In our usual fashion, we've given AT a minor refresh this Sunday evening before the masses visit tomorrow morning. We've moved away from the beige into something a bit more blue/grey, just trying to stay neutral while updating the look a bit. You'll notice that the tabs up top have a new font and are condensed quite a bit. The new font makes its appearance on the left nav as well.
The comments system has been heavily revamped, here are the changes:
1) First and foremost, anonymous posting is no longer allowed. You can choose not to show your email address but you need to post from an account you've created (registration is free, we won't spam you, etc...)
2) We've moved to a threaded comment system; it's a request we've gotten from quite a few users, so no more typing the # before the post you want to respond to, just respond to that individual post and you'll branch off of it.
3) You can now rate individual posts based on their content, the higher the rating, the better the content. The system works like this:
- You can either post or rate in a thread, not both. We do this to prevent people from changing the direction of a thread by posting a comment and then rating up or down those who agree/disagree with their point.
- If you rate one or more comments and then decide later that you want to post/reply, you may. When you do so, your votes are simply subtracted out.
- Each post/reply starts with a rating of 2. The highest you can rate a post is 5, the lowest is -1. Each vote either increases or decreases the rating of a post by 1 point.
- Everyone gets the same number of votes per thread. For every 10 posts/replies in a thread, each user gets 1 vote. We may change this as time goes on.
The system is inevitably going to need some tweaking, but we've tried our best to work out the major kinks before launching it. We'll be watching the way it's used over time and make the appropriate changes.
So give it a try, give us your feedback and I'll chime in tomorrow morning with the i-RAM piece and an update from the weekend.
Take care.
The comments system has been heavily revamped, here are the changes:
1) First and foremost, anonymous posting is no longer allowed. You can choose not to show your email address but you need to post from an account you've created (registration is free, we won't spam you, etc...)
2) We've moved to a threaded comment system; it's a request we've gotten from quite a few users, so no more typing the # before the post you want to respond to, just respond to that individual post and you'll branch off of it.
3) You can now rate individual posts based on their content, the higher the rating, the better the content. The system works like this:
- You can either post or rate in a thread, not both. We do this to prevent people from changing the direction of a thread by posting a comment and then rating up or down those who agree/disagree with their point.
- If you rate one or more comments and then decide later that you want to post/reply, you may. When you do so, your votes are simply subtracted out.
- Each post/reply starts with a rating of 2. The highest you can rate a post is 5, the lowest is -1. Each vote either increases or decreases the rating of a post by 1 point.
- Everyone gets the same number of votes per thread. For every 10 posts/replies in a thread, each user gets 1 vote. We may change this as time goes on.
The system is inevitably going to need some tweaking, but we've tried our best to work out the major kinks before launching it. We'll be watching the way it's used over time and make the appropriate changes.
So give it a try, give us your feedback and I'll chime in tomorrow morning with the i-RAM piece and an update from the weekend.
Take care.
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reactor - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Site looks good, love the ability to increase/decrease font. One thing I think needs to be added is to let users change how they want to view comments. The guys over at Tech Report seem to have a good way, wouldn't mind seeing something like that(Flat, Threaded).Good Job to everyone who contributed, much improved.
jm20 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
No longer will I need to go back a few pages to relate posts together as they can be seen threaded instead. The change looks good, kinda has a java feel to it, probably coded in java too afaik. Site keeps getting better, keep up the good work Anand!Matt Nordhoff - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Java and JavaScript are two different things. But it does use JavaScript.kleinwl - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
I think the page layout and everything is nice... but the comments and the voting is a waste of time... who cares about the "1st post" stuff? Everyone just ignored it... so no big deal... this whole rating system is silly.microAmp - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Anand,I think the lowest vote is -1 and not -2 like you said in the blog. I can't vote a "negative" on a person's post that has -1.
Looks good though.
cei - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
The color scheme I like, but this WinOpen javascript for all the comments is just ridiculous! Unless tabed-broswers change in the near future, I'll just have to stay away from all the discussion at anandtech. See, I like to send any news item to a background-tab and then start reading through all the comments and such. I wouldn't mind sending comments to a separate tab, but NOT TO A SEPARATE WINDOW! Or am I missing something and there's a way to send a javascript:winopen to a tab?aggie02 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Well, they say change is good, but this sucks. I liked reading the comments in the same page i read the news without having to click anything (plus I hate opening new windows). I also liked the chronological order of the posts.It looks like I'm not going to read the comments now, until they bring the old system back (or something like it)
Captante - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
I agree about the comments & I don't think I will be reading of posting as much myself with the new format.smn198 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
I really like the updates but could there be an option to get email notification of replies to your post like on the forums?dwell - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
I like the site changes. A lot cleaner. I am not so big on threaded comments. I will get used to it.