The New Look
Posted: June 25th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 55 Comments »
OK, so here’s the deal. Obviously I’m working on the look of this blog. There are important reasons for this move that I cannot divulge at the present time.*
Unfortunately …
1. I have no idea what I’m doing.
2. I have no idea how to not know what I’m doing behind a wall … so this is like a spectator sport, you can watch my stupidity at work. Just keep hitting refresh on your computer and whammo, see my next mistake.
3. I have no idea what I’m doing.
If you would like to keep posting your various complaints about the site, that would be great because I really am trying to fix the bugs and problems. I have made a little progress, maybe. For one thing, I have added a widget there on the sidebar that will allow you to change the size of the type — so if you want it bigger (or smaller) I guess, you can just click on one of the As.
I’m also trying to play around with the comments section so that it can be numbered again … I’m not having much luck with that. I did try briefly a new comments thing which would have allowed people to directly comment on other people’s comments. But I hated it, and it’s gone. I’m still working on this. I’ll try to get rid of the crosshatch thing on the comments too … don’t know how to do that.
I’ve tried to darken the polls so it’s easier to read, hope that worked.
I’ve tried to pump up the font size a little bit, hope that worked as well.
And I’m working on adding more photos and graphics and stuff like that. Well, my wife is working on that. She’s the visual one.
And … we’ll see if we can get this thing working well enough.
*There aren’t really important reasons I cannot divulge about the new look, but it sounded good.
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much better now with the images
I like the new look. Miss the old functionality of being able to click to the next post though. It’d be sweet if you could get that back.
Joe – I love that you try stuff, make mistakes and keep plowing along. Makes you more like the rest of us instead of the super-star sportswriter author we know you are!
I like the new look and the number comments is really the only thing I like that’s missing.
Plus the time of the comment post would be cool, too.
Looks great – except for one thing: my own preference is that posts appear in full, and don’t need to be clicked on to read them all.
Looks good!
I’m with McKingford–rather load one long page of full posts (not like text takes huge amounts of time to download onto my DOS machine over its 2400-baud modem, ya know?). That said, if there were a link to navigate from one full article back or forward without going back to the main page each time, it would be a good compromise.
But really, Joe, it’s about the writing. Otherwise, why would this lifelong Californian with no particular affinity for the Royals (save a lingering childhood thing for Freddie Patek) keep coming back?
I echo CP. I don’t really care what the look is as long as the writing is legible and as good as it usually is. I mean, I don’t come here because Joe Posnanski is the best website designer in America.
I liked the previous theme (with the books) better. I tend to like simplicity and serif fonts for reading. In terms of colors, if it’s not text or a picture (not too many of these, please) or a video (ditto), it probably ought to be white.
Disclosure: I read via Google Reader (thanks for the full text feeds!), and thusly only ever visit the site to comment. Mostly
Regarding the new poll: Hubie Brown should be listed as an option. He’s my favorite.
In one word, sexy…
only thing that really bothers me is the cross-hatch on the alternate comments – because it makes it tough to read.
honestly, if it’s fun keep going, otherwise, remember it’s a tool and if it doesn’t make your life more fun/interesting/easy, then get another one, and ignore the peanut gallery.
Yeah I noticed suddenly that the thing I was complaining about had fixed itself when I hit refresh. I much prefer the top to bottom reading of the comments thread, because then it has a more natural flow to it, and you can see several people talking to each other about the same subject.
Losing the Reply button under every poster is definitely appreciated, since if you can’t actually directly reply, there doesn’t seem to be much of a use for it.
The look itself is pretty cool, I like the sort of futuristic you-will-be-assimilated-human-#6,289,345,211 idea to it. Like we’re all just human drones plugged into this massive network without any free will whatsoever. It kind of has that vibe to it.
I’d really like the previous post and next post links back, because it made it much, much easier to navigate.
And I’d REALLLLLLLLY like to see a “quote” functionality in the comments thread, so you can quote what someone said without actually having to copy/paste it and put it between some ” “.
But it’s much MUCH better now than it was two hours ago
More echo – it’s always been about the writing.
Just keep writing, don’t let the design concern you too much. I don’t come here for the pretty pictures.
Looks great, but I agree with Caryn and suggest the following fix.
Comment backgrounds alternating blank-argyle-blank-hounds tooth-argyle-Nick Nolte mug shot-blank.
How is Jaws winning this? Here’s a drinking game that works better than AA – drink every time Jaworski says “I’m not quite sure”, “I don’t know”, “could go either way”, “it’s complicated” or anything similar. Conversely, if you want to pull a Leaving Las Vegas, drink a shot every time Jaws says “Of course” or “Absolutely not”.
I just wish he would talk like a normal human being sometimes, and not always be this character he seems to be trapped in. Can you imagine how annoying that would be for his kids if he’s always like this? “…you *will* clean your room … *because* I’m Ron Jaworski … … … and I’m your father.
