Question So.... It's been two weeks.....

It's really nice so far.
Changing a few things like having two columns instead of three, finding a good way to make it more mobile friendly, and getting a live chat in would be nice, but those are definitely things to try out further down the road.
For just two weeks, I'm quite happy and if we had the smilie, I'd be clapping or tipping my hat to you guys, so instead I'll just smile.

Also something to consider is a donations box, I'd be willing to chip in a few bucks a month.

Not bad, by me. Its got its moments in that I consider it a work in progress for now as some minor kinks are worked out.

In the mail I would think a listing of names would be available for when you compose as opposed to having to remember the name you want to send it to. Also the idea of having a list of frequently used names would be helpful. But I'm not sure if that's possible or its just not been worked on yet.

Of course I could think of other things later or, but overall I would say that it looks good given the amount of time you had from the previous one. A very admirable job.

I'm getting used to it. It's certainly different. Some features of the old forum I was used to I'm having to relearn. The forum integrates better with the rest of the site, which is certainly a plus. Going forward, I think this might eventually allow canon authors to post stories themselves without the need for hand-tweaking by the admin, which is a huge plus. Better ways to post fanfic, another plus.

There are growing pains, to be sure. The "you logged on too many times today" warning is one -- I'm changing my usage pattern to avoid that (fewer, longer sessions as opposed to having a glance several times per day). And I expect the number of messages (and time spent on the site) will settle down a bit after the repressed demand is satiated, so the site won't suck as many hours from my day.

I'm still learning the new UI. Some stuff I'm having to relearn, some I'm having to figure out the best way to do under the new system. I hope you guys figure a way to import the old posts, or at least to make them available in a read-only form for historical purposes. There's lots of good stuff there.

I agree with Sir Lee about the required change in usage patterns, I think I will hold off on saying how fanfic is handled is better until we see how the transition from the working version to actual published fanfic goes.

It is a pain losing so much history, but given that apparently someone decided that they hated the old site or possibly it just became too unstable (it looked an awful lot like the result of a cracker attacking the site to me) that may have been unavoidable. I hope that more of the older fanfics will get reposted though.

The injected phishing page was a dead give-a-way

I kind of miss the options from the old site for going through the stories, but that is minor.

I'm still puzzled at the ads everyone is mentioning, since I have yet to see a single one, not even a content box for them showing.

I still find myself wondering why no site uses a fixed header to display site navigation, it is an easy css and html div setup. I know I have a couple versions of the css, one with 3 columns that can Individually scroll, fixed header and footer that are always on screen.

The site is nice and modern. One thing I would request (not knowing if it can be done) but some forum software has A/B or row 1/row 2 striping on messages (the background of the first message is, say, white, the second message background is a pale gray, and those backgrounds alternate) which makes it easier to see where each message starts and ends. Yes, it's extremely minor. But it does make the individual messages in the forums easier to read.

that is a simple fix, add to the css different background colours for the table used to display the forum

I see everything which has been done in two weeks and think it is amazing. You [everyone working on the site] have provided a place for Whateley fans to once again safely communicate with each other and share in our enjoyment, a true community. Something which I hadn't been part of for a long time and dearly needed more than I knew. So thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I can't wait to see what else you bring us.

Kristin Darken wrote:

Dawnfyre wrote: that is a simple fix, add to the css different background colours for the table used to display the forum

People keep saying "simple fix" .. all I can say is... the site's main CSS file is over 9000 lines. And in many cases, what seems like it would be 'simple'... will cascade through 90% of the content without far more details restrictions that also require changing the templates or the site code. While that is ultimately doable... it is not, by any means, simple.

Simple is defined by those that have never seen the inner workings of an engine yet know that its the dohicky as well as the thinofamaybob that is giving it the trouble so sure in the resolution as the mechanic starts charging extra wanting to give them the extra wack that they surely say will fix the problem. Me. I'll leave it to the experts.

Gonna get in trouble for this i'm sure.

As Ayla put it so succinctly - "The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference".

