Neatorama Suggestion Box

I don't know if it's the ads loading or just the length of the pages with all the images, etc, but browsing back to the neatorama page after viewing a post seems to take a while to load -- no, it's not my Internet speed. I love neatorama. :-)

Thanks.

I don't know what to improve, besides long loading times.

This is the best spot in all the interwebs for weirdness and wonder. I showcases the freaks who follow the flow of creativity to the bitter end. It's twisted listings always inspire and renew the hope for mankind.

But, if you want to create some new bells and whistles, how about a "Neatness Factor"? Make a button called "This is so Neat!" and then have a section that lists the highest rated bizarrities.

Or something.

Good luck, and keep on trucking. We love this place. We love it a lot.

For me, I love scientific mysteries, or really strange, obscure traditions and such that cultures practice. The strange creations and one of a kind objects are neat too. I also love the articles that show how different the US is, from one area to the next, such as food, sports, and ways of life. All in all, as long as it's not political or boring, I like it. Keep it fun, humorous and entertaining.

The ads. They prevent me from going to this site. When I try to go to a specific post, I get doubleclicked to an ad page. Lately I cannot actually get to Neatorama, because the ad just pushed me to an ad page without seeing Neatorama at all.

(Note: this did not happen this time.)

Please use more stable ads that are less intrusive.

The only thing I could think of to help improve the site would be some original content (ie things that you don't link to), but that kind of defeats the purpose of this place.

Neatness factor sounds like a great idea to me, although I read everything that comes on here, so it wouldn't really matter to me.

Less posts about cats. If the posters want a cat blog, then please create a second blog devoted to felines.

i'm still trying to figure out where all these "ads" come from that these users are speaking of.

oh, wait...i use the freely available Ad Block Plus that can be downloaded as an extension for Firefox. that's why.

The long stories. Some I love, some I hate (and that's ok, variety is good even if I don't like that particular story). But the format sucks. The long stories take about a zillion mouse wheel scrolls to bypass. There must be a way to add a "next story" jump button (both up and down would be handy) so that we can move from story to story without wearing out our mouse wheels.

No More Kittens Please!

Also, enough with the Global Warming Junk Science. It isn't neat

more games and keep the cats

consperiouses ufo's and evolution

I love the weird and quirky news stuff, especially pictures and stories from uncle john's and other interesting media sources.

And keep the political stuff going on, especially the current administration, yee haw!!!

I love this site. . . But I do think that related stories would be very useful. If there was some way to click on a story and have all older stories that match.

Also to combat the long loading times, I don't encounter them, you could organize the posts on a 24 hour period. Make a new page every day so that people who don't have a chance to check the site daily know what they missed. (again, another problem I don't have)

Last but not least. . . PLEASE MAKE THE TITLE LINK TO THE STORY!!!! I cant tell you how many times I click on the title for a story expecting to go to the page that the story links to.

I just have a minor suggestion - is it possible to put in "previous post" and "next post" links on each post page? I have the RSS feed in my browser, but since I'm inherently lazy (and not all that bright after being at school all day), I don't like to go back up to my toolbar, click on the feed and find the next post in the list. Next and previous post links with the title of the posts would be peachy. Thanks!

ive always had a fascination with eggs. how about a weekly competition were people send in pics of eggs theyve made to look like celebrities/movie characters :)

I use a feed reader most of the time so I don't have the problems other users report with load times.

I love the site just as it is, even with the kitties. You guys seem to strike the right political balance too, which makes coming to this site refreshing after staring at political blogs.

More food. More Art. Add some lifestyle stuff that's really odd, like bizarre occupations, tough living conditions, homes with unusual histories, really stupid classes offered in colleges. And a milkshake recipe that includes raisins.

first off, great site! i think this site broadens my horizons and piques my interest in things i wouldnt have thought interesting.

can you setup your comments section like youtube in which people can respond to other people's comments, delineated by an indent? that would be boss!

also, is this website Alex's sole job? and how many people work for neatorama? if you can indulge my curiousity i'd greatly appreciate it.

have a neat day!