I’m also a fan of being able to click to the next post, or have them listed consecutively on the same page, without having to go back to the main site.
But I’m not really complaining.
As Al Davis might have said: “Just write, baby!”
I do not care one way or another about the appearance of the blog.
“…for reasons that cannot be disclosed..” was very Gleeman-like.
Jaws used to be good before he was paired with Kornheiser.
Thumbs up on the new look.
“you *will* clean your room … *because* I’m Ron Jaworski … … … and I’m your father.”
That’s not true! That’s impossible!
Search your feelings, you KNOW it to be true!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
I couldn’t help myself.
And by the way, at the top the words “Bruce” and “Cleveland” are placed next to each other, which is funny (probably only to me), because I know an experimental physicist named Bruce Cleveland in Canada.
Man, you say you don’t know what you’re doing and yet I messed around with the “Massive News” theme myself last night and didn’t get anywhere. Couldn’t disable the news carousel as you’ve done, for starters, and couldn’t customize links. I think I may somehow lost a portion of the control panel, but still. It’s not a theme for beginners and yet I hate you a little bit today because you pulled it off so nicely. Get bent, you bastard.
I mean that lovingly.
If Joe wants to be more Gleeman-like, he’ll need an Official Fantasy Girl of JoeBlog. I’m sure his wife would just love that, especially since she’s in charge of the photos and graphics with the site.
While selecting the best color commentator may be interesting, I’d think it’d be a lot more fun to discuss the worst. Being from Cleveland, I wonder what your opinion of Mudcat Grant’s commentating might be. I only ask as during the early 1970’s I couldn’t understand the majority of what the man said during an Indians broadcast.
I think this blog should change its look ala how the late 1970s and early 1980s Pirates used to mix and match with their unis. One day they’d be in all yellow, the next in yellow jersey and black pants, then white jersey and white pants, next would come a black jersey with yellow pants, etc etc.
By the way, here’s an awesome story about J.P. Riccardi seemingly being called by a crank caller that said he was Adam Dunn. This is too funny.
http://www.thermocaster.com/2008/06/25/is-howard-sterns-minions-calling-the-toronto-blue-jays/
Here’s what wikipedia says about the 1979 World Series.
The Pirates wore four different uniform combinations during the series:
gold cap, black jersey and gold pants for Games 1 & 5
black cap, gold jersey and black pants for Games 2, 6 & 7
black cap and solid white pinstriped uniform for Game 3
black cap and solid gold uniform for Game 4.
Search box is broken… usually when you click on the search box, it highlights or deletes the text that says “Type Here to Search…”, and then you can happily enter your search term. On your site, it doesn’t do either of those things, so you’re left to manually delete “Type Here to Search…”. If you forget, and just click and start typing, you end up with something like “Type Here tpozcarso Search…” which doesn’t yield (m)any hits.
If you make the font huge you can scoll down and act like you are reading from a tele-prompter. Yeah, it doesn’t take much to amuse me on a workday Wednesday.
The posts on the front page aren’t formatted which makes them hard to read.
As I told the eye doctor: “Worse.”
The poll entries are blurry as all hell, btw.
Joe, most people read you through Google Reader or something like that anyway, so quit messing with the blog and get back to writing your book so we can enjoy more of your great columns!
The blog’s pretty good too though. Maybe just write more posts.
I think this is a great idea and can’t wait to keep reading your new posts!
I just want to know who’s voting for Van Gundy (good job Stan). It’s his family right? ‘Cause he’s the worst basketball talking head in the game today. He tries so desperately to be colorful and to verbally spar with Mark Jackson, and he fails miserably. In the very *very* rare moments where he actually talks about the X’s and O’s of basketball, he’s decent. But alas he’s constantly trying to be witty and clever on the mic, and he is brutally bad at it. Van Gundy is so bad, I’d rather listen to Bill Walton. I’m gonna say this again, just to emphasize how much I think Van Gundy is a terrible commentator.
I’d. Rather. Listen. To. Bill. Walton.
FYI – I just signed into Amazon to see where my Wii is and the banner said: “Latest from Your Favorite Authors, Including Joe Posnanski”
Have you got a book out? You should have said something.
I really like the way the article pages look, but I’m not a fan of the main page at all. Like some of the above posters, I prefer whole posts on the main page.
One way or the other, I love the content.
Proceed cautiously, Joe. Blog tweaking is like home improvement. Before you know it you’ve got three rooms down to bare studs, a second mortgage, and a wife with no place to tinkle threatening divorce.
Keep posting Joe, I love the blog no matter what it looks like!
About the poll, I have to agree that Hubie Brown need to be included. He’s the best basketball analyst and one of the best in all sports. I love how he explains the intricate details that the common fan doesn’t know.
