A poll about my posting style

[andrewducker]

There are two ways I can do commentary on the posts I write.

The first means putting footnotes at the bottom with an asterisk* or two**.

The second uses a bit of HTML jiggery-pokery so that I can have underlines under bits, which then pop up some extra text when you hover over them.

*like this.
**or this.


[Poll #1819191]

Comments

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

The HTML option tends not to work on mobile devices... As there's no hover in touch...

Snowflake

[gominokouhai]

Footnotes[0] like[1] this[2] (or even like this^[3] if you prefer) are much, much easier to read once you start going above four asterisks, which I know you do frequently.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

For immobile browsing, definitely the popup, though I agree that it won't work for most mobile devices.

At least number the footnotes, rather than series of asterisks?

Also, maybe midnotes rather than footnotes -- easier to follow when the notes follow the relevant paragraph rather than all at the bottom (which generally requires scrolling)?

Re: Snowflake

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. :)

Re: Snowflake

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, there is a charm to the many-asterisk system which better reflects the mental processes involved, somehow.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Ideally, both - so hovering over the asterisks (or superscripted numbers) shows the text at the bottom of the page, so scrolling up and down is optional. http://www.gotmedieval.com/ does this (and linkifying the asterisks) and it is ace.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Footnotes at the bottom... I'm sometimes reading without hands on mouse/keyboard (not in a pornographic sense, I don't enjoy your LJ *that* much).

[soon_lee]

Footnotes says a Pratchett fan.

Re: Snowflake

[andrewducker]

It really does. Most of my posts are just written in one long screed, with the occasional popping down to the bottom to add another footnote, lest I be lost in a maze of twisty-turny brackets, all alike.

[andrewducker]

Ooh, I like that.

I might have to write something that makes it easier to write posts that format nicely like that!

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

You could ask the author of that blog what they use?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

What everyone else said, plus everyone can find footnotes. You'd have to be a regular reader (and possibly to have read this actual post) to know about the hover feature; I've never seen that before. Or at least never discovered it, and so didn't know to hover the mouse over the highlighted text. God knows how many blogs I've read where I missed it entirely.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I think both would be lovely - as others have said, hover is better on a computer, but not so great on a phone. Don't know if that would be horrible faff though.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I am the holdout hover fan! But I see the awkwardness on a phone. Could you do asterisks/superscript with anchor tags? So I can click on them and hop down and then back button to where I was.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

I AM DUM

USE SEPARATE SENTENCES

AND/OR PARAGRAPHS

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

The pop-up text is going to be a bugger on a mobile phone.

[fearmeforiampink]

I like the idea of both, but if it comes down to picking one, then definitely footnotes. There are times when the hover would be really convenient and a lovely way to express things. But there are also times when I'm scrolling through keyboard only, or on a phone, and I wouldn't want to miss your extra comments then.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. Footnotes[1] like that.




[1] I trust you've read 'The Third Policeman'?

Re: Snowflake

[gominokouhai]

Charm is all very well, but when it makes the post illegible then something's got to give. I speak as a blogger who frequently makes up words because it's charming.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Are they footnotes or endnotes? To me footnotes tends to imply at the bottom of the individual page, which doesn't work too well with the HTML/screen paradigm.

[snarlish.livejournal.com]

I (the typist (this is a term (the typist, i mean) you (the reader) are familiar with? )) would like too see (well, read) you use parenthetical asides as well.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Multiple asterisks get confusing after a certain amount, as people have said; maybe after *** shift to †, ‡ and variants, if you can type them easily?

Apart from that, a good rule of thumb is this: follow John Gruber's example - for instance this recent entry. Note in particular that each footnote has an arrow to go back to the bit of text it was annotating. The Footnotify extension in Safari turns those into inline footnotes if you click on them; I'm pretty sure there are equivalents for Chrome.

(Googles.)

In fact, the exact same extension is available for Chrome. See more here.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

I like the mouseover text thing, but then, I've been a regular user of Everything2 for more than ten years, and it makes very good use of such things (or - being a user-generated thing - sometimes very bad use). I wonder if there is a way to make it degrade nicely on phones?

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I read much too much on my phone, so the html thing wouldn't work well. I like using that for special circumstances but otherwise just use footnotes.

[matgb]

I used to use the LJaddons plugin and had a huge number of programmed insets (we think he meant inserts but the translator messed up), which included footnotes and similar. But the file got corrupted and lost in one of my virus infestations (I think there's a backup on Jennie's dead laptop but haven't got around to cracking the hard drive out on that one yet).

I'd love an Fx or Chrome plugin that had programmable inserts like Addons does, but without all the extra LJ specific resource hogging crap it has, most of the features weren't that useful even on LJ.

[darkoshi]

If you do use footnotes, and if you can't easily do the symbols that skington listed, I'd suggest using *, **, ***, *4, *5, *6, or something like that. For some reason, using [1] and [2] doesn't look appealing to me, although I might change my mind if I saw it in a real post.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

popups [or hoverovers] are, and have always been, rubbish.

with the exception of xkcd, which is now above reproach.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I would be hugely in favour of restructuring the footnotes so that I can use this script on them. It rocks my socks.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

HTML tooltips are excellent; JS ones also. I don't read HTML on my phone. But it looks like you have lots of readers who do, so I guess you should stick with something that works for them.

Re: Snowflake

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Yes, I quite like to crazy number of ***** too, even if I get hopelessly lost :)

[andrewducker]

I'll have to have a play with that, and see if I can make it work.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Popups, hoverovers, and the like are all always evil and wrong.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Footnotes simply because the popup stuff is really annoying when you're using your mouse to help you keep your place whilst reading. (Evil brain pixies do not want me to read.) Popup stuff really gets in the way and will quite often result in me closing the tab as I decide the content just isn't worth the annoyance. Not a great solution or thought process but no one has ever accused me of being sensible when I'm annoyed.