I'd like to second the Next Post/Previous Post buttons suggestion. Going back to the home page after reading a post shouldn't require a full reload of the page and its images, but it does. Or is it just me?

@BelchSpeak
You've heard of the site Boing Boing right?

I have to say that this is one of the best blogs I have seen. But as you are asking for improvement ideas:

Could you get rid of the quotes written in italics? (I mean not the quotes themselves, just the fond) It is really hard to read and doesn't even look neat. There must be some other way to show where a quote starts and ends.

Otherwise, a "neat" button is a good idea.
:-)

Keep the cats.

You could have a neatness voting thing, either 1-5 or thumbs up/down. That could be cool.

You could also tags the posts, with things like "cats","politics","animals", "death", etc.. then have a search page where you can search for things based on tags, like "cats" and "death" or something. That's fairly easy and pretty powerful.

I'd really like to see a bit more humour(yes, I'm not american!) in this website. You know, funny quirks in the world around us. There's no denying that there is quite a bit of it already, but 'laugh and the world laughs with you'. Now, how much more readership would you want than the world?!

Of all of the sites like this, Neatorama is one of the best. Not too political, not heavy-handed, not condescendingly high-brow (like you-know-who, starts with a BB).

I would like to see more things about subcultures. Goth, punk, jazz, hip-hop, industrial, rave, urban tribes, etc. I think you should make it a channel on Neatorama. I will edit it for you;-)

One legally grey area is bait cars. What prevents me from baiting my own car, with all the remote controls required for me to shut down my car with the thief inside, and conducting a forced interview with the perpetrator? After an hour or so, I call the police, and distribute the video. Of course, this is hypothetical, I try not to make enemies.

Would this be considered kidnapping? Will we see something like this soon?

Mike Ross

One word....bananas.

I'm on this site all the time. I love the content. Could you spruce up the design a bit?

Dear Neatorama,

Ditto for the reload time- far too long. Also, I don't like the chunk of text adds before (above) the comments. You already use the right 50% of the screen for your adds, why make me scroll through more just to read comments? You should try center justifying the page too, all the cool sites like fark.com do it.

Overall, awesome content, keep up the great work!

I think you're doing a fine job and don't think there is a need for changes in the content.

I'm surprised by your choice of imagery for this post, however - I can't believe people still use that horrible clipart!

I think you've got the wrong blog there, Mike.

My RSS feed displays the nine latest stories, and that along with tabbed browsing, means I don't need forward/back links, but if others want them- go for it.

The NeatOmeter is a good idea, as are the tags. The only other thing I can think to suggest is the ability to reply to other people's posts- this would help build up a community.

TARGET = BLANK

Every link takes me away from Neatorama. I would much rather links open in a new window.

I have never had a problem with load times. Person that wants a search... its right there on the top right, or you can click a category to browse.

More Art
Tone down the white background?

part of me doesn't want anything to change - i love this site!

reader profile links might be interesting (i'm no techie so i don't know the lingo) - just a hyperlink from the screenname to find out the basics about posters. i'm often curious who commentors are (or purport to be).

keep the kitties. maybe balance them with more dogs, but c'mon, dogs aren't funny.

the verizon ads especially slow me down, and are too easy to accidentally click on.

I think I'd make a suggestion for polls. What stories we consider "neat" for the week or month. Sort of like a monthly review and have the readers decide which was the neatest. :)

I love the simplicity of the site! The breadth of topics is always great. Although more of EVERYTHING would be awesome, I would specifically appreciate seeing more random art: drawing murals on soot covered tunnel walls, fractals, and even fun with LEDs and long exposure photography gave inspiration to personal side projects.

The "read-ability" of the site might be improved by making post size more standard. I am a big fan of the Bathroom Reader, but sometimes I like to skip it and come back later. Perhaps you link to a secondary page so you don't have to scroll forever?

