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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Azsen - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link
Hi Anand,Whenever I visit the new site with IE6 from Uni I always get this error:
Line: 2
Char: 1
Error: Syntax Error
Code: 0
Then sometimes the IE window will stop responding and I have to kill it, or it will bring up a 404 page. I can then hit the back button to view the page with the errors. Seems to happen on every article/news link I click on within your site.
Could you get that fixed please? :) Thanks.
The Pentium Guy - Friday, July 29, 2005 - link
Just a quick suggestion. Comments are "condensed" / "contracted" by default. I feel that you should make an "Expand All" button, for those of us who wish to simply scroll down and read the comments.Just throwing it out in the air.
Nice work with the site. My only grimmick is the forums :) - You've separated us from the world of Anandtech and secluded us into the world of Anandtech Forums. Perhaps a link to "Anandtech" (in the forum's banner) would help a bit - that way we won't feel secluded ;).
-The Pentium Guy
hoppa - Thursday, July 28, 2005 - link
I must agree with what some others have been saying... I don't like the new comment system much at all. It is very pretty, yes, but it still ends up being rather hard to read. Everything is really cramped and the thick blue borders are distracting... I think there needs to be more space between comments.I also agree with others that the threaded mode is no good. I've always found reading AT comments to be a very enjoyable experience because of the community nature of them and something about how they were chronological... I don't even know, but now that they are threaded I hardly read them at all anymore. Something about the big messy argument that always developed was really appealing for those of us that like to laugh at (and join in on) the chaos.
In terms of ratings, they are fine because no one has to choose to utilize them, and that is always a good thing for us old farts that don't like any kind of change.
But, by far my biggest complaint is that you have to open comments in a new [tab] from news articles! All that space is wasted! Bleh, at least do the me the justice of putting something back in there :)
-andy
Jeff7181 - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
Would it be possible to move the post information all to the left side? My eyes get a workout zipping back and forth from the Subject of the post over to the right to see who posted it, and then back to the left to another Subject, or the post text. I can't imagine how annoying it must be for people with widescreen monitors and the web browser maximized.mnordhoff3 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Every time I post a comment, I get logged out as soon as it does it and if I try to log in again, it says my login is invalid. What's going on?mnordhoff3 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Hah. Of course, it didn't happen to this comment. Maybe it's when I rate another comment, then?mnordhoff3 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Okay, this account is still okay. Why do problems I have always go away as soon as I complain about them? It's embarrassing. :P But at least it is okay. Why couldn't I have picked a better name for this account, then?Houdani - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
In general, the new layout is pretty good. I'll get used to the changes. Of course, there's always room for improvement, yes?Modifications I'd like to see:
> Flat/Threaded option
> Include clickies to the linked articles on the index page. I'd rather not have to click on the news blurb in order to get access to the linked article.
> At the very bottom of the news index, include clickies for <<Previous Day & Next Day>>
Houdani - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
Yay! You fixed the missing clickies for the linked articles on the news index page. Huzzah, many thanks!Houdani - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Addendum to my wish list:> Include links to (Post new comment) : (Logout) : (Ratings Help) : (Comments Threshold) at the bottom of the comments page. When I get to the bottom of a page and wish to add a new comment, I would prefer to not be required to go back up to the top of the page in order to click on the (Post new comment) link.
> When I do choose to reply to someone else's comment, it would be nice if their name was included in the "Replying to:" portion of the comment editor.