∞ Reply with tact

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Yesterday I pointed out a readers comment to me about how The Loop made him jump through hoops to read the content. I took offense to his comments and posted my thoughts.

Today, Davy Buntinx posted his own article pointing out how wrong I was and how disappointed he was in my reply. In a lot of ways he’s right.

I wear my heart on my sleeve — always have. When I get offended, I respond in kind, and I was offended.

Perhaps I could have handled the situation better, but I feel I’m offering a good service to my readers and I spent a lot of time thinking about the best ways to lay out the site to suit the content and reader, not advertising.

What I have done is increase the amount of text in the truncated RSS feed so readers without the full text feed will have a better idea what the story is about. I hope that helps readers that expressed concerns about that.

I do take issue with one thing Davy said:

Not that it’s something I hate to do, since the thing I eventually end up on on the site is worth reading, but still, it’s an extra step, introduced to bump up page views and resulting advertising income.

I couldn’t care less about pageviews and my income is in no way tied to the amount of pageviews The Loop gets. If I cared about pageviews, I wouldn’t link directly to external articles in the RSS, I would force everyone to come here first, but I don’t.

It doesn’t matter if I get 10 or 10 million pageviews a month, I get paid the same. That’s the reason I did the new site like this — for the reader, and for the content.

Thanks for all the feedback — good and bad — I’m always working to make the site better.


  • His Shadow

    It’s hard to be kind to people who build elaborate scenarios to explain what they don’t understand or can’t possibly know and then use the erroneous conclusion from their premise to cast aspersions regarding your motives or skills.

    If I found it difficult to distinguish between the article and the Loop anchor or found it hard to grasp that the RSS feed is a membership perk, I’d have to stop using the Internet out of shame.

    But I might be casting aspersions based on too little info.

  • http://www.acid-product.co.uk Ian Davies

    To be honest, the only thing that bugs me now (and conversely to what some have said on the subject) is the fact that the links in the RSS feed link straight through to the linked article, rather than the Loop article.
    I want to read Jim or Peter’s commentary on an article before going and reading it myself. It’s the same with Gruber.
    I also prefer to participate in comments on the Loop, sometimes to the exclusion of comments on the linked sites which are often swamped in stupid.
    The little “∞” symbol is too subtle for me.

    • http://twitter.com/holaMau Mau Sandoval

      I guess Ian explained this much better than I did. 

      I second his opinion. Big time.

      • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

        I’m with Ian and Mau here.
        I almost alway click through to the original piece, but I’m usually more interested in what Peter and Jim have to say and the discussion in the comments.

        I get the rationale and the noble attitude behind linking directly to a source in linked articles, but I’d still like it the other way round.
        I don’t expect this to happen and I can live with it the way it is.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t understand folk who live on RSS feeds. But whatever, no one has to explain themselves to me.

    The Loop is a great publication.

    A different RSS feed may be good for folk who live on RSS. Next time, these complainers should explain themselves better without using catch phrases and poor assumptions.

    And, if they don’t get exactly what they want for free, they shouldn’t expect you to start addressing every single reader’s pet peeve.

  • DocRoss

    Jim, this was a very classy post. 

    As a long-time reader of yours (going back to the very original MacCentral!), I was seriously put off by yesterday’s post and your dismissive response to the reader. Not caring one way or another on the issue of RSS feeds and how you do it, I was taken aback by how you responded to the criticism.

    This post has rehabilitated your image in my eyes. It’s not easy to stand where you’re standing and take abuse from readers like me, so it’s understandable you might fly off the handle occasionally. To step back and take responsibility for it takes some guts, and I appreciate it.

    Thanks Jim.

  • newreplydotphp

    It’s totally understandable if you got a little hissy. The problem with the internet is that too many people assume that they know everything and are owed everything.

    I know that I have been guilty myself of thinking that I knew something and pushing through with the idea that I was correct no matter what. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of times that I’ve stated something as true and then found that it wasn’t later on. I now make sure of my facts when posting and post links to articles to back me up, but do it without my former arrogance. 

    I don’t think this guy really appreciates the work that goes into maintaining a blog like this. More power to you for admitting that you might have got out of hand, but, I think it’s understandable.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    Bottom line, somebody complained about how a great, free Apple news site improved its readability and reduced advertising, but committed the capital sin of not having improved enough for his individual convenience while accessing content that remained free.

    I would have no polite response to this. I commend Jim for being as civil as he was.

  • http://twitter.com/holaMau Mau Sandoval

    Jim, I don’t mind clicking through your links on my RSS reader. Whether is for page views (or not), or for whatever… that’s fine.

    However, one thing  that you should consider is to not send us to the site you are referring to in your post. You know, you click the title of the RSS entry and sends me to the story on “the other” site. I noticed you have been trying both approaches, one to get to The Loop’s posting through title links and the other (current) which sends you to the Original post.The reason why I don’t like direct links to “others” sites is that we miss your commentary on the post. For instance… your recent post “Big bad iMessage” shows on my RSS truncated at “I’ve been spoiled her by e-mail. All I need is your “[...]. And that’s it. if I click on the title, it sends me to CNET. But I want to read YOUR insight.Granted there’s the “permalink”, but I think you are doing yourself a great disservice by not linking to your site and then linking out to the original post you are commenting about. Your insight matters. That’s why you blog. That’s why people care about what you do.

