Okay, so only yesterday I begged people to stop writing so many diaries about Daily Kos here. I mean, I kinda suggested that, didn’t I?
So, what am I doing writing a diary about Daily Kos?
Well, I mean, come on? Have you been over there today? The ads are in the middle column. There are red banners, and bright orange text, and a whole new militant theme.
It is loading a lot faster, which is a big part of the motivation for moving to the CSS-3 UI.
So, what changes do you like, and what changes do you hate?
BTW- We might move to CSS one day too.
the color. Saw some people talking about the “bright orange” – but on my monitor it just looks red. Very hard on the eyes, hard to read. I’m suspecting he’ll go back to the previous orange. One thing he said in his post about it was that the CSS makes it easy to makes changes.
add it to the list of reasons I’ll be spending more time here in the future…
I am not impressed. The color is horrid, the white space is overabundant (I get huge right left margins), screen real estate is used in the most inefficient fashion, the new logo is rediculous, the military font laughable and the “The State of the Union” declaration on the front page, arrogant and misrepresentative. I’ll give it a few days and see what it settles down into, I know he is collecting a lot of feedback right now…but MAN, if he paid for that redesign, OUCH! and if he didn’t, well, he got what he paid for! 😉
On the upside, the backend database seem to be running at top speed and with very few glitches.
But it’s butt ugly. Good thing I don’t spend a whole lot of time there; unfortunately, the design change seems to make it harder to skim the titles for anything interesting.
The ad strip in the middle is totally off-putting, ut probably pleases the advertisers.
and both of your posts combined is how it was for me. Horrid colors…had a very hard time skimming for the interesting stuff that I may want to read.
Having it in the middle is going to make it much harder to ignore the next set of “pie” ads…
Plus, when I loaded Cheers and Jeers, the ads are still coming up in the middle, blocking out the comments! Will have to check other diaries and see if the same problem happens there…
I’d complain, but Kos’ reaction would probably be, “SYFPH and get a larger monitor, bitch.” Okay, I’m over-reacting…he wouldn’t really say “bitch”, would he?
I’m already pissed because (a) I’ve still got the creeping crud, (b) I had to clean the kitchen up last night which is the spouse’s job (I cook, we eat, he cleans up), and (c) I’m waiting for my sister to come back from Hawaii so she can distribute the proceeds from Mom’s house sale and I can tell the bill collectors that the check is in the mail and actually be telling the truth!
There’s a right and a wrong way to put CSS in action; IMNSHO, dKos is doing it the wrong way…sort of like every single Bush Administration policy…
Hope you’re feeling better to enjoy the weekend, and I hope hubby makes up his negligence to you in spades!
Yuck – gag – aaack!
The colors on my screen are neon orange
The column with diaries bleeds under the ad column
The columns with comments in the diaries is too narrow and goes on forever…the white space must be for ads on the right….
IMHO…the new header is too big and pretentious
Mostly hate it.
At first glance, it looked very clean — reminds me a bit of the TPM Cafe. I do think it is a little too bright (both the orange and the vast amounts of white space) but it looks very modern and streamlined.
Streamlined… until you use it. My main problem with it is that it has lost a lot of its usability. The main column is about half what it used to be, making articles hard to read and requiring a lot of scrolling.
Like many, my eyes started hurting after browsing just a little while.
Having the ads near the middle of the page really bugs, too.
My eyes! That’s a most horrid color on the peepers! My poor eyes are still throbbing a bit ten minutes later. The Ads down the middle are quite distracting as well.
What everyone else has said… terrible. It load faster but just having CSS doesn’t mean it has to be so ugly.
I can’t read sites with dark backgrounds for more than a couple of minutes, and now I’ve found that bright red… orange… gack… whatever color that is, also makes for an uncomfortable reading experience.
I’m sure it’s a work in progress, but it just seems really poorly designed.
Yes, once again, we do seem to have the same little annoyances. (I bet neither one of us could sleep on a mattress with a small pea underneath 😉
Why the heck would Kos change the logo? I thought that was the coolest part of the site. BWDIK? IBKTBWITP! BNVO, TBS!
lol, yes lots of stuff does seem to affect us the same way.
I guess kos wanted something proprietary to that site (i think the flag with the little man was someone else’s creation or something like that).
I don’t much like the lettering – at first glance, I keep thinking that K is an H…
um…”BWDIK? IBKTBWITP! BNVO, TBS!“… huh?