Of course it wouldn't hurt to give away a few more free t-shirts too! I stink at the "caption" contests, but I will be victorious (eventually)!!

no niewim co powiedziec...

Make that a second vote for polls to determine the "neat-est" story. Good suggestion Ali S.

The Neat-o-meter idea is a good idea. That way, instead of five people saying "less cats" and five saying "more cats" everyone can click and the meter can speak for itself. "Cats are at 4.5/5 stars? I guess we're posting more cats!"

I also agree on links opening a new window. PLEASE!

I find the Leggo posts a bit silly....but that's just me.

Like most of the above, faster loading would be fun to have as well as the option to edit comments before posting.

Ok, if you are going to keep the cats, give us a sexual oddity section. Like "sex with furniture" or "sex with Fat Chicks" or other sick stuff like that. :)

[just kidding guys]

I think we need more monkeys. Cats are so 2007.

I would prefer less posts about cats. I feel there are enough websites dedicated to cats for those who want to know more about them, see them do silly things, dressed up in costumes, etc. So, if neatorama could be a cat free zone, it would make me happy. But if not, I can continue to scroll past them as I usually do.

Cats are cool. Some do posts too? :) More games posts could be cool.

Please dont post "Top 10 whatevers" in their entirety. If I'm not interested in that post, its a pain to scroll through.

"Keep it fun, humorous and entertaining." Good comment. Please no posts about "wow look at china killing all these cats" or anything along those lines.

"Is this neat?" is a good question to ask about content before posting it on this site.

I love this site. I also love Mental Floss. I check them both religiously for great content. However, recently I've noticed a lot of duplication between these two sites. This is fine once in a while, but it's a huge universe out there. There must be enough neat-o content for both sites.

That being said, keep the strange, cool, interesting, I-had-no-idea content coming.

My favorite things to read about here are inspiring stories of people, first, and then animals, and/or videos--such as the 17 month-old baby that reads, or that boy wrestler Dustin Carter, or the cat that plays the piano--and stories, products, videos, or studies related to books or reading, such as the bookseat, or neat bookshelves. Those are my top favorite things. Uplifting things. I also enjoy reading bits like that piece on Norway's new quota of 40% women on a board. Stuff that I might not find out elsewhere.

Have a calendar with a condensed version of Neatorama on it, just titles of the stories with links. So when I think "Oh damn, I wanted to see that post about the first color photograph thingy" I don't have to hope I can remember enough crucial keywords to find it through the search function (which has never worked for me), I can just conveniently flip through months of a calendar until I see the post title.

Please, no more posts about lol cats. They aren't funny and they never were.

But other than that, really fantastic site.

Oh, and I'd love more art--sculptures, art from objects, etc. (I loved the pencil one.) I also like the NeatOmeter idea. And I would really like it if there was no gross/violent stuff--but I can always just delete it from my rss reader.

I love the site too! I'm going to have to say that I loved the evolution of logos stories you did (the one with the companies and the one with cars)

Strange, unique, interesting stuff, I loved all that posts on the agents who pause for 5 mins in Union Square too.

user forums maybe? be cool to share photographs, that kind of thing.

i love neatorama!

but i would love it more if the links opened into new windows. . . that would be awesome!

i am also a big fan of the egg art contest detailed in comment #15, seriously, some monthly weird-art-with-a-theme contest would be RAD!

ps, keep the cats

I like the lists of neat things, like the 10 coolest tree's... that was really neat, that kind of thing.

And the games you suggest are generally awesome too!

**suggestion**

have a search box to find a post by it's title. I hate coming back a week later to show a friend something and hunting through page after page

Not wishing to blow too much smoke up your arse, but my suggestion is to leave it as it is. You can always find ways to improve things, make them faster, glitzier, and so on, but one of the beutifull things about this site is its simplicity. It does exactly what it says on the tin, you bring us stories that range from everyday weird to completely off this planet in a format thats direct and to the point.

Nothing to change for em (I guess the loading time is a matter of $$$, but are we such in a hurry?)

Keep up the good job, and thanks for the good times.

