If you’re one of those super-sleuth detective persons, you might have noticed a slight change to the look of this blog.
Well, your eyes are not deceiving you. For mainly technical reasons (i.e. all the ways it was broken), I need to abandon the previous theme that was used on this website. I’ve replaced it with the WordPress stock theme Twenty Twelve, which I’ll be customizing to fit my personal preferences and the way things work around here. Until then, things might be a bit awkward, but everything should at least work.
If you see something that doesn’t, or want to suggest a change, or just want to tell me to go to hell, leave a comment or send me an email.
Well it doesn’t look too bad. Does WordPress allow a “leave comment” link on the original post rather than having to open it up (click it) and then commenting?
The Media Ownership Chart doesn’t look too good. It blends into the column on the right (Twitter, etc) May be a browser thing but I doubt it.
The archives are gone??
Yes, though that link just opens up the post so I’m not sure how useful it is. I can put it back.
I’m aware of it. Trying to tighten things up so there’s enough room.
They’re back now. Had to rebuild the template.
Okay, comments… First off, this is one of the least social templates around. There is no specific link to the comment sections for the posts, which tends to stunt discussion. It doesn’t have any of what is considered pretty standard these days, like social sharing buttons, and such. Also, the general layout of the comments themselves makes them harder to read, the font is not really the best and the vertical line spacing much too large – knocking the line spacing from 1.7 down to 1.2 makes a big difference in the readability.
It’s just not a very social look.
I hate those buttons. You will not see them here.
I’m working on the spacing issues. Things should have already gotten a bit better.
No social media sharing buttons? Yes! Cheers to that! They’re one of my biggest peeves.
Your dislike of social media aside, it really is sort of one of those things that Google really likes these days. Having your posts and such shared on G+, Facebook and such can get you a lot of exposure and also tends to drive your visibility in Google search results. Considering you are using twitter, it’s surprising not to have a bare minimum “follow us on twitter” button… but hey, your site, your rules.
The spacing at 1.3 is better than 1.7, but the quotes in comments have huge margins around them and aren’t very clear. in styles CSS line 838 or so, you can lose the margin bottom and padding, and that tightens it up, and you can add a background color of #DDD or so to make the quoted text more obvious… it tends to look nice that way!
*Like*
I hate to say bad things, but
WELCOME TO 2013! I hope the travel from 1999 wasn’t too hard! ;-)
Just kidding though, yet this redesign looks, you know, more modern and readable. It’s not that much of a bad thing that your old theme broke, let’s just say.
How is it more readable than before, exactly?
Mainly, I’d say it’s a matter of fonts and space management. The new design has screen-friendly fonts, rounder and more modern. On the space-management side, I’d say that your old design lacked space on the sides, as well as between content (like your right bar). Now everything looks and feels cleaner, even though it actually is more sophisticated.
I liked the old look better.
What’s sorely lacking is the number of comments posted in a topic on the main page. I found it simple yet efficient. This newfangled modern page forces me to go through every thread to see if there are any updates in a topic that I want to follow (ex: Burkhardt). I’m sorry Steve – I don’t have that kind of time.
I miss the number of comments on the first page.
Yeah, I hear you. I thought that was a great thing.
Go look at the comments thread in the recent Quebecor thread!
Every comment is numbered one!
And look at the spacing job! God forbid people keep on replying to comments, we will soon be reading one letter be line.
What a piece.
You’ve gone from unreadably long line lengths to mildly-too-tight linespacing, which you can easily fix.
Okay, a few days of this theme, and I realized when I came here today what is nagging me about the new design:
It looks like nothing is happening.
The old design I could scroll down through the stories and quickly look for any updates added, check to see if there were more comments, etc. Now I find that i look at the sidebar only to check to see if there are new comments, and if not, I am gone. With the back of a “35 comments on this story” link at the bottom that goes to the comment section, I find that I generally look at less pages and I am less engaged.
Engagement is key here, and I am not feeling it anything like I use to.
FYI: I’ve re-organized the way stories appear on the homepage, the part listing the number of comments is back, and the date and categories of posts have been moved to the top.
I’ll work on other issues like line spacing when I have more free time.
Yeah! Comments on the first page!!!