“Flag with the little man” LOL! And here I thought it was a powerful man expressing freedom, justice and democracy. But nope. . .just a little flag man.
Oh my. . .I was merely trying to amuse myself yesterday evening after a very stressful week. Just a little goofin’ around, and now it’s come back to haunt me. (How shameful that I lack the ability to figure out my own smartalecness 🙂
Okay, after much thought. . .also known as much wasted time. . .here goes:
“But what do I know?”
“I’ve Been Known to Be Wrong in the Past”
“But Not Very Often”
“To Be Sure”
Ouch – that gave me a headache. The sad part is that it wasn’t even worth the effort to figure it out. Lesson learned on that personal little effort at messin’ around. . . 🙂
Have a great weekend, Nanette, and wishing you pleasant dreams on a comfortable mattress devoid of peas!
Weirdly, I find it easier to read AND it makes my eyes hurt.
I don’t mind any of it (except the blinding white), but the military theme is just funny. I guess the message is that Democrats are tough and patriotic? Damn! It makes me want to grab a broom and march around the kitchen! Hup two three four. . .
Ahh, green is so nice.
Yes, the large font size is nice. He says the orange is the same shade, but I always hated the orange.
And now that there is more of it, it screams, “Ugly”.
But, the large fonts are nice.
Oh, my god. It’s awful. The colors hurt my eyes and make me feel vaguely homicidal. It puts me in mind of the Nazi use of great, red banners, to stimulate fight or flight responses, at their rallies. I have never found the soothing green tones of this site more pleasing than when I click from one to the other. The layout has the effect of making the text look unimportant, like the status of ideas has been reduced. Please, Booman, don’t change a thing. Your site is perfect, as it is.
I’ll second that emotion. Booman, please don’t change this site anytime soon. And if you do, could you please put up sample templates to allow us to vote on which one we like best?
It’s entirely possible to move to a CSS-based site and have no one here really notice. Kos’ problem – to the extent that theres a problem – comes from the redesign, not from using CSS instead of tables to implement that design.
Most sites are going to be moving to CSS-based structure soon, and there are a bunch of good reasons for it. Chief among them is that newer browsers will probably fail to render non-standards-compliant sites at some point. And sites that don’t use CSS will fail to compply with web standards, eventually.
And If there’s a -1 rating for excessive geekiness, my comment probably deserves it.
Yes, please. Because it’s all about us – well, I like to think it’s all about ME, of course.
Good Weekend to All!
5% black? It gives the impression of white without scorching eyeballs. The contrast of pure white and violent orange/red is too much for this old fogey to tolerate. And the flashing ads down the middle are quite simply insane. It’s blackmail to make readers subscribe and that’s truly insulting.
Like others have noted, the ads, in my browser, are over-lapping the diary list so I miss the first couple of letters and it’s too tiring to play the game of guessing what the subject might be. Also the spacing between lines in the diary titles is so vast that it’s hard to scan. I hope some of this gets adjusted over the next few days and I’ll be able to visit the diary lists again.
But, the new logo/masthead is truly violence-inducing. There’s something abusive and over-bearing about it — all that weight on the right, maybe. Hmmm… it’s kinda a metaphor for, um, something…
I keep thinking this morning that Markos has become uncomfortable with his celebrity and is almost deliberately sabotaging dKos, driving people away one way and another. Perhaps, he’d prefer to focus on his baseball blogs…
Ya know – it seems to be aimed toward a younger crowd. (Not to stereotype or anything) Aimed at the generation that needs constant stimulation. And for anyone who has read even the most basic articles on colors and emotions – that site is screaming out for antagonistic reactions and verbal battles.
Give me peaceful surroundings in both color scheme and discourse, or give me death.
Besides the offensive colors and design, it was a lot harder to use. I got tired of searching for a way to recommend. Please Boo, if you want to change don’t be as extreme as that.
Isn’t orange the color of insanity? One look and I’m having flashbacks.
One look and I’m having flashbacks.
Indeed. My guess is that Kos never dropped acid.
