width="300" />
< center>
< br />
My dad grew up in Michigan. He was interested in engineering, and he completed two years of what was then called "junior college," but he was feeling sort of rudderless and left school. The Korean War was going on, so this made him very likely to be drafted, and to his mother's horror, that's just what happened.
Here are some workarounds:
- Include a few lines of plain text before any complex html that has double tags surrounding double tags.
- If centering images or text, use code as shown in the example above by "belinda ridgewood", which has two "center" tags surrounding the "img" tag, but no other double tags.
Of course, I realize these workarounds may not be to your satisfaction. After all, what if you really want to begin the post with an image that is linked and centered, with a centered caption that is italicized? Well, I have no answer for that, but perhaps someone else has some ideas?
Summary
|
As you've spent many minutes or hours on your post, take an extra minute to consider how it will look from the street. Then, revise the title and first words, if you think it would help to describe the post and draw attention. Even if you are not concerned about maximizing impact, consider all the rest of us Kossacks who would have really appreciated your post, if only that introductory text had drawn us in.
So, that's it for this week. Thanks for coming to ZIPs! Please come again.
|
Past editions of the ZIP series:
1)
Positive Aspects of ZIPs - March 2nd
2)
Categories of ZIPs - March 3rd week
3)
Unpublished ZIPs - March 10th week
4)
Raison D'etre for the ZIP Series - March 17th week
5)
Rare Readers & Peculiar Posts - March 24th week
6)
Readability & Potential Impact - March 31st week
7)
Readability & Writers & Readers - April 7th week
8)
You are not your ZIPs - April 14th week