Some KDO Updates: We’ve Got Ourselves a Stew
Hey folks, I know there’s a lot going on these days, but I wanted to update you on a few things I’ve been doing for the site lately. Alright, looking through my Git commits from the last couple of months:
- I already told you about the Rolodex. Hoping to provide access to the full list at some point.
- Replying to comments is now possible after sorting threads by date or popularity.
- Members can now see the last ~40 posts they have faved on their profile page (when logged in, click on your name in the upper right-hand menu and then “Profile”).
There are a few new gift‑link indicators that I added to the site — for links to sites like Defector, Aftermath, Hellgate, Slate, Medium, Talking Points Memo, in addition to the older ones like the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. When I link to paywalled stuff, I try to post a gift link — here’s how the indicator looks if you’re reading on the site. (RSS readers, live a little and come in from the cold!)
- The video embeds for YouTube and Vimeo now use Lite YouTube Embed and Lite Vimeo Embed, which should decrease load times for those videos and eliminate much of the tracking those companies jam into their embeds.
- I revamped the footnotes so they no longer appear in a pop‑up; they now appear inline in the text and can be toggled on and off. You can try it right here ->1 I really like how it looks/works.
- There are avatars for each commenter in the comment threads. Right now, it’s just a simple, colorful circle with the first initial of the person’s display name. But hopefully in the future you’ll be able to customize it with a photo or whatever. A small first step.
- Most recently, I upgraded the share menu on posts. Previously, clicking the share button just copied the URL to your clipboard. Now you can copy the link, open it in a new window, translate the post (which sends you to Google Translate), and easily share the post on social media (Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads), email, text/SMS/Messages, and WhatsApp.
I’ve been a little busy, I guess. The day-to-day posting has not been consistently sparking joy recently but digging into the guts of the site & making improvements has provided me with the heads-down, flowy focus that I need to stay emotionally and intellectually afloat these days. Thank you to KDO members for supporting this work and keeping the site free to read for all.2
I’d love to know what you think. Criticism and nice words are equally welcome. I’ve heard that some of you dislike the auto-expanding video player — does anyone actually love it as much as I do? I’ve gotten some early feedback that the comment avatars are too big (and I might agree with that).
- What do you call a footnote or endnote that isn’t at the bottom of the text? An inline note? An in-text citation? A reader’s note?↩
- When I was typing this, I accidentally wrote “free to dread for all”. Come on, that’s a little too on the nose. 😂↩
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Avatars, especially the top-level ones, look huge! I'd prefer them smaller. Feels very "in your face" with how big they are.
The inline-footnotes do look great.
The video player, I like them expanding to fullscreen/window. I usually watch them like that or open the video up in youtube.
I *love* the auto-expanding video player. 1) I know I'm on kottke.org! 2) always works, seems to do away with a lot of the cruft that trying to play videos garners in other sites. 3) no distractions and when I'm done I click close and go on with my business!
No criticism/praise for the other items but I will validate the "do what keeps you emotionally/intellectually afloat" bit. That's just table stakes in twenty twenty five.
Seconded, and I also deeply feel the criticisms of the folks that hate it.
Like a Tarantino film, I love it completely, but totally understand why someone would hate it.
Love the changes lately.
If you would like to maintain a changelog as you go in your codebase, my coworker is the creator of this: https://changie.dev
We use it for our product and I've been happy with it - totally open source. It might be a bit overkill but you mentioned you've been enjoying doing some tinkering.
What is “light” YouTube? Is that just the theme or a fancy embed thing?
Ah sorry, I was actually going to link to these: Lite YouTube Embed and Lite Vimeo Embed. (Added these links above too.)
Big fan of these changes barring the expanding player. I want the Kottke context for what I'm watching. I'll expand to fullscreen if I want the immersion.
I have to agree on disliking the expanding player - I also like all the other changes though!
+1 on the Kottke context. And auto-expanding takes control away from the user and may also cause some accessibility issues.
+1 on not loving the expanding player; the video is always larger than my laptop screen, so I am often missing a little slice of video. Otherwise, I love the rundown of all the new changes, because I'd missed a few of them. (The inline-endnotes are a delight though!)
+1 on disliking the expanding video player. I find I'm a little discombobulated once the video has finished. I sometimes can't figure out how where I am and how to get back to where I was. I'd prefer to just fullscreen myself if that's what I want.
+1 not a fan of expanding player. not sure if it's my computer, but it expands too big, and I need to scroll to get to the controls (at least on vimeo ones, as I recall).
Same as the others, it expands too big on my laptop screen and then there's a lot of annoying work to get back. But I like the other changes and appreciate your attention to detail!
Love the video player. I’m a slow learner I think, so every time when I want to close it - the last place I seem to look is the middle along the top. I first try the ESC key - nada. Then I look in the top right, but also nothing - and only then do I notice the centred close link. This is unfortunately my lived experience.
