Announcement Why did you do that?

[Art Andrews]

Hi Art
Just out of interest will you be adding some colour into the junkyard, on the old website INT was yellow, FS red, T green, will you re-introduce the color's as personally found it helpful scanning through the junkyard and finding projects which i would not usually notice.
Brad

Brad, we are going to look at reintroducing color on a limited basis to the Junkyard. I don't want to commit to too much at this point as we are planning on a complete overhaul of the junkyard soon and with a overall look as subdued as what we have here, we have to be very careful in our color choices because adding color really pops and screams in a way that it did not previously, but I think we should be able to add those three color back into the mix.

 

[Paul Andrew]

One thing I forgot to mention, months back there had been talk of a widescreen mode when the upgrade hit. Did that not happen or am I missing it in the options somewhere?

 

[Roland]

Nice work Roland, can definitely go with those images, ...

Thank you, Vivek.

Here are the same images, but I corrected the right sides of each image (I had forgot to fade them to dark).

... The title sequence in all the films had that classic more orange gradient color look, while the titles in the BTTF posters had the orange/yellow gradient which is more synonymous with BTTF logos these days.

Yes, the colors of my logo above are based on the posters.

 

[Art Andrews]

Well it sounds like you had very good reasons for making these changes.

But there lies the problem. There are tons of ideas that sounded great in theory or had valid reasons behind them that didn't work at all when brought to reality. And changing the site is one of them.

I know that whenever I was browsing the old site, I never stopped to think to myself "Boy, I wish the content area would pop more". I was perfectly happy with the way things were, and by the large majority so were other people. Just seems like a big example of fixing what isn't broken.

And now that a lot of people have come forward complaining about the new look. Too muddy, too bright, ect. And you are only continuing to justify keeping things the way they are now by pointing out how great of an idea it seemed before you implemented it.

I can certainly understand where you are coming from on this. Please understand, I am not trying to change people's mind or make them like something they don't like. Personal preference is just that; personal. I can't make you like chocolate ice cream is you prefer strawberry. However, we are dealing with two different issues here, one that we are dealing with and one that we are simply addressing and moving on.

The issues are:

1) Some people don't like the change and prefer one of the 4 old looks better. Those looks were all wildly different... so saying you liked the "old" look could mean many things. We aren't trying to change the minds of those who prefer the old look, but we do want them to understand why we made the choices we made so they can hopefully better accept the new look even if they don't prefer it.

2) This is the important one. Some people are having legitimate functionality issues with the new style. This is where we MUST act. We simply can't have a site that does not function correctly or is unusable by a larger proportion of the members. We did a great deal of testing with memebrs of the site before implementing this and none of these issues were brought to light during that period. Now that we have presented the look to a much wider audience who have a vast array of equipment and even some members with visual impairments, we are finding that there are some issues that need to be addressed. It is going to take a little time, but we are focusing our efforts on those issues, because they are a matter of usability, not preference.

I made this thread because I was finding myself repeating my reasons again and again in the Site Issues thread and it was often in regard to personal preference as opposed to actual usability issues. I just wanted to get all of our reasoning out in one shot, address those who don't prefer some of the choices we have made and then get back to focusing on addressing the usability issues.

 

[Panaflex]

Brad, we are going to look at reintroducing color on a limited basis to the Junkyard. I don't want to commit to too much at this point as we are planning on a complete overhaul of the junkyard soon and with a overall look as subdued as what we have here, we have to be very careful in our color choices because adding color really pops and screams in a way that it did not previously, but I think we should be able to add those three color back into the mix.

I think this is a wonderful idea. I noticed this earlier today while in the JY.
Thanks for looking into it.

 

[Art Andrews]

Paul, the initial work on the style was variable width, but we ultimately found it unworkable for our layout.

Something to consider... this is our first major upgrade since I took the reigns in 2009... we have been planning this since 2009 and would have had this in place last year if not for the hacking incident.

The minute we get this implementation finished, we will be starting work on the next iteration of the site (I am thinking it will be ready by 2015). While no one likes to talk about it, money is a massive factor here. Coders and designers aren't free... and in fact can be very very expensive. As we continue to build a financial base for the site we are in a better and better position to build better things for you. The last default style that we had on the site was built by me. I have no design ability and only a little coding ability... and it showed. This new style was designed by a professional designer, and coded by me... one step better but still not where we need to ultimately be. My hope is, the next version of the RPF will be designed and coded with the help of true UX/UI professionals. I know you have to be wondering why I am telling you all of this and how it relates to your question. One of the newer trends in website design is Responsive Web Design, as an amalgam of static (what we have now) and fluid (what you were asking about). Unless we are strongly dissuaded from it or an even newer technology comes along, our next layout will be Responsive, meaning it will retain the overall layout we want, but will scale to fill your screen. I know that all sounds like a long way away, but for us, it is simply a matter of having the resources to be able to build it for you.

