Improving Wordpress Performance
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@thanksaj said:
It gives me a lot of value. Otherwise, the articles are up but I don't get any feedback on them.
I understand but the value to you is less important than the value to readers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
It gives me a lot of value. Otherwise, the articles are up but I don't get any feedback on them.
I understand but the value to you isn't less important than the value to readers.
I use the feedback I receive to figure out ideas for subsequent articles.
Also, did you mean to use "is" instead of "isn't"?
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@scottalanmiller said:
And bad metrics are worse than no metrics.
Indeed. It's also feedback from self-selected people. You only get feedback from the kind of people who like to tick a box to rate a blog post they've just read (idiots, basically!). That means your blog could end up being the kind of blog that appeals to the kind of people who like to tick a box to rate a blog post. Basically, you end up with a blog for idiots. That's fine if that's your intention.
It's a similar problem to the infamous Literary Digest poll
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I'm being slightly tongue in cheek calling them idiots.
I do think you should just blog about whatever you want to blog about, and not try and second guess your readers in order to become popular. If people like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't. You seem to be embarking on blogging as if it's a career, and I'm not sure any good can come from that.
You're young though, and I'm probably the wrong generation to understand all this stuff.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm being slightly tongue in cheek calling them idiots.
I do think you should just blog about whatever you want to blog about, and not try and second guess your readers in order to become popular. If people like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't. You seem to be embarking on blogging as if it's a career, and I'm not sure any good can come from that.
You're young though, and I'm probably the wrong generation to understand all this stuff.
I'll never be Trevor Pott who lives and dies by his blogging. But...I would like to do it on the side. I think that could be a lot of fun.
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@thanksaj ok...well you didn't need that plugin to do that. WP comes with the ability for people to comment and if you wanted ratings you could add using custom fields without the overhead of a plugin and its links.
Like this article from Smashing Magazine.
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@technobabble said:
@thanksaj ok...well you didn't need that plugin to do that. WP comes with the ability for people to comment and if you wanted ratings you could add using custom fields without the overhead of a plugin and its links.
Like this article from Smashing Magazine.
The problem is most people read the articles off the homepage, which means if they want to comment, they have to go to the actual post's page, which most won't/don't.
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@thanksaj 99% of people don't comment. I get about three comments a month on 30,000 reads. It's just not something that people do on articles. I have huge articles that have run on the main page of major publications for over a year without a comment. If you are expecting comments, your going down the wrong path. This isn't how you get them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj 99% of people don't comment. I get about three comments a month on 30,000 reads. It's just not something that people do on articles. I have huge articles that have run on the main page of major publications for over a year without a comment. If you are expecting comments, your going down the wrong path. This isn't how you get them.
Ok, then how do I go about garnering feedback? I like to know what people think of my articles and if they agree/disagree. It's limited with FeedWeb, but it's better than nothing without it. The numbers aren't spammed either, from what I can tell.
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A blog doesn't seem like something you do because you want to know what other people think of your posts, it's more just your own thoughts out there for the world to read, at least that's my take on it.
I guess it's the younger generations need to constantly have feedback - but do you really?
Things like Youtube, etc have pushed some into thinking they need constant feedback on everything - but again I ask, really? Why not just do something for yourself, share it on the interwebs, and who cares if others like it or not, comment or not.. you do it for you.
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@Dashrender said:
A blog doesn't seem like something you do because you want to know what other people think of your posts, it's more just your own thoughts out there for the world to read, at least that's my take on it.
I guess it's the younger generations need to constantly have feedback - but do you really?
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
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@thanksaj said:
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
What makes you different from a blog?
@scottalanmiller even said when his pieces are posted on major news outlets he doesn't get that much feedback/posts - so why would this be any different?
Where do you see tons of feedback/posts - mostly on teenie bobber places, i.e. Youtube.
If you want Spiceworks type feedback, you're going to have to write for a Spiceworks like site that already has a ton of visitors/posters.
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@Dashrender said:
@thanksaj said:
It's not really a blog though. It's formatted as such, but it's not really what I'd define as a blog. I think blog, I think about an online diary basically.
What makes you different from a blog?
@scottalanmiller even said when his pieces are posted on major news outlets he doesn't get that much feedback/posts - so why would this be any different?
Where do you see tons of feedback/posts - mostly on teenie bobber places, i.e. Youtube.
If you want Spiceworks type feedback, you're going to have to write for a Spiceworks like site that already has a ton of visitors/posters.
I know Scott said he doesn't get a lot of feedback but all he has is the comments. I'm looking for a way to gather feedback more actively than that. Some people might not need it, but I crave it, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
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@thanksaj said:
I know Scott said he doesn't get a lot of feedback but all he has is the comments. I'm looking for a way to gather feedback more actively than that. Some people might not need it, but I crave it, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
And my feedback on your desire for feedback is.... force yourself to get over it. You, like me, are a metrics addict. This is an Aspy trait. You have to learn to control it because it, in general, controls you. Treat it like a gambling addiction.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
I know Scott said he doesn't get a lot of feedback but all he has is the comments. I'm looking for a way to gather feedback more actively than that. Some people might not need it, but I crave it, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
And my feedback on your desire for feedback is.... force yourself to get over it. You, like me, are a metrics addict. This is an Aspy trait. You have to learn to control it because it, in general, controls you. Treat it like a gambling addiction.
I do love statistics...grrr...
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@thanksaj you're talking to someone who wrote an engine to gather all the stats on a huge community externally. Trust me I know. But if you apply metrics to yourself you are gaming and gaming outside of actual games, is always bad. Because gaming never drives you towards a real goal.
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@thanksaj well then change the way you have it setup. For best practices and SEO, the latest post should be a snippet.
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@thanksaj said:
@Aaron-Studer said:
@thanksaj But how much time is solving this performance issue going to take you? What about the next issue?
The time is really irrelevant.
Really? Wow, you basically just said your time isn't worth anything.....
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@technobabble said:
@thanksaj well then change the way you have it setup. For best practices and SEO, the latest post should be a snippet.
I've considered doing it that way. I'll have to look into that as a possibility.
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@Aaron-Studer said:
@thanksaj said:
@Aaron-Studer said:
@thanksaj But how much time is solving this performance issue going to take you? What about the next issue?
The time is really irrelevant.
Really? Wow, you basically just said your time is worth anything.....
I think you mean isn't. Anyways, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I don't mind taking the time, and I'm not in a position where I'd have to choose between working on my webserver and doing something else important. If my time was that compressed, I'd probably host it offsite. But at this point, it's not the case.