The New Look gave me insight into the delusions of a friend from a long, long, long time ago who, last time I saw him, was sitting in a corner saying “Don’t squeeze me, I’m an orange.”
but 1) why is it so frigging narrow? and 2) why in hell are the freaking ads in the middle?
bright white hurts my eyes…
the ads in the middle…well…I’ll keep that to myself
but i kind of like the orange and it loads much faster
but…heh…are you kidding with the poll…you might as well have left off “i love them” here…even if the site redesign was kick-ass i think too many ex-kossacks are too pissed to be diplomatic right now
but…heh…are you kidding with the poll…you might as well have left off “i love them” here…even if the site redesign was kick-ass i think too many ex-kossacks are too pissed to be diplomatic right now
Speak for yourself. I, for one, can look at the redesign objectively, and say I hate it. If Booman did it, I’d tell him I hate it. When About.com, a site I used regularly, did something similar, I emailed to tell them I hated it. If I were still regularly perusing DK, I tell them I hate it. One thing I have never taken away from DK was it’s design and utility, which I admired very much. Well, this… all I can say is, too bad.
Well one good thing, Booman is no longer a look alike site to DK, so we don’t have to explain the difference any more, I guess!!!!
It reminds me of the”fashion” magazines that are all ads with a little commentary thrown in for cover. The flashing ads make it impossible to keep my eyes on the written word. Is this diary a way to push up hits on DK?
I was going to diary on this very topic, but then I thought…NOOOOooooo Booman wouldn’t like it. ; )
Sincerely, I am going blind trying to read the site. to make the site really readable the different sections really do better in boxes and with different colors (for instance if the side boxes here were also slightly shaded that would be an approvement).
The red is very hard on the eyes too.
I hate the ads in the middle.
According to Markos in his design discussion threads (scroll doooown on the front page), the column width and placement is going to be customizable by users soon. That will fix the skinny columns and the ads taking up the middle, but agh the bright orange is horrible. The front page now looks way too busy — maybe there’s useful new functionality in there somewhere, but I couldn’t see any.
I Strongly dislike the color. Ads in the middle will force me to block most of them. Makes it seem like the ads are in the way of everything… they’re more central than the front page articles, which are shoved to the side. Huge margins force everything together in a most irritating and busy way… difficult to read. The human eye is not made to focus with all that interference. I navigated around for half an hour or so before leaving in disgust. Very poor ergonomics… very poor design. If this design stays, it may be a better reason to bid Kos adios than the infamous pie incident.
Ewww! Ugly, ugly, ugly! Not only is the colour hideous, but the big huge adbar in the middle takes up way too much space and gets in the way of the content.
I like Boo’s layout much better. More CSS? Sure. Please! That monstrosity? No way.
to a friend of mine who doesn’t do any blogging and she thought the stars and stencil font made an interesting mix of Communist and Orange Revolution. Sadly, I sorta agree.
Damn! I broke my rule of silence… Do I get a pass since I also posted this comment there? ;P
If it isn’t Mr. Internet Gigolo, the guy who announced to the whole e-world that one of the fine members of this community has an e-crush on him, and all other interested parties should expect a fight to the finish for the affections of Mr. Eegee. Hmm. . .and it seems that the site is running smoothly and not kicking me off each time I attempt to submit a snark of retribution at ya!
So, so many ways in which I want to pay you back. But alas, I’m just too darn nice. (Oh heck, who am I kidding – niceties have nothing to do with it – I merely lack the requisite wit!) But for gosh sakes, you know damn well I called dibs on you first – ya didn’t have to announce it through the e-public broadcast system!
As upset as I may be with you for now, I still get to latch onto your leg whenever I’m in the midst of a good cry. (Oh yeah, and whenever my husband isn’t around to witness my inappropriate behavior toward a stranger on a political blog site!)
Have yourself a fabulous weekend, dude. Hugs and kisses to puppy (and tell him to get off your leg. 😉
Is this because I told him I gazed at his navel?
Yes <sniff>. It was, in fact, your gazing at eegee’s navel that prompted my most recent meltdown.
You see. . .it all started one afternoon when eegee found me sobbing uncontrollably, wrapped tightly around his leg during an emotional crisis, refusing to loosen my grasp. Later, I very quietly whispered my e-ffections to him, with no idea he’d proceed to shout my secret from the rooftops to the whole community, indicating that I’d fight to the death anyone who expressed interest in his affections. Untrustworthy SOB . . .
In response to your navel gazing, I must share with you my somewhat territorial tendencies, consisting of: Hiss, pfffffffft, growl, spray . . . and spitty hairballs spewed upon you. 😉
Okay, enough of this spinning of fabricated yarns. My genuine, heartfelt wishes are stated thusly:
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, kitten kisses, kitten cuddles and many more purrs to you, my dear! (yes, and to eegee too)
^ ^
* *
U
On that note, my baby just let out a loud, distressing yelp and tapped me on the arm, which is her subtle cue that she needs some cuddles. NOW!
