At long last, the folks at Blogger have created an inline comment form, which I'm now testing out. Email me if you have any problems using it.
Showing posts with label admin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label admin. Show all posts
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
New Website
Crooked Timber has a post on 'The importance of Web sites for academics'. It seems like good advice, so I've composed this page (now linked in the sidebar, in place of the generic philosophy department homepage which is currently broken in any case). Design tips welcome.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Blog Navigation Tweaks
You may have noticed I'm still playing around with the blog template a bit.
[Update: I've added a new sidebar list of 'recommended posts' from other blogs, to supplement my 'commenting elsewhere' list.]
(1) I've moved the labels/categories list to the page footer, clearing more room in the sidebar. (The horizontal 'cloud' display is a bit harder to read than a vertical list, unfortunately, but I think it's probably worth the savings in screen space. How often do you use the list anyway?)
I've also made the basic list of 'recent posts' more prominent at the top of the sidebar, since that is probably more useful.
(2) Individual post pages now automatically list "related posts", i.e. recent posts tagged with the same category label. I imagine this could prove useful.
(3) I've upgraded the ratings widget with two new (experimental) features:
- My top rated posts are displayed in a sidebar list.
- By comparing and correlating ratings between posts, the widget automatically generates recommendations. Generic recommendations simply list other posts that were highly rated by the people who liked the present post. But if you have rated several posts yourself, the widget will cleverly offer individually tailored recommendations for you, based on the ratings of "people like you", i.e. who have made similar ratings to you in the past.
The more you (and others) rate, the better the widget will be able to recognize and cater to your 'taste' in posts, so the more useful it will be to you. How cool is that!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Post Ratings and Template Changes
I've just added this cool widget to my blog and RSS feed, which lets you rate each post (out of 5 stars). It looks like a fun and convenient way to get more reader feedback...
Update: I just realized this won't function properly with my custom template, since the sidebar navigation lets you read posts other than the original page that the widget thinks you're still reading (rating). So, only those who read my blog via a feed reader will get to use this.
P.S. Perhaps I should revert to a more conventional template? I know that many readers were displeased by the change last year. Now that you've gotten used to it, what do you think?
Update II: Okay, I've fixed my template and reinstated the widget -- rate away!
I've also (1) added fade-in expandable posts, with thanks to Ramani; (2) restored author comment highlighting, as before; and (3) made various cosmetic tweaks (colours, borders, etc.). Do you like the new style?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Categorizing Blog Posts
I'm having trouble working out how to carve this blog at its joints -- or, if it doesn't have natural "joints", how to categorize the posts most usefully. A couple of principles suggest themselves:
1. Avoid vertical redundancy, i.e. between general and specific categories. If a post is on 'modality', don't bother to tag it as 'metaphysics' in addition. Leave the broader category so that my other (non-modal) metaphysics posts are easier to find. But cross-categorize horizontally, e.g. with 'language' or 'epistemology', if appropriate.
2. Avoid overcrowding a category. The sidebar navigation only loads 8 posts at a time, so it'll take a painfully long time to find an early post in a category of 80+. Better to split it into more specific sub-categories. Though there is some trade-off with the annoyance of an excessively long list of categories. I think the ideal balance would be to have as few categories as possible whilst maintaining a maximum category size of about 40 posts.
Question - would the navigation be easier if subcategories were bundled nearer together? E.g. have 'ethics - applied', 'ethics - metaethics', etc., rather than 'applied' and 'metaethics' distantly separated on the alphabetized list.
Difficult cases. It's quite hard to know how to split things up, especially some of my advocacy (applied ethics or politics) type posts.
- I previously had posts on the Internet and copyfight issues categorized under 'media', though I've now made a new 'Internet' category, and shifted some intellectual property stuff over to the 'property' category, leaving the 'media' category more for howling at journalists. Does that sound like a more intuitive and user-friendly categorization?
- Another recent change was to dismantle the 'democracy' category, shifting the more theoretical posts into 'political theory', and the advocacy/metapolitics stuff into a new category: 'civics'. This also helped empty out my 'politics' category slightly. I might further subdivide out 'electoral politics'.
- A new category on '2-Dism' could clear a lot of room out of 'modality' and 'language'.
- I'm not sure whether the 'links' posts are worth including at all. Maybe I should just let them melt into the archives uncategorized, only preserving any especially good ones under the 'quotes' category?
- Maybe I should split up 'favourite posts' too, perhaps according to whether they're aimed at a general or advanced academic audience?
