Changes to moderators' notes

[#1]

Good afternoon all,
After a brisk discussion, the moderators have decided to implement two changes to how we present moderators' notes. The changes are:

• Using orange (dark orange to be precise) instead of blue; and


• Increasing the font size by 1 point.

We've decided to make the changes for a couple of reasons. The colour change has arisen because we realised that it wasn't perhaps entirely clear whether blue was 'worse' than green or vice-versa; moving to orange rather than blue will therefore be clearer as it follows a more traditional 'traffic light' system. (For anyone wondering, whilst I'm not entirely certain, I believe the reason blue was chosen years ago is because it was when orange was one of Plusnet's main colours. Orange therefore featured quite heavily in the forum theme of the time, which would have made similarly coloured notes rather unnoticeable.)
As for the size, well, we have a couple of older users on our moderating team who raised the issue that 7-point notes could be quite difficult to see, so we're moving things up to 8-points in order to increase visibility for everyone.
We hope you all find these changes useful (albeit perhaps not entirely life-changing); if anyone has any questions/comments please let us know in this thread.
Thanks.
Edit: corrected poor wording.

[#2]

I am sure you can guess who one of the older moderators is 

[#3]

If Moderators notes are intended to be read than I would say even 8 point is too small, although I do prefer the orange rather than blue.

7 point
8 point
10 point
12 point

[#4]

They are intended to be read, but at the same time we don't want them stealing the focus away from the posts' contents. That's why we went for bright colours but a small size many years ago - so their presence would be very noticeable, but they wouldn't seem as though they're trying to 'take over' the post to which they are attached.
P.S. the colour we're using is 'darkorange', not just 'orange', so moderators' notes would appear in a darker shade than shown in your post Spider.

[#5]

The idea of the small text is to differentiate it from normal posts.
For example if someone posts in green
[Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim)  it could be even more confusing if it was the same size ]

[#6]

Had you thought of also using the [hr] tag? E.g.
For example if someone posts in green

---

[Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim)  it could be even more confusing if it was the same size ]

---

[#7]

I did experiment with it, but wasn't too keen so didn't suggest it - the deep black lines were too attention-grabbing in my opinion. If the appearance had been the more restrained look from phpBB it might've worked quite well.

[#8]

Quote from: Be3G

... P.S. the colour we're using is 'darkorange', not just 'orange', so moderators' notes would appear in a darker shade than shown in your post Spider.

My mistake. Picked on the only orange showing in the drop down list.
Dark Orange
Orange

A suitable but noticeable difference as well as being clearer at 8 point. Although I still prefer 10 point if the note is short enough it won't  as it won't distract from the original. Just my view.

Quote from: Oldjim

The idea of the small text is to differentiate it from normal posts. For example if someone posts in green [Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim)  it could be even more confusing if it was the same size ]

A valid point except Dark Orange is not on the drop down colour list so some one as to particularly choose that colour to use. This is the same as me deciding to post in 8 point. The simple solution is a slight Forum Rule change that restricts the use of Dark Orange to Moderators only.

[#9]

Did anyone ever look at http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2104