Community site skin alternatives
On the home page which categories of articles go in to the various positions on the central page:
Are there any categories which would never appear in the central column and which you'd only find by browsing the category/sub-category?
- Top story
- Four column latest news
- List of posts below the four columns
Are there any categories which would never appear in the central column and which you'd only find by browsing the category/sub-category?
Tssshhh!
Quote from: Kelly (and you are all my lab rats!)
Missed out the chance for an evil laugh there Mr D!
Mwuah Ha ha.
~~~
I prefer the more muted appearance of the Purple, followed closely by the Gold,
The layout seems functional, and I didn't really notice it - when I do notice layouts its generally through frustration/confusion, so thats probably a good thing!
I still don't see the point of the tag cloud - might be what all the 2.0 kids are doin', but frankly I find them a bit of a waste - glad its at the bottom out of the way if it has to stay.
Roll on widgets!
Quote from: Kelly The rest is visible by navigating the sub cats. So, to see a post like Tam's Error Message Usability Post you'd be clicking into Web Technology.
Does that make any sense?
Yes - and it's what I was worried about. I kept stumbling on blog posts on the current site that were made some time previously (in one case it was several weeks) which I hadn't seen because they never appeared on the front page. Only by chance did I find them when browsing the various blogs. I said "kept" in the past tense because I have solved this by subscribing to the RSS feeds - the fact that I had to take this approach proves that the site itself had failed.
Now, what to do about it? Do you have any stats on the number of people who click through Popular Blog Posts? I never have and wonder if replacing that with a title list in the same format of the last 10 (or more?) blog posts from all categories. That would mean that every blog post made would for some time have visibility on the front page. If possible (and I'll repeat what I've said several times before) there should only be one EOD in the list. Alternatively it could be called "Other recent blog posts" and only show posts which have not appeared in the central column.
Heh. 
This is exactly the problem we are trying to solve. We are generating too much content to have it all go on the front page. Firstly you'd miss stuff and it prevents good indexing of our content. So, we are trying to make the categories work for us, by making it obvious that there is more content that you need to browse too. Look at http://news.bbc.co.uk as an example. Their categories on the left are doing job of our categories.
RSS is great for getting around this. You'd be able to subscribe to all the blogs, or individual categories and therefore never miss anything in them.
This is exactly the problem we are trying to solve. We are generating too much content to have it all go on the front page. Firstly you'd miss stuff and it prevents good indexing of our content. So, we are trying to make the categories work for us, by making it obvious that there is more content that you need to browse too. Look at http://news.bbc.co.uk as an example. Their categories on the left are doing job of our categories.
RSS is great for getting around this. You'd be able to subscribe to all the blogs, or individual categories and therefore never miss anything in them.
Do you not think the logos with the links to the portal should be more prominent? Could they go to the top of the column?
Quote from: Kelly
Quote from: James_H Roll on widgets!
What for?
So I can delete stuff I don't care about from the page
I support offering lots of stuff, since we all have different interests - doesn't mean I want to take everything thats offered though.
Quote from: Kelly This is exactly the problem we are trying to solve. We are generating too much content to have it all go on the front page. Firstly you'd miss stuff and it prevents good indexing of our content. So, we are trying to make the categories work for us, by making it obvious that there is more content that you need to browse too. Look at http://news.bbc.co.uk as an example. Their categories on the left are doing job of our categories.
There is a big difference. On the BBC site under say Technology there will usually be couple of new stories each day, so if I am interested in that area I would probably visit there each day to check. In your categories there will be some which will probably on get one new posts a week (if that). People will stop checking in there if they go days at a time without finding anything new.
What I am suggesting minimises the real estate on the front page (in fact what I have suggested (replacing Popular with recent) means no increase), but means that you don't have to visit every one of the categories on the off-chance that something new has appeared.
Quote from: Kelly RSS is great for getting around this. You'd be able to subscribe to all the blogs, or individual categories and therefore never miss anything in them.
I agree RSS is great for this - but what percentage of your users know how to use RSS, or have a proper RSS reader installed? (and I bet a significant proportion of Firefox users don't know about that feature). Dave et al put out some excellent stuff and I'd hate to think it doesn't get the visibility it deserves.
