[zalew]

because the browser scrollbar doesn't work well enough?

[windsurfer]

What if there are 500 comments at the end of the article?

[protonormal]

Or you're a Mac OS or iOS user and the scrollbar will be invisible when you're not scrolling.

[bhaak]

So because one browser developer fucks over its UI, you should fuck over the UI of all other browsers, too?

[straws]

Looks as if it's only the length of the article body.

A little superfluous, but I can dig it.

[mkolodny]

Because the browser scrollbar indicates where you are in the page, not your progress through an article.

[jonahx]

while i mostly agree, it does make it clearer that it's your progress across an entire article: with just the scrollbar you never know if you'll be facing "page 2, 3" links at the bottom.

[bluthru]

If the article was on one page this wouldn't be an issue.

[tjoff]

It's still an issue...

I often wonder how far an article really goes. A lot of the times there are tons of content below the article, or perhaps just a long commenting thread twice as long as the article itself (or, as stated, a multiple page article (which you don't know about in advance)). I often scroll down for the sole purpose of finding out how long the article is.

I really like the information the New Republic conveys (but I dislike having a bar on top like that).

[kamjam]

What is it with these sites that break down articles into several pages? NYTimes is a particular culprit that annoys me. Does anyone find an article easier to read in this format? I presume it is to force more Ad views on people?

[lotso]

There's some research that, that people like content paged.

Here's one such paper http://hfs.sagepub.com/content/25/3/279.short

[corford]

>I presume it is to force more Ad views on people?

Yep

[jimbobimbo]

On touch screens it usually disappears?

[lojack]

because the browser scrollbar isn't necessarily present on a Mac.