[Read More] ???

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thrust261
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[Read More] ???

Postby thrust261 » March 1st, 2015, 8:00 am

Why was that added to the website? Usually only maybe 20% of the review are hidden that way, so IMO it makes little sense. And it impairs the reading fluency, sometimes I even missed the last few sentences.


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VideoGameCritic
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Postby VideoGameCritic » March 1st, 2015, 9:14 am

This was added a few weeks ago to address the "wall of text" problem with the site.  I've seen first-hand that for some of my longer reviews people will not bother reading them because it's kind of intimidating.  This is more the case with modern games which require more explanation.

So for longer reviews (more than 1300 characters but I can adjust this) I only show the top portion, along with the read more link.  I've increased the spacing between lines (for readability) but this makes the reviews even longer, further justifying the read-more.

This also makes the pages look neater.  There are more reviews presented in a smaller space.

I know a few long-time readers don't care for the new format, but hopefully they will get used to it.  I'm hoping it might attract some new readers.  

I'm open to suggestions if you would like to see this feature tweaked, but I think I like it so far.

thrust261
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Postby thrust261 » March 1st, 2015, 10:40 am

Maybe some a slightly enhanced rule would help: Enable the switch only for reviews longer than x*n and then cut down to x.

So with e.g. x = 1333 and n = 1.5, reviews up to 2000 characters would not be cut, and all longer reviews will we cut to 1333. [Read More] would then reveal at least 667 more characters. So for modern systems with longer reviews, you would get a good overview. And for old systems with short reviews, [Read More] would hardly be required at all.


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Postby VideoGameCritic » March 1st, 2015, 11:56 am

Thomas,
Thanks for the feedback.  You know I respect your opinion.  I'm actually taking an approach similar to the one you described.  I don't want to force the reader to click read-more if there's only one or two lines left.

I just modified the pages to show an extra line by default.  This means the read-more lines appear under the screenshot, which should make the text easier to follow.  I also increased the threshold to 1500 characters which will reduce the number of read-mores overall.

We'll see how it goes.
VGC


Jon1
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Postby Jon1 » March 1st, 2015, 6:19 pm

I was sifting through PS2 reviews and I noticed that the new format really does improve things a lot.

thrust261
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Postby thrust261 » March 3rd, 2015, 3:03 pm

[QUOTE=videogamecritic]Thomas,
Thanks for the feedback.  You know I respect your opinion.  I'm actually taking an approach similar to the one you described.  I don't want to force the reader to click read-more if there's only one or two lines left. [/QUOTE]
Maybe it is my old browser (Opera 12.17) but I found some occasions, where only two more lines appeared (Atlantis, Enduro) and quite a few occasions with just three lines. If you could change those, I think the result would be fine.

[QUOTE] I just modified the pages to show an extra line by default.  This means the read-more lines appear under the screenshot, which should make the text easier to follow. [/QUOTE]
For me read-more appears centered (picture + text), so below the last text line, but a bit indented.

[QUOTE]I also increased the threshold to 1500 characters which will reduce the number of read-mores overall.[/QUOTE]
That already helped quite a lot. Thanks!

BTW: How about adding a link to the respective review feedback forum thread? Especially when browsing older reviews, this would help a lot.



Sut1
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Postby Sut1 » March 3rd, 2015, 3:37 pm

[QUOTE=thrust26][QUOTE=videogamecritic]How about adding a link to the respective review feedback forum thread? Especially when browsing older reviews, this would help a lot.


[/QUOTE]

I think that's a great suggestion.

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Postby VideoGameCritic » March 3rd, 2015, 5:49 pm

Yeah I agree this is much-needed feature.  The problem is, the forums are currently a service I use, which is basically a separate site.  I really don't have the capability to easily link them.

However, I have been talking about hosting my own message board for some time.  When I finally pull the trigger on that, I can implement this feature.

Gentlegamer1
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Postby Gentlegamer1 » March 3rd, 2015, 11:49 pm

I prefer the wall of text problem to be addressed by... not writing a wall of text. Either write shorter reviews, or break them into two or three paragraphs.

thrust261
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Postby thrust261 » March 4th, 2015, 3:11 am

[QUOTE=videogamecritic]Yeah I agree this is much-needed feature.  The problem is, the forums are currently a service I use, which is basically a separate site.  I really don't have the capability to easily link them.[/QUOTE]
Understood.

Meanwhile, how about linking to the review forum search with a search term containing the game's title searching in subject only? 




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