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Apr 5, 2013

On labels

Okay, this is something I am really undecided about.

The good news is, after switching the blog interface to english (the Czech version is... odd), I found out, how to make it work, so technically, I can easily introduce the labels right now, so you could (for example) read only WoT-related stuff.

The "bad" news is, I am really not sure whether I want to do that. Let me explain:

Currently, it's easy enough to open the blog, open the day you want to display on the right side menu (for example: posts from last two days you didn't have time to check before? you simply open posts from those two days) and read what posts are available. The names of the posts are usually very clear on whether it's a WoT post, a "mixed" one (for example about a historical vehicles and its implications on World of Tanks, a potential historical buff etc.) or a purely historical one (those are very few, because most of the historical stuff I post can somehow influence WoT potentially).

If I add labels and the "search by labels" function, what a lot of people will do is they will select "articles on WoT" (eg. mostly daily translation updates) as default. That way, they will not only skip all the other blog content (which is fine, anyone can decide what to read and what not to read), they will also deprive themselves of the possibility to actually see stuff that might potentially interest them. I'll give you an example: the way it is now, a guy comes here for the Q&A daily updates (which are easy to find because their title always has the date in it), opens the blog, sees a wall of text ("meh, I'll skip that"), but then there's also the really cool tank picture he likes ("amagad this looks nice, what's that") - and decides to read the text despite the fact he didn't want to.

With labels enabled, he won't even see the tank article, so he won't know there's something that might potentially interest him despite the fact he came only for the news. Get my drift?

It's only natural for me and other authors who write articles to want people to read what we write. I mean - everyone wants his work to be seen by as many people as possible, right? In this case, I think implementing labels would be against both our and your interests (depriving us of potential readers and you of potential interesting info).

But I am willing to listen to the voice of the people.

- SS

29 comments:

  1. well personally i read this blog only for wot related news - leaks etc. i dont care to read everything else. i like to be introduced an option only wot news

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  2. I read everything anyway. >_<

    Lorheem(EU)

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  3. I'm totally ok with the way it is now, so imho FTR doesn't need any labels and stuff like that. Keep up the good work :)

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  4. Leave it as it is mate, it's pretty clear, menus on the right are easy to use, so any change can be confusing to new readers or people with less blog/internet experience. That's just my humble opinion on the topic, I have no problem even if you decide to enable labels, I am daily reader and tank freak wanna be which means I will read all the themes you fine lads post.
    Keep up the superb work you are all doing.

    Kind regards. PijacMali EU

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    1. well you wrote everything i wanted.

      saleTrol EU

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  5. No need for the labels, people who will not read the historical stuff will just skip it till they get to the Q&A/Dev News stuff imho and people like me will just read all of it.

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  6. Hello there ;-)

    If you don't mind I'm gonna write my opinion about labeling stuff.

    IMHO if someone wants to read only WoT stuff then ATM he can do it with ease. When someone wants to read some historical or theoretical info regarding RL tanks or prototypes then he can do it as well with ease.

    Narrowing the search results to a specific label would surely create the situation described above and it's more like a fact than an opinion or suspicion.

    However filtering by a content type would make search results more accurate and probably people would read archived articles more often.

    So you are faced with quite a tough decision to make as it is obvious you would like to get as many views as possible and at the same moment you want to upgrade the site to make it more user friendly.


    Maybe crosslinking articles from different themes but similiar in some way to each other would be a solution (i.e.: article about new US of A WoT tanks and below 2-5 links to articles about US of A historical tanks and as well some guides/weak spots)?

    Cheers
    RebeliantYT

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  7. If you really need labelaling (i dont think you do) i would sugest labeling by authors.

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  8. Could we at least get some read mores on the longer historical articles? There's a lot more scrolling than I like atm - I know I can get links to the articles from the side, but then why bother having the main blog column? -Xlucine

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  9. From my point of view, the current navigation is perfectly fine.

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  10. Don't introduce whose labels. Let the people who don't want to read historical articles have some expenditure.
    I personally came here for the WoT News since the blog existed, but whenever there were some other article I found it interesting.
    If there would have been these labels from beginnig, I think I wouldn't have read them. -Mppol

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  11. Obviously you need a "Cool Tank Pictures" label. :)

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  12. Satisfied with your recent changes regarding the blog archive, should be enough i guess.
    I really enjoy your historical articles, they often provide a lot of useful information and after putting such a research/effort into his work the author deserves some views...and I guess that he'll even manage to draw the attention of the ones who just check WoT-news here ;)

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  13. Maybe a really moronic question, but can you do both? Keep like this and add labels?

    -kn

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  14. It makes sense to me.

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  15. I think your blog is fine just as it is. No need for labels.

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  16. It would be best if you won't implement those labels.

    I come here mainly to see Q&A, but I also read everything else you post here. I do sometimes skip some long articles, but only to read them later. So, at least for me, these labels would be redundant.

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  17. You are right and I would leave it the way it is, concerning labels ofc.

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  18. Silent, how about you dont label the Q&A topics?

    So if someone wants to read the translations he will have to read/look at all topics.
    But if someone want to read more of the historical stuff he will have it a lot easier. E.g. yesterday we got 1 historical and 7 non-historical articles.

    Just my 2 cents

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    1. Yeah and maybe make them do re-captcha if they want to read Q&A?
      What is wrong with you people, if someone doesn't give a shit about the articles and comes only for the news, you want to MAKE them read the articles? Don't forget that the basis (origins) of this blog have been the news from the start. Introducing articles is okay, but don't stuff it down people's throats FFS!
      There are two labels up top now, Home and FTR Crew. Change that to Q&A and Articles, with the default view being everything together as it was before, and everyone will be happy.

      Delete
  19. Dont label it - its not like we are seeing millions of topics everyday.

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  20. Labels are more an ease of use thing, makes it easier if I just want to see some Q&A, some Leaks etc.

    What about a label just for the authors so we can look up articles from specific authors only?
    Unless you want to put an author shorthand in the title of all articles :P

    -Izi

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  21. I don't think labels are necessary but you may want to create a section with an index of the tank history articles just because it's a bit time consuming to pick them out of all the WoT related things.

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  22. Its time to open a wordpress blog...

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  23. I like it the way it is now. I myself have read some articles, I didn't mean to read, and I do not regret it;)

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  24. One of the best things about this blog is its simplicity. I'm against any labels. It's just the way someone before me wrote - three, five or six posts a day doesn't make a big problem to get through them, whether someone wants to read every one or just some of them. The only thing I'd suggest (not sure whether it's technically possible) would be posting a bit shortened versions of texts (or just headers) with possibility to expand them. It would make the blog more user-friendly, especially when using mobile phone to read it. I know that sometimes it would prevent someone from seeing "a great picture of cool tank", but I think that in general everyone can read and the times when people communicated with each other using just pictures are already long gone...

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  25. It's good the way it is now but itwould be decent to havee archived articles to be somehow put in order to make searching easier.

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  26. I don't care, I'll at least browse through everything anyway, and I come here through the RSS feed.

    - Ano N. Ymous

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