Kristin Darken wrote:

Dawnfyre wrote: that is a simple fix, add to the css different background colours for the table used to display the forum

People keep saying "simple fix" .. all I can say is... the site's main CSS file is over 9000 lines. And in many cases, what seems like it would be 'simple'... will cascade through 90% of the content without far more details restrictions that also require changing the templates or the site code. While that is ultimately doable... it is not, by any means, simple.

not my fault the site scripts devs don't really know how to code clear/clean css, not many site scripts have good css.
I took a 12k line css and reworked it, maintained the exact same functionality, yet it was only 500 lines after I finished.

reading the css files from cssplay.com taught me a whole lot of stuff that cleans up css.

Hey it's doing great.

Things to work on, functionality to add, sure. But for the moment the main one have workarounds and aren't deal breakers anyway.

It works. I miss some of the navigation options, but I'm willing to wait for their equivalents, patiently, for months if necessary. The site working is the most important thing so far. Don't work yourselves too hard for this, you all have time.

Isn't it funny how times have changed? At one time we were patient to wait days if not weeks for something and now if its not done within hours we think nothing is being done.

Deal with bureaucracy for a while and even people of today's generation learns patience.

My kneejerk reaction involves a little bit of "I don't like it". That said, I can see how more cohesion between the forums and stories can be a good thing, along with the increased control and authority available to Kristin and co. The planned ideas for finished fanfics and such down the line sounds great, too.

So while I like it less right off the bat, I'm sure it won't be long before I like it more than the old site. At the very least, it's great having a functional area to congregate again.

I like it (so far) - it's pretty easy to use, everything's arranged coherently, and we no longer have the giant emoticons which were out of keeping with the rest ( )
There are also several new features, e.g. the "Thank you" button, the post count based user levels (1+ = newbie, 40+ = fan, 100+ = veteran, 200+ = expert - no doubt as people post more, we'll discover more ) and even a bunch of new post options (although how many are likely to post links to eBay or Twitter is debateable!)

As for ads, I'm just seeing one, located in the left pane of the site design (probably from Google), offering an eclectic range (so goodness knows what their profile of me is like!): while I've been reading this thread, I've been offered ads for: University of Glasgow, Napapijri Autumn/Winter 2015 collection (who?!), GMail for Work, Chinese Women Date, Charm Date, University of the West of England and Speedy Fuels Lubricants (a London based red diesel fuel supplier, apparently).

mittfh wrote: I like it (so far) - it's pretty easy to use, everything's arranged coherently, and we no longer have the giant emoticons which were out of keeping with the rest ( )

Hey!! I MISS my giant EVIL and TWISTED emoticons

I'm sure that the offensive ads are geared to most common key words that don't have anything to do with the actual ad itself. It brings in revenue to them, if I understand some of the purposes. Ad clicking and so forth for the unscrupulous ones. I get many that (hence why I block them all).

The site is up, which is amazing. The only real thing that I don't like is the color scheme. I've been on SV and SB a lot while the Hall was down, and I admit, the darker background makes things nicer on the eyeballs.

Also, why the renaming of the boards? It makes it a bit harder for people used to the old forums to find our way around. I realize that makes me sound like an old man, but still.

Get off my lawn!

Just looked at the HTML. Looks like forum comments are not table rows and they do not have even/odd classes attached to the DIVs. So I was wrong. A/B coloring would not be possible unless code was added to the forum code.

Kristin Darken wrote: Ya. But I might be able to do something with the post borders that give them a bit more separation.

or post title background

I like it. And no, it's not because I haven't been able to log into the forums for the last two or three years. I was still able to read them. That was what really mattered. While I had some slight navigation problems, everything flows easily for me. I'm keeping in mind that adjustments are being made.

Is there a "Mark all posts read" button?

Yes there is.
Click on the green head on the right of the screen that shows your messages, status, etc, and second from the bottom is "Mark all Read".
That does it.

Kristin Darken wrote: How's this for instance? A little more floaty distance on the post borders. Amazing how much difference that little change made in post separation

I like it. The posts look like individual cards/sheets of paper now. I might swipe the effect for letters and similar BLOCKQUOTEs in my personal stylesheets...

