If it wasn't for the fact that this site has the single most annoying pagination scheme ever, or the fact that this author feels compelled to write long, distracting, inane footnotes, or the fact that even in the main text the author feels compelled to write long, distracting, inane asides, I might have had the patience to read more than two "pages" of this.
EDIT: Apparently he gets all the way from page 81 to 89 to start expressing his main point: SEO is changing writing styles for the worse. I'll refrain from commenting about whether this guy has any standing criticizing other people's writing style.
It's not perfect, needs some testing on smaller screens, and isn't my favorite color, so I'll write another single-sentence paragraph to tear it down and ditto the travesty that is experimentation and originality, and, we shall see for hopefully the author will drop by and get to see that I thought he sux and will fix all the things I don't like about his writing and page turning mechanics and all such productive endeavors, and then the world will truly be a better place, for I have made the other into me.
(Sarcastically said, even while I cringe as I think of all such hit jobs that I have done in my lifetime)
So because this piece wasn't written to your specifications, it should be avoided by everyone?
You didn't like the writing style or presentation. Well, bully for you, go right ahead and move on to something else. I, for one, did not find it a waste of time, nor did I mind the pagination.
Dude, I was sarcastically parroting, I even confessed to my own sins, lol (Edit: I just realized you're replying to some other comment that was deleted, oops)
On the contrary, your comments have wasted far more of my time than his article. I thought it was well written and interesting. If it is not your cup of tea then don't read it. To say that essay needs a "warning" is a bit over dramatic.
It could definitely benefit from the advice in that article earlier today which advised writers to put their most important points at the beginning. Also, who designed this page layout? It seems that it's designed so that the page is _just_ too high to be read without scrolling on my 1440x900 screen, which is presumably one of the most popular resolutions available.
Anyway, it's almost worth skimming through just for the list of rather niche ehow.com articles:
How to Buy Different Kinds of Faux Leather, How to Design Your Own Dog Bandanas, How to Make a Tree with Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, How to Make a Keytar, How to Declare a Missing Person Dead, How to Use Multiple Condoms, How to Know If Your Contraceptive Fails, How to Grow Taller at 40, How to Use a Hitachi Bread Maker, Helpful Hints for Proper Use of a Meter Stick, Making Broom Puppets, Words You Can Make Using the Periodic Table, Pee Wee Tennis Rules, DIY Build a Dog Casket, Heely Trick Tips, How to Start a Reflective Essay, How to Change Body PH, How to Make Eel Traps, How to Make Lamps From Deer Antlers, How to Make a Homemade Flame Thrower, How to Make Your Own Parrot Toys, How to Use the Words of the Serenity Prayer, How to Answer IQ Tests, How to Prepare for a Colostomy Reversal Operation, How to Use Sugar Sweetener, How to Prevent Alcoholism, How to Have Dinner with Diabetes, How to Treat Lice on Goats, How to Kiss After a Dental Extraction, How to Eradicate Tiredness, Apple Cider Vinegar Cure for Shingles, About Tui Na Massage for Dogs.
> It could definitely benefit from the advice in that article earlier today which advised writers to put their most important points at the beginning.
I suppose it depends on preferences/audience. That advice makes sense for engineering papers to me, but this is an article in a literary journal, where the usual style is to write long pieces with an assumption that the reader is reading start-to-finish rather than interested in skimming. The usual style for those is more like the style of writing you'd use for a short fiction story.
It's funny, then, that this piece is so heavy in irrelevant, inane fluff (long discussions of television commercials, passive-aggressive apologies to Justin Long, repeated analyses of the word "unfathomable") that I ended up skimming it after all just to see what he was on about.
Likewise, for a short story, I would probably want to write something worthwhile somewhere before page 9. Preferably on page 1.
That part gave it a weirdly surreal feel to me. I often read HN, and, separately, I often read the kinds of books and journals that have long footnotes and rambling text. But I rarely get the two together: a long-winded, heavily-footnoted article discussing microniches and SEO.
The pagination is perfect when your browser viewport is tall enough to accommodate it without a scrollbar, and exists largely to service the footnote style.
As for your edit, on p88 he discloses in a footnote that "it was his harrowing, doldrums-inducing spat as a freelancer [with (Demand Studios, Suite101.com, Examiner.com)] that inspired this essay." -- he's criticizing the writing style he was paid to use!
Pagination is never perfect--it's a crime against web usability. And since this site doesn't even have ads, there's not even a motive. It's like how the Joker in The Dark Knight robs a bank, kills all his conspirators, takes all the money to a warehouse, and just sets it on fire.
Footnotes, incidentally, are easily usable when presented as bilateral anchor links to the bottom of the page. Then you have endnotes you can use on a printout, as well as on-demand footnotes you can use when reading online.
I agree this layout doesn't really work, but I really dislike the endnote style, and strongly disagree they're just as good as footnotes, even with hyperlinks (which require me to click my mouse, and require me to reorient myself on the page before/after the jumps).
Yeah, for web usability alone you're best off with AJAXy auto-expanding "footnotes" that show up inline or collapse into the tag as you click it. Or with "sidenotes".
I found it fun and different. I get sick of searching for the ubiquitous "< 1 2 3 >" in tiny text somewhere at the bottom of the page. The scheme on that site doesn't obfuscate the paginated nature of the article, which I saw as a relief.
It feels to refreshing to read an essay that gets away from the "blog" style of writing. There are few writers on the internet and a lot of people writing articles. The articles often make great points and have excellent content but rarely is reading them fun for the sake of reading.
Your mileage may vary I guess. I found it obnoxious, dense and far too in love with itself. When I hadn't found a point by the second page (with no obvious indication of how long it was going to ramble) I gave up.
Agreed. His style is very David Foster Wallace, if you aren't familiar with any of his work. It can get too precious in large doses but search for 'david foster wallace federer' for the NYT article considered a classic in this 'genre'.
That is to say, the AdSense program makes possible an entirely new and utterly despicable business model online: get an assload of written content together—quality be damned—distribute it across a bunch of different sub pages of a central site, add AdSense at every turn, and voilà—a healthy revenue stream fully formed from the head of Zeus.
The essayist is a former Demand Media pieceworker feeling guilty about the useless crap writing he did for them, including "How to Buy PEX Tubing Online". He reworks an old Michael Caine quote to good effect:
Ah, fuck all. Your essayist’s name will be attached to that rubbish in perpetuity, for anyone and everyone to stumble upon online. He wishes he could be like Michael Caine in regards to his role in Jaws IV: “I’ve never seen it. I hear that it’s awful. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” The closest your essayist can come: “I have seen it. I bloody well wrote it. And the Subway sandwich and 12-pack of Miller High Life it purchased were mediocre at best.”
EDIT: Apparently he gets all the way from page 81 to 89 to start expressing his main point: SEO is changing writing styles for the worse. I'll refrain from commenting about whether this guy has any standing criticizing other people's writing style.