Larger Fonts, Simpler Design = More Comments ?

How large is large?

But, you raise a good point indeed. I off late have tried avoiding too small fonts. However, too big could be really irritating as well.

Thilak

Truly support your suggestion on font size on blog. i already receive some comment from my friend about the font side on my blog. in future also thinking modify my font size at my blog

Ajay: Well, not too big.. not too small. Just good enough to read

Not really true! Most of the time content matters i guess…

And another thing that is irritable in any website is having the font size fixed by defining them with ‘px’. If you are unsure of how big the font may appear in different resolutions, atleast define them with ‘em’s. That way, the user has the choice of scaling the font sizes.

sg-GOD: That’s what I’m trying to say :p

Vyoma: Yup, I agree upon that point

Vyoma: Does it really have a copyright ?

0.0

I think everything has as I mentioned in the other ‘Karthik’ post here. And moreover, all the Simpson characters are TradeMarks, and if use of it anywhere requires the permission from its owners.

vyoma: I think , there wont be any need to get permission in written format to use that image. Unless you make some million dollars using that image.

If they gonna say we have get permission for using every image, then for using a jessica alba image, we need to hire a photographer and make appointment for a photo session with her

Vyoma: I agree with sg-God, but better be safe than sorry, so I replaced the image.

Thanks Vyoma, sg-God

sg-GOD, you are right when saying that all use does not require written permission. But just stating that one does not make millions of dollars from other’s work and so it is ok to use it would be wrong – atleast according to Copyright Laws. Any work, be it literature (like blog posts – we have seen it happen recently), pictures, photographs, video and music, belong to the creator right form the moment of inception.

There is though a clause called ‘Fair Use’ in Copyright laws – these usually allow for educational and research purposes. These are cases when there is absolutely no commercial intent in reproducing the original work.

But in a Blog, even if it is a personal blog, if it sells some Advertisement space, or such monetizing methods – it would be unfair on the creator, because no matter how minscule the revenue generated may be, it still belongs to the creator. It would be like saying stealing 100000 bucks is wrong, and stealing 10 bucks is not. But both constitute to stealing.

Is it not done elsewhere? Ofcourse it is. And I too have seen a lot of websites displaying Jessica’s Photos in their galleries (Man! She is hot! >

Continued….

… And I too have seen a lot of websites displaying Jessica’s Photos in their galleries (Man! She is hot! >). But I am not sure how legal it is. We should not be pushing the ‘Fair Use’ clause beyond certain limits. I mean, how much ever minuscule the revenue earned may be, it still belongs to those photographers or studio who got the photograhps of Jessica.

Thilak, sorry for creating a minor scene here and getting off topic – I just wanted to keep a fellow man out of trouble.

Let us get back to topic and talk about font size and user activity correlation – shall we?

Vyoma: I agree with you! But in that case we’re not allowed to use any image other than drawn by us, photographed by us or some image released under open license.

Now, look at this image Tilak recently changed, is created/drawn by him? (if he say yes, then its ok )
Okay, suppose say, i want to make a post about the upcoming ‘Windows Vista’ am i allowed to post the ‘microsoft logo’ or vista logo? thats copyrighted an belong to microsoft.

Using a google logo on a post about google, using a skype image…..everything is copyrighted!

That means most of the blog should not have any image unless each blogger draw the images and pictures before making a post.

(Another way to use the image without violation and to be ‘fair’ may be make a small note at the end of the post ‘this image belongs to taken from…’)

sg-GOD, when making blog posts about Microsoft (I hate them, incidentally), or Google or any other people – then it would be fine to use those images. Ofcourse, as you rightly put at the end, just the note stating ‘This image belongs to….’ would do the trick. But, that only would be fair use if your blog post is about Google or Microsoft or Vista or whatever.

On the other hand, the blog post is about something else, and unrelated image of Bart Simpson is used, then I am not sure how it could be brought under ‘Fair Use’ clause. I think then, we would be crossing the limits. Even a ‘This image belongs to…’ may not justify it. But if we are reporting about something, putting up a review, or something, I do not see some one sue us if we have a proper disclaimer. You might have noticed this in all professional publications. And us Bloggers, who take blogging to be another profession – I do not see why we must lower our standards of ethics.

And yes, we must either use any image that is drawn by us, photographed by us, or we have bought the rights to such works, or use one of the images from (the huge set of ) royalty free images available – or make use of a copyrigthed image with proper disclaimer, when making related posts.

I know, that sounds hard, and almost not practical, but I am just stating, how one is to act in accordance with the Copyright law. Even I was a bit taken aback when I was going through those (boring) pages about Copyrights few months back. But sitting down and thinking with out any prejudices, and also viewing it as from the POV of a creator (the other picture), I feel it is a fair deal. Just think of it – someone is using our works (be it writing, artwork, photograph, music or video) with out any reference to us – forget getting permission, how would we feel?

And about the picture that Thilak has used now, I am not sure, but I think I have seen it in some royalty free stock somewhere – but I am not sure.

Ah! I can rant on an on. I will stop now.

haha.. okay okay! Lets stop here..we have already went off-topic! May be we can ask tilak to make a post about use of copyrighted content..we can continue there…

Anyway, Nice knowing you here through this blog

cheers!

sg-GOD: As you wish, I’m going to publish a post on Copyright and its implications tommorrow, Thanks for all your comments

And thanks Vyoma for starting the discussion

Yeah, let us stop now. Nice to know you too, sg-GOD.

Where were we?

Larger Fonts, Simpler Design = More Comments ?

just to add some little bits to this discussion. How do you want to protect your written work (your posts) from not being used by anyone else without reference if you will do the same thing with some other people images? Sometimes we just look to our bellys and think only our work is valuable end need to be protected. We have to look to everybody’s work. This will apply to blog templates, graphics, photos, CSS, branding and naming, pieces of Software, Everything that was created by someone. Each of the creations may be available under a specific license. You cannot assume it’s royalty free withous asking.

May be just the links I am getting incoming lately but I found when I changed my template to be a little more graphical with clean navigation and big fonts that my traffic tripled.

Personally I have also found that light colors or dark backgrounds and vice versa is much better, personally Thilak, your current colors are a little hard to read sometimes.

Just a little tip

Afterlife: I was thinking building of a Theme like yours, but one of my friends from #wordpress suggested me not to

Afterlife: BTW, your Logo looks sexy

Yes, I agree with this. A font needs to be large enough to read comfortably. Also, it’s important that the font be dark enough… I used to have a font that was too light, and I got complaints. Made it bigger and darker, and now I think I’m good.

Sorry to bump the out of topic discussion we had here again, but Darren mentions about use of copyrighted image in his post at ProBlogger.net. Thought I would just indicate it here for sake of record.

@Vyoma: Dude, where’s the link ?

Oops. Sorry for that. Wrong tag usage.
Here is the link: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/21/an-introduction-to-using-images-on-blogs/