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tinkering with this site

daily-ish email pop over

paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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Soon we will have a little popover on permies for the daily-ish email. We want to find just the right mix of lots of new signups (to infect lots of new brains) and not being a nuisance.

For people that are logged in, the pop over should appear once every 100 pages. Eventually, we hope to have a checkbox to make make it never appear.

For people that are not logged in, the pop over should appear once every 10 pages.

If the popover turns out to perform poorly, then it will probably be retired.

The idea is that when you load a permies.com page, you will see a little "+" in the bottom left corner. If you click on the "+" you will see the signup. And the signup will have an "X" in the top right corner which will make it shrink down again to the little "+".

When a person comes to permies for the very first time, they should see the "+" and they will probably not notice it. After 20 seconds, the signup/popover will slide onto the page. It can then be filled out or dismissed. This "slide onto the page after 20 seconds" thing is what will be repeated once every ten times. The other 9 out of 10 times it will just stay as a little "+".

We tried to activate it yesterday, but it had some problems. I hope that we can try it again today.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Cj Sloane

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posted 12 years ago

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paul wheaton wrote:For people that are logged in, the pop over should appear once every 100 pages. Eventually, we hope to have a checkbox to make make it never appear.

I'm hoping that someone who already gets the daily-ish email can opt out of the pop up. Perhaps that's what the checkbox is for.

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paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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That's what the checkbox is for.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Cj Sloane

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posted 12 years ago

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So, it looks like the pop-up is back. IMO it's taking up a little too much real estate. Could be half the size.

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paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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It just got turned on.

I was about to turn it off immediately, but then it seems to be behaving.

It should be staying small for logged in users. What is it doing for you?

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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For non logged in users it seems to come up the first time and then stay small every time after that.

For non-logged in users, it is suppose to slide up the first time, and then stay small nine times and then slide up every tenth time a page is loaded.

For logged in users, it is supposed to do a similar thing, but slide up every 100 times.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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What is it doing for other people?

I plan on turning it off in a few minutes, but I would like to collect reports on what people are seeing.

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Zach Muller

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posted 12 years ago

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I am on a tablet and it seems the popup stays down when on a thread, but when I go into recent posts it floats to the top of my screen and I cannot see the upper half in order to press the +. It also seems to move up and down when I access my on screen keyboard.

Sam White

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posted 12 years ago

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It pops up every time I go to a new page whether I'm logged in or not. I'm on Chrome at the moment.

I checked on IE and the pop-up only appears on sub-forums - no minimised or expanded pop-up on the main page or individual threads. There's a broken page icon in the URL bar which indicates something to do with compatibility view.

I'll check on Firefox when I get home from work.

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Dan Boone

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posted 12 years ago

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For me, as a logged in user running Firefox on Windows 7, it's popping up full sized on every page load. And when I minimize it, it gets smaller but still takes up a distractingly large chunk of the lower left corner.

Also, an x in a circle is universally understood to make an unwanted popup GO AWAY. Yours is not working like that, and is therefore sort of broken. It should have a down arrow for minimization behavior, and it really needs to have a way for folks who want to use Permies without a daily email never have to look at it again -- "Don't ask me again" with a checkbox is traditional.

Edited to say: Whoops, sorry, just saw in the original post that the checkbox is on the desired features list. My bad...

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paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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Can anyone verify that the actual registration function of the popover is working?

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Zach Muller

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posted 12 years ago

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Yes I signed up through the popup and got a confirmation e mail.

paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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Okay, I took the popover out until it can get some mending.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

paul wheaton

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posted 12 years ago

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Looking at the signup reports .... I thought that for that short blip of time we might get an extra 25 signups or something ridiculous like that. We might have gotten 3. It was about 45 minutes, so if we went a full hour, it might have been 4. For a full day that could end up at something like 100 if our traffic for the day is about the same traffic as in the morning. So maybe we would end up with an extra 50.

