Why is WordPress Reader not showing my post titles?
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I have just started a new blog using the Penscratch theme. The browser-based WordPress Reader does not display the titles of my published posts – only the text. This is the case whether I am logged into WordPress or logged out. Without the post title displayed, anyone using the browser-based reader to look at material by a tag or topic doesn’t know what my post is about and has no way to click through to the full post.
The Reader within the WordPress app on iPad correctly displays both the title and the text. What is going on?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Some further info. There are only two posts. One is post format Link, the other is post format Quote. In both cases the iPad app Reader displays the post titles. The WordPress.com Reader in a browser does not.
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Hi!
This is expected behavior. The WordPress.com Reader customizes the display of different types of posts. For the quote and link posts, the title is removed. The WordPress app will display the post titles in the Reader regardless of the post type.
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If removing the title from quotes and links is expected behavior for the WordPress Reader, I am simply going to stop using these post formats. The title is an integral part of a post. It is the hook that draws the reader in, capturing in a phrase what the post is about.
In the case of a post in Quote format, a title can identify who is speaking and/or provide necessary context regarding what is being discussed. Remove it, and the context that situated the quote is lost.
In the case of a post in Link format, in many themes the title IS the link. Without the title, THERE IS NO LINK. There is just a bunch of text, with nothing to identify what it is about, and nothing for the reader to click on.
If a writer felt that a post was completely self-explanatory and required no title, they wouldn’t add a title in the first place. To deliberately remove a title that a writer has deliberately attached to a post is just plain wrong.
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Hi Jonathan,
I believe the discrepancy here revolves around how the post formats are being utilized. In the case of the quote, the assumption is that the author references the source of the quote within the article. It would then appear in the Reader post. In the link example, the assumption is that the link is in the post (you’re linking to another location, not your own site). You can see some examples in action here:
In your case, it sounds like using the Standard post format will be the best option moving forward. That way the post title will always be shown!
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The problem here isn’t any “discrepancy” about how to use post formats. The problem is that WordPress.com has made a completely arbitrary decision to remove the titles from posts of format types Quote and Link when they are displayed in the Reader.
If you search in the Reader for the tag “quote” and scroll through the postings, you will find scores of entries that are just disembodied text. You have no idea of the poster’s intention because the post has no title, and the identification of the speaker is nowhere to be found, buried in a little link indicating “12 more words”. If you think this is what your customers want, you are sadly mistaken.
I will continue to use the standard post format. But the correct option, moving forward, is for WordPress.com to stop removing titles from Quotes and Links and display people’s posts intact, as the authors intended.
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