So,

Do we know the costs of running our own site yet? Are we any closer to getting methods of donating to the costs?

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: So,

Do we know the costs of running our own site yet? Are we any closer to getting methods of donating to the costs?

We won't have to worry about costs. Prince M'Benga from an African country is going to donate half of what he's trying to get out of his country before his family falls in a revolution, so we'll help him transfer the money and we'll be set for years

(And for you humor-impaired, that's a JOKE, son. Get it? A joke!)

elrodw wrote:

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: So,

Do we know the costs of running our own site yet? Are we any closer to getting methods of donating to the costs?

We won't have to worry about costs. Prince M'Benga from an African country is going to donate half of what he's trying to get out of his country before his family falls in a revolution, so we'll help him transfer the money and we'll be set for years

(And for you humor-impaired, that's a JOKE, son. Get it? A joke!)

Good news indeed, Mr. Leghorn. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Wow, I didn't realise the ads would actually cover the costs, I assumed they where only offsetting them and people where still reaching into their pockets to cover the rest.

You get enough clicks and ad revenue can really add up. Start selling ad space and if you get the right ads in there the money will start rolling in.

I still have yet to see an ad you know

I completely disabled adblock+ for the site and still nothing showing for them.
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0 SeaMonkey/2.38 so it should be working ifthey show in firesux. [ bad user interface with that browser so will never use it. ]

Dawnfyre wrote: I still have yet to see an ad you know

I completely disabled adblock+ for the site and still nothing showing for them.
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0 SeaMonkey/2.38 so it should be working ifthey show in firesux. [ bad user interface with that browser so will never use it. ]

The ads I see are very odd. Sometimes they are for sites I shop at regularly, when I remember I come here to see if they will pop up and I can click through. Sometimes they seem triggered by content, the Roulette thread had a "concealed carry" ad, this one has an ad for web hosting. Other times they seem like they are triggered either randomly or by what other users are looking at. (Trust me, I am not looking for Asian girls.) I haven't seen any obvious "porn" ads.

I've seen the "Date Asian/Chinese/etc girls" ads too. Other than that, they're pretty generic (Right now I'm seeing Farmers Insurance and Home Depot. I'm not sure if it's possible to be more generic than that), with the occasional targeted ad thrown in.

I personally would have zero problems with adding a third ad banner. Banner ads are easy to ignore.

Bottom ad for Edge Pistons...eh, okay.

Side ad for Saks Fifth Avenue...

Guess the adds really do run the gamut...

It appears that the auto-update feature is working properly, with the post occurring at the correct time, which is a small reason for celebration.

Are all the stories going to be released on Mondays, or do you plan on staggering the releases throughout the week?

Will each be annotated as to being G1, G2 and FF? Or in G1's and G2's case will re rely on the dates in the story?

Never mind. I missed (as usual) the Content filter. Stupid A.D.D.. Eyes scan too fast.

While I don't use addblock+, I use Firefox with an extension called 'NoScript', which selectively disables scripts, plugins and anything else that might slow the browser down - or be a vector for a drive-by download. Admittedly, it causes problems for various sites but I'm used to dealing with it. For me to see the google adds, I need to have scripts enabled for whateleyadacemy.net, pagead2.googlesyndication.com (for the sidebar ad) and tpc.googlesyndication.com (for the footer ad).

Hope this is of interest.

On the ads front, I'm getting two on the forums: one to the side and one on the bottom. Google like advertising themselves (GMail for Work crops up quite a lot), while today I've seen a couple of "Publisher seeks writers" ads( rather appropriate, but if they're having to rely on ads to scout writers...), while now I've got an ad for a MINI garage in Aberdeen (yeah, right, as if I'm going to spend 7½ hours driving 440 miles North to book a test drive!)

Meanwhile, that's an interesting pricing structure - unsurprisingly, the bulk of the costs are for hosting, but then they add a pittance for the volume of traffic from the various regions outside North America...