Ah, I thought that load time would be a big deal. We've done a lot of work on "under the hood" of Neatorama to make it load faster on a limited set of hardware, but a lot of the lag is actually from the ad servers (of which I have no control over).

Sadly, ads are a necessity for this blog. I was lucky to be able to get top-tier (or close to it anyhow - no stupid blinkin' ads) that pays a little better, but we have to live with their ad servers' lag time and the eccentricities of the ads.

With a few exceptions, "bad" banners happen intermittently - if you find it hard to see Neatorama, chances are your browser just happen to get (and cache) a bad Flash banner. Simply delete your browser's cache and reload it - 99.9% of the problem goes away.

I've said it before: I'm ambivalent about adblock. It takes revenue away from the sites that you visit.

I'm surprised no one has complained about length of Neato's front page. We actually used to have longer front page a while back (50 posts), now we've pared it down to 30.

I'm also surprised to see how many people remember old posts :) After 12,000+ posts, even I don't remember what's on the blog ...

Great suggestions so far (it'll take me a while to digest them) - please keep 'em coming! I'll respond more when I get a chance later today.

book reviews would be cool. i'd love to hear about neat-o books that may have slipped under the radar.

Keep the cats. What is up with the cat haters today?

More articles like:
" Happy Birthday, Telephone!"
The only blawg I check that has anything about old gadgets. And steampunk-ish dream gadgets of yesterday! Always entertaining to laugh about the past.

Less articles like:
"Neuroscience in Renaissance Religious Paintings"
There was none.

Don't get me wrong, i love neatorama, but i think it would be nice to seperate all posts by the day they were posted. (does that make sense?) that way, if you forget to go on neatorama on june 27th or something, you can just type in "june 27" in the search box and see all the posts for that day. (unless that already exists, then nevermind.)

It would be great if you had funnier comments from people browsing the site. Or maybe a section with personal ads. perhaps you should post some naked pictures of yourself.
Also it would be really cool if you had some sort of effect over the whole page that made it look like it was snowing inside of the browser window. F*CK OFF #58 BITCHEZ

When I sit back and think about the sites I religiously visit every day...there is one feature that stands out above all others:

The ability to browse the largest amount of information with the minimal amount of scrolling or clicking "next/previous page".

Good Examples:
www.notcot.org
www.tastespotting.com
www.digg.com
www.metafilter.com
http://popurls.com/

The above listed sites all resize smoothly if I go full-window (widescreen).

If I go full-screen on Neatorama, it still only takes up that center column (with a lot of whitespace on the sides) and I have to scroll-down...scroll-down...scroll-down to browse all the articles I've missed since last logon. I realize thats a small quibble, and that Neatorama is intended to be a "Wonderful BLOG"... so it conforms to typical blog-style. But why limit yourself to "TYPICAL" blog style. If its "wonderful"---why not make your design one-of-a-kind WONDERFUL.

I love the content of Neatorama..I think you guys do a great job of choosing "wonderful" stories. Its the design and underlying structure that I would love to see changed in order to make it more flexible and easier to browse. (in other words, ditch the single-column layout and find something more full-page-wonderful)

More Bathroom reader, please!

The frequent articles about cats are a turn off. It's a really good site otherwise.

i like those crazy asians,weird vehicles,poo throwing monkeys,inline gravel hockey,nose blowing for distance,etc...but may wish to host the really offbeat things,I.E...midgets trying to hula hoop or long distance enema races,cause hey! it's important to the scientific community to know how far u can go with a pint or two of water in your bowels! lol

i like the book reveiw ideaaaa

and keep the freaking cats!

When I go on the net the first site I go to is yours. You always have really great stuff and I am sure you are in therapy to get over the "kittie" addiction. I totally agree with the suggestion to have the links open in a new window. I really like the clipart, and I especially like that you people are asking for suggestions on how to improve the site. I can't think of any other possible improvements but with most of the comments so far having interesting ideas I am sure that you will get some. Remember that puppies rule!!!!