I think that if the popup were well behaved, we might get 100 per day. And while it is not well behaved, it might end up at 10 per day.

I think it might be worthwhile to try it some more later.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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We are trying it again.

Is it working okay?

Also, we need to test the thread update notifications - are those still working okay?

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Landon Sunrich

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posted 11 years ago

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Pop up is popping. I'm curious, having resisted so far based on previous bad experience with others email lists - what can I expect when I check one or all of these boxes - particularly curious about what happens when I sign up to support devious plots of world domination. I am considering caving in here.

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paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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I send out about 15 emails per month. About 90% are to everybody. Once a month or so I will send something out to just the people that checked the box for devious plots.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Adam Klaus

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posted 11 years ago

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paul wheaton wrote:We are trying it again.

Is it working okay?

Unfortunately no. I am signed up, yet am still being harassed by this incessant popup. Please make it stop?

Otherwise thanks again for all you do to make these forums so awesome Paul. Big up!

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Charles Tarnard

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posted 11 years ago

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I am signed up, logged in and unable to make it go away. It's not terribly intrusive, but it does make it more difficult to scan the recent topics page.

Dan Boone

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posted 11 years ago

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Not working. I have clicked the little (x) in the upper right corner -- which by universal convention is supposed to dismiss the box -- and the box instead "minimizes" to a large square in the lower left. I can't seem to find any way to make that large square go away.

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Zach Muller

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Unfortunately no. I am signed up, yet am still being harassed by this incessant popup. Please make it stop?

Otherwise thanks again for all you do to make these forums so awesome Paul. Big up!

Agreed, if only it knew I was already signed up, and would leave me alone.

paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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It doesn't know that you are signed up.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Dan Boone

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posted 11 years ago

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The common theme here is that people want some way of not having to look at the box once it's been presented to them and they've made their decision one way or the other.

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Sam Boisseau

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posted 11 years ago

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I'm signed in and the minimized box is always there. I personally find it annoying and distracting and would like to at least have a way to close it. Came to this part of the forum to "complain"

Bill Crim

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posted 11 years ago

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I usually read permies on a tablet, so even the small popover takes over takes up a decent amount of screen real estate. It obscures the last 3 topic titles on a list page, since the popover is on the lower left. The popover displays on every page I go to, immediately.

The popover serves no purpose for me, since I have already signed up. It is 100% annoyance, with 0% benefit for me or you.

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Landon Sunrich

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posted 11 years ago

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I have been assimilated. The pop up is still there and is kinda fucking annoying though. It would be much less so in my opinion where it on the right side of the screen. I'm sure the kinks will be worked out in due time.

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Julia Winter

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posted 11 years ago

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It popped up for the first few pages I was on, but it's gone now. Don't know why.

I think it's a good idea, and if it were to appear repeatedly but infrequently, it wouldn't be too bad. If we could tell it to go away and it listened, that would obviously be the best. Perfect would be if it knew you were already on the dailyish email list.

I understand that the email list is one of your most useful assets and growing it helps the empire.

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Ken Peavey

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posted 11 years ago

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It's up, minimized but stays up.
No way to swat it so I signed up.
Page said I was already signed up.
Still got the pop up.
What's up?

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paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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Any klunkiness that you are experiencing is my fault.

We have lots of ideas for which direction to go with this. But first, we need to collect data.

Earlier I said:

It doesn't know that you are signed up.

And to clarify, I want to say "It doesn't know that you are signed up."

Earlier I said:

The idea is that when you load a permies.com page, you will see a little "+" in the bottom left corner. If you click on the "+" you will see the signup. And the signup will have an "X" in the top right corner which will make it shrink down again to the little "+".

And while it is true that "X" has a conventional meaning, I am choosing to violate that convention.

