Welcome to the New & Improved League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Since its inception, there have been two constants at the League: Change and Growth.  Today is no different.

As many of our regular readers know, over the past six months we’ve been having substantial ongoing conversations about redesigning and rebranding the League’s web presence. Throughout this process, every new idea floated has been vetted by a single, purposeful question:

How might we take the best parts of the League and make them more accessible, more potable, and more easily digestible to those Internet readers who are not already regular page-viewers?

And after six months of consideration, market research and reader feedback we are proud to announce the New and Improved League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

As you can see, we’ve substantially changed the site’s appearance and navigational structure. Beta testing has been going on for some weeks now, and we’re confident that we’ve worked out most of the bugs.

Aside from the obvious adjustments, we’d like to highlight a few other, subtler changes to the site’s direction and content (although we’ll understand if you can’t wait to go clicking around on a tour! Go ahead. We’ll be right here when you get back!):

1.  Over the past few years, one piece of critical feedback has drowned out all others. In emails, comments, and through social media, readers spoke with one voice: “The posts are too heavy and too long!” Many of you found the old site’s tone too “professorial,” “philosophical,” “esoteric,” “self-involved,” and even (only one of you) “full of people far too impressed by quotidian things—like their own families.”

Our Response: We hear you! Starting today, our new motto is: Short + Funny + Punchy = VIRAL! In a word, we’re gonna make posts much more “tweetable.”

2. While most of you appreciate the League’s commitment to civility, many readers also want a more aggressive, competitive ethos amongst the writers.

Our Response: We’re implementing a relegation-style system modeled on European soccer leagues. HERE’S HOW IT’S GOING TO WORK!!! You can “vote” for a piece in three different ways:

1. “Like” it using the Facebook “like” button. Cool? Cool.
2. Tweet the link (it will be recorded in the box on the upper-right of the post)
3. Comment the following: “THIS POST WAS O.G., DUDE!”

**Note**: Post those words and only those words in a comment of their own. Our vote tallying algorithm won’t count this phrase if it’s part of a longer comment. (Feel free to comment again with other feedback, though!)

And that’s it! At the end of each month we’ll tally the votes and bump the three lowest vote-getters down to various sub-blogs (where they’ll have to toil for votes in order to regain their front page privileges).

But there’s more! In the weeks to come we’ll be adding other cool new features to make the league even more fun, like “Easter Eggs,” commenter prizes, GIFs of the day, a “Just for Teens” section, and much more! Stay tuned!

So: thanks to everyone who provided feedback (keep it coming)! Enjoy the site’s snazzy new look and our new editorial tone.