+1 on this! I like the player fine, but would love it if ESC worked.
+1 on this as well. I hit ESC every single time to try to get out of the video player and am sad every single time it doesn't work. Would love to see this tweak added.
I also like the expanding video player. I like not having to leave the site to see it in full screen glory.
The avatars do feel a little big, but given the overall minimalist look of KDO, I like them?
I would describe your "inline note" as a parenthetical. It'd be helpful if they were actually in parenthesis as well.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/parenthetical
I really like the new inline note!
Nice work, Jason!
The in-line notes are great! I love seeing the note in context ... not having to fly down (and then back up) to the core text.
The expanding YouTube player is fine ... but (and aligned to my "in context" thought above): It's almost too immersive. Let us hit ESC to close the dang thing and get back to KDO'ing like we were born to do!
And yeah, avatar icons are a bit too big ... and jauntily askew for some reason?
I often find myself Cmd-W'ing kottke.org completely when trying to get out of the video. I get that it's immersive, but I lose any sense of being in KDO land when videos are playing!
I like the video player behavior, but maybe it's my screen size - the video is always too tall for my screen when expanded and I have to scroll down to see the controls. Not really a big deal, but it does throw me off sometimes.
Love the new footnote behavior!
Video player screen also always too big for my screen, and I would love esc to work for closing it.
Like the new footnotes though.
Happy that you’ve found some flow and focus in working on the site recently, and even happier to find your sneaky, little “Case for Reparations” in the midst of this update. Indeed.
I love watching you noodle in public.
I'm in favor of the expanding video player. I read the KDO comments first, then play the clip - boom, it's big!
While I understand the feedback about the avatar size, I wonder if it's hard to judge while the avatar is just a letter. It may be just the right size once good can upload their own pics. Hard to say for now, and I've only seen it on the phone too.
Yeah, this is my thought as well. I may shrink them in the meantime.
Jason, I love your site and have for years. The thought you put into the curation and evolution of this blog feels like one of the greatest remnants of the dream of the old internet.
I do have one request: please open up comments on all posts. The only people who can comment are paid subscribers, right? It stands to reason that people are here because they’re aligned with the philosophy of this site. I’d like to see and share in what everyone thinks on more topics than the fun ones.
Yeah, I don't know if every post needs comments, but I do think we're at a point where we want to converse a little more in spaces like this and the membership should be discerning enough that it's civil here. I think the default should be comments on, but the occasional comment-free post is understandable.
Ideally, I would love this. Practically, it doesn't work (yet?). I've said a few times before that what works best for KDO comments is not the sort of drive-by, knee-jerk thing that happens on social media that often just devolves into opinion fighting. This sort of thing is great for clicks & views, but I don't think that's the best use of this space.
Instead I'm looking for thoughtful contributions that help everyone understand the matter at hand better. I agree that most people who read the site understand what I mean by that and participate accordingly — but not everyone does, particularly on contentious issues like politics & AI. The replies to KDO posts on Bluesky & Mastodon, as well as those that I've deleted here on the site, attest to this disconnect.
It's on me to figure out a way to better foster the kind of participation I want here, particularly on the "non-fun" posts, but in the meantime comments will remain closed on some threads.
I didn't realize you were already having to moderate comments on this site. That's really disappointing to hear. Appreciate you sharing your perspective, clearly you know what works best for you and the overall health of the site. Thanks for taking the time to respond!
I love the expanded video player but I wouldn't mind a progress bar so I see how long the video will be or where I am in it.
I do feel like when the screen is gonna get taken over, being able to see how long the video is before I dive in is important.
I have no opinions on the expanding players, I still primarily read your site from my RSS reader ... but with all these changes it really feels like I'm missing out. The site feels a little web application, in a good way.
All the comments regarding the expanding player make sense (I too command-W'd my way off the site the first couple times). The main frustration for me was that I often command-click articles to read longer after I've finished catching up on the feed overall. When I command-click those videos, the player still comes up. I actually enjoy the player when I want to watch a video, but if I'm not ready I have to close it and command-click the title of the post or the link to the video instead. I'm sure I'll learn soon enough.
I just want to say
1. I have been reading this site for about a decade - is that possible (maybe it is more) after an interview you did with CBC radio
2. I am a paying member and even bought a Choppke t-shirt (did you sell many). I don’t pay enough
3. the “dread” slip is so perfect for today’s world.
4. But you bring joy to me
5. Thank you.
I always love seeing the new changes! I don’t have feedback on the latest, but I did have a question about an old feature - are there any plans to bring back the accidental shop? Your top picks section was often how I chose my next read, and I still use your media diets for that - I just really loved the layout of that feature. Thank you for all that you do!
Thank you for making it possible to watch embedded videos inline instead of in the pop-open screen.
On a laptop screen, the pop-open is too large to see the entire frame.
There should be a shiny Faves indicator to show that JK himself was one of the people who faved the thing.
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