Revisiting Article Revisited
While adding the Rough Cuts section recently I got to thinking about the Article Revisited panel on the homepage (over there on the right).
My thinking behind that section was always that it would introduce you to content, written years ago, that was buried in the archive and which you might never normally know about. I sometimes worry that people think of this site merely as a blog and never bother to think about the wealth of information lurking within.
Now I find myself thinking about getting rid of it completely. I've never really known how effective this method of linking to content is. It has only changed 16 times in the last four years. If it rolled over once a week then it might be more useful, but that's just one more thing for me to do.
The name Article Revisited is probably misleading anyway. I don't really revisit them. I merely link to some long-forgotten article from the archive. What I should do is actually revisit these articles. Times change and the articles can fast become irrelevant.
Take the first article I wrote for example. Now that using Ajax is acceptable this approach is completely out-dated and the article needs revision, if not deleting. I leave it there merely because it has a 2000 date on it and proves how long this site has been going ;o)
The trouble is I hardly have the time to produce new content and so revisiting the old stuff is unlikely to ever happen. That's why I think I am going to lose the Article Revisited panel from the homepage. Unless any of you can convince me otherwise that is.
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Personally, I say leave it in.
I occasionally see something there which catches my eye. How often do people go trawling through your archive of articles? Not many I suppose.
It's amazing how often Codestore has come up when I've googled for a specific search term. I think that is how most people get to the articles.
So leave the revisited section there. And leave the old articles in place as well. Although you could if you want add a "this has been superceded by..." entry to them.
Hi
Leave it in. There is a date on each of the articles. Let your visitors make the decision if the information is still valid for them or not.
Thank you.
I use the old articles all the time. If you want to get them off the site, perhaps you could keep them in a separate DB and provide a link to it. Heck, I think you could burn them all to CD/DVD and sell it as Jake's Greatest Hits.
Another vote for keep it! Maybe rename the section, but this stuff should not go away for several reasons.
To catch your example, not so long ago I read a number of blog entries somewhere dealing with accessibility and JS free applications. Just can't remember the name of the site ...
Furthermore, codestore is a great resource to starters as well. Praising how easy it is to implement drag 'n' drop doesn't help much, if someone just starts his programming career. Some simple but good style examples will help here.
Add this to the fact that an article date of 2000 indeed DOES look cool and there you go.
Thanks guys. Just to clarify - I'm not thinking so much of removing content (probably never will, as there's little point) but rather I am thinking of removing the Article Reisited link from the homepage. Although now I;m having second thoughts.
why not make it random selection of past articles?
Because there's too much irrelevant crap in here Jeff ;o)
Keep it!
As for the randomisation of this selection, why not give yourself the ability to mark those articles that deserve airtime further on down the line.
I've taken so much from your articles in the past, but I'm sure there's more that I don't have the time to look for. This might be a way of pushing little gems from the past to the front page now and again.
Just a thought. Keep up the good work!
Jake,
I say leave it in. I mean, occasionally as you grouse and say, "What a poor, poor man was I" when you see that old article, it's often good to see how much you've changed, and how far you (and us as a community) have come.
Also, it's a great way for new visitors to your site to see that, wow, there's a lot of good info here! Start digging!
You do raise a very interesting question about "old" content that is going to become more important year after year. Look at the Notes 4 & 5 forum and the Notes 6 & 7 forum, for example. If there isn't some expiration, it becomes hard to know what is still valid. This is a much bigger problem than just codestore's, as the web itself is starting to show layers of history but also sometimes provides really misleading stuff in searches.
As for your site in particular, I would suggest you mark articles you think "worthy" of revisiting, then check them at least to the point of adding comments to say "Possibly superceded by AJAX techniques" or that sort of thing, "Only valid pre-Notes 7.0". Then randomize the display (in all your spare time) in the Revisit section.
Or, as you say, just remove the section. It is your site, do as you will, but thanks for all the valuable content.
My first thought was, like many, to leave it in. Just today I needed an article I remembered from your dim and distant past - "Remind Users to save their forms".
I wanted to see this because I'm doing something with PHP at work and it IS the only article I remember which, I hoped, did what I wanted - and it did. I was going to ask you to mark this as this week's/month's article revisited, as since you wrote the article support for "onbeforeunload" events have been available to Firefox since 0.9.
However, I figure if I can find it so can others. Maybe if you still use aspects of articles you wrote years ago, you could link to them in your posts either to remind us that there are now better methods or that this is still a good way to go - maybe you could get us to vote for old articles we still refer to - I'm rambling.
Who are we to tell you how you should structure your site - its yours, you're your client.
From a user perspective, I always come to Codestore first, every morning. My problem is finding the snippet I was after, but mostly that's my memory not your search facility's fault.
Just want to add a vote for "keep" and second or third the suggestion to flag them as "worth reading" and then randomly pop them in on a daily or per visitor basis. I think that's the best way to meet your objectives of reminding people of the wealth of knowledge that is in here AND keep the irrelevent stuff beneath the surface.
Ben, your point is of course a valid one, but I think you didn't choose the best examples. By far the biggest problem on the net (form an information seeker's point of view) is outdated content that cannot be identified as such (or at least not easily). Again and again, it's amazing for me to see this even with commercial news providers.
To me, the truth appears pretty simple: Everything, that has a date on it (In a clearly identifyable format, I should add. If unavoidable, even the odd american formatting will do.) can be considered helpfull to somebody at some point.
So, as this criterion is easily met by all of Jakes articles, I still support the idea of presenting links to aging content in a prominent place. Be it hand-picked or by some inteligent randomizing.
I'd say leave the Revisited link but also make your 'revisiting' to be a prominent comment posted to the article by you and which briefly expounds 'as of this date' as to your current thoughts about the technique, or why it may be relevant.
Jake
As many (all ?) have said. Leave the articles in and available, but by all means re-do their presentation / access
The title can certainly be changed, why not make it just 'The Archive' or 'The Attic' (if that's where you keep all your old junk ...)
Whilst you're about it and since you have such a lot of spare time why not provide a simple up front categorisation of old articles eg
Lotuscript [10]
Javascript [9]
etc
OK ! Don't hit me (:-)
To deal with those articles that you feel are irrelevant these days then include an *outdated technique* or *depracated* category.
I'm sure you've not written anything that you are actually ashamed of and wish you hadn't, but if you have then join the club. The difference is that most of us don't leave our embarassment in public view.
Regards
Ron
PS Did you get a chance to look at the editing Domino HTML forms demo ? If anyone else would like to look at it then they can email me at
ryuen [at] rynet [dot] co [dot] uk and I'll pass it on.
Jake, it seems from the posts that a lot of people still search for and use the articles. Therefore, could you add a 'Recommend This Article' button under the Feedback section of each article which records a count and then when an article has been recommended, or recommended a certain number of times, it features on the homepage under the 'Articles Re-Visited' or 'Recommended Articles'. It should keep the homepage fresh and also less work you (in the long run).
Thanks for the feedback guys. Looks like I'll leave it on the homepage, but rethink its content at some point and think about a way to flag out-dated methods as such.
Ron. Articles are already categorised by area if you go to the article section the links are on the right. Although they seem pointless to me.
I've got your db but not had time to look yet. It's flagged in my inbox for attention.