A note to Econlog readers:
You may notice that we have a new format today. This is part of a long planned changeover in our platform.
There are a number of new features, but the one I most look forward to is the wider dimensions. Under the old format, pictures and graphs were limited to a maximum of 420 pixels wide, and this often made it hard to see complex graphs. There were a few posts I had to move to MoneyIllusion simply because it had a wider format. Those will now go to Econlog.
There are other important new features as well. I expect that readers will be most excited by the fact that the whole new site is mobile responsive!
There will also be lots more opportunities to explore related content from other sections of the site.
ALL content will continue to be archived, and it should be easier than ever to find and explore all archives.
READER COMMENTS
Salem
Jun 13 2018 at 5:41pm
You appear to have broken the RSS feed as part of your redesign. It now cuts out after a couple of lines with […] – for example, this article is (rather ironically) truncated after “were limited to a maximum of.”
admin
Jun 13 2018 at 7:35pm
Thanks, Salem…We’re looking into it!
Jonathan S
Jun 14 2018 at 12:07am
I’ll second the broken RSS
Stationary Feast
Jun 14 2018 at 2:06am
I’ll be third to ask to restore the full-text feed.
Seth Green
Jun 15 2018 at 1:32pm
Fourth to ask, as well as byline appearing in the headline, please! Sometimes I scroll through for particular authors if I am pressed for time, thank you.
I browse on theoldreader.com and it used to have full text as well as “[title], by [author]” in larger font at the top. That was useful.
Amy Willis
Jun 15 2018 at 1:53pm
Thanks for the byline suggestion… We’ll try to add that in soon!
Dylan
Jun 15 2018 at 10:34am
I’ll note for me that the RSS just appears completely broken now (using Live Bookmarks in Firefox). I’m able to subscribe to comments to individual posts, but I do not see a way to use RSS beyond that. My old Live Bookmark fails to load since the changeover.
Amy Willis
Jun 15 2018 at 1:03pm
Thanks, Dylan. We should have that issue cleared up today.
Matthias Goergens
Jun 19 2018 at 7:53am
The old atom feed seems completely removed, but http://www.econlib.org/feed/ seems to work.
Dylan
Jun 19 2018 at 8:38am
Thanks. It’s strange that I get the feed button in the Address Bar for all pages on the site except the main page, and Firefox makes it a little weird to edit a Live Bookmark or create a new one, but I got it working with a little experimenting.
JFA
Jun 13 2018 at 5:54pm
I’m hoping the banner with the “Featured Post” at the top of the home page goes away. It’s a little whiny, but if I visit a blog, I don’t want to have to scroll down before I see new posts (and if the “featured post” is just the newest article then it’s redundant). The editing features on the comments are nice, though.
admin
Jun 13 2018 at 7:35pm
Thanks, Jerrod… Glad you like the new editing features. As for the top box, it won’t necessarily be the most recent post. (In fact, you’ll likely see Scott’s welcome for a couple of days.)
JFA
Jun 14 2018 at 1:07pm
Thanks, admin. I like the indentation of replies, too. As to the main banner, it just takes up a lot of space. In my opinion, it would be best just to get rid of that feature. This is all nitpicky, though. I like the new design and features. Great job.
JFA
Jun 15 2018 at 1:18pm
As an example of the issue, I have to scroll past 2 old posts (the “Our New Look” article and Scott’s article on the NK summit) before I come to the newest article (Scott’s post on wealth and demand). Like I said, it’s nitpicky, but having the system of newest articles showing first probably satisfies the consumers of the blog more.
Jon Murphy
Jun 13 2018 at 7:12pm
Ooo very modern! I like the new look
Luke J
Jun 13 2018 at 7:33pm
Cool.
Alan Goldhammer
Jun 13 2018 at 7:56pm
Design is nice and once the initial shock ebbed and I figured out how the icons worked on the home page, it works for me.
Amy Willis
Jun 13 2018 at 8:00pm
Thanks, Alan!
E. Harding
Jun 13 2018 at 10:59pm
Is this site (now apparently redesigned in WordPress) getting strict https anytime soon? It’s been ubiquitous since 2015 or so.
Mauricio F
Jun 14 2018 at 12:03am
Looks nice. By the way, all category links after a post lead to the generic ‘Browse by Topic’ page because they lack the ‘category’ attribute. For example, this post links to http://www.econlib.org/econlog-by-category/#uncategorized when it should link to http://www.econlib.org/econlog-by-category/?category=uncategorized#uncategorized
Amy Willis
Jun 14 2018 at 12:37pm
Thanks!We’ll fix that today.
Thomas Sewell
Jun 15 2018 at 2:59am
I appreciate the more fluid layout. It’s nice to be able to use screen size properly now. 🙂
One usability suggestion to reduce the impact of no longer being able to read each article in full and simply scroll down for the next: If you were to copy the previous/next links from the top of the article page to also exist at the bottom, then readers could just click next/previous (depending on their reading order) after they finish reading a full article, instead of being required to scroll back to the top of the page to do so.
Thanks!
