15th Monthly Milestone
Editor’s Note: The monthly milestone column, which appears on the second day of each month – the anniversary of The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s launch – is an opportunity for either the publisher or the editor of The Chronicle to touch base with readers on topics related to this publication.
The Cube, by artist Tony Rosenthal, on the University of Michigan campus. (Photo by the writer.)
In a little over a year of operation, The Ann Arbor Chronicle has now published more than 1,000 full-length pieces – that number excludes Media Watch and Stopped.Watched items. And Chronicle readers have posted more than 6,000 comments on the website.
Depending on your perspective, both those numbers might seem rather paltry. But they are substantial enough to raise a couple of issues. First, the volume of archived material has become large enough that we’ve switched from the built-in WordPress search function to Google’s custom site search. It’s not perfect, but it’s a dramatic improvement.
And second, while the mission of The Chronicle is not explicitly about reader comments, we think it’s appropriate to acknowledge the positive way readers have used Chronicle comments as a platform to add information, insight, and additional perspective on Chronicle material. To that end, I may from time to time use a Monthly Milestone column to highlight some reader comments that I think had, for one reason or other, particular merit – starting this month.
But first, a few details on the Google custom search engine that now provides Chronicle site search results. [Full Story]