One thing I forgot to mention, months back there had been talk of a widescreen mode when the upgrade hit. Did that not happen or am I missing it in the options somewhere?

 

[Rylo]

Very good idea! :thumbsup

Side note: The load feature for pics/albums is very funky. The default only allows for one pic at a time. Not really digging how it references pics for upload. Perhaps I need a little time with it. Is there a standard or old-school default we could get on there? Something like we had before?

Brad, we are going to look at reintroducing color on a limited basis to the Junkyard. I don't want to commit to too much at this point as we are planning on a complete overhaul of the junkyard soon and with a overall look as subdued as what we have here, we have to be very careful in our color choices because adding color really pops and screams in a way that it did not previously, but I think we should be able to add those three color back into the mix.

 

[Paul Andrew]

Gotcha. I'd have been happy with "We wanted to but it just wasn't feasible yet" though :lol

 

[Art Andrews]

Added to the rotation. Thanks, Gino.

Maybe you want to take one of these?


View attachment 174423

View attachment 174424

View attachment 174425

View attachment 174427

 

[Vivek]

Here are the same images, but I corrected the right sides of each image (I had forgot to fade them to dark).

Thanks . Depending on what logo we go with, the extended left side of those images might also be needed to properly match the logo background and banner image, including have the tagline placed in the right place. So might have to provide the full wide image to Art/Gino so he can do the necessary changes himself to be consistent with the other banners. Will keep you posted on this via PM once we move ahead with it.

Edit: There we go

 

[Bradleyw]

Hi Art.

Oh great thank you for replying, i totally understand your reasons of limited color, and its great that our going to do it, as personally i think i actually enhances the junkyard. Again thank you Brad

 

[Ronan87]

The minute we get this implementation finished, we will be starting work on the next iteration of the site (I am thinking it will be ready by 2015). While no one likes to talk about it, money is a massive factor here. Coders and designers aren't free... and in fact can be very very expensive. As we continue to build a financial base for the site we are in a better and better position to build better things for you.

This is a bit off base but...

I noticed it's never talked about (or i missed it) but just how much is this website pulling in from adds? A bunch of analysis websites claim therpf.com is making from $5000 to $20,000 a month (just how true they are, i have no idea...). True you have to factor in the staff salary + cost of hardware/software to keep the website running, but i am honestly curious about this (especially since therpf.com is, by all standards, a successful website/forum).

BTW good work with the update. You will NEVER be able to please everyone, but it seems after a bit more tweaking, the vast majority will be happy.

To people that aren't happy, give it a bit of time to stabilize and get used to it. Changes can be rough, so relax It's still the same GREAT community!!!

 

[TheNickFox]

I'm curious about the rotating banner. The Site News subforum looks incredible without it, and it makes me wonder why the other subforums include it? I understand putting it on the home page to bring attention to interesting things/news, but I feel once we're in the subforums most people just want to browse.

So, I'd just be curious as to the process behind that choice, since I honestly think this subforum proves how good it looks without it up there competing with the actual header.*

-Nick

*I realize you would lose an ad placement over this, but there must be some sort of happy medium without the rotating banner in the subforums/threads.

EDIT: Maybe you could use that banner space to create a subforum specific or thread specific banner that displays the subforum or thread title where titles are currently displayed in? And then for the underlying image, use the tags that people apply or photos from the thread to generate an underlying image?

So if the thread was "Hey Look! An Iron Man Thread, How Unique" and the user tagged it with Iron Man, the site would pull an Iron Man themed image from its archives, then would overlay "Hey Look! An Iron Man Thread, How Unique" on top of that. Alternatively if no tags are specified, the banner could be generated from images in the thread...OR pulled from more generic images in the database.

This would allow that ad space to still exist but also create more relevant content in that space currently taken up by the rotating banner on a per-forum or per-thread basis.

I realize this would create more coding work, but it's a thought.

 

[Art Andrews]

This is a bit off base but...

I noticed it's never talked about (or i missed it) but just how much is this website pulling in from adds? A bunch of analysis websites claim therpf.com is making from $5000 to $20,000 a month (just how true they are, i have no idea...). True you have to factor in the staff salary + cost of hardware/software to keep the website running, but i am honestly curious about this (especially since therpf.com is, by all standards, a successful website/forum).