    Gruber does the same thing, however, his feed is not truncated. Again, I am not asking for the full feed. I like your opinion, and that’s why I subscribe to your feed.

    Thoughts?

    • http://twitter.com/cutterpillow Dave Thorup

      I have to agree fully with this as well as what Ian Davies has said. I’m a new reader here, I only recently found out about The Loop when Gruber linked to your site commenting on the site redesign. As a new reader and someone that does more than 90% of my reading using RSS feeds in Reeder it’s hard to view the Loop’s RSS feed as anything but broken. Here’s why:

      1) The truncated feed is far too short. I noticed that the feed has now been lengthened due to the recent feedback so thanks for that. Previously it was almost useless and was far too short to get a feel for the article. 

      2) The title links to the original article and not back to the Loop. I know that this is how Gruber does it on Daring Fireball but the big and very significant difference is that Daring Fireball provides a full RSS feed that isn’t truncated. I have no problem with sites that only provide a truncated RSS feed and I subscribe to a number of them. But every site that provides a truncated RSS feed always links back to the site with their title link. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me: you read an intro to an article and get hooked so you click on the title link to get the full text of the article. It’s only then that you’ll know whether you want to continue on to the source article. If a click on the title link instead takes you directly to the source article then it just leaves you hanging as you’re missing the Loop’s commentary about the article (which is usually more interesting to me). The “Permalink” at the end of the article is just not the obvious place to look.

      The only way that linking to the source article works is if the RSS feed is not truncated. That way you can read the full commentary from the Loop prior to clicking through to the source article. So consider making the truncated RSS feed always link back to the Loop and the full feed (for subscribers) remain as it is now. 

      3) There’s an image with every RSS article. WTF!? I absolutely hate the practice of blogs that can’t post an article without including some picture, any picture, regardless of whether it ads value or not. The actual web site doesn’t have a picture for every article, so why shove them down your RSS reader’s throats? Include pictures when it makes sense, but don’t add a picture just to add a picture.

      Those are my thoughts as a new reader of the RSS feed. It just hasn’t been a very good experience so far. I usually end up clicking on an article I’m interested in, then clicking through to the full text on the Loop and then finally just clicking on to the Loop’s home page to read any other articles as dealing with the RSS feed is just too frustrating. 

      It’s your site and you’re welcome to run it the way you want, but there are things that could be done to make using the truncated RSS feed a better experience. I may some day become a member to get access to the full feed – I have no problems paying for good content. But I’m still new to the site and trying to get a feel for it.

      Cheers

  • Justin Pakes

    As a recent new reader, all via Google Reader,  I actually have to agree with Ian Davies. When there is context provided by Jim, I wish the RSS link would go to Loop, rather than direct link. If Jim has aded no additional comment, then a direct link is great.

    Keep up the good work, and the transparency.

  • Guest

    I think the knee-jerk reaction of roasting anyone who fires a rude customer is bad enough. The customer is NOT always right. Sometimes the customer is an abusive asshole whose business isn’t worth an argument. Hardly anyone raises an eyebrow when someone enters a physical shop and is told to leave after harassing the staff. Paying customer or not, no business will be saved or killed by booting out the occasional asshole. Better the argumentative “customer” NOT buy anything so there’s no actual entitlement.

    What is REALLY tiresome, however, is applying this same knee-jerk reaction to someone who isn’t even a customer. Most of us don’t give Jim or Peter money. Some of us click the ads. If there’s interesting content, we’ll be back. A rather trivial monetizing hook that barely registers as a speed bump for most does not make us entitled customers. 

    The only thing I cringed about when reading Jim’s post was the thought of the “THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! HOW COULD YOU?!” reactions I knew were already flying through the InterTubes. In the interest of self-preservation, firing a customer is probably best done somewhere other than in the spotlight.

  • Anonymous

    Hi Jim,

    I use pulse to read a number of news sites and blog on my iPad.

    On DF I can read John’s articles completely in pulse and clicking on the link takes me to the website with the article. This works well for him as DF has no comments.

    In your case pulses webview is better as you allow comments. But it will be nice if

    a) you can make the permalink more prominent like Ars technica for example.

    b) make sure that there are no truncated lines in the pulse as it breaks the train of thought

    That’s my 2 cents. Enjoy your work

  • Anonymous

    SOP on blogs for the past months and months is that the title links to your article. Both the Loop and DF annoying break this SOP and reader expectation. Fine you want to do that go for it. But expect many folks to get pissy about it. If you can’t respond with respect and tact, keep your mouth shut. 

  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    If I were Jim, I do exactly the same with my RSS feed.
    If you pay $3,- a month you support The Loop you get a full RSS feed, anything else is just a notice that something on one of the sites you value enough to subscribe to by RSS has something new on it.

    RSS is only one of the way to subscribe to news on The Loop and Jim should be thanked for putting any kind of content or description in the truncated feed.

  • Jvalley

    Site is difficult to read on iPhone. More attention here will keep me as a reader as, while I share the concerns of the spark for this posting, I won’t jump through hoops from the news reader AND then fight with the site to actually read the content.