WordPress.com is an easy way to start blogging. Get a blog, check out our features, read the latest announcements, choose from great themes, or learn about the team behind it.
Need help? Check out our Support site, then
For those of you who have social media buttons that show the number of shares, pay close attention to what happens to them on the main page. When it opens, they are there. But scroll down until the infinite scrolling kicks in and see what happens - there are no numbers. If you click on any one post, they are there, but not on the main page.
Another fly in the ointment.
I hate to put a damper on all this discussion, but there's around 25 people posting to this thread and another 82 or so in the sticky (minus staff) with maybe 40 additional all total in the other posts tagged with the 'infinite scrolling" tag and of course some people have posted in more than one thread, so even that is an inaccurate count.
Roughly 6 million blogs use Twenty Ten or Twenty Eleven (how many of those are active we don't know). Even if 1% of users, in other words 60,000, complain loudly, it won't make more than a distant echo.
So far my experience with WordPress.com has been once a decision is made, it is not unmade. So to me it seems the options are either we learn to live with it and move on, or we just move on.
@justjennifer: Fair enough.
It's certainly a good suggestion to move on on an issue whenever our opinions are in the minority. That seems right.
Most of us are not asking for the feature to be unmade. We just want an option.
p.s. Those of us who bother to actually post probably do not represent all the people who are not happy--e.g. the apathetic, the mildly annoyed, the confused, the quiet people who would take any abuse, and the busy/lazy people who don't want to write a complaint.
I can't help but find it interesting that everyone is saying we're making this change to be more like Tumblr, yet no one is saying that in tumblr there actually is an option to turn this off on almost every theme using infinite scroll. A user has the choice if they want their blog to have the infinite scroll or have an "older post" or page link. If Tumblr has this capability, why can WordPress not adopt that option as well?
Although I agree that we are probably in the minority, right now it is only impacting 2 themes so the majority of WP users aren't even aware that there is a problem. I don't use one of those 2 but happened to see the posts in the forum yesterday about it. I am not one to pay attention to their announcements about changes either. I think the majority of the people don't know about it yet.
I, for one, find the thread fascinating. You all have so much more insight and understanding of this situation than we do. We had NO IDEA that WP could be so intractable. This is not the first time that a unilateral change to our theme has caused chaos with our "business as usual". We never minded these unannounced changes too much, as we were always able to quickly work around them.
Not everyone, of course, will post on a thread like this. They don't want to take the "time" or the "chance". I have seen many people stating they have moved (or are in the process of moving) their blogs to similar themes. So they are spending their weekend working on moving their sites and adapting to their new themes. What many of those people seem to be overlooking is that WP seems intent on instituting this feature on all the different themes they possibly can.
I would think the majority of people like us here are the type of people that would like to see the company come to reason-- to think that, through cogent discussion and explanation we could at least achieve an "Opt Out" button or a "toggle" that allows those of us that want to the opportunity to turn this "feature" off-- the ability to do so.
We have received many emails from alarmed readers asking us why we decided to change the "feel" of our homepage... With many others also complaining that our site (now with 800+ posts) is taking an unbearably long time to load. I have had contact with readers from as far away as Asia and the Ukraine on this issue. None of my contact has been positive.
It boggles my mind that 1) Such a drastic change would be instituted without the courtesy of any warning 2) Said change would not come with an "Off Button" so people could preserve their site's integrity.
Given the fact that many of you much more seasoned WP users and moderators don't see this "feature" changing... Noting that the company rarely reverses such a decision... We have decided to do the only thing we can. We are moving... But only to WP.org... Where we can design our site as we see fit.
It's really a shame too because we liked it here. And I would like to make it clear that we have spent many hundreds of dollars over the last couple of years with WP. We have all but two of their paid services. Still, this is far from the first corporation to disappoint me. I'm sure it won't be the last.
Too bad.
I should also mention that all 3 of my "support" inquiries that we have sent asking for answers continue to be ignored-- almost 48 hours (or more) later.
@Jennifer
If they are thousand millions in number who like this feature then adding an opt out will never distress them. And what about those hundreds in fact thousands who don't like it?
Once I was asked why do you prefer WordPress over Tumbler, I replied that wordpress doesn't rely upon fake traffic as that of Tumbler where going through just homepage they count it as 8 or 10 views due to infinite scroll. Now I should change my wide views for Tumbler and think Tumbler is better cause it gives at least an opt out of this.
Also, I don't think that this mandatory new design is very fair to those of us who purchased a customer design upgrade. I thought I was entitled to design my blog however I choose by purchasing that upgrade. Not giving an option out of this design totally negates any control I thought I had over my blog.
@seaskylark: See here:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/to-infinity/page/5?replies=133#post-815069
Jennifer, staff have pulled back on at least one decision in the past year (though I can't remember what it was), two if you count revamping reblogging.
And remember what this is: PR. Blogging platforms themselves don't get a lot of press nowadays, with social media being the hot thing, but this change and uprising is story-worthy, and I say that as a working journalist. Matt and the gang don't want that.