Andrew M
Jun 15 2018 at 4:17am
No blogroll anymore? Not necessary for old hands, but a short list of kindred blogs admired by the posters here would be useful for newcomers.
BJH
Jun 15 2018 at 10:29am
Love the new look, but all old links appear to be broken. Which is inconvenient, and also bad for SEO, I would think.
Also — besides the old RSS feed being broken, the new RSS feed doesn’t include the author, which is unfortunate.
Thanks!
andy
Jun 15 2018 at 2:13pm
It seems to me the title of each post could be clickable – not only the ‘Read more’ – but maybe I’m just not used to it.
Also, the font size ‘in the articles’ are a little too big (it’s OK on the front page).
Amy Willis
Jun 16 2018 at 9:21am
Thanks, Andy. We’ll look into it!
andy
Jun 16 2018 at 7:17pm
Still cannot get used to it… I tend to click the title instead of the Read more. Do others have the same problem?
Also: the pencil icon seems to me… redundant – does it mean something? If it does, it should be described with the ‘title’ attribute.
The long titles:
Why a State Typically Promotes Its Own Official La…
I would consider longer length limit. Regardless, if the title gets shortened, I’d recommend putting the unshortened version into the ‘title’ attribute, so that when you hover over it with a mouse, you can read the whole thing.
Steve
Jun 15 2018 at 6:26pm
The sober and slightly old fashioned look of EconLog is what first drew me in to sample your outstanding content. This naive redesign is a step backwards. I no longer eagerly anticipate checking in here every day. But I will force myself for a while longer.
Amy Willis
Jun 16 2018 at 9:21am
We appreciate your feedback, Steve, and we hope you’ll continue reading EconLog, as well as content across the rest of the site.
Andrew M
Jun 15 2018 at 7:12pm
There seem to be no bios of the bloggers (though there is link marked ‘Bios’). Please bring back the bios! As with my previous comment, the concern is for new visitors to the site. They need to know that the bloggers have some initial credibility. That can’t be taken for granted in blogs, even slickly presented ones.
Amy Willis
Jun 16 2018 at 9:20am
Dont worry, Andrew… Back soon.
LongTimeListenerFirstTImeCaller
Jun 15 2018 at 10:25pm
Author names are no longer visible in the RSS feed. (Also, the names of contributing guests such as Pierre Lemieux were never visible in the RSS feed.) It would be much appreciated if you could revive this convenience for those of us whose first point of contact is the RSS feed. Thanks!
Amy Willis
Jun 16 2018 at 9:19am
Thanks, Gus… We are working on the RSS feeds. With regard to authors, in our new design, there is no longer any such thing as “contributing guests.” All authors have/will have “bylines.” Lemieuix’s posts, for example, are now indexed under his name. Hope that helps!
Airman Spry Shark
Jun 21 2018 at 3:27pm
In addition to a byline field in the overall feed, how about bringing back per-author feeds?
Hans
Jun 16 2018 at 3:03am
Nicely done, Mr Sumner! I suspect the viewership
and posters will appreciate the efforts made.
Thank you kindly.
Dale M Courtney
Jun 16 2018 at 4:43pm
For those of us who read your site using an RSS reader, the author’s name is completely missing now. The only way to figure out who wrote an article is by physically navigating to the webpage.
If you could please ask your web designer to include the author’s name in the RSS feed, that would be great.
best,
Dale
Dale M Courtney
Jun 16 2018 at 4:44pm
I apologize for the duplicate request for author names on the RSS feed. I should have read through all the above comments first.
best,
Dale
Thaomas
Jun 17 2018 at 6:52am
I do not like it, but that’s probably just conservatism in the bad sense. It seems to have coincided with less frequent updates. Is this just happenstance?
Amy Willis
Jun 17 2018 at 11:37am
Hi, Thaomas,
Regarding updates, absoutely happenstance. One of our guiding principles in the redesign was to allow for MORE frequent updates. But please keep us posted going forward if you don;t see it!
Slocum
Jun 17 2018 at 5:19pm
Kudos on the new design — it looks great on my large desktop monitor
Amy Willis
Jun 18 2018 at 8:49am
Thank you!
jj
Jun 18 2018 at 4:25pm
Lots of improvements and, for me, one critical step back: I liked being able to scroll through all the posts in one long page. Now, to catch up on all posts since I last visited, I need to open each one from the home page individually. Is there any way to also offer the old view?
Amy Willis
Jun 19 2018 at 8:30am
Thanks, jj… In a sense… We are working on adding individual blogger pages, which help your concern. Stay tuned, and please keep is posted. Thanks for your feedback!
E. Harding
Jun 18 2018 at 7:13pm
Hm; now the site does have https (as of June 13), but it’s not strict. It makes more sense for it to be strict, I think. Is there really a need for a non-https version of the site?
Alan
Jun 21 2018 at 12:23pm
I like the much-improved look of the new website but I found the book search functionality much reduced (or maybe the old search functionality is hidden?). You used to be able to put in a phrase or word and run a search for all instances in, for example, The Wealth of Nations. It would return sections/paragraphs oue could jump to along with links that could be shared.
Comments are closed.