WatchA user has kindly suggested that I also do to each forum what I've done to the home page. He would like the forum on the left and newslinks for that topic on the right. He would prefer just to read http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/ and have only that forum and real estate newslinks alone on that page (no links about religion or humor, for example).
It would be a few days of work to re-jigger everything and figure out how to classify links as belonging to a forum (currently, links are all just in one big bucket).
Is it worth the work?
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Try it! It gets my vote!
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OK, I did it.
Now when you click any forum name (the names are in the header across the top of any page) then you get something like the home page, but limited to just that forum.
So you have discussions on the left, and newslinks on the right. For example, see http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/ The newslinks in that one should all be related to real estate. It's not perfect yet, but it's pretty good.
It gets a little weird if you look at the forum by clicking on a geography. I don't have any newslinks to show in that case, so then the right column is blank.
I hope this is all an improvement.
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@patrick
I, for one, am not a fan of new forum layout. TOO MUCH CLUTTER
I liked the original layout a forum 'looked like a forum' and it was easy to navigate.
May be you can include a 'expandable' section for news on top of each forum page.
Also could you bring back the original 'forum' link, that had latest few posts for each forum? It was handy to scan latest comments on each section. Now I have to click on each link to see the latest.
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permanent_marker says
It's still available, here:
http://patrick.net/forum/
I just removed the link to it from the header to try to reduce clutter! OK, I added that link back in on the home page, where it says "Forums".
Maybe my perception is skewed because I always use the browser in full-page mode on my laptop. It might look more cluttered on a smaller browser or smaller-screen device.
I've condensed the headers a little more. I'll keep looking for ways to make it cleaner, but I have to say I agree with the user who wanted each forum to look like the home page, just filtered down to include only that category of discussion and news.
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OK, now I've removed the line of states from the header, and instead just have "City Data By Zip Code". Click on that, and you see not only all the states, but the top 5 cities in each:
http://patrick.net/housing/city_data.php
Click any state or city in that to see zip code stats for that area.
So that's a little cleaner. At least there's one fewer line in the header.
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I added the "Unread" graphic to the home page, and also the animated gif that goes directly to your earliest unread comment in a thread.
Is the animation too annoying?
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http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/
I can't tell the difference b/w front page and forums now :-)
And large graphics, really screw up the page layout
@patrick
I like reading left --> right. not top --> bottom :-)
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permanent_marker says
Yup, that's the idea! Each forum is just a subset of the home page, for those with specific interests.
permanent_marker says
True. OK, that's #1 on the list of thingis to fix now.
permanent_marker says
It's all pretty much the same, just the columns for the forums are half of the page instead of the whole page.
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As the guilty party who asked for this change, I LIKE IT! You can go to the home page if you want to see everything or you can go to a specific section if your interests are not so broad. Newspapers have been doing this pretty much forever.
Yippee! Hooray!! Thank you!!!
With any luck, I will never be exposed to the polititards again!
Biff
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It's a hard read, really hard.
I can see it working with some tweaking, but it's not there.
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OK, so what can I remove or change to make it easier to read while keeping the two-column format (discussion on left, links on right)?
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I think the most valuable information is the news links you provide. The discussion groups often degrade into something of little value.
I would keep it the way it is or put the newslinks on the top and the discussion group on the bottom.
I'm not sure where the problem is. CaptainShuddup was not specific.
When permanent_marker said the layout was too cluttered, he/she may have been referring to the home page. It is a bit cluttered. I don't think the separate sections are cluttered although the huge images are/were a bit much.
Biff
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@patrick
Here is an idea to improve forum readability.
choice A)
1) if you are going to stick with two column format, please cleanup left-side forum display. Just provide clean title. Right now, the grey summary, and lots of links for each title is really hindering readability
2) only display few key attributes for each post heading
TITLE, by poster, replies: 8, latest: 4 hrs ago
[1,2,3]
Here is a reasonably clean design : http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Bay-Area/bd-p/BayArea
choice B)
each forum has two horizontal sections (like http://patrick.net/forum/)
- top section could be NEWS links
- bottom section could be FORUM
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Huh you can't read it? can you be more specific.
I don't know what yer yammering on about, it gives me a head ache just fine...
Signed your neighborhood frivolous flamer.
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Glad I checked here. I've been wondering where the helpful newlinks have gone and now I see they are all in the Real Estate section. The links on the front page right have gotten full of funny pictures and sources I don't trust. I tried voting articles I like up, but knew this was futile against the greater population of patrick.net.
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Yes, I think it was a good idea to also have separate topical links in each forum, in addition to throwing them all in the big bucket that is the home page.
permanent_marker says
Do you mean grey summary lines like this one:
"By mike2 in Real Estate in El Cerrito CA 94530 on Tue 05 Jun 2012 219 views 23 comments, latest 45 seconds ago:"
Which part of that should I eliminate? Each part of it seems useful to me. It gives who, where, when, views, comments, latest.
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OK, I eliminated the original post date and the number of views. So now those headers look like this:
"By mike2 in Real Estate in El Cerrito CA 94530 23 comments, latest 45 seconds ago:"
Oh, and for the individual forums, I also removed "in Real Estate" (or whatever forum) because you probably already know that's the forum you're looking at.
Better?
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what happened to the daily news links? now its a bunch of radom newslinks of varying quality.... I know we can still get the email links each day but just wonder why that went away.