Toggle: it's easy.
VICTORY!
Premature ummm ... celebration. ;)
Can somebody please tell me if there is a way to slow the infinite scroll? One reason, among many, that I have always hated this sort of feature or one long blog page with years of posts is that when you click and grab the little box in the sidebar on a page with a million posts the page scrolls way to fast and it is very hard to navigate through the site. I'm not sure about the proper terms for these things, as I am subliterate in this sort of stuff. Perhaps I can adjust this sort of thing on my own computer? Can somebody please help?
No, unfortunately there isn't.
Thank you!
This new feature seems to depend on people having a fast Internet connection, which I have but likely not all readers do, and a great deal of patience in that the page is constantly loading new posts and the screen bounces all around as one tries to focus on each post as it flies into the frame. Yikes! That is terrible. My goodness.
jackelliott1 - I have noticed the same thing.
We have a relatively slow internet connection, and as many of my older posts are fairly long (I only recently discovered the 'More' option) and have lots of photos, the scrolling becomes rather jumpy - up-and-down-and-up-and-down again, as the various photos load.
It makes it very unsettling on the eyes.
WordPress has had to change or gently modify a lot of the things they've forced on us over the past few years: the reblogging / like system got changed, the "related links" got an opt-out and we even have an 'unlike' option on the toolbar.
Obviously this feature requires an opt-out, or a "toggle feature".
I think it would be great if WordPress (Matt) started trusting us bloggers with knowing how our readers want to read our blogs. If I think making it possible to scroll through every single thing I've written since 2006, all on one page, will make my readers like me just that much more, I'll click that box and turn the feature on.
But if, as I've been able to do since 2006, I only want the previous four or six pieces available on a "front page", then taking that option away from me is just wrong.
@namibsands. . .Thanks for the backup vocals. :)
"I think it would be great if WordPress (Matt) started trusting us bloggers with knowing how our readers want to read our blogs. If I think making it possible to scroll through every single thing I've written since 2006, all on one page, will make my readers like me just that much more, I'll click that box and turn the feature on."
Last I saw it was stated that analysis of the stats is of more concern to the admin than the opinions of those using the system. Apparently it's all about the number of hits that are registered with little or no regard for our opinions and preferences.
Thanks, @timethief, for sharing the other link that raises the possibility of a toggle - http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/bug-on-the-twentyeleven-blog?replies=7#post-815502
Very encouraging. Also interesting. MacManx's first comment about the possibility of a toggle came only 6 hours after Matt's comment that closed the former main thread on this issue. What this seems to indicate is:
(1) The issue is not finished.
(2) WP realizes that if it rolls out this feature to all other themes that can run it, the backlash will be multiplied exponentially.
(3) WP realizes that if it doesn't roll out this feature to all other themes that can run it, the rationale for making it mandatory for 20-10 and 20-11 evaporates.
(4) It is a Catch-22 situation for WP as I said earlier.
(5) Not everyone at WP is happy with infinite scrolling and/or the way it was implemented.
So keep the discussion going people. As @raincoaster said, it is story-worthy and it is starting to have an effect. Let's just keep it clean and professional and focused like a laser on this problem.
Well done TT!
Both of your links are referring to a single staff question thread. :)
Let's hope Staff will do something more about it than toggle.
I've noticed several times now that the infinite scrolling feature does not always work and my footer widgets will actually still show on occasion.
Sorry, my observation is off topic for this thread, but I thought it should be noted and I didn't see a thread on it and didn't want to start one.
Sanity prevails. Thank goodness. I REALLY REALLY was not looking forward to the work involved in moving. I just have too much else on my plate right now.
Maybe I am reading this wrong, but to me a toggle is something that when my readers land on my blog, they can switch it off. It doesn’t mean that I have the option of permanently turning it off. If I landed a blog that did that, I wouldn’t stick around long enough to figure out of I could stop it or not. Macmanx said, “We're looking into both right now (footer widgets and a possible toggle setting).” Looking into it and the word possible doesn’t mean they are going to actually do it.
@kellywpa The word 'possible' as used here is known as politics. But you are right, it doesn't actually mean they will do anything.
The short answer to your concern though (if it is provided) is the toggle would have to be something you have control over, or it's useless - as you say.
*** On another note.
It's a while since I looked at the fora here, preferring to get things done myself - usually by keeping it ASimpleAPossible, but things have changed since I did.
WP have succeeded in alienating even their best volunteer moderators. Something I never thought I'd see since it demonstrates management are so out of touch, not realising even WP can fall due to the rot of arrogance. Not meant unkindly @Matt.
I can advise that pressure is not being brought to bear just from the users. Theme designers have advised me they will also resist such moves.
Designsimply posted in this thread (don't know how to get that exact response) that infinite scroll is an option in themes with footers! Yeah!
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/disable-infinite-scroll-with-custom-css?replies=12
Hooray!
This topic has been closed to new replies.
listlessink
seaskylark
kellywpa
insidemantpa
raincoaster
jackelliott1
namibsands
teamoyeniyi
onbeingmark