- 'Applied ethics' is a mess. I'm not entirely clear on whether policy prescriptions belong here or under 'politics' -- maybe I need a new 'policy' category, and leave the 'ethics' stuff for ethical questions relating to private conduct? In addition, there's 'the good life' which typically concerns theories of well-being; the ironically titled 'family values' which concerns the ethics of sex, relationships, children, etc. If I'm not careful, this may overlap with 'identity politics' on gender/feminist issues, though the latter also addresses racism and such.
I think I just need to get a clearer idea of what sorts of posts go where. (E.g. is abortion a matter for 'family values', or general 'applied ethics'? If I made a new 'bioethics' category, would it belong there instead?)
- 'Moral theory' needs to be split up. 'Action theory' currently contains posts on agency / moral psychology. I wonder whether stuff on 'reasons' belongs there too, or maybe in a whole new category of its own. 'Utilitarianism' probably deserves its own category too. What about 'rationality'? (I've posted a bit on global rationality and indirect utilitarianism, how should that be categorized?)
Suggestions welcome!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Comment Registration
Apropos of nothing in particular, I've turned off anonymous comments. Commenters must now register either with Blogger (highly recommended, since it gives you the option to receive email notification of comment replies) or another OpenID provider such as Wordpress, Livejournal, AIM, etc.
If you find this hugely inconvenient, send me an email and I'll reconsider. (I strongly dislike seeing 'Anonymous' appear in the comments, though. He's an unpredictable and not entirely trustworthy fellow!)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
New Feature: Blog lists
Blogger have released a cool new feature which lets you list your favourite blogs, sorted by most recently updated, and including an optional snippet from each. I like it! (For one thing, having a second blogroll frees up more room to include others on my 'neighbours' list.)
For all you Blogger users: log in at http://draft.blogger.com/ and try it yourself. (It's preferable to third-party blogrolling apps, as the folks at Blogger explain: "The Blog List writes all links out in HTML so that, unlike JavaScript-based blogrolls, you pass PageRank goodness on to the blogs you link to.")
Update: another semi-recent feature you may have noticed is that if you comment using your Blogger account, you have the option to sign up for email notification of follow-up comments. Very handy.
(P.S. I've noticed that some blogs still link to my old blogspot address. If you could update your links to www.philosophyetc.net that'd be great. Thanks!)
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Change of Address
You should be redirected automatically, but if you want to update your bookmarks: this blog's address is now www.philosophyetc.net
Let me know if there are any technical hiccups I need to fix. (Google Sitesearch might take a couple of days to index the new domain.)
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Comprehensive Philosophy Blogroll
Chris Hallquist writes:
I've decided to embark on a project of creating a comprehensive blogroll of philosophy blogs. Once I work out the bugs, anyone will be able to add one of three versions to their blog: full, 25 most recent, and scrolling. I've got the code for the full version posted already: [link]
Could you announce this so that people can 1) send in their links and 2) add it if they so choose?
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Referrer Tracking
Here's a handy new discovery: Check out ReefeRSS if you want to keep track of where visitors to your website are coming from. (Unlike Sitemeter, it automatically converts google urls to search strings, making them far easier to read!) Like everything good on the internet, it's free.
Just for fun, I've used the RSS feed to add a "Last 5 Referrers" section to my sidebar. It's a nice way to automatically reciprocate if anyone links to this blog.
Warning: I do notice some disturbing google searches from time to time. I can remove the display if it gets too offensive.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Template Revamping
I'm trying out a version of Hackosphere's NEO template, which should make it faster and easier to navigate between posts. Let me know what you think.
Update: Added sidebar poll.
I've also (somewhat haphazardly) categorized around 600 old posts. The rest can be found under the "compendia" category (as I maintained manually updated "category" posts for my first year or so of blogging).
Finally, I've replaced the old 'blogroll' with a list of 'neighbours' (i.e. people I tend to argue with!). I expect it'll change over time. Feel free to email if I've missed you out.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Blogger bug makes drafts public
I have an unpublished draft post saved to my Blogger account. Being "unpublished", you would think that no-one else can read it yet. Surprise! You can view it here. As you can see, I even posted a comment to it. Bizarre. It's still unpublished, at least. (That is, the item page does not exist.) But the content is publicly accessible, which Blogger drafts presumably shouldn't be. So the upshot is similar enough.
Blogger users take note: anyone can read your drafts if they learn the postID (and hence can load the comment window using a similar link to my above example).
Of course, it'd probably never happen in practice, since (1) how would a would-be spy find the right postID? and (2) who would want to read our drafts anyway?
Still, as a matter of principle, Blogger probably shouldn't be leaving our saved drafts out in public cyberspace like that, for anyone to stumble upon...
Friday, August 18, 2006
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