Definately more of the psychologically themed posts... The mental floss ones are always outstanding and fun.. And more over they are educational too!!!!

Feed My Brain Neatorama!!!!!..^_^

More squirrel catapults, less cats. hmmmmm...

Sometimes, some of the articles are pretty long - lots of scrolling if you're not interested.

Also, try to block comments from anybody who might disagree with any opinion I have.

I love the site. The only thing I can think of that would improve it would be if there were some way to send certain specific things that are a lot of posts related to to their own category instead of the general front page. For example, steam punk stuff and lego stuff get tons of coverage, and while it is cool, and the best of the best are really worth seeing, some of those posts could go to a steam punk section and a lego section instead of the main page all the time. Then people who are really into steam punk or lego could go to the steam punk category and find tons of it, but those of us not so deeply into it could just see the coolest or most popular posts.

I love the content as is. This is positively my favorite site. One suggestion though, lately the blog has been inactive for some hours, then there is a flurry of new posts. I would like them to be more spread out. A new post every hour or so would be great!

Count me among the folks who love the content as-is - when I first started browsing blogs I must admit that Neatorama was a close second to BoingBoing, but it's since far outpaced BB (though I do still like it, too). The friendliness and lack of axe-grindiness here really makes me happy, and I really don't think there's anything specific I would ask for in terms of the content - what I really like is how vast an array of things you do cover, that unexpectedness really makes it fun to check this site out and see what's new.

The only suggestion I really have, then, is something I believe a few other folks have already mentioned: for those particularly long posts, maybe you could have just the first paragraph on the front page and then use a "more after the jump" link to the full article? Sometimes when I'm in a hurry I'd rather read the shorter articles and in those cases it gets a bit cumbersome to scroll through super-long ones, even if there are other times when I really -enjoy- the longer articles...

hey, i guess i didn't notice the cats, so who cares? also, i like the links-- helps me discover new sites. i agree with y-- about sprucing up the graphics. nothing so hard core just a bit more polishing might bring some more people here.

i also agree, more monkeys!
you are wonderful! thanks so much.

i would like to see some "magic" categories ^_^
penn and teller, houdini, jay sankey, david stone, david roth, everything "magic" :D

I have to say, with all the whining above, that neatorama is awesome! Keep the cats! Keep the format. Content is superior to most ALL the time, and superior to all MOST of the time. The environmental junk is good as well if only just neat. How do I go about becoming an contributor?

Less drama and current events and more obscure articles or far out news from around the world. More unexplained phemomenon or stunning pictures and articles, please.

I get enough of school shooters, politics, and rapists in the real news...

I love Neatoramas content as it is.
I think 99% of your subjects interesting and worth reading. So don't listen to your readers. Just keep doing what you're doing! Your own instincts have proven to be good. If someone doesn't like a subject he/she can scroll further.

Been regularly visiting Neatorama for, oh, a year or two now. Always have enjoyed it, especially the fact that it's updated so frequently with such a wide variety of topics and information. Aside from loading time, which is difficult to control with a site of this nature (Firefox helps a lot), I guess I've had my fill of LEGO, STAR WARS, and maybe even SIMPSONS overkill as well, but that's just me. Aside from that, this is indubitably one of the best blogs around! Keep up the great work, and kudos to all of the excellent blogs out there, many of which are often featured at Neatorama.

Oh, and don't be afraid to hand politicians their asses when they f*ck things up too much or act from the motive of greed and manipulation. Remember, "conspiracy" needn't always be a derogatory...

Don't change a thing, unless your traffic is suffering a long term down trend of some sort.

On the other hand, anything you've found that keeps it fresh for you or improves navigation is always worth checking out. You can always do more of what people rave most about, but don't narrow the variety.

Well done for creating one of the best blogs on the web!!!

It's interesting that the biggest disagreement in this thread is between the pro-cat and anti-cat forces. Perhaps the ability to block -- or highlight -- all cat posts would be a useful addition.