Also, how did Tim McCarver get 43 votes? Really, 43 people like Tim McCarver!?! He’s terrible, even worse than Joe Morgan. At least Morgan says something sensible once an hour or so. I’ll bet his mother logged on 43 times and voted, just so he would have a few.
I love the new feature that allows me to choose the font size by clicking on one of the As. Thanks.
Regarding the poll, I agree with the others that Hubie Brown ought to be on it. And I’m baffled, along with Brad, at all the votes for Tim McCarver. I don’t care even if he loves the game. He’s awful.
Joe,
At the end of the day, I really don’t care what format you use for the blog – its safe to say I’ll be checking every day regardless. That said, I have a slight preference for the earlier one, but I do like the pictures and top logo more here. If there’s a way to add “previous/next” buttons, I’d like that, and I’ve always personally preferred just getting the full blog right up front, even if its half the front page, rather than 20 paragraphs that I have to click to actually read. At the end of the day, minor complaints though.
As for the questions above about McCarver and Morgan voters – I presume that many readers assumed a snarky, snide sort of intent (just by their simple inclusion at all), and voted accordingly…if anyone intentionally voted for them in a serious manner, I have to believe that they’ve decided to ignore the last 10-15 years and just go by what they remember from the “good old days”…(I have fond memories of Phil Rizzuto and Ralph Kiner calling games myself, but I don’t think I could objectively say today that they really were actually good or bad – it was something I didn’t even consider back then…)
I will echo everyone else’s comments-
Its all about the writing.
I hate having to click through.
I really liked the previous look. It just looked like a site that was/is all about the writing.
I love this site. There’s days we get silly (in a good way) sorts of posts, days we get random kind of posts, and then days like your column on Tiger Woods where I’m just blown away.
Random images before each post are just a distraction I ignore. Polls are fun though.
To pile on with the McCarver bashing: I just don’t see how people who read THIS BLOG–quite apparently intelligent and discriminating people–can vote, ironically or not, for that yo-yo. And that 69 people have voted for Joe Morgan. .. Let’s see, 43+69: that makes 112, by my count. I didn’t think there were that many people in the US, never mind who read this blog, who thought those guys were any good at all.
And Mary Carillo isn’t half bad, but I voted for McEnroe. He’s just awesome, and his commercials are good, too.
Dave B. — these polls are trivial — I’m sure people are having fun with ‘em. I almost voted for Joe Morgan myself, just for comedic purposes.
I personally love Joe Morgan’s announcing not because he says anything relevant (he doesn’t), or knows anything (he doesn’t), but because I love the sound and tone of his voice, and when I hear it in the background (that is, not really paying attention to the game or listening to the actual words Morgan is saying), it just sounds so good to my ears and reminds me of being a kid. That said, FJM’s rips on his announcing and commenting make me laugh out loud every time.
He’s a terrible announcer, but his voice is just so intoxicating. I felt the same way about Harold Baines and, of course, Madden+Summerall.
Not a fan of the crosshatching on the alternate comments. A light tint (10%) would be acceptable.
I’m always hoping to get my comments non-crosshatched…maybe if I wait around for a few minutes someone else will comment and I’ll get a clear one.
Being able to change font size is truly revolutionary. I just chose the largest font, though, and I think I saw maybe half of a word on the screen (had to scroll down to get the other half). Joe, your 88+-year-olds are gonna love it!
I like the new look, but Dan V. has a point. Also, the font on the poll for the person you voted for is a bit ugly. You can have it bold, or italicized, but not bold and italicized. Otherwise, good stuff!
Joe, if you’re having any design problems/questions you can e-mail me.
I’m gearing up to do this type of design crap for a living!
I do like the front page a lot better now though. Much more professional.
Joe – the only thing I miss is being able to click through from one post to the previous post.
Not all of us get to stop by and visit every day, and we like to read your posts in proper order. It isn’t as easy to do when you have to back up to the date page and click through.
“I just don’t see how people who read THIS BLOG–quite apparently intelligent and discriminating people–can vote, ironically or not, for that yo-yo”
Actually I did, for fun. Because in my opinion, NOBODY is taking this poll seriously if they vote for Ron Bleepin’ Jaworski. It’s not his fault he’s teamed up with a bunch of yoyos, but he definitely doesn’t bring ANYTHING to the table.
“Being able to change font size is truly revolutionary”
Hit CTRL + in Firefox? This has worked for years…
More text on the main page, please. I hate clicking through to read every single entry.
if you hate clicking through… get a RSS reader, and then come here to read the comments
At a glance, I’d say the biggest problem now is the crosshatch in the comments. It’s terrible, looks like the comment has been crossed out. Everything else looks fairly clean, self explanatory, easy to read, and easy to use.
for someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you do a pretty good job.
and for someone who “doesn’t know what he’s doing” you make yourself pretty vulnerable to critiques, which isn’t always easy. hat’s off to you.