My blog timestamps theory: removing the clutter

March 2, 2006

Mena Trott recently said that one of the biggest challenges for blog design is keeping them uncluttered. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and have been reflecting on 37 Signal’s post entitled “It just doesn’t matter”. In the post Jason writes in response to questions about Campfire:

“Why time stamps every 5 minutes? Why not time stamp every chat line?” Answer: It just doesn’t matter. How often do you need to track a conversation by the second or even the minute? Certainly not 95% of the time. 5 minute stamps are sufficient because anything more specific just doesn’t matter.

I’ve been wondering about blog posts: Are time stamps necessary for every single post, comment, trackback and pingback?

I’ve been re-working the design here (this blog is an ongoing test bed for ideas and is often a little messy as I try different things out) and I’m experimenting with removing some of the time stamps to see if I miss them, if they’re needed.

Here’s my theory which I’m trying out here right now:

  • Individual entry archives should have a post date; they’ve been archived.
  • The home page should have freshness information - show how long it’s been since you last posted. Keep it simple by only showing one lot of units (if it’s less than an hour, display the number of minutes ago, if it’s less than a day display the number of hours ago etc).
  • Comments don’t each need timestamps on them. Optionally show the freshness of last comment - i.e. time since the last comment.

Have I lost valuable information by removing all these timestamps?

See also
Comments

  1. I removed time and kept date. Seems the most logic thing to do. Especially if you, like me, work with a bit of regularity. A new post is automatically posted every morning at around 7.

    — mattias, March 2, 2006

  2. It’s an interesting theory. I suppose it depends on the kind of site you have (a breaking-news site springs to mind, where time stamps are going to be very important), but for many of us, I bet they can be removed with no ill-effects. Perhaps I’ll try going the date-only route.

    — Dan Wolfgang, March 2, 2006

  3. I’ve only kept the date on my posts and comments, but I’m now toying with the idea of even getting rid of the comments’ dates. After all it’s the order that matters, not what day and time they were posted…

    — John, March 3, 2006

  4. Most of the time I don’t think it’s neccessary to have comments time dated - however occassionally I find it handy to get a feel whether someone’s post has been commented upon over time or all at once as soon as it was posted.

    I also quite like to see how often people post. While knowing the last post’s date is essential for this you don’t get a complete feel for it at a glance from a front page if only one post has a date.

    I don’t think times are neccessary but prefer having a few dates. They probably don’t add heaps of function but it’s how I read blogs.

    — Darren, March 3, 2006

  5. [...] I’m removing comment timestamps Written on March 2nd, 2006 by Vince Chan :: Oh no! Not another AmBlogger WordPress theme modification involving Darren and Rachel! [...]

    — AmBlogger » I’m removing comment timestamps, March 3, 2006

  6. I couldn’t think of any reasons why people would care exactly when (down to the minute) a new post went up, or a new comment was posted — if it’s new, that’s what matters.

    So I did the same thing as Mattias — stripped the two time stamps that show up on my blog (one on each post, one on each comment) down to just dates.

    — Martin Ralya, March 3, 2006

  7. I’m visualizing where you’re coming from Rachel and I do agree with Darren. A replacement for timestamps of whatever format is the numbered comments.

    As long there’s a short but clear indicative numbering distinctly telling visitors that the latest comment is the bigger number, they’ll understand that anything above the particular number of their post is the latest.

    Hope that made sense. :)

    — Danny Foo, March 3, 2006

  8. Oh, I think times are necessary. I’d be very unlikely to comment on, or possibly even continue reading, a site where the timestamps had been removed entirely. (And the fact that the post times don’t appear on Darren’s posts has always bothered me. Fortunately they still appear in the RSS feed.)

    You’re right: in a year or two from now, it’s probably not going to matter much if the time of day appears on the post. In the last week? Oh yes, it matters.

    — Michael Hampton, March 3, 2006

  9. my personal preference:

    1. no date slug on the front page.
    2. exact date (no time) on single post OR fuzzy (dunstans time since).
    3. no date or time on comments.

    the logic being that front page posts are always fresh. in an attempt to keep the front page as clutter free as possible, i think all post meta data should be pushed to the single post view. even there the data should be minimal. bare essentials. comments are comments, unless you’re running a news site, a readers comment date and time are unnecessary. content is all that matters.

    — derek, March 3, 2006

  10. Heh, I am running a news site. And the date stamp reminds me that I need to be posting fresh content rather than, er, reading blogs about blogging. :)

    — Michael Hampton, March 3, 2006

  11. Its not realy a problem with no timestamps I think

    — redstar, March 3, 2006

  12. Definitely agree that if you’re a news site, more time/date information is needed. But when I’m scanning a blog, I don’t pay attention to the date/time info on the home page. I look at the content first and foremost to see if I recognise it as new or not, not the date since I last think I visited.

    I do like seeing the most recent post’s date - because it gives me an idea if the blog is stale or being updated still.

    (Possibly I would if I landed on an individual post archive.)

    — Rachel, March 3, 2006

  13. Datestamps on comments can be very useful. I often come across a blog entry via a search engine that has lots of comments, going back months or years. If I see comments saying a piece of software is buggy, say, it’s important to be able to see that the person wrote that 2 years ago and it probably doesn’t reflect the current version of the software.

    — Darren, March 3, 2006

  14. Good point - hadn’t thought of that use.

    — Rachel, March 3, 2006

  15. Are you using the Time Since plugin to display the “Last comment 1 hour ago” deal? If so how’d you code it to work?

    On the timeless comments and posts, it might just be me but I like to see when something happend, even if it is a simple time since, it gives it more emphasis I think.

    — Justin, March 3, 2006

  16. Comment without time is just not going to work. How would people know if the comment was from today or last year?

    — George, March 3, 2006

  17. As I read these comments I keep thinking, “No-one will ever need more than 64K…”

    Who knows why the time stamp might be useful? Just because we can’t see it now…

    I’ve spent some time recently reading old blog posts. I find it the date/time stamp really useful to gauge the intensity of the comments, their flow, etc.

    If you’re watching comments closely in real time, you know how interesting it is when they come fast and furious, as in a conversation. It’s great to be able to recreate that sense when reading old material, and the time/date stamp is a vital piece of information. Maybe it’s just me, but I find posts or comments without a timestamp to be disembodied, floating, less authoritative.

    — Antony, March 5, 2006

  18. IÒve a feeling this isnÒt quite the thing we had in mind when we made The Lecture List

    — OUTDOORS, May 29, 2006

  19. Just been listening to the new album on their website and it sounds just as good.

    — BONTRIL, May 29, 2006