Welcome to Ordinary Times 3.0

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

Related Post Roulette

79 Responses

  1. Will Truman says:

    Looks like the speed issue was indeed self-correcting.Report

  2. Marchmaine says:

    Oooh… like getting a new game or app… have to play with all the settings. Thanks for doing this.Report

  3. Chip Daniels says:

    I like the new look!Report

  4. greginak says:

    I have a years long tradition at this point of hating every new revamp of the site. So, since we have many traditionalists here, i’ll stick with that. Of course give it half a day and i wont’ be able to remember what the old site looked like. Thanks to all for all the hard work.Report

    • North in reply to greginak says:

      This. I’m in the same boat but I know better than to critique a site I make no contribution to beyond commenting. Thanks to everyone present and past who keeps the lights on around here.Report

  5. fillyjonk says:

    While I am totally in the Garth Elgar camp on things (“We fear change”), the new site does look good. Now let’s see if I can figure out how to navigate it…Report

  6. fillyjonk says:

    Ugh. Maybe I’m gonna have to figure out how to upload a photo or something for an avatar, because that deformed Patrick Star face I’m getting as the random avatar bugs me.Report

  7. Pinky says:

    They say you should deliver criticism in a compliment sandwich. I like the overall look, the thin grey text against a slightly lighter grey background is borderline unreadable, and I’m happy that the loading speed is improved.Report

  8. Burt Likko says:

    The new format really looks nice, contemporary, and slick. I’m getting no pixellation, no particular loadtime delays, and the ease of the new site is as strong as the old one. Getting something like this done was a goal I’d had for my own editorship and it was well beyond my own abilities — I am chuffed and proud and happy for you that you got this done. Three cheers for EIC Will Truman!Report

  9. Kolohe says:

    Thumbs up on the new look.

    edit to add – it does definitely seem faster too.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

      One interesting thing. the You May Also Like on each current post goes to a wide variety of posts from all eras.

      (one other thing I don’t know is easy or hard, a ‘remember me’ in the comment boxes may be useful?)Report

      • Will Truman in reply to Kolohe says:

        The EU passed some sort of reg that I think really disincentivizes remembering stuff. If it seems like a lot of websites have gotten bad about that lately, that’s why (WordPress in particular has gotten really bad. I seem to have to log in once every day or two now).

        There are plugins and such and I have my eye on one that would do this and a lot more. I can’t quite get it to work, though, and would need to raise the funds to buy it.Report

        • Yeah, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (often referred to as “the right to be forgotten”). It also includes their rule requiring sites in the EU or targeting residents of the EU to put up notices about the use of HTTP cookies. One of the consequences has been software that is used in the EU is starting to avoid any casual retention of data that could be considered personal information.Report

  10. Jaybird says:

    The new look is more aesthetic than the old one and the most important thing is that our management can manage it. That’s good.

    Recent comments is bustimicated, though.Report

  11. Michael Cain says:

    Okay, here’s an odd one… When hovering over the icon for the right sidebar, with the sidebar collapsed, the pop-up explanation says “Expand Sidebar”. With the sidebar expanded the icon changes appropriately, but the pop-up still says “Expand Sidebar”.Report

  12. Fish says:

    Site looks great, y’all.Report

  13. Stillwater says:

    The new design looks great but it’s broken. I can’t find Russell Saunder’s Oscars live stream anywhere.Report

  14. Looks great! Thanks all for everything you do.Report

  15. veronica d says:

    Do we need to use the “login” feature for anything?Report

  16. Jaybird says:

    HTML tags work if you’re including a link, but it doesn’t work for italics.

    testing for bold

    testing for blockquote

    Report

  17. Michael Cain says:

    CO2

    Doesn’t look like subscript tags survive. Would have been surprising if they had.Report

  18. dragonfrog says:

    I like the new look a lot. It looks good on desktop and is especially good on phone screens. The text and background colours & fonts are easy for me to read.

    One thing I liked about the old design was how easily you could track down what a comment was replying to, even when there were lots of comments between the two. Too soon to tell whether this will be the case in the new design. The thread here doesn’t have a lot of mini essays and counteressays…Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to dragonfrog says:

      Working on it. I’m a fan of CK’s comment boxes where you could pop up the full comment text, jump to the comment in context, jump to the comment it was in reply to in context, jump to the top of the post, or access the author’s comment archive. Making them play nice with the new theme is more work, on more levels, than I thought it would be. (That’s a criticism of me, not CK.)Report

    • Will Truman in reply to dragonfrog says:

      If there is one lost feature that I could get back, it would be this. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to get the universal Reply-To back, but it is among the highest priorities.Report

  19. pillsy says:

    This looks pretty rad.Report

  20. Michael Cain says:

    “Related Post Roulette” is a marvelous section heading.Report

  21. Slade the Leveller says:

    Like the new look. A couple of questions:

    1. Has the WYSIWYG comment box gone away?

    2. Same with being able to call out commenters with the @.Report

  22. Road Scholar says:

    I like the new look a lot in general. Not so crazy about the Commentariat section as opposed to the State of Discussion. In particular, there’s no indication of what a comment is in reply-to. I had gotten into a habit of mostly following convos via SoD and that doesn’t really work now.Report

    • Yeah, that’s by far the biggest loss. One of the reasons I brought Michael Cain in on this is I figured he would be one of the people most motivated to getting it working again. Seems like he’s making progress. So… I think we’ll get there.Report

      • Road Scholar in reply to Will Truman says:

        GTK. Not really related to the site redesign but something I’ve been wanting to ask about for some time now. You have the checkboxes for “Notify of new posts” and “Notify of follow-up comments”. The latter hasn’t worked for me for the last year or two. Did that get axed for bandwidth issues or some other reason or is it peculiar to me?Report

        • Does it present errors or just not deliver the emails?Report

          • Road Scholar in reply to Will Truman says:

            Just doesn’t deliver. I DO get emails for new posts.

            Update: While writing this comment I got a wild hair and went to the Subscription Management page and unfollowed all the old post comments pn the theory that I mau be over-subscribed. They went back to May of 2012, so now we know when I started interacting here. That would be about right when my wife was finishing chemo.Report

          • Road Scholar in reply to Will Truman says:

            Update2: Having screwed around with the WordPress comment subscription page I seem to have broken it completely (for me). Now I don’t get any notifications at all. I didn’t receive any New Post emails yesterday (2/26) despite making a couple comments and checking both boxes.Report

  23. J_A says:

    Possibly a question you have answered several times, but I loved the “Go to New Comments” feature/ That way I could follow the different subthreads without having to read every comment gain every time.

    If that is not possible to have, then perhaps chronological but numbered comments, like in Crooked Timber, might workReport

  24. It can take me a bit to get used to changes that I in fact like, so I waited a few days to see if my initial impressions were durable, or if just reactive. Reviewing the comments at this point, I think they are all positive, maybe with a quibble here or there.

    My reaction, both initial and considered, is that the overall effect of this layout is too busy and redundant. Three columns packed with information don’t give the eye any natural place to go. Additionally, post titles can appear in up to 4 different places at the same (not counting the comment section).

    At first all this made it all but impossible for my old, damaged brain to navigate. Now I have learned where to focus to filter out some of the extra information, but it is still difficult. It really is an access issue for me, and I suspect for other readers, both current and potential.

    I hope that as you continue to work on the site you will consider changes that produce a cleaner layout. Thanks for all you do here. I really value OT and hope I will be able to continue to participate.Report

  25. Anne says:

    Better late than never, I love the new site thanks for all your hard work Will and the editors behind the scenes. One thing every time I see “Commentareum” I suddenly have Metallica playing in my headReport