I’m kind of curious about how people read the site, in particular the ScienceBlogs front page, so:
As a bonus, if you feel so inclined, take a look at the front page, and leave a comment letting me know what you think. Is there something they ought to do with it that would make it more useful/attractive to you?
I almost never even look at the front page!
The fourth option should say, “…I would rarely visit the site were it not for the annoying habit of putting half the post ‘below the fold’ in the RSS feed”.
I don’t use an RSS reader, but I come straight here. It never occurred to me to wonder if ScienceBlogs had a main page.
Up until two minutes ago I was completely unaware that ScienceBlogs even had a front page even though I’ve been reading some of the blogs for over three years.
Now that I am aware of it, I’ll continue to ignore it.
I read your blog IN SPITE OF the fact you are on ScienceBlogs, not BECAUSE you are on ScienceBlogs.
I barely ever go to the front page, but tend to check the “Last 24 Hours” feed several times a day.
What Joseph Hewitt said.
Yeh i don’t use the front page but i check the last 24h thing many times a day.
Again, Use the last 24hrs feed.
I Guess in theory i go to the main page once a day or so, because thats where my original book mark is. But mostly I Just scoll back cronologically using last 24hrs
None of the above. There aren’t enough options.
I look at it about twice a day (morning+night), but pay little if any attention to the main feature (unless it grabs me). Rather, I skim the “channel surfing” section in order to see what’s new on those blogs which aren’t on my read-every-day list.
When my blog was at scienceblogs, I thought the front page was too cluttered and busy. The other day, I looked at the front page, and I couldn’t really get anything out of it — it was much like looking at the classifieds in the newspapers. Given that I knew what I was looking for, it was much faster for me to remember that I should just add “/principles” in the URL bar than to try to figure out how to navigate that clutter.
I read a handful of scienceblogs blogs directly nowadays. I stopped reading the full scienceblogs 24-hour feed because it was so aggravating– too many of the headlines were an echo chamber for PZ’s hate of religion. I just got sick of it, and realized that it was just making me angry when I would inevitably follow one of those links and try to respond. So, nowadays, I have your blog and Janet’s blog in my RSS feed, and I read one or two others when their posts are highlighted on facebook. I also read Chris and Sheril’s blog, but of course they’re not at scienceblogs any more.
But the front page of scienceblogs? Seems useless to me, and I suspect that the design of it is way too busy to be attractive for somebody interested in finding blogs about science to figure out what’s here.
Yeah, I don’t really use the scienceblogs front page anymore. In fact, the only SB blogs I subscribe to now are this blog, Built on Facts and Eruptions. Like Rob, I got tried of constant religion-politics drama that pervades here on scienceblogs; I rather just read straight-up political blogs for that.
Another 24h reader, about twice a day. I can skip over the postings that I don’t feel interested in, like most of politics and religion (and their bastard child, sports).
First time I’ve even seen the front page. I’m only interested in specific blogs, so I picked 4th option though I read post on site not through RSS.
24h at least 10 times per day – didn’t know there was a front page.
Add me to the list of “last 24 hours” readers — probably haven’t been to the front page more than 2 or 3 times in the past year.
I was going to pick the 5th option, but I got a stabbing pain saying that the poll didn’t exist.
Anyway, isn’t the front page full of adds for carbonated drinks?
I do skim the ScienceBlogs Select “best-of” feed, so I’m maybe more aware of the whole scene than people who just read a single or few SB blogs, but I essentially never get to the site from the front page.
It is rare for me to visit their front page. But I surf the 24 hour scroll daily. Downloading and read, or at least scan, pretty much every entry.
I only check the front page once a day, in case i missing something
Other: Never, because I have bookmarks for all the individual Sciblings that I like to read.
Last 24 hours here too. I have never seen the front page.
I think this is the first time I have ever looked at that front page. It isn’t bad, actually, but I’ll continue to ignore it unless I am hideously bored. Now that I have seen it, I still prefer using the sidebar links to “interesting stories” to look for a digression.
By the way, I read this from a blogroll bookmark list ordered roughly by my level of interest in the blog, not a feed.
I have a number of issues with “ScienceBlogs,” but the front page is actually one of the things I think it does quite well.
I knew that Science Blogs had a front page, but I never look at it. I’m sure I looked at it once or twice before, but definitely not recently. Since you suggested looking at it, I typed in the URL, and I figured out why I never look at it. There is way too little there. I follow a lot of SB bloggers, but I go to each blog directly. The SB home page – it is scienceblogs.com, I assume – seems to have three links to selected blog entries and a few other links, but not much content. Compare it with, let’s say, the New York or Seattle Times home page, and it is positively barren. The newspaper home pages probably point to fifty, or even a hundred, different blog entries, and they break them down by categories, but SB has next to nothing. I imagine I could use the tabs near the top of the page to get more info by category, but why?
If SB wants people to go to its home page, they should make it a central linking point. People go to Google for a reason. It links to nearly everything. People go to a newspaper home page, because from there they can get to anything in the newspaper, usually in a click or perhaps two. The SB home page is surprisingly barren.
I don’t visit the front page. I used to frequently visit the “last 24 hours” page, but now I only glance at the first page of recent posts every couple days. Uncertain Principles is the only ScienceBlogs blog I read regularly these days.