Work is being done to create a new home page, and from what I've seen from the designer so far, it's going to look real good. Since I'd hoped that we would have a new home page already, and since we have a pressing need to reach out to more than just libertarian readers with our website, I've created a variation on the current home page that will hopefully do just that.
We're now featuring the top three stories for the day for each of the five camps on the chart, and these lists of stories appear right below the header. I am hopeful that this will also help us with our accessibility in the search engines and particularly in Google News.
As the Ron Paul campaign becomes less of a story, it's imperative that we reach out to readers from all political camps. That was the motivation behind the redesign, and it is consistent with what has always been our long-term goal...to encourage discussion and debate among all political camps on one website.
I would welcome your feedback about this new feature below. Once the designer completes the work on the revised-look for the home page, I'll be sharing that too, again urging your feedback. We are committed to building this website's appeal to a broader audience. Hopefully, this is a good first step in that direction.
My thanks go to all our loyal readers and columnists who have helped us get as far as we have to date. We're currently among the 50,000 most popular websites in the world, and I expect that number will continue to improve.
©2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: creator
Date: 2008-02-20 18:13:10
Hi Walt,
I was online and saw your new interim design "go live" - it wasn't too much of a surprise because I knew you've been working on changes.
I like it! Actually I thought it might have been the newly revised version. I think it will help towards your goals.
Posted By: creator
Date: 2008-02-20 18:17:32
One added note:
You might make the colored headings of each of the new columns "live links" to that section of the website - similar to and possibly even replacing the links in the upper right of the site.
Posted By: Christopher Espinal
Date: 2008-02-20 18:22:33
I really like this new look. Can't wait to see the real thing.
I would like to make a suggestion: is it possible to make a print icon/option? That would be cool!
Posted By: Logical Premise
Date: 2008-02-20 18:40:10
I think the conservative, liberal, statist and centrist authors have to make a serious commentment to start writing more about our opinions and beliefs and less about getting into philosophical arguments with the libertarians.
It's fun, because Libertarians are such good debators, but we need to present critical thinking and real insight and viewpoints into our own views on the world , politcs, and culture.
I, for one, love the new design, and look forward to writing more stuff. :)
Posted By: Hickory
Date: 2008-02-20 20:06:39
Great move towards the original objective. I agree completely with the idea. It should help with Google news for sure. When I first found this site the idea of all political view points in one place was my favorite part even though I was a Libertarian. Good luck with the change, hope all goes well.
Posted By: Gary
Date: 2008-02-20 22:19:54
Great strides toward the new direction Walt!! Thanks for your efforts and this temporary enhancement. Moving forward I believe Nolan Chart will continue to grow toward your visions for it. I can't wait until the new site is revealed but this is sure a nice alteration.
Posted By: Multimediamonitor
Date: 2008-02-20 23:03:21
My comments are in NC Louge discussions, under 'An Idea for improvement'
Does readership evidence [hits & thumbs etc.] support giving equal prominence to five arbitrary perspectives a way to attract new or hold existing readers?
Posted By: Chad_Underdonk
Date: 2008-02-21 08:20:37
Looks good Walt, a great intermediate step!
This place is growing, and I hope to be around for a long time to see it. Hopefully I can find ways to contribute that will help build the budget and continue giving a forum to all.
Posted By: MikeFoster
Date: 2008-02-21 09:21:10
Great work!
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-21 09:53:43
Thanks for all the great comments.
First, creator's request, I've added hot links to each of the five camp names on the home page.
Second, per Chris's request, I've added a Print button at the top of every page.
Regarding Multimediamonitor's question, I'm not sure that there's a definitive answer. Thumbs and hits tell us that most traffic has been Ron Paul related. What does that tell us about other camps? Not much. At most, it tells us that libertarians have been dominating the site.
That's what this new change is aimed at...providing more points of interest for non-libertarians, so that they can feel welcome here too. I have no doubt that the libertarians will keep coming. Despite the dramatic recent decline in Ron Paul's campaign, traffic from his supporters is still very good...about equal to December's numbers.
Posted By: Logan Flatt, CFA
Date: 2008-02-21 11:35:54
I like it - I like that ALL political persuasion are treated equally. Even though I'm libertarian, I think it is critical to be inclusive of all persuasions so that it is more relevant to the general political discourse. And, the writing about Ron Paul, while still relevant to the times, is overdone a bit - I would like to see more essays on the issues Dr. Paul speaks about, and fewer essays on the man.
