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justperry

macrumors G5
Original poster
Aug 10, 2007
12,553
9,745
I'm a rolling stone.
Today I refreshed the front page and see the new page refreshed with truncated older news stories.
Is this new or is it my browser which does this?

If this is new I hate it (IMO), sometimes on other sites I want to read the whole story but have to click a few times to see it all, especially some of the Tech sites which have reviews on certain hardware.
Some of the main news sites also do this, probably done to get more revenue on advertisements.

The bad thing is that it gets truncated in a way it cuts off in the middle of a sentence, see attachment.

Why this change MR?
It's a change for the worse.
 

Attachments

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arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
Just something we are trying.

With stories are moving off the front page faster, we were trying to include more headlines vs fewer.

But I can see how it's a big change. I'm not entirely used to it myself.

arn
 

justperry

macrumors G5
Original poster
Aug 10, 2007
12,553
9,745
I'm a rolling stone.
Just something we are trying.

With stories are moving off the front page faster, we were trying to include more headlines vs fewer.

But I can see how it's a big change. I'm not entirely used to it myself.

arn

So, can't you just make a longer page?

If they were truncated so that it is not cut half way through a sentence I could understand it better, the way it is now is strange to say the least.
 

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
So, can't you just make a longer page?

If they were truncated so that it is not cut half way through a sentence I could understand it better, the way it is now is strange to say the least.

ya, we're working on it

arn
 

Stridder44

macrumors 68040
Mar 24, 2003
3,973
198
California
I think you should keep it the way it is but instead of redirecting to automatically expand when you click "read full article".

For the mobile version, maybe.

But for the full desktop version it's terrible. Actually, even for the mobile version it's terrible. The mobile version loaded quickly enough as it was, and having to click expand on every old article is just annoying. I'm all for trying new things, but this change doesn't improve the site in any way, and instead makes it more frustrating to use (and less likely to read old articles).
 

AQUADock

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2011
1,049
37
For the mobile version, maybe.

But for the full desktop version it's terrible. Actually, even for the mobile version it's terrible. The mobile version loaded quickly enough as it was, and having to click expand on every old article is just annoying. I'm all for trying new things, but this change doesn't improve the site in any way, and instead makes it more frustrating to use (and less likely to read old articles).

Is it so difficult to click a button? Fine it was just a suggestion.
 

justperry

macrumors G5
Original poster
Aug 10, 2007
12,553
9,745
I'm a rolling stone.
Is it so difficult to click a button? Fine it was just a suggestion.

What about data use, that's also a concern for people who don't have unlimited internet.

I for one hate those sites where they tell you half the story and then need to click and load another page to read the rest, maybe good for the site owners (ads revenue) but a pain for those which have limited packages.
 

huges84

macrumors member
Mar 7, 2012
47
82
I think it would be a big improvement if it left the first 5 stories full length then started truncating from there (referring to mobile site). This way on a typical news day I can see today's news without having to click expand on several stories. If it is a particularly busy news day (new product announcement) I can skim news.

One of the things that made me switch from Apple Insider to Mac Rumors as my main news site was the much better site design where I don't have to load a page for every story. The other was the news is to the point (AI wants to make everything a 1000 words). These two things allow me to get me news quickly, which I value a lot.

Now MR has become a lot less efficient for me. I see the value in truncating the older stories, I just think that threshold is too low. Please leave more of the recent news full length on the home page.
 

iZac

macrumors 68030
Apr 28, 2003
2,581
2,748
UK
I think you should keep it the way it is but instead of redirecting to automatically expand when you click "read full article".

I'm all for this approach ... though I guess it's not quite so simple to implement.

I briefly thought the change was made to facilitate more click-throughs, but I know Macrumours staff wouldn't be that shallow. :) I can certainly see the benefit of having more more news items on the front page without the page being a mile long though.

Personally in day to day use I use the RSS feed directing to my *cough* work *cough* email so it doesn't really affect me too much.
 

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
We turned it off on the mobile. The other good argument against it on mobile is that some people load the whole page at once and then go on the subway.

That said, scrolling through mobile does seem awful long once again. Though I may be more likely to be scanning for an older story than most, since I keep up with the stories generally.

And we are working on tweaking the main.

arn
 

WillFisher

macrumors 6502
Feb 19, 2011
387
16
Currently I'm not a fan, cutting out mid sentence then finding the place again isn't hard, but its unnecessary. Once perfected I think it could work well, especially if AquaDock's idea could work, it would be rather nice.
 

stndn

macrumors member
Oct 22, 2006
80
1
earth
+1 to annoying enhancement.

It's not about how the articles are cut mid-sentence. It's more about having to open another page.

I usually check MR once or twice a day due to limited internet, so I get most of the older, truncated articles.
There's an extra work involved in opening new tab just to read the full article, at least in my case.
And this, in my opinion, is not a good user experience.

If the main page gets too long, let it be. There is a scroll bar for that.
Or, how about making this an option for the members, whether they want it enabled or disabled?


-stndn.
 

hexspeed

macrumors newbie
May 27, 2009
18
0
Reposition speed is my biggest complaint

I can live with clicking to read the rest of the story, but after returning to the Front Page, it's taking between 3 and 5 seconds to reposition to the truncated version so I can continue with the next article. That delay gets tedious after awhile. I'm using a MBPr 2.7 GHz i7 with 16 GB of memory, so I don't think the slow speed is because of my hardware.
 

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
I can live with clicking to read the rest of the story, but after returning to the Front Page, it's taking between 3 and 5 seconds to reposition to the truncated version so I can continue with the next article. That delay gets tedious after awhile. I'm using a MBPr 2.7 GHz i7 with 16 GB of memory, so I don't think the slow speed is because of my hardware.

You mean hitting "back" in the browser?

arn
 

tonywalk

macrumors member
Oct 14, 2007
52
9
Broadbottom,Cheshire
Another hater of the truncated stories. It's not like the un-truncated ones were massive. At least give us the option to have the full-fat stories.

TUAW used to be my primary site for Mac news, 'till they started truncating stories. I don't want to have to find a third.
 

hexspeed

macrumors newbie
May 27, 2009
18
0
Arn: Yes -- I page back from the full story and the response is near instantaneous BUT it goes to the top of the prior page. The delay I'm talking about is to be automatically repositioned down the page to the truncated story link where I originally clicked "Read full article". It's often faster to just manually scroll down again. (Actually, today, it doesn't even automatically reposition -- it just goes back to the top of the prior page and I have to scroll back down to the truncated story.)
 
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