Your Wish List?

I’m relatively certain The Powers that Be™ are getting vigorous feedback from a variety of sources, but I figured we’d do up a list of wants and needs here just to be thorough. Now that we’ve got the new theme up, it’s time to make it moar awesomer! Dream big, I’ll compile, and then compare our list with what Ed’s given to our tech guru for fixin’.

I can tell you that Recent Posts in the sidebar for all FtB is definitely on the list already. (And no, you don’t have to repeat yourself: if you already said what you’d like in the previous thread about the theme, you don’t have to do it here.)

While you’re at it, let me know if you want threaded comments to forever vanish from the face of ETEV. Because I can make that happen if you want, yo.

And do tell me what you particularly like about the new theme, so we don’t inadvertently destroy it.

Also, a bit o’ a challenge! I’ve added a background. All the kudos to the first person who a) notices and b) figures out what it is.

Image is a black and white cat lying in front of a blank pad and a pen, looking up expectantly. Caption says, "You maek list. I pass it on."

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Your Wish List?
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22 thoughts on “Your Wish List?

  1. rq
    1

    I noticed the background, but I haven’t been able to figure out what it is, mostly because it keeps getting covered up by other stuff!
    I think most of my issues with the new FtB have already been listed here and elsewhere.
    I don’t mind the threaded (nested?) comments here as much because there’s rarely a lot of nesting going on. If discussions become lengthier, though, I wouldn’t mind their elimination.

  2. rq
    3

    I think you’re right. I was looking it up, going through other cities, but I think it’s the middle bit of Seattle on Puget Sound, with Green Lake in the middle there and Union Bay down on the right.

  3. 4

    Besides the Most Recent lists, they need to make sure that all posts from all bloggers get listed somewhere on the front page. None of PZ’s posts from yesterday (Aug.2) and none of Ophelia’s posts since the changeover have showed up anywhere on the front page. Who knows what may have happened with any posts from less frequent bloggers.

    Also, I’d really prefer posts in a serif font, especially more lengthy ones. It’s much easier on my tired, old eyes.

  4. 7

    I’d continue leaving the threaded comments up to the bloggers, as they are now. PZ hates them, and they wouldn’t work on his blog with hundreds of comments anyhow. Here, where it’s peaceful and friendly, I like them. Two problems however: The threaded replies aren’t indented or numbered, as they used to be.

    I shall now post this and see if those two problems still hold true….

  5. 9

    After giving myself several days to get used to it, I’ve come to a conclusion: I HATE the new organization scheme on the main page. Kill it with fire. Yesterday, for a while, the first five items in the top two topics, “Atheism and Skepticism” and “Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality” were all the same. Department of Redudancy Department. Please bring back the old scheme of having the main page organized by blog. Or give us an option.

  6. 12

    Ditto this!

    I am distinctly unenamored with the fact that some blogs posts appear repeatedly according to how they are tagged, while others fail to show up on the front page at all. This effectively renders the usefulness of the front page to nearly nil, as I have to go to the sidebar and click through blog by blog to see what’s been written.

  7. 13

    The new design looks great BUT I hate the topical sorting — hate hate hate. I can no longer tell which of my favorite bloggers have new material, as I could before, so I have to click on them in the blogroll and see, and then click back out if there’s nothing new. Annoying. And there’s no way to tell whether I’d enjoy something by a blogger I don’t normally visit. Aaarrgh. It does run much faster, so that’s good. Upshot: pretty 10, useful 3.

    Here’s a thought: what if the main page listed all the blogs in alpha order with post titles and first sentence (up to two lines deep), but there are channels (like over at Patheos) you can click on for the sorted categories that are now on the main page? So, if you want to just browse, stay on the main page; if you want to delve into a particular category, click on a particular channel.

    Just a thought.

  8. rq
    16

    Also jumping on the sorting bandwagon – by blog, please, not topic! Though the Recent Around FtB box should help with that.

  9. 17

    On the front page, maybe cut the posts under each category to 4 or 6, have the most recent post by each blogger listed in a sidebar box (perhaps replacing the plain list of blogs just on that page). A twitter feed including all tweets by bloggers might be of interest too. Personally, I like the idea of categories on the FP, it just needs a bit of tweaking.

    For a mostly decorative suggestion, maybe have the image representing each category be selected at random from a group of pics. Not only would this add some variety, but would help to broaden the implied scope (e.g. currently atheism& scepticism is a pic of something Christian; the rainbow flag doesn’t represent feminism, the religion & government is US centric and so forth).

  10. 18

    lso, give us a login box on the main page. I went ad-free about a year ago. Probably one of only a few to do so, since it wasn’t well advertised. But periodically, we get automatically logged out. And can tell when that happens by the ads, but then I have to remember which blogs give us a login box. Some don’t.

    Utterly and completely off-topic: IT’S TOO DAMNED HOT HERE! (Just north of Dana’s normal location.)

  11. 19

    I would dearly love a font in which I could perceive a difference between l and I. (Hint: To see the problem, copy that sentence into a word processor and change the font to one with serifs.)
    ——————————————————————————————
    It would help if the <p> tags were not stripped on their trip through WordPress. That’s a long-standing problem.
    ——————————————————————————————-
    At least some of the other blogs are getting comment index numbers. Are you being discriminated against? ;-)
    ——————————————————————————————-
    I finally figgered out why I couldn’t log in, as of the changeover: somewhere along the way, the changeover or WordPress itself has corrupted my username by removing the blanks. I verified this by pre-corrupting my username on the login screen (deleting blanks), and, voilá, here I am! If the login-error screen tells you that your blank-containing username is invalid, try that.

  12. 20

    I just noticed that comment number 1, with three replies, has four faint lines under it. Comment 2, with one reply, has two lines. Comment 3, with no replies, has just one line. And so on! How interesting!

    And I just a minute ago noticed in a typo in a reply I made to CPP’s similar post yesterday. Requesting an edit function. Pretty please, can we have an edit function? Even if it’s only open for a few minutes, like at Popehat?

  13. 21

    It is almost bizarrely amusing that I was trying to surf Pharyngula and listen to a TED talk titled “Dare to Disagree” (Margaret Heffernan) and loud video popup ads from FTB drowned out the audios from the contrarian TED talk. (I think my popup blocker disables one of the US network television sites, so I do not have popups blocked.) (I am aware of the option to pay for no ads, but I need my dollars for other things atm.)

  14. 22

    FWIW, I spy a log in link on the far left side of the front page, below the blog roll, right under the search box and site admin tab. Not a log in box but took me to one. Where I then spent like 20 minutes futilely trying to log in with what I know for sure is the correct info before I figured out that WP now refuses to accept that there were ever spaces in my username.

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