One of the ideas has been the ability to turn it off for logged in users that ask to have it turned off. So the regulars will be able to have it be invisible.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Dan Boone

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posted 11 years ago

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My guess here is that you are dramatically underestimating just how frustrating/disabling it is for some people not to be able to clear their viewing area of obstructions. Perhaps it's an OCD thing. But I can't comfortably read a page that has an undismissed pop-up on it any more than I could read it if there was a moth sitting in the middle of my monitor that I can't remove. There's a psychologically urgent need to clear the obstruction, or I can't continue -- it keeps pulling my eyes away from the text I'm trying to read.

There's a lot of internet destinations I can't visit any more because of fly-in tabs and banners sliding in and out. If I can whack-a-mole them all, I'll do that; but if I can't, I just can't proceed.

Your site, your rules, we cheerfully accept your rights as as the benevolent emperor who is paying for the bandwidth. You can run a non-stop parade of dancing elephants juggling barrels of Roundup across the bottom if you want to. I wouldn't dream of telling you not to. I'm just trying to communicate -- with increasing urgency as it seems that the message is not getting through via milder comments -- the effect on some of your readers of this particular decision, as you try to assess the cost/benefit of it going forward. From the comments in this thread, I don't think I'm the only one who has got a problem with the (x) that doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

And now I'm gonna go flag the wild plums while I can still find their blooms in the bare woods, so I can find the trees again when it's fruit season. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to read permies again. Hope so!

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Walter Jeffries

Posts: 1114

Location: Mountains of Vermont, USDA Zone 3

posted 11 years ago

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Yes! Exactly as Dan said.

It's distracting and it breaks the convention.

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paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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If we keep this thing, we will provide a way to make it go away for logged in users.

For now, we wait and see the results.

Permies.com has about 300,000 pageviews per day. The daily-ish email has been my most powerful tool for all sorts of things. So, naturally, I am keen to leverage one for the other.

Some people do all sorts of things that i don't like to get people to sign up for an email list. I don't want to do that. However, I am willing to try this.

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Sam White

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Location: Wales, UK

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posted 11 years ago

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Although I don't find the minimised pop-up as distressing as Dan does, it is a wee bit annoying down there on the bottom left. For some reason I feel that it would be less annoying on the bottom right. Or perhaps if it was a bit 'shorter' it wouldn't be so obtrusive/distracting.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

Johnny Niamert

Posts: 268

Location: Colo

posted 11 years ago

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Why would I be advertised to sign up to a listserv I am already signed up for?

paul wheaton

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posted 11 years ago

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Johnny,

Earlier in this thread somebody asked that same question and I said

It doesn't know that you are signed up.

And then somebody asked again to which I said:

Earlier I said:

It doesn't know that you are signed up.

And to clarify, I want to say "It doesn't know that you are signed up."

So now you are asking again, and I would like to know: seriously? Are you fucking with me?

you say "tin pot dictator" like it is a bad thing!

Johnny Niamert

Posts: 268

Location: Colo

posted 11 years ago

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Yes.
Sorry.

I just get the feeling as if I'm drinking a can of Coke; while someone is trying to get me to buy a can of Coke.

leila hamaya

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posted 11 years ago

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i find it unobtrusive and tuned it out easily. it blends in.
i am on a very large screen though.

it hasnt popped up until i noticed it and clicked on it, but is just staying small in the corner.

i'm logged in on firefox browser and i have a couple of pop up blockers, which it is not affected by apparently?

Nicole Alderman

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posted 11 years ago

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Sam White wrote:Although I don't find the minimised pop-up as distressing as Dan does, it is a wee bit annoying down there on the bottom left. For some reason I feel that it would be less annoying on the bottom right. Or perhaps if it was a bit 'shorter' it wouldn't be so obtrusive/distracting.

I think the bottom right would be less annoying because our eyes scan left to right, so every time we scan for the next line, we see it. We don't usually search for the next line on the right side, so our eyes don't look down get distracted there. At least, that's what's happening to me. I, too, find it very distracting. It affects me just like it does for Dan.