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The Evolution of Journals: A Rant The world evolves, people evolve, technology evolves. Of course online journaling evolves. Does it have to evolve in a way that's really, really annoying? Moveable Type makes me want to claw out my eyeballs. Don't get me wrong - I think it's a fantastic program and I will probably end up using it myself. But why, why, why can't journals that use Moveable Type still have all the convenient things that used to be the hallmarks of good, clean navigation? I know these things can be done, because I read two - and only two, I believe - journals that use Moveable Type and still have all the things that don't drive me insane while reading. One is Athena's and the other I can't link to because the author doesn't want it public yet, but the navigation there! It is so easy! Trust me. (Oh! Jessie does it too! I went over my list again. Yay Jessie!) (These things I am about to bitch about? They do not exist only on the pages of MT users. Several other journals now feature the same things that drive me nuts. But most of them are MT users, therefore I am going to stereotype. Sorry.) Why do so many MT users default to the multi-entries per page thing? It's not the blogs I hate - it's the journals set up like blogs. If your entry is more than several sentences long, it needs its own page. No, really, it does. The endless scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...make it stop. Please. As a followup question to this, the most recent entry being on top only adds to the frustration. If I haven't checked your site for a few days and you have a few journal entries on the front page, newest on top, then I have to read from bottom to top rather than top to bottom. Why do I have to "click to read more"? If I read your site, it means I care about your journal. If I care about your journal, of course I want to "read more." Can't it just be there? The endless clicking and clicking and clicking, it is no better than the scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Why can't you have "back" and next" entries on every single entry, including the one on the index page? And if you do have them, why can't they be at the bottom? Why do I have to scroll back up? Or if you don't have them, why not? I cannot remember the titles of your entries that I have or have not read, only content. Being able to select from a list of "recent entries" really does me no good. If you want a blog, that's cool. There are several blogs I really like. But if you want a journal, keep a journal. Don't keep some bizarre journal-blog hybrid that's probably annoying the piss out of both journal readers and blog readers. It's not that journals and blogs can't get along. Of course they can. But do they have to mate? Do they have to be attached at the hip? If you're just keeping it for yourself, that's cool. But does anyone really mean that when they say it? I don't think so. Not the people I read, anyway - if they meant it, they wouldn't link to their journal from forums and such, they'd stay private. So you're writing for an audience, because that's what they do. Don't you want your audience to have an easy time while they're visiting your site? MT is quick and convenient. I get that. But I also know that you can use MT and have clean navigation. Clean navigation used to be prized, back in the old days. Sometimes I miss the old days. (Lisa does a nearly perfect job (sorry, scapegoat!), but I can only read her if I select the current entry on her little calendar, rather than reading it when it comes up on the index page. If I select the current entry on the calendar, then I get the pretty "before" and "after" links and all of her entries are on their own individual pages.) Many MT users are probably thinking "screw you!" or "I don't care if you read!" and that's okay. I know this comes off as sounding kind of bitchy. But clean navigation and ease of reading used to be two very important things in the journaling world, and they don't seem to be anymore. I had someone email me last week to say that they'd been hurt that I hadn't emailed them after some life trauma, and I had to admit that I hadn't read their site in over a month because I was just tired of the navigation issues and with limited journal reading time, I'm looking for ease of surf. If I have a hard time navigating your site, then I probably check in on you very, very occasionally. (Also, friendships that exist solely online that have never had a single moment of contact outside the internet? Are not really friendships. I have had several instances where I thought another journaler and I had "bonded" over things and then they just weren't answering my email anymore or I vanished off their links list. Maybe they got tired of reading, maybe they got tired of me - but I didn't email and ask them about it, because it only existed online. That's not a relationship. If you've never talked on the phone or met or even sent mail to each other, it's not a relationship. Not really. It's two journalers reading one another's sites and exchanging email. But I digress.) Is it all about me? No. But if I have these complaints, you can bet I'm not the only one. If you use MT and don't have any of these issues about your site, I apologize - especially if you're on my links list and I missed you. But if you use MT? Why not make it a little easier on your reader? (One final digression sparked by reading entries in new-to-me journals this month - why would you use, say, blue type on a pink background? Or something equally horrifying? Why would you do that? Because, ouch. Really. It's not pretty. It's just painful.) |
