Adil Najam and Owais Mughal
Regular readers might have noticed that ’something happened’ to our two side columns yesterday. Essentially, a lot of the material about past posts disappeared. You might also have noticed that we have been having ‘overload’ outages on the page (these are the equivalent of internet load-shedding, I guess; we have recently had days with nearly 10,000 visits/20,000 views). The former happened as a result of our attempt to fix the latter.
Old readers would remember that we started with a fairly simple format and then had a really useful set of inputs from the readers on redesign last August. As a result of these ideas we moved to our own domain and launched a new page with new features in September (with great help from friends like TeethMaestro, BD, etc.). Since then we have been implementing occasional changes (in style, in number of posts, and especially in the side columns). We had hoped to implement some other major changes by our first anniversary, but that was not possible for time reasons.
The essential principle is “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.” We believe that MUCH on teh page is ‘not broke’ and does not need to be fixed. So tell us also about what are the things that work for you and should be retained. But then also on things that can be improved or should be dropped or need to be added.
We know that speed is a problem, especially for those without fast connections. Ideas on how to improve this without going too far away from the current ‘visual’ style of ATP.
Is the page too cluttered? Or do you actually like, what one reader called, the ‘candy store’ look of the page?
How many posts per day should we have. We started from about 3 per day. For last many months we were at one-per-day. Is that too little? Too much?
What about the mix of posts. Some like only politics. Some want only cultural stuff. We are committed to having a mix. But the question is, what is the best mix?
What are best ways to incorporate ‘news’ posts and to make them even more interactive.
All bloggers are always worried about how old posts just disappear. We have been very very lucky in that many of our old posts still get significant traffic. People are always interested in the music of Attaullah Niazi, the films of Waheed Murad, the life of Edhi Sahib, the caps of Pakistan, the trains at Bolan Pass and the adventures of Inspector Jamshed. A major interest for us is to provide easy to use ways for readers - especially new readers - to visit older posts that are still of interest to them. Any ideas?
Also, do please tell us which particular posts - or what types of posts - from the past you think we should feature in teh right-hand columns?
By the way, what do people think of start ‘reposting’ interesting posts from the past? There was some great, not time sensitive, posts in the early days that many have not seen yet.
Please, please, please help us figure out how to deal with the few ‘shararti loag‘ who never seem to learn and force us to waste too much time in managing moderation lists.
We know many do not like ads on the page. Please hold your comments on that for now. We will say something on that separately soon. Meanwhile we will try to have fewer but more effective ads in the future.
Not every idea, not even every good idea, may be feasible or possible to implement. Also, we suspect, different readers may want different - sometimes opposite - things. So, readers, please be patient with us and understanding if we are unable to do what you suggest.
We are sure we will think up even more questions soon. But those are a few that come immediately to mind. Any suggestions? On these and other things we should be thinking in redesign.
Hello Adil and Team
The site is doing great and it would be even better if it would load up faster….. However, here are my suggestions:
1. Shrink the header-graphic to a smaller size so that more of an article is visible when users log in. This will also help you imporve the resolution on them.
2. Make sure all external links open in an external window so that the users are not forced out of ATP when they try to follow a link.
3. Shrink the 2 columns on right side further so that more space is available for the main articles. I do like the 2 column approach….. however you may try putting all the content in one column, with the intension of giving more space to the articles.
4. Limit Posts on main column to last 10 days, and increase the size of each post on the main page so that the users dont have to click on most of them to read the whole article. It would be nice to see the entire article on the main page, however bigger ones would need a “continue reading link”. So have a reasonable limit for the articles on main page.
5. Improve the loading speed……
I would appreciate your changing the manner in which the comments are posted on the website so that they are threaded. An example of this is how your email is organized in gmail. In my opinion, this would make the discussion more focused and readers will be able to walk through the different aspects of the topic better!
Download FireBug extension for FireFox. This is an awesome extension that it also tells which page consumes more time while loading. On my 1MB broadband, the site took 25 seconds! Not a good performance. Actually lots of external Javascript files taking so much time. If they are setup locally then they should be compressed so that they don’t take much time.index2.php and tracker.php took 1.05 and 1.19 seconds respectively while none of JS file tool less than 200ms.
I guess; we have recently had days with nearly 10,000 visits/20,000 views)
spend some money and get some good hosting service. A virtual server could be helpful. Also,avoid usnig modern fancy stuff(Web 2.0,AJAX) to make site more robust.
as far as shararti people and I am sure I would be on top of the list *grin*, If shararti authors of this site promise to quit sharart by making shararti posts then shararti readers will also find no excuse for shararat. Ab kitni stupid baat hogi k baray(elders) apni harkatoun se baaz na ayen aur chotoun ko “shararat” se rokain, aisa baroun ki koi izzat nahi karta
I belive Adil’s news articles should also be posted for comments, because more people get a chance to read them and so we can have more opinions and better understanding of our short segment of English literate ‘Pakistani’ society.
My 2 cents:
1. 1-2 posts a day.
2. Less clutter - the articles and comments are the best thing about ATP - the home page should be just last 3 articles with links to maybe most popular post, most comments, last poll etc. everything else should be a click away.
3. keep on rocking! youre doing a great job.
PS: can’t the ads be designated to one particular area rather than having them pop up in several places?
I endorse the suggestions:
1. One post a day
2. Well-organized and easy-to-access archives
3. Less clutter — as little as possible
4. About Shararti people, I agree, readers should learn to ignore them unless, of course, someone tries to convert a discussion into a mud-wrestling match. In that case you will have to step in.
[quote]Please, please, please help us figure out how to deal with the few ‘shararti loag‘ who never seem to learn and force us to waste too much time in managing moderation lists.[/quote]
If you could let us know what sort of problems these sharati log are causing then someone may be be able to advice.