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Barbelith just changed on me.

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09:02 / 29.03.04

Mmm... well, I quite like the new style... whereas I loved the old style. Ah, well, maybe it'll grow on me.

But apart from my general first impression, I'd like to echo the, "Could we have the 'latest topics' back?" request and worry about it not being quite so w*rk-friendly...

Maybe the colour scheme could change itself around occasionally, or as someone else has suggested, peeps could choose their own?

09:07 / 29.03.04

I’d like to retract last night’s dimwitted comments about there being no division between the different fora. Now my eyes have adjusted to the dazzle, I can see and appreciate the subtlety of the colour scheme. God, I’m thick.

Ah! But! What about the words, the actual words ‘Revolution’ and ‘Spectacle’? What a loss to Barbelith. That totally ruins Flyboy’s great line about ‘coming for the Conversation and Spectacle, and staying for the Revolution’. Which I’ve only gone and had tattooed on the insides of my eyelids, duh. Ah well.

Human Being: I think Creation=grey because creation is work, man. In a good way, I mean. But then, I really like this shade of bluey-grey. It’s like milky Prussian Blue.

09:26 / 29.03.04

Now I've had a little time to digest it I'm with the really like camp. I like its simplicity and logic. Well done Tom.

10:23 / 29.03.04

(Psst, Grey Area.)

About the latest topics display: losing it can be a good thing for the board. I've already found myself going into Magick, which I only visit infrequently, purely so that I can see what's going on there. It increases the chances of people posting in areas of the board that they'd normally leave alone. I hope we can try living without it for a decent amount of time, rather than going straight back to it because it's familiar.

If there's one change that I would like to see, it's Creation being integrated into the main bulk of the board (within the Spectacle grouping, maybe), rather than sitting on the outskirts. I can see the logic of having Convo, P&H and Gathering in these grey/blue tones - they're sort of incidental areas to the rest of the board, necessary and very useful, obviously, but not the main reason it's here, and I think that Creation is almost damned by association. I'd like to see if being given the same status as Magick, Switchboard, FTV&T, etc., especially considering that Barbelith's not exactly short on the creative types.

10:31 / 29.03.04

I prefare the old Barbelith. The threads look dull, the front page is more colourful which I like, but its not as info packed, ie no recent topics to click. In fact first impresion, fucking auful. I'm also having a bad day. Which doesnt help.

10:38 / 29.03.04

there's something unmistakably... "pret-à-porter"-ish with this new look. barbelith to go. me likes, me likes!

10:47 / 29.03.04

It increases the chances of people posting in areas of the board that they'd normally leave alone.

Exactly. This is exactly why I like this redesign - it's quite obvious what the subjects covered by the board are. A little explore will show you the range of topics. I think that the problem with the "recently changed" topics on the front is that whilst it makes the board look busier, it also makes it look like there's only three topics in a forum. Both methods have positive and negative effects, but I think that the new way is better for the way Barbelith is.

10:48 / 29.03.04

I was quite fond of the pictures: not the pictures themselves, but just them being there.

And as mentioned, I dont think it's the font, more that it's smaller type that it was before. Or maybe I'm going blind.

But I like the colours, and I'm glad the grey/different grey behind the posts has remained.

10:50 / 29.03.04

10:53 / 29.03.04

It remind me of post-Nexus Barbelith in a way. Maybe just putting one "last post" date and time up next to each forum name, just like with that version (that's a link there, btw), would serve the purpose of letting people know if there's been any action since they were last present without compromising what I'd imagine's the conscious decision to force people to dig deeper than they might normally?

It's nice to know that people are prepared to condemn the new layout as "fucking auful" based on a couple of seconds of use, too. Intelligent. Considered.

10:53 / 29.03.04

It increases the chances of people posting in areas of the board that they'd normally leave alone.

Bollox. I wont. The little mistery of whats in there doesnt appeal to me at all. I guess I'm just not narrow minded enough for this comment to be applyed to me.

10:54 / 29.03.04

We appear to be having the same conversation in two places, (here and in the policy thread) especially with regard to whether Creation should be grey or not.

10:56 / 29.03.04

I like the new look just as much as the old. About the font size - for me it's the same as it always was, but I did notice that I am unable to alter the size via my browser settings. Isn't this kind of bad form? It may just be my broken computer by the way.

10:57 / 29.03.04

akira: Intelligent. Again. Considered. Again.

11:08 / 29.03.04

I don't like it.

Change it back!

11:10 / 29.03.04

I might be getting used to it.

Gimme another few minutes...

11:29 / 29.03.04

SO. FUCKING. SEXY.

11:31 / 29.03.04

It doesn't look bad to me but i'll have to get used to it because the old design/layout was the best i'd seen on any site.

Not to troll or anything, but being totally honest : i miss the bit where you could see the top 3 threads in each forum and the pictures/images. (i don't miss the head image though that used to be in the top right of the screen.)

Also i linked the way that this place was liked to the webzine/interviews/bomb etc, again i'm not trying to be negative, it's just that the last design was honestly the best i'd seen at any site.

11:39 / 29.03.04

Whoa...stunned by the dramatic change.

It's purty! Nice work, Tom.

No harm is changing things every now and then. Keeps us on our toes!

12:12 / 29.03.04

However, the new header for the Music Forum leaves a lot to be desired...