Actually, if you want to do it with just the category list, here's a challenge for you:
Using our logged in name in the community site, keep track of which posts we have read and then show the number of unread posts in each category in brackets after the name. When we expand a category show the numbers within each sub-category.
Using our logged in name in the community site, keep track of which posts we have read and then show the number of unread posts in each category in brackets after the name. When we expand a category show the numbers within each sub-category.
Quote from: jelv Do you not think the logos with the links to the portal should be more prominent? Could they go to the top of the column?
I'm not 100% happy with the shape of that left column. I feel that the things in it are a little 'stuck on' feeling. Chris is going to look at that.
I've just had a chat with Jonny about the logos. They are there for 2 reasons:
1) Because the community requested a link back to the portal so they could administer their account.
2) Because people like to remember their roots. Loads of you have force9 etc in your signatures and these logos are there to pay tribute to that.
Now, 1) doesn't actually work very well, as the links are just taking you to the f9 front page, which isn't all that useful any more. I think we need to solve this before we worry about their location. I've proposed that the links for f9 and FOL link through to a history page on www.plus.net about those vISPs, with a login box to allow you to log in to the PlusNet member centre to administer your account. Thoughts?
Quote from: James_H
So I can delete stuff I don't care about from the page
I support offering lots of stuff, since we all have different interests - doesn't mean I want to take everything thats offered though.
Oh! I get you. Yes, good idea. I'll think about it.
Quote from: jelv There is a big difference. On the BBC site under say Technology there will usually be couple of new stories each day, so if I am interested in that area I would probably visit there each day to check. In your categories there will be some which will probably on get one new posts a week (if that). People will stop checking in there if they go days at a time without finding anything new.
What I am suggesting minimises the real estate on the front page (in fact what I have suggested (replacing Popular with recent) means no increase), but means that you don't have to visit every one of the categories on the off-chance that something new has appeared.
So, do you think all the blog posts should appear on the front page at some point? This has been debated quite a bit internally. I felt like that at first, but I think that with the amount of content we are putting out now, it will mean it will actualyl be harder to see stuff.
Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea? Too much content for the front page, not enough for the bbc categories style?
Replacing popular with recently blog posts has been talking about. I think we probably should do that.
Either way, proper categorisation should help with findabiilty of articles? Do you agree with that?
Quote from: jelv Actually, if you want to do it with just the category list, here's a challenge for you:
Using our logged in name in the community site, keep track of which posts we have read and then show the number of unread posts in each category in brackets after the name. When we expand a category show the numbers within each sub-category.
I'll get Colin thinking about that again. Perhaps we could write a plugin for it for Wordpress. That would be my idea solution really and I did throw it around a bit, but it seems like it might be a lot of work for something that we could solve with decent categorisation?
Quote from: Kelly So, do you think all the blog posts should appear on the front page at some point? This has been debated quite a bit internally. I felt like that at first, but I think that with the amount of content we are putting out now, it will mean it will actualyl be harder to see stuff.
Yes I do - but for many articles it will be just a single line appearance in the Recent Posts list formatted like the attached. I do not think every post should be featured in the central column.
Quote from: Kelly Either way, proper categorisation should help with findabiilty of articles? Do you agree with that?
Yes - it has been a bit of a dog's breakfast up until now!
vISP logos:
Most people would be wanting to go to the portal to do something on their account and many of those will have auto-login enabled, so the most useful link would be to portal.plus.net.
Are enough people logged in to the Community site such that if logged in it links to portal and if not it links to www?
Most people would be wanting to go to the portal to do something on their account and many of those will have auto-login enabled, so the most useful link would be to portal.plus.net.
Are enough people logged in to the Community site such that if logged in it links to portal and if not it links to www?
Quote from: shutter
Quote from: jelv Shouldn't we be commenting more on the layout, content etc. rather than just concentrating on a minor tweak like the colours?
So what is your comment on the layout, content etc., then...... start us off...
I've done that - but I don't see many other people contributing