I'm one of the adblockers. I appreciate that this hurts the revenues of my favourite sites, but if I had to sit through animated ads, ads with sound, and ads that delay the loading of the page -- I wouldn't visit here at all.

I would be prepared to declare an adblock truce for any site that only uses static ads that don't detract from the reading experience. There might be a market for an advertising company that does this.

Free beer and perhaps boobs, would be nice? Just thinking out loud here.

Oh, and man boobs for the ladies, naturally.

Avoid an USA-centric perspective and make the posts more from a global perspective, since you have readere from all over the world.

I'll agree with Melissa and MAD - lose the LEGO stuff, it's boring. Unless you're 8 years old, maybe.

lose the cats.

I love the weird and the neat. How about something on old churches, or old haunted churches.

Also, lose the cats and the political stuff. Politics loses 50 percent of your audience (depending on your affiliation.)

Finally, like amazon, it would be neat to have a section on each story that says "If you liked this post, try these" with links to some of your past bests.

Like some of the other posters, I too have had numerous problems with occasional ad-hijacking.

I like the posts of links to websites where you can do funny things with people's pictures. I usually surf this site during lunch at work and finding funny things to do with my coworkers' pictures is always a blast.

P.S. Keep the cats. Add more dogs.

The political stuff I can do without - too much fo it everywhere else.
I really like the cross-culture weirdness/differences things too. Also mysteries, like medical, hauntings, etc are neat.

Oh, maybe we can rate the stories (I know, it's like digg, but still, that would be neat!)

I really like this site, I check it out most every day. I think the diversity of posts is what keeps it interesting. I like the rating idea, just for fun.

I'm not too crazy about the lego stuff, seems too childish, also the star wars stuff, then there is the lego-star wars-stuff, enough already!

I have never had a problem with ads, a little thing called pop up blocker took care of that, also I don't have a problem with load times.

Perhaps adding a "max length" to the comments would help.

//but not to mine of course.

Neatorama is one of the great parts of my day. My 12 year old son and I wake up at the unbelievable hour of 5:30 AM to start our day, and we always manage to squeeze in a few minutes at this great web site. My only suggestion is that this site continue its standard of quality and appropriateness, so that I will always feel comfortable viewing it with my son. Thanks for your hard work and great imagination!

I would like a section dedicated to the disgusting behavior of the people in charge of our country. For instance, highlight pork barrel spending. Maybe various laws or programs that are put in place that strip us of our individual freedoms. It seems like alot of issues get discussed in the public that don't really seem to matter. Somehow the politicians get the country to fight over them and then while the shouting is going on they turn around and rob us blind. They are lazy and the whole body seems to get almost nothing done that Americans really want done. They distract us into complacency. Recently a big deal and discussion was made over whether or not "it's fair to use Obama's middle name." I know very few logical people that would hold that against him. What is this the whole Joel Rifkin, Seinfield episode? I know I'm not being very specific about this, but there isn't enough time to discuss all that is wrong with our governments workings. Thing is though, you need to do it without bias. The public needs a way to monitor those who lead us. And unless it's your job, I don't think the public has the time to research all of this. We need a quick way to sort through all of this. Unbiased, simply numbers.

i love me some kitties, but the one i come home to every day is enough for me. of course i know that if posted only occasionally, it woulddn't be that big of a problem. maybe just lay off the kitty posts for a couple months, and then re-introduce them once in a while.

the ad pages are killing me too. they don't bother me at home because i have a mac that uses safari, but i don't spend the majority of my online-time at home; i'm usually at work or school, and they use internet explorer. yea i understand they help pay the bills, but there HAS to be another way to advertise. otherwise, keep up the good work and i will continue to come to this site!

No more kittens please. Also, some more games would be nice.
Don't be afraid to get political, just because some people would prefer to live in denial of the world's problems doesn't mean the rest of us can't benefit from learning something horrific going on in the world while we check out beautiful bridges from the same country.
Also, any stories about Mt. Dew or Crocs footwear would be greatly appreciated.
Keep up the goodish work.
Peace in the Middle East.