Pop, Rock, Soul, Opera and the Classics...

How bereft of an agenda is that? You may as well say:

For readers of Mojo, Q and Record Collector, nostaglia welcomed...

Although writing "nostalgia" instead of "nostaglia" is probably going to get that message across better. Otherwise you're just inventing pasta.

How about:

Pop, punk, hip hop and psychedelia: music and what it means to us...

Or a thousand other suggestions. Ah'm gonna start me a Music Forum thread.

12:17 / 29.03.04

I think what I liked about having the three most current topics in each forum displayed was that it was easier to spot activity. If you're engaged with threads in several different fora at once, it was possible to get an idea - just by refreshing the front page - where new posts had been made, by the relative positions of those topics. That wasn't infallible, obviously, but it did offer some kind of overview.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:18 / 29.03.04

I still like it. In fact, I'm liking it more every time I log on and think "what the FUCK!!!?"

Even the loss of the "three last topics" thing is not bugging me so much. Although I like the idea of a "last updated" thing.

And (although I can't quote right now) I think E Randy's right... if you can't be arsed to check out the other places, then why (insert rest of sentence here. Unless of course it'd be "bollox")?

12:28 / 29.03.04

Well, it looks pretty, but as far as functionality: I'm not too crazy about the way the posts are anchored so far to the left - it's making me lean over in my chair. Also, the longer I read, the more it strains my eyes to read black on gray on blaring white.

12:32 / 29.03.04

Wrt that 'last updated' thing, it'd also fit in with the current front page a lot better than showing thread titles or a number of links for each forum would. I don't see how you could show a number of active threads for each forum on the main page without totally screwing the clean, sharp lines and functional simplicity, and going with one thread title would make it seem to window shoppers as though that's all there is.

I'm thinking one line underneath each forum description simply saying "Last activity at: ..."

12:43 / 29.03.04

I just saw a one man protest. He was walking down the street with a sign that read, "Barbelith:Bollox". It was rainbow coloured though, so at least it looked interesting.

12:47 / 29.03.04

On coming to work and looking at it on NT, I really don't like the Tahoma. It probably looks okay anti-aliased, it's quite a nice font anti-aliased, but I don't think it looks nice at all like this.

Will look at it again on Linux this evening. One thing I've found a problem with some pages on Linux is that they have various Lucida fonts that aren't at all the same as Lucida Grande on the Mac, which is a pain. But that wasn't the problem last night... it was all coming up with this nasty serif font, which is odd and makes me think I might have misconfigured something.

Re: images... there's quite a big white space gap down the right hand side at the moment. How about some sort of long thin image as a background to the page, top right no-repeat? Nothing big, either an abstract image or something simple, that could change colour by forum. (This would of course necessitate loading a new image each time you went to a different forum, but if it's small enough that wouldn't be a problem.)

12:51 / 29.03.04

Yeah, I quite like it, perhaps we could have a full block of colour on the left of the screen where the names are though and it would still be nice to see the last posts when you reply to a topic. Oh, and I still want a computer game / new media section but I doubt there's enough interest for it.

Tryphena Absent

12:54 / 29.03.04

Fucking hell. Old Skool. I need a cigarette. And a scroll down navigatory system, if the board slows down again it's going to take three hours to get from one fora to another.

But gosh, it's like getting a new haircut. You look in the mirror and you wince the first few times but suddenly you love the new.

12:57 / 29.03.04

Well, I think it looks lovely on you, Anna.

13:07 / 29.03.04

I keep looking, and I really like it. I think it's truly lovely, although my brain isn't yet accepting it as barbelith. soon, though!

the only thing I would personally suggest is that the definition between each post be a little clearer - it would help eliminate general eye strain and make it easier to pick up where you left off in a thread.

good work, tom, and thanks!

Tryphena Absent

13:09 / 29.03.04

I've started a thread on the prettiness of the board in Art, Fashion and Design. I suspect a lot of you won't think to go there so I'm linking here to prod you!

13:15 / 29.03.04

I'm not quite convinced by the idea that not showing the last three topics makes people more likely to look... perhaps it might encourage deep delving a bit better, but... well, in my case, with nothing there there's little chance of my looking in, say, Magick & Spirituality unless I'm very bored, whereas I was previously sometimes persuaded by seeing interesting thread titles...

Perhaps a "random" button somewhere, if it could be incorporated without messing up the design? Either one for each forum, or one which selects a random thread from anywhere in the site?

Also: it's impossible to see how many posts one has without logging out. Pretty minor, but it's sometimes nice to know.

13:17 / 29.03.04

Whoop! It's just after 8am in my time zone so I'm just seeing this now. I'm digging it. Makes me want to put on some Jobim and put a paper umbrella in my orange juce. I do miss the "recent topics". Maybe you could do a mouse rollover thingy and have a little dropdown window appear with the 3 or 4 latest topics when you roll over each forum title. Well done, Tom. You're long and tan and young and lovely.

13:21 / 29.03.04

Pingle> You can see your post total on the members list (click the 'Barbelith has XXXX members' link on the main page).

13:34 / 29.03.04

Also: it's impossible to see how many posts one has without logging out. Pretty minor, but it's sometimes nice to know. I don't understand. Can't you just click on your user name? The information should be there.

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