I thought I’d quickly note some of the changes I’ve noticed on BMG lately and start a thread to see what others think.
The two changes that I’ve noticed most are the font change (I can really tell the difference) and the lack of the “teaser” text on the recent posts and comments. Thanks a bunch for those.
My #1 wish at this point is to somehow reduce the size of the Recommended post list. When I first noticed the teaser text gone from the recent lists, there happened to be no recommended posts and I thought, “this is great” because I could see several of the recent items without scrolling. I know that we can’t get by without the recommended list (I wouldn’t want that), but I can suggest two things to reduce its size:
– Get rid of the teaser text there also.
– Algorithm changes to limit the number of posts appearing there. I have no idea what the current criteria are, but I do see some posts linger for a week.
In any case, it seems like we are getting more contributions, and that is of course a good thing. Correlation does not mean causation, so I can’t give any reason why the participation is up (I can’t even provide data to say that it is!).
Thanks, editors!
I definitely agree that the new font, and eliminating the snippets in the recent posts and comments, are big improvements.
There are way too many posts in the Rec list. That’s a bug and we are working on fixing it – the max content should be 4 or 5.
I do sort of like the snippets in that list. They take up much less vertical space than in the other columns, since the Rec list is two columns wide, and they give a sense of what’s in there. But I could be persuaded otherwise. What do others think?
Also, I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in participation lately, which is fantastic. As you say, I’m not sure whether it’s due to changes in the site, or just that there’s more to talk about. Either way, hurray.
I love that we have automated blockquoting within comments, but it puzzles me that we don’t have it within the Write Post menu.
Highlight the text you want to blockquote, and then click the blockquote button, which is the one with two big quotation marks on it. That sets up the blockquote,
n/t
I know absolutely nothing about laying out a page, so I say this without fully understanding the reasons behind the design.
I don’t like the two narrow columns on the right–it’s too cluttered. I would prefer to have boxes just like the Readers Recommend box for Recent Posts & Recent Comments. I realize that probably echoes the look of the old page too much, but I found it more inviting. Now, I’m a bit overwhelmed by the narrow strips of text broken into two columns, each competing for my attention at the same time. As a result, I find myself ignoring that side of the page.
are you saying that you’d prefer to see Recent Posts and Recent Comments as double-width columns (like Recommended), rather than single-width? The obvious downside to that is that it would require a lot more scrolling down the page to see recent content, and a lot of the complaints we’ve been getting are along the lines that too much scrolling was required to see what was new.
But if the Recommended list were shorter, as you described earlier, that wouldn’t be so bad? I don’t know. I scroll down the page anyway because I tend (because of the reasons above) to mainly keep track of the front page….
And one we will certainly consider. Thanks.
Everyone agrees that 4-5 recommended posts is optimal. We’ll get that implemented.
Using the blue background from the Recommended list for the recent lists might help to cause the eyes/brain to make a nice, firm break between that content and the main text to the left. The lines help (those may be recently added, I don’t remember); maybe boxing them in with the blue would do better.
To update your user profile, click on Account in the top right menu bar (at the top right of the page), then go to Your Profile in the left menu (should be in the Users area) and enter whatever information you want in the “Biographical Info” text box at the bottom of the page. Click save. Back on BMG, click on your name in a post or comment. Voila!
After reading the weekly joke revue, I clicked the bmg logo to go to the front page like I usually do, but all there was was more joke revues. I clicked on My Comments, and saw I didn’t have any comments! It was then, with my heart rate elevated heightened alertness, I noticed that I was stuck in jokes.bluemassgoup.com and had to delete the jokes. from the url to return to the rest of you.
Also, if it has anything to do with it, I left a comment with a blockquote which had strange formatting, the text was really small, if I recall correctly.
Jokes.BlueMassGroup.com is a network site: like a mini-BMG. Anyone can create one for free. I haven’t yet changed the logo to “Jokes” which, when I have time to do it, will make it easier to understand how to navigate. In any event, for the time being, to get back to the “main” site you need click on the “Part of the BMG Network” link in the upper left corner. That’s confusing and not clear. Apologies.
Is there a way to find contact info when clicking on a user’s name? All I find are the posts and comments. We used to be able to do that.
If you do that, the email display should be like what you’ve done on the Contact page for the general email contact address.
do not publicize their email addresses, which is certainly their prerogative. Those that choose to are free to add them to their profiles, as Bob has outlined above.
Done. Thanks!
All these improvements are great.
Of all the issues that remain, I think the biggest glitch is that the main column is too wide and does not scale down with the size of the browser window below a certain width. There needs to be a fixed left margin of at least a couple of picas. If you have a smaller monitor you are really out of luck, it’s a very frustrating experience. And unnecessary.
It is also very weird that the sidebar matter changes from view to view. For instance on this post page the only sidebar content is recent comments (for all posts, not just this one) and calendar. I think it would be better to show the same stuff all the time.
I won’t repeat my earlier criticisms, but in my view they are still valid. I don’t have an opinion about teaser snippets in the recommended box. Now that I understand what “Page 2” means, or meant, I think it was a useful idea; you might bring it back under a more-descriptive name, if there is enough content to justify it.
I just noticed that the graphics people had posted in the comments of the old BMG do not seem to have survived the transition; a shame to lose that.
Currently new comments are not showing up in my “comments” section.