Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Learning as I go . . .

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This is an apology to many of you who get posts from Attempts at Honesty by email. I made a mistake and I’m sorry for it.

WordPress (the platform I use to manage the blog) uses plugins to add functionality. I had been using one plugin that provided many functions that I didn’t use so I decided to find more efficient options. I chose to add only the functions that I really need. In theory, this will speed page load times.

Unfortunately, when I deleted the all-in-one plugin, I didn’t realize that it would also disable email distribution of the posts. So you may have missed the last post or two.

I have now added all the email addresses to the new list so everyone who signed up should be getting this post by email. I’m learning as I go . . .

If you haven’t seen an email from Attempts at Honesty in a while, feel free check out the most recent posts to see what you missed. If you are getting this by email, links to recent posts appear below.

What bloggers like

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Blogger InteractionWhat bloggers like is interaction. They like to dialog with their audience.

I realize that everyone is busy. I also realize that not every post requires a comment. But if a post stimulates a thought, take a few moments and write a comment which expresses that thought. The post writer will appreciate it and any subsequent readers will be better for it.

This is not only true for Attempts at Honesty, but for any blog that you like to read.

I follow several blogs and I don’t post a comment on every post, I don’t even have the time to read every post. But if I have a thought, I like to share it.

Negative comments (devoid of personal attack) are also welcome. It is OK to respectfully disagree. Writers know that they do not have a monopoly on the truth. Good writers know that despite their best efforts, sometimes they do not express a thought well and this leads to confusion. A comment challenging what is written can highlight the confusion and give the writer the opportunity to clear it up. Again, when this happens both writer and readers benefit.

Jeremy Myers, a serious and seasoned blogger says this about people that leave thoughtful comments on a post:

These are the best and deserve your full and careful attention. The comment is 100 words or less, and shows true interaction with the content of your post. They either add to the idea, or ask a thoughtful question.

You can tell from the post from which this quote was pulled, that he likes people who leave thoughtful comments. Most bloggers do.

What writers do not like are trolls whose only contribution to the discussion is to say something to the effect of, “you’re an idiot if you believe this.” On most blogs, comments that resort to personal attack will be deleted.

So, on this or any other blog, if you feel even a slight desire to chime in with a comment, just do it.

If you feel the need for some coaching on writing blog comments, check out How to write great blog comments by Mack Collier.

If the comment system on this blog is cumbersome, let me know. I like the features of Livefyre and it seems easy enough to use, but if you find it difficult, please let me know and I can look for another option to make it easier. I don’t want the comment system to get in the way of good interaction.

What do you think? How can we get more interaction?

Livefyre Comment System on Attempts at Honesty

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Update from September 2015. I am back to using Disqus. What drove this change is my desire to discontinue the use of the Jetpack plugin. I was using only 30% to 40% of the modules in Jetpack and figured that this blog would be more efficient if I added trusted plugins for the functionality that I need. So to replace Jetpack comments I went with Disqus. The reason I chose Disqus over returning to Livefyre is the simplicity of the interface.

LivefyreMost of the time the changes I make to Attempts at Honesty are minor ones that (to my knowledge) don’t affect the user experience very much. This week I made a change that might be an exception to this. I transitioned from the native WordPress comment system to using the Livefyre comment system.

My point in writing this post is to ask readers to take a minute to write a comment using the new system and give me feedback as to the difficulty of doing so. Is it cumbersome? Will the system make it more likely or less likely that you will leave a comment in the future?

In the past, I tried the Disqus comment system which is what many big name bloggers use. I liked the system but found that it drastically increased my page load speed and forced people to create a Disqus account before they could comment. Because of these two issues, I searched around for another, better system.

I’m finding that with Livefyre, there is a slight increase in page load time, but it is hardly noticeable and the increased capabilities of Livefyre should provide ample reward for the slight increase in time.

One of the things I like about this system is that it integrates with the major social media platforms which may translate to increased traffic. We’ll see . . .

But, please give the comment system a try and let me know how you like it. If the response is overwhelmingly negative, I can easily go back to the native WordPress comment system.

A new theme for Attempts at Honesty Christian Blog

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August 2013 Update: This month, 8Bit, the publishers of Standard Theme, announced that they are closing shop and Standard Theme will not be supported after September 2013. The good news is that there are many good options available. The bad news is that I paid for lifetime support for Standard Theme and did not expect to have to change. But it was not meant to be. So, if you are looking for a good WordPress theme, there are many to choose from. I strongly recommend that you think twice before buying that lifetime support upgrade . . .

September 2014 Update I am now using the Genesis Framework with the Mobile First child theme. The Genesis framework is fast and there is a lot of support material (including child themes) available.

Standard

Approximately 15% of the traffic to Attempts at Honesty comes from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. To make the blog more readable on these devices, I had been using the free version of a plugin called WPTouch.

The free version of WPTouch works well for smart phones, but does not provide any improvement to the experience of iPad users. With the growth of iPad use, I knew that I needed to make a change. My choice was to purchase the paid version of WPTouch or to move to a responsive theme.

A theme is considered responsive when it renders the web page in a manner that is appropriate for the screen on which it is viewed. It does not matter whether the page is viewed on a mobile device, desktop or laptop computer, a responsive theme provides a readable version of the blog geared for that device.

After weighing the pros and cons of the paid version of WPTouch vs. a responsive theme, I thought that the responsive theme would provide a better experience across the board. So the question then became, “which theme?”

There are hundreds of themes available for WordPress. If you do a search on “best responsive WordPress theme” you will find several comparisons of themes. After reading a bunch of opinions in favor of this theme or that (all of theme good themes), I chose to purchase Standard Theme for Attempts at Honesty.

Since I haven’t tried the other themes, I cannot say that Standard Theme is the best, but I can say that it is a great option for someone like me who does not have the desire to write code or customize every aspect of the blog. It literally took me about 15 minutes to download and install Standard. For the basic theme there are only a few options that need to be selected. It only takes a few minutes to work through these choices and after that the theme is up and running and looking great.

Standard also has the ability to build child themes to provide for additional customization. I have not yet explored this option but may play with some tweaks of the blog moving forward.

If you are reading this on a mobile device, please take a few moments and provide a comment below providing feedback as to the look and functionality of the theme on your device. I’m especially interested in hearing from tablet users.

Also, any suggestions for improvement to the look and functionality of the blog would also be greatly appreciated.

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