Yes. A ranking button on each post with a list on the homepage where neatest things of the week/month appear would be cool. Like a quick glance of the neatest posts.

I love the simplicity of the site, it makes me feel like i have discovered something great before it has become popular. Like discovering a great musician before they become famous.

More competitions with really mind-boggling questions that give me something to ponder or work out.

Otherwise keep up the great work!!

I would love to feel like I'm not just living in a province of the USA. I really like Neatorama, and I realise it's a product of America, but it would be great if the internet felt more like an international space. Somehow even the stuff you feature from other parts of the world seem like they're being seen by an American tourist.

Less of the US domestic politics, US commodities, US TV shows, US nostalgia and US in-jokes. Not none, just balanced by a global perspective. Does this mean more international contributors? There's more to life than the US of A. 'Us' is bigger than that. More of a sense of fellowship-in-weirdness with a whole world of neatoliciousness please.

The humour is great and I also like learning stuff. I don't have time to trawl around looking under every rock, so I really rely on you to chuck the good stuff at me. Keep up the good work, and keep getting better.

Wow - thanks for all of the suggestions, guys! We've done quite a bit of work upgrading Neatorama these past week or so.

First of all: load time by Nick, rianfike, and everybody! By far it's the biggest complaint most people have.

I think we've managed to make Neatorama's posts load faster. For the most part anyhow. I notice that the post content now loads much, much faster on Firefox (not sure about IE).

With one (minor) sacrifice: when a post gets very popular, like when it's dugg, the server will automatically use a memcached version. This means that if you comment, it won't show up for a minute or two.

Neatorama's front page is always cached. This is why there is a lag before author's posts hit the front page.

Re: Neat-O-Meter or Neatness Factor by rianfike and others. This is actually something I had been trying to work on for oh, about a year or so. Haven't gotten very far (obviously!) Neat idea, though.

Re: Title Link to Story by X-Shark. This is hard, because it would require a serious hack into wordpress and altering the way authors write their posts.

Re: Previous and Next Posts. What an excellent idea, DaMamaJama! We used to have something like this on Neatorama, but a few skin upgrades later, we discarded it. Now it's back, with a more simple and direct buttons below the post. For this, you'll get a free Neatorama T-shirt as promised!

Re: indented comments by NiteWhite. This is also hard, plus I actually don't like that commenting format. After a while, it's hard to who's responding to what (like in a long reddit thread).

Actually, I have a full time job - so when I'm busy IRL, Neatorama doesn't get updated as often! I think Neatorama's authors are what's neat about the blog.

Oh, and Neatorama doesn't have employees. It has one slave: me.

Re: quotes in italics. Really? This is surprising to me, since that seems to be the standard of quoting stuff (putting it in blockquotes with italics).

Re: tags. Great idea, MrBinky - Wordpress has tags capability built in, but I just never got in the habit of writing what the tags are! Oh, I promised that I would start and I did ... but a few posts later, I forgot about 'em.

Re: Neatorama Channels. Excellent idea - maybe sometime in the future, as that would require a lot of work :) Specialization into niches is obviously a way to make the blog grow (for instance the Popsugar and its sister blogs) - but that would entail an organization beyond this one guy (me).

Re: Bait cars. I don't know about bait cars, Mike Ross, but bait donuts I really don't like. I always fall for them.

Re: Design by Xultar. Yup - here it is! A little cosmetic upgrade for Neato (while keeping the overall "simple and white" theme).

Re: One long article a day by Adam Freitag. I'm trying to bring more long, exclusive articles (like Neatorama Only, Bathroom Reader, and mental_floss articles). If you guys know any authors who'd like to collaborate, please let me know!

Re: Center justifying the page by Glen. Isn't Neatorama centered? I don't know about justifying the blog. It's beyond any justification!

Re: Target = Blank by SenorMysterioso. This was a big debate I had a while ago, ultimately it lost because that's not the way most websites work. Plus, I don't know if people with older IE browsers (yes, there are still a lot of them) like it when a link spawn a new window.

