Ok... so, umm, on the HomePage. Featured Blogs. Where have the blog posting stats gone, and are they coming back?

I'm currently doing some testing with this new, cleaner format which puts the emphasis on the actual content and postings as opposed to all the navigation and statistics. Why, for example, would Joe Blog Reader take the number of other sites linking to a particular page on DaniWeb into consideration when deciding whether a particular news entry is interesting reading? It just didn't make sense.

I can understand having this information available, but it just seems like secondary information, which adds little true value other than cluttering up a page supposed to be latest IT news and happenings at a glance.

So, to answer your questions:

Is this current format permanent?
Answer: It's currently a test. It will or won't change depending upon the results.

Will all the statistics be returned?
Depending upon the results of the test, some statistics may return. But in all probability, all of them won't.

Ok, fair enough. I don't agree that removing useful information and requiring an extra navigation step to see it enhances the user experience, so count me as 1 vote in favor of putting the stats back where they were.

I notice also that we've lost the username/member profile links on the blog entries. So now at first glance we can't see who wrote the blog, how many views it's had, if there are any comments or not... I'm baffled at how this is making the site better.