I like the new design and all, but isn’t it possible anymore to get a list of all the articles? I don’t read the dope every week, so when I do, I read all the articles that are new since last time. I tried an empty search, but didn’t get anything.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/archive
Funny thing is, there doesn’t seem to be a single working link on the entire site that actually leads to the archive index.
I attributed this to the redesign-in-progress when I posted in a similar thread about the missing archives before. This was two or three weeks ago. Come on Cecil, how long does it take to get your web presence straightened out?
That’s the Straight Dope archive, not the Straight Dope Message Board archive.
Sorry to point that out 
…
Yes, the archive of the Straight Dope columns, not the archive of the Straight Dope message board threads. That’s what we’re talking about, aren’t we?
jdavis is the maintainer/straightener-outer of the Board. (Cecil is just the wise ass-in-residence) Jerry is evidently working as fast as his time allows. He tries to prioritize jobs and get them done. Sometimes he has to perform the mundane tasks(for things other than this Board) that pay his salary. All of this has to be a bigger headache for him than it is for you or me.
No need to apologise for limited resources. Well, evidently, some weeks ago jdavis must have spent time to redesign the archive page. (A dynamically generated multipage index, even.) - And since then, it doesn’t get linked to from where people can easily find it! (Like it used to be.) Talk about priorities…
I mean, it’s not like something on Cecil Adams’ web presence needs to get straightened out - it’s more like a whole chunk of it has broken off. Any idea of the visitor attraction, visitor retention, and publicity value of an archive of open browsable content?
Are you sure that making the list of available columns a little less obvious wasn’t a direct decision from higher up, to make us buy more books? Just askin’… I find it hard to believe that the owners would let the work schedule of their technical staff determine the (non)visibility of 99% of their site’s permanent content. So, you’re saying, as soon as someone finds the time to edit the page, a browsable list of previous columns will be one click away from the main page again?
I have no idea about that.
Nope, didn’t say that.
We are. I DID read the OP but when I saw ‘Articles’ I thought “Cute word for Posts”.
:smack:
Actually, Jerry’s not doing the Straight Dope article redesign; that’s being handled by someone outside the Reader.
There’s no real archive page for columns; the idea is that you should be able to call up most any column from the search engine on the front page.
But I’ll ask and see if they can come up with something for us. Not sure what or how and they could just as easily say “no.” But lemme see.
There is, http://www.straightdope.com/columns/archive, it just doesn’t get much link love on the site.
Not a good idea. Obviously this can only work if you already knew what to search for. If you come back from a vacation and want to catch up on Cecil’s most recent wisdom, you’re out of luck.
Unless, you load one of the columns, discover the redundant secondary search page available through the little “Search the Straight Dope Archive” link down in the sidebar (*), and then click through to the archive page itself which gets mentioned there.
(*) After finding out that this one works, unlike the same-looking “Search the Straight Dope Archive” links at http://www.straightdope.com/pages/ask or http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq which are null links that just point back on themselves.
Before the redesign there was The Straight Dope Archive: Gateway, linked from the front page. We were welcomed to the Straight Dope archives in big friendly letters. Now it just seems as if someone wants to hide the link away. For a publishing website that lives off ad revenue, pageviews, and publicity value, it seems a bit strange to reduce the visibility of most of your content just like that. But that’s your economic suicide, not mine.
Yeah, the link to the archives needs to be in a place on the front page that makes more sense . . . like in that column with everything from the past week.
I’ll mention it.
Thanks.
However, I’d vote for an archive page like the previous one, with every article on one page, sorted after recent/classic/sdsab. Any luck?
Ed tells me that adding a link to the archives page from the front page is on the list of things to do.
still no link, by the way.
Yes, there is a great big button there now, marked ARCHIVE.
I agree it would be nicer to have the whole list on one long page though. Then you can search titles easily using the browser’s search feature.
Not possible. There are 2,800 articles. You should be able to find available columns using the site’s search function, although it was a few bugs.
Doesn’t look bad. Thanks!