Also, this would either require a custom hack or force authors to write their post in a new way (putting in the target = blank in the code for their links).

Re: Reader Profile by SW - this is an excellent idea that I have no clue where to begin. We were talking with another company about hooking up a social networking / community to Neatorama, but we couldn't resolve some technical issue regarding the way comments are handled. Maybe in the future ...

Re: Polls by Ali S. I really, really liked polls, but had to stop for a while because the poll plugins we use really taxed the servers to its maximum capacity!

Re: Long post and post size by OddNumber, Video Game Dork and VonSkippy. Hm, well, we can do the "read more inside" kind of deal (it's a built in function in wordpress). It's just I've never remembered to do that! I've never had any problem scrolling down (or hitting page down on the keyboard).

Re: duplication with mentalfloss by Bwest. Really? We don't coordinate or anything like that ... They're an excellent blog with many writers, so they cover a lot of ground.

More ...

Re: Calendar with condensed version of Neatorama by Nicholas and sort by date idea by gabtastic. Hm, those are two neat ideas. Let me see if we can do them, maybe in the archive section ...

Re: User forums by Kelly. Another neat idea - I've been trying to get one done, but got side-tracked. Later this year, maybe :)

Re: Search box to find a post by its title by andrewstewart20. We have this already - the keyword match has to be exact though.

Re: re-size on full window by Jason. Hm... that would require a redesign of how my tables are done (yes, I'm an old school coder who prefers tables to pure CSS layout). Not hard, but just a lot of work. Probably won't happen unless a horde of people started asking for it!

Re: flurry of activity by ian. Yes, this is a by-product of how I write for Neatorama. My posts are prepared off-site, and then uploaded to and posted on Neatorama in a batch. I've spaced posts before, but most of the time, I just forget to do that. :)

A post every hour is a standard I just can't begin to dream to fulfill ... not without quitting my job and working full time on Neato anyhow.

Re: magic category by qureyoon. Believe it or not, we used to have a magic category, but it was so skimpy that I just did away with it ... we'll try to find more cool magic stuff for you.

Re: contributor by floatingk. Hey, thank you for the offer! I'm quite flattered. We'll probably open up Neatorama to more authors in the future, but for the time being, we've had enough great people writing for the blog. I'll keep you in mind, though, floatingk!

Re: static ads by Evil Pundit. I'm all for it - unfortunately, I haven't found a high paying ad network that displays only static ads. I've heard about The Deck, but never got invited :)

Re: USA-centric perspective by Lasse. Kind of hard, since I live in the US - I don't know how to write in a non-USA-centric perspective!

Most of Neatorama readers are from the US, too, although we do have a significant number of international readers. We have international authors, so maybe they can put a more "international" feel to the site.

Re: related posts by Fran. That's a good idea - I don't know if there's an automatic way of doing it. I try to put "Previously on Neatorama" kind of links whenever I remember.

When I posted this "suggestion box", I was looking for suggestions for content. Yes, I got a lot of good ideas, but Alex got more suggestions for functionality than he bargained for!

The crossover with mental_floss is mainly my fault, since I write for both sites. I have a daily column of links over there. I try to find enough good stuff for both sites, but when I find a really good story or link, it's hard to say that one site "deserves" to use it more than the other. It's like deciding whether to post something that Boing Boing already linked. On the one hand, you figure if its been there, everyone has seen it. On the other hand, a lot of people say they don't go there. I don't want y'all to miss out on something really good!

As to the necessity of advertising at Neatorama- I don't crunch the numbers myself, but two years ago I complained to Alex about the cost of bandwidth. He told me how much bandwidth this site used, and it made my head reel! It's only grown since then. Success has its price.

Thanks to everyone who posted to the suggestion box! We should do this about once or twice a year, dontcha think?

I would love to see a little 'slug' that says what you will get when you click on an item from Neatorama. For example, "Weird" "Funny" "Video" "Human Deformities", whatever.