Posted By: MikeFoster
Date: 2008-02-21 14:01:27
Ideas On How To Get A Wider Range Of Views
- Interview someone with an opposing viewpoint and turn it into an article (I think Walt made this suggestion but I can't remember where).
- Write an article that attempts to refute an article posted somewhere else, then invite that author to come to NolanChart and make rebuttals.
- The quality of the articles and comments posted, and the general atmosphere, at NolanChart will have an effect on who comments and who eventually decide to become columnists. Unprofessional, illogical and/or trashy articles and comments may deter the type of authors we want to attract. So I suggest to do what we did on Usenet - ignore it; don't view it; don't comment on it, and it and its author will disappear quickly. To be honest I don't always follow this advice - but I will try to be better about it.
Suggestions for NolanChart Columnists
Learn to utilize enough HTML so that your articles are nicely and logically formatted. This makes a big impact - it can make your article "look" professional even before someone begins reading it. I realize that many of you already do this, but here are a few suggestions:
- Make logical use of headings and paragraphs. A reader should be able to skim over the headings and have a good summary of the main points in your article.
- Use appropriate (but not too many) images, but please don't hotlink to someone else's image files.
- White-space is important - too little or too much detracts from ease of reading.
- Use quote characters and/or italic and/or indentation to clearly indicate quoted text - and always link to the source of the quote.
- Remember... italic indicates emphasis, bold indicates stronger emphasis.
- Use ordered or unordered lists where appropriate.
- Create your article using a text editor, not a word processing program (such as MS Word) and then paste it into the textarea for submission.
- Proof-read and spell-check your article!
Activity Indicators
I like the new change made to the home page, but I suggest that "page views" are not a good indicator of an article's popularity because we have to view the article over and over again to see if there are new comments. Page views may indicate more interest in the comments than in the article itself. Also, if an article is in the top position on the home page then it will naturally get more hits - but that really doesn't indicate "popularity". I think "thumbs" gives a better indication of popularity, altho that is not perfect either. Another "activity indicator" that can be used is the number of comments (and especially the date of the last comment), altho that is not perfect either.Forum Technology More Appropriate?
I remember when the blog trend started, and the software that was developed for it. Then, as now, I think "forum technology" is better suited to the task when you have many different bloggers/columnists. Forum software has already overcome many of the limitations we are encountering. For example: to easily keep up with all the discussions in which one is participating; to see how many comments an article has without having to view the article; to easily recognize which articles one has already read, already commented on, and if there is a new comment; to see when an article has a new comment by it being moved up in a date-ordered list.
I think date-ordered listings are more useful than a listing ordered by popularity or activity. A popularity inidicator doesn't affect my decision to read or not read an article - but an activity indicator might. A date-ordered list solves this. Of course you could just allow each user to choose between sorting options: by date, by activity, by popularity (thumbs), etc.
BTW, there is no requirement that a site using forum technology has to "look" like a typical forum ;-)Finally...
I'm a programmer and web developer so I understand that the challenge you have ahead of you is non-trivial - especially when you already have an existing database structure with lots of data. I'm not trying to be critical, but just making friendly suggestions because I really like this site and think it has great potential.
Wishing you continued success!
Posted By: MikeFoster
Date: 2008-02-23 11:11:21
Another suggestion:
Please, please, please do not use right-justification on the textareas where we type our comments. The textarea used by columnists to edit their articles evidently has the same setting (I'm not a columnist so I don't know for sure). Have you noticed how many articles have two words with no space between them? The justification setting makes it very easy to make this mistake.
Posted By: No Name Supplied
Date: 2009-09-10 23:57:05
I have been researching my family tree since 1983, and my wife\'s family tree since 1995. I have over 1,000 public pages of original research on local kitchen cupboards and family history in Ireland, England and Scotland. About half of my material is still offline. It may take me 10 years to get it online onto pur water filter this site. it shows my future plans for putting the material online. This research is driven by personal criteria - by who is related to me or to my wife - so it is hard to summarise exactly what is here. For some of these families (basically, the famous) I am not a specialist (nor ever will be a specialist) cutting boards but am only linking to other people\'s work. Sketches of these old, well-known families are included only as a kind of extended Ancestors Chart for myself and my wife. For the ordinary