Editorial Changelog
A dated, plain-language log of every substantive change on The Blog Timer — new guides, corrected facts, updated study citations, infrastructure updates, and methodology revisions. Silent rewrites are not the standard here.
Why a Public Changelog Exists
Most websites edit themselves quietly. A claim from last year gets softened. A study citation gets swapped out for a newer one. A guide gets rewritten without a note. Readers who came back to verify what they read the first time end up unable to tell whether they misremember or whether the site changed.
The Blog Timer logs editorial changes publicly because the alternative is a slow, invisible erosion of trust. If a fact on this site was wrong last month and is correct now, that's a thing worth admitting in writing. The same goes for infrastructure changes that affect privacy, security, or how the timer behaves — readers deserve to know.
Each entry below is dated, named, and described in one paragraph or less. Substantive corrections additionally get a banner on the affected article for 30 days. Citations to the editorial policy that governs this process are on the editorial policy page.
What Counts as a Logged Change
The changelog records:
- New published guides or hub pages. Each new piece of permanent content gets a single dated entry on the day it goes live.
- Corrected factual claims. Any time a statement of fact is changed because new evidence emerged or a reader reported an error.
- Updated study citations. When a newer or stronger primary source supersedes one previously cited.
- Infrastructure changes affecting users. SSL changes, hosting moves, performance optimizations that materially change the site, privacy-relevant additions.
- Methodology updates. Changes to how we test timer accuracy, our browser/OS matrix, or our statistical reporting.
- Policy changes. Edits to the editorial policy, privacy policy, terms of service, or disclosure standards.
Routine typo fixes and copyedits that don't change meaning are not logged individually. Style-only rewrites are not logged. Everything that changes what a reader knows or can rely on, is logged.
Recent Entries
2026-05-22 — Trust-infrastructure pages published
Published four new pages: /methodology/ documenting our 8-test timer-accuracy protocol; /sources/ as the complete bibliography of cited research; /author/suraj-giri/ as the author bio page for byline links; and /changelog/ (this page). Substantially rewrote the existing about and editorial policy pages to align with the new transparency standards.
2026-04-30 — Timer ID dataset fix
Fixed a data-integrity bug in the internal timer-preset dataset where 7 duration entries had non-unique IDs, causing 4 timer pages to load the wrong preset metadata. Affected pages have been corrected; URLs and content of public timer pages were unaffected.
2026-04-12 — 69 timer guides launched
Published a batch of 69 long-form timer guides covering the full minute-timer range (1–60 minutes) plus extended focus blocks. Every guide goes through the standard editorial-policy review — primary sources, plain-language read, dated byline.
2026-03-18 — New hub pages: minute-timers, second-timers, use-cases
Reorganized the site around three top-level hub pages: /minute-timers/, /second-timers/, and /use-cases/. Internal linking from individual timer pages was updated to point to the appropriate hub.
2026-02-25 — SSL certificate installed and HTTP redirected to HTTPS
Provisioned a Let's Encrypt certificate and configured a permanent 301 redirect from the HTTP origin to HTTPS. All internal links and canonical URLs updated to use HTTPS. No user data was previously transmitted over insecure connections; this is a defense-in-depth improvement.
2026-02-10 — Nap-timer guide updated with Brooks & Lack (2006)
Added Brooks & Lack (2006) as a primary citation on the nap timer guide, supporting the recommendation of 10-minute naps as the most consistently restorative without sleep inertia. Previously the guide cited only Mednick (2002) and Hayashi (1999). Reader correction prompted by an email from a sleep researcher; thanks to the contributor (anonymous by request).
2026-01-28 — Tabata-protocol duration corrected on interval-timer guide
An earlier version of the interval timer guide described the Tabata protocol as "8 rounds of 20 seconds high-intensity with 10 seconds rest, totaling roughly 4 minutes." The "roughly" was imprecise. The protocol as described in Tabata et al. (1996) is exactly 8 rounds of (20 s work + 10 s rest) = exactly 4 minutes (240 seconds). The guide has been corrected to remove the "roughly." Affected article carried a correction banner from 2026-01-28 through 2026-02-27.
2026-01-14 — Methodology page formalized
Formalized the previously-informal internal timer-testing checklist into the public methodology page, with the 8 named tests and the full browser/OS matrix. Where the engine had been tested informally for ~14 months prior, every release going forward will be documented against this published protocol.
2025-12-20 — AI-use disclosure added to editorial policy
Added a section to the editorial policy explicitly documenting how (and how not) large language models are used in our content workflow. Summary: outlining and language polish allowed; citation generation and empirical-claim generation prohibited; every fact verified by the named human author.
2025-11-30 — iOS Safari long-background limitation documented
Added a "Known Limitations" section to the methodology page explicitly documenting the iOS Safari long-background suspension issue: when a tab is backgrounded for more than ~5 minutes, Safari may discard the page entirely and the audio alert cannot fire while the page is discarded. Surfaced as an in-app banner on iOS for timer durations > 5 minutes. Honest disclosure of a real limitation we cannot engineer around.
2025-11-08 — Chess clock launched
Published /chess-clock/ with bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical presets plus a tap-to-switch turn interface. First two-player timing tool on the site; built in response to repeated user requests.
Older Entries
The full archive of prior changelog entries (2024 and earlier) is being migrated from internal git commit logs into this format. Until that migration is complete, you can request specific historical context (e.g. "when did the privacy-policy first include localStorage disclosure?") by writing to suraj@theblogtimer.com.
Report a Missing Change
If you remember a substantive change to The Blog Timer that isn't logged here, that's a bug. Email suraj@theblogtimer.com with the date you remember and what changed, and we'll either confirm and add the entry, or explain why we believe the change wasn't substantive enough to log.