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If you want only the real estate newslinks, go here:
http://patrick.net/forum/real-estate/
So the home page is now a bucket containing links from all topics. But if you want just an individual topic (real estate, politics, religion...) then choose that topic from the header of any page.
The quality is uneven because I'm letting users pick and vote on the links now. If you don't like a link, please vote it down! (The red down arrow next to it.)
So you can help with quality control.
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Personally, I think the newslinks are of the most value. I'm still too stoopid to figure out how to vote for them. My fav thing about the site seems to be gone, the daily news links that would fall below todays links as they became yesterdays and so on until they hit the archives. Having all of them randomly glommed about with images is hard for me to navigate, but I never like change!
If I could customize it to my liking, the home page would be the days REAL ESTATE related links, with the header having tabs to all the subforums. I know you said that the change in links was in part to buying yourself some time away from all the charity work, but commandeering thru all the clutter is a bit of a turn off for me
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I'd agree with that.. at least get rid of the images (or move them all into one part of the page). they are very distracting, don't make a lot of sense, and takes up space.
One thing I despise about another housing blog (that sometimes Patrick links to) was all the distracting pictures in the guys blogs. I'm sure the author spent a lot of time making them up, but they were distracting and frankly kinda corny. I'm sure he had some really good info, but I just can't bring myself to finish any of his articles.
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errc says
Just click the green up arrow or the red down arrow next to any link. That's all there is to it! You don't even have to be logged in.
Please try it. Does it work correctly in your browser? You should see the vote count increment, and the arrows turn grey, blocking you from voting twice on the same link.
errc says
You could just hit http://patrick.net/archive.php
errc says
You're right, the images are distracting. But a lot of people like to see them without going to the extra step of clicking on them.
Hmmm, I could have a "text-only" option.
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maybe just put them on the bottom of the page or whatever.. or smaller icon sized pics.
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as for images, I'd make a section: pat.net Images/cartoons
There are times, I have seen a cool image on front page. Then after few days later, when I want to access it, I had to dig around a bit to find it.
Having them in one section, will be great, and it will solve the clutter on front page too
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better.
Patrick, lets try an experiment.
1) just comment out the 'snippet / description' section for each post
2) get rid of zebra lining (changing background for each post) as well
I bet it will look much better...
just comment out the HTML, so you can turn it back on :-)
Patrick says
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I love the snippet too much to remove it, but I did make it tiny and grey for you.
I got rid of the zebra lining, but then it was too visually confusing to see where things start and stop, so I added a thin grey line between forum submissions and link submissions.
You might have to shift-reload to get the new style sheet that has the thin grey lines.
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Much better looks great.
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I voted, it works. Now I feel less stoopid
And I like the new changes better then the old changes
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I guess it still isn't obvious that you can sort the links by "Best" (votes) or "New". Not sure how to make that clearer.
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yay! looks much better !
thanks patrick !
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Jeeez, I really do not WANT to complain about the hard work and creative efforts of our great leader, Patrick, but I'm not all that happy with the direction in which the whole layout and organization of the website is going.
I we go back to May 1 or so, I was pretty happy, although longing for the good old days when there were not so many junk threads.
But the recent layout changes really do not work well for me. Can we roll back to May 1 (uncertain about the date, but circa) pleeeeze.
To be specific, some of the incremental changes that are really bugging me:
The latest-active-post-list on the front page has turned into a popularity or activity contest. Not good for quality. There is no longer an editorial emphasis, now the pseudo-random whims of users rule. Would like to see back the forum list with thread sublists. The front page looks like it has been generated by a random number generator and not by an editor, to put in another way.
A second change is the "separating lines" between items. Hard on the eyes, if you ask me. I liked the old way, larger fonts, more spacing, whatever the trick was. I know it when I see it!
I think choosing quality over quantity is the best recipe. Now when I look at the front page there is so much random junk that it turns me off from reading ANY of it, to be quite frank.
With many heartfelt thanks from a long-time reader, and with no ill will to the great founder of the website.
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I really appreciate the feedback. The new format is also the result of feedback! Hard to know which advice to follow.
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Thanks, Patrick.
I think one way of gauging the feedback would be to have a poll page where there are multiple selections that include "don't change anything" and "please go back to revision N.N". Maybe even a way to rank your preferences.
I guess my point is that there is ALWAYS some squeaky wheel that wants to try something or other that is different. The problem is that there is no way of knowing how many people are happy just they way things are, without asking them first, or else getting the feedback AFTER the fact (which means a speculative work effort)
Do you have screenshots of older revisions? Those would be handy for creating a gallery that people could refer to in a poll. If you had that you would be way ahead of Facebook. They just change things (timeline comes to mind) and never mind the users.
I realize all this is just more work work and work. But a simple 4-question poll could be a good starting point (classic 2006 was better, May 1 was better, June 11 is better, June 11 is better but needs more changes).
Maybe also a poll on the various layout and non-layout features that have been added over time (pictures/avatars, location, friending, new forums, thread watch, like/dislike posts, like/dislike email notification, 1-col or 2-col subforum layout, etc etc).
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Patrick,
Doesn't matter what you do, I'll bitch about it. I'm an American it's all about ME.
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It took a while before you got the post page to where it was a hit.
i.e. the page we're on now.
I remember when you first went from the open source forum posting style to the direction where it is now, it was a hard read as well. But you tweaked it until I couldn't imagine it the other way now.