BTW good work with the update. You will NEVER be able to please everyone, but it seems after a bit more tweaking, the vast majority will be happy.

To people that aren't happy, give it a bit of time to stabilize and get used to it. Changes can be rough, so relax It's still the same GREAT community!!!

We don't talk about the exact amount the site pulls in, anymore than any private business does. However, I can tell you, if we were even pulling in $5,000 a month, I wouldn't have been the one coding the new look. We would have simply hired someone who would have done it in 1/4 the time it took me to slog through it (we have actively been working on this latest version since early Dec). Honestly, without us selling retail, we will never get to anywhere near $20k a month from ads and premium memberships, no matter how big we grow.

I agree with you that we are never going to please everyone. In the past three years, we have made a LOT of changes to the community that has slowly reshaped who/what the RPF is and even has begun to change how it is perceived by the outside world. We are now continuing with that thought process by creating a single unified look, with strong branding that our members can identify with. I am not sure you were around for this, but when we introduced the last logo, people hated it... I mean HATED it... yet, after the hacking incident, how many people had that logo plastered across themselves and identified with it... and that was admittedly a very weak logo. Given time, I truly believe what we are doing is going to create a much stronger sense of community and loyalty to that community than we have seen in the past.

While there is a bit of "this is just how it is going to be" from an aesthetic sense, we most definitely are going to keep hammering away at this to make sure the site is fully functional and useful for our members. At the end of the day we are here to serve you and to provide a great platform for you.

On a final note, we are only a little more than 36 hours into the largest change this site has seen in almost 8 years. That is a long time to get used to a particular look and approach and you are right... change after that long is rough, but at the end of the day, the core of who we are as a community has not changed.

 

[Art Andrews]

It is too early to make any sort of commitment on that, but once we are a little further along, you may see us do something exactly like that... Removing the featured area from the forums and posts and replacing it with a 728X90 ad like we had previously.

I'm curious about the rotating banner. The Site News subforum looks incredible without it, and it makes me wonder why the other subforums include it? I understand putting it on the home page to bring attention to interesting things/news, but I feel once we're in the subforums most people just want to browse.

So, I'd just be curious as to the process behind that choice, since I honestly think this subforum proves how good it looks without it up there competing with the actual header.*

-Nick

*I realize you would lose an ad placement over this, but there must be some sort of happy medium without the rotating banner in the subforums/threads.

EDIT: Maybe you could use that banner space to create a subforum specific or thread specific banner that displays the subforum or thread title where titles are currently displayed in? And then for the underlying image, use the tags that people apply or photos from the thread to generate an underlying image?

So if the thread was "Hey Look! An Iron Man Thread, How Unique" and the user tagged it with Iron Man, the site would pull an Iron Man themed image from its archives, then would overlay "Hey Look! An Iron Man Thread, How Unique" on top of that. Alternatively if no tags are specified, the banner could be generated from images in the thread...OR pulled from more generic images in the database.

This would allow that ad space to still exist but also create more relevant content in that space currently taken up by the rotating banner on a per-forum or per-thread basis.

I realize this would create more coding work, but it's a thought.

 

[Art Andrews]

Reintroduced limited color to the Junkyard to create some variation. This is only a hold over until we have a chance to completely redo the entire Junkyard.

 

[moffeaton]

Removing the rotating banner in the subforums will get you a nice bottle of bourbon from a secret admirer, kind sir!

 

[Ray48]

Sometimes, when people work hard to "improve" something, they have a hard time accepting a critique of that effort, and diminish or dismiss those offering their opinion, as "entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong they are." I would submit that a little chrome is not such a bad thing. It has sold a lot of cars in it's day, and it can keep people interested in staying for the long haul. If you really took a poll (not saying you should, or will) you would probably find the majority not entirely happy with the dechromification of the RPF. You can dismiss that as "just your opinion" or accept it as a critique of your decision on the change. Sometimes the "needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few." I would only encourage you to review the many comments I'm seeing, which mirror my own opinion, and realize that, perhaps they have more merit than isolated opinions and reflect a prevailing sentiment. Or you could ask your closest advisers, who mirror your thoughts, to give their opinion of your new clothes.....Emperor. Just having some fun at your expense....good luck with selling this.

 

[Art Andrews]

Removing the rotating banner in the subforums will get you a nice bottle of bourbon from a secret admirer, kind sir!

We might remove it one way or the other... but regardless of why we do, if we do, I am going to be looking for that bottle.

 

[moviebuff5]

I think at this point we really need a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot banner. Because honestly, who wouldn't find that funny?

Because you asked nicely.