I'm starting this thread to centralize your comments on the new network of Human Nature pages. Please try to be constructive. With that said, fire away. Here's the initial post about the new stuff: <link>

FYI, as of 4/1 a.m., the news and hot topics pages just have test material (this is not an intentional April Fool, LOL). The real thing will be up shortly.

I will really miss the items. If it was a struggle to compress and simplify certain topics, I think that only helped the column, because the result was always packed tight with interesting facts and insights. The Human Nature items were one of my favorite things to read on Slate.

I appreciate your comment. If a lot of people really miss those, I'll try to replicate them, or their concept, somewhere in the new format.

I really loved the Human Nature columns precisely because they were shoot and has some amazing zingers. I'm going to miss that format.

looks good. I'll be checking back.

I like your writing, Will, and I like the subject matter, but sometimes I just get so damn sick of politics and society! I just like to learn stuff sometimes and not worry about how it relates back. So you'll lose me from time to time, but cheers to a successful new column.

For you, yggy, I promise to keep flagging the pointless fun sex stories.

Count me in with the wife as well. I do expect to hear your voice. It's why I read your column. I don't have time nor inclination to go trolling the net for every possibly relevant scientific humanish development; that's your job. ;-) It would be helpful if sections that are just-links could be flagged that way so I can ignore them unless the headline grabs me, and also if the links to your content could be flagged with the same headline as the post/article so that I can recognize at a glance what's you, what's new, and what's neither.

Frankly, I don't like the new format. Instead of highly compressed factual info (which I love), I have a choice between slogging through the whole list of articles (no time) and reading only your opinions (not useful, especially since I have to go and read the articles to understand your comments anyway). I used to use your column as a way to introduce my students to science news, but I don't have the time to check out every article you flag to find one or two that will work for them.

I note that Slate is adding a lot of blogs, and I am disappointed. I want news, not blogs. Reading the conversations of others gets old fast.

This is a common problem with almost all bloggers: Crap descriptive text. Instead of saying:

A story regarding the case of a smoker in an apartment building who was being sued by other tenants in the building even though she was smoking in her own apartment has been settled. Details can be found here.

We get:

Cool story about smokers.

I'm sorry...why would anybody click on the latter? It has absolutely no information about the linked-to item, so what on earth is going to convince me that it's worth my time and effort to click on the link?

Since it seems that there is a distinct desire to know when you are giving your analysis and when you are just playing RSS-feed, perhaps you should provide a more descriptive headline:

"Human RSS: Your Husband's Mess"

That way, those who want to read you will know that they won't be getting it by clicking on that link.

Rrhain:

Since it seems that there is a distinct desire to know when you are giving your analysis and when you are just playing RSS-feed, perhaps you should provide a more descriptive headline:

"Human RSS: Your Husband's Mess"

That way, those who want to read you will know that they won't be getting it by clicking on that link.

My impression is that a lot of readers share your frustration at not being able to tell the short stuff from the long stuff at first glance. One of the changes we've made to deal with this is to separate the RSS feed into separate subscriptions for HN News (headlines), HN Hot Topic (headlines), HN blog, and HN essays. Is this system not working? Are you able to subscribe to some and exclude others?

I personally preferred the old style. I don't want just a link blog. I really enjoyed the organization of the stories into compressed analyses with an injection of humor or at least irreverence. I never use Slate RSS feeds, just browse the site from time to time. HN was always one of the columns I enjoyed reading. Now, not so much. Best of luck with the new layout, though.

Well, for me, I don't use RSS. I read it directly off the web site which may be were many of the complaints are coming from. The front page doesn't do any work in helping people know what to expect when links are clicked on.

I don't see any particular reason why there can't be something on the front page that indicates that it's going to a list of links, not to an article. Perhaps rather than calling the column "Human Nature," it should be called "Human Nature Links" or some such.

Perhaps Slate might wish to consider rethinking how it displays the content offerings on the front page. Currently, you get a light-grey, smallcaps indicator of the column, a maroon headline, and a black, small size teaser. Perhaps the column name could be color-coded to indicate if the section is an article, a blog, a list of links, etc.

I don't know why designers think it's a good idea to hide information.

As an avid RSS user and blogger, I'm enjoying the new format. I like the quick access to your views and thought process in the blog, and I like it too when you offer a quick preview and then link to your actual Slate articles (kind of like a built-in, perspective-laden HN essays feed). I'd like to follow the HN News and HN Hot Topics as well, but the dealbreaker for me is that the feeds aren't full-text like the blog feed is. It's frustrating to click to the list of headlines, then click again to the links to the headline articles. Why not just let me feed everything through my reader, or condense it all into blog posts?