You’re a drama queen after my own heart. 🙂
– elsewhere:
Truly, the new Soviet look is mindblowingly ugly. I can’t believe that well-paid professionals (‘wunderkinds,’ kos even calls them) have produced this disaster.
So they’ve changed the colors. It looks much better now.
Perhaps you could have waited a couple of days till they ironed out some of the kinks. Kos is already tweaking and fixing things as I type this…I remember all the changes that happened here during the first couple of days/weeks.
it is the narrow columns I don’t like. I actually kind of like the orange color, though I agree that it would be easier to read if the background were not completely stark white.
The ad bar in the middle is annoying, though I don’t have any overlap problems. I’m using latest version of Forefox at work and latest version of Safari at home. Perhaps Markos is using the new CSS and that causes a problem if you don’t have the latest updates.
I don’t like the new logo, but then I didn’t like the old logo either.
Yeah, the site loads quickly, that’s nice…even with huge comment threads. Yeah, when you click on an entry the post is bigger and cleaner.
But yuck! I’m not a fan of orange in the first place, but I’m in agreement with everyone who hates the colors…it truly does hurt my eyes. And I loathe the ads where they are, regardless of where our eyes “naturally” go and where we tend to hover our mouse pointers…I hate the lists being separate from the posts.
Kos said he wants the site to be edgier and represent war…well, I think the war thing is nothing but stupid, but it’s his site.
Must Not Look. Must.Not.Look. Mu-
OK, I went over for a peek, despite comments yesterday.
Three letters sums it up: WTF?
Four letters for a longer explanation: Ouch!
(Or is that due to the pinkeye I caught from a coworker? If I keep looking will it cure pinkeye?)
Seriously, it’s bad. I cannot fathom the ads in the middle, unless it’s a ploy to get folks to subscribe so ads won’t show (It does say “Kill ads, subscribe now” at the very top of the column), or a reason to raise rates for the advertisers.
The header at the upper right corner caught my eye (“The State of the Nation”); as noted upthread, it can only be described as “Soviet.” The new font at top cries out “Korean War” to me for some reason.
Off topic(?) – Remember the old commercial with the “East German fashion show?” The heavy women walking around with the flashlights as the announcer says “Eveninkvear?” What was that an ad for?
But why don’t I tell you what I really think? </snark>
Enough: Must.Shut.Piehole.Now.
Building up bad Karma.
Catnip: Will you hear my confession?
Yes, I do remember that commercial.
You motivated me to google. The answer is Wendy’s (I couldn’t remember either).
Link (its an entertaining commercial, and obviously a pattern for White House press conferences of today).
I keep forgetting “Google is my friend!”
lol
The colors don’t bother me, and the basic design, which is from the same stylistic school as any number of political magazines, is okay.
The thing that really sucks about it is that the column with the actual content is narrow, so I have to scroll down for every freaking paragraph. I have a laptop with a large screen fixed at 1400×1050, so it’s kind of annoying to have a square foot of unused space to the left and right while everything is crammed into a skinny column in the middle. I can only imagine how it must be at a lower resolution.
The ads in the middle are mildly annoying. They break up the connection between the main content column and the links to the diaries.
All that said, adjusting the stylesheet so that the page fills the screen is the only element of the design I have strong feelings about.
A design feature I don’t like over at dk is the (huge annoying) orange banner across the top.I’d rather see more room for text.
The ad column in the middle is too distracting as well.
It’s better on the left.
I’m an extremely fast reader (I spend too much time as it is reading diaries), and these two features make his site more difficult to use, esp. to sift through all the information.
Not only that, I start to get kinda queasy physically after a few clicks. Very very weird.
I assume the look has something to do with promoting National Security as a core Democratic Party/NDN issue/value/cry in the night.. something.
I did try to read one fairly long thread on the design issues and stopped when Kos put up a photo of a US military tank with a single star on it… in response to a light hearted post teasing about the “soviet” star design element…
The red and white was hurting my eyes anyway… so it was time to give up… LOL.
eh.
but the DK changes are getting better with each tweak–he’s toned down the orange and the white background, grayed out the side margins. And even on my dilatory dial-up, it loads so much faster–zippety loading makes me happy. So yay for the CSS, not as much for design.
My biggest sadness is missing the little flag guy in the logo–he always seemed to represent us, fighting our hearts out for what is right. That just makes the BooFrog mean even more here.
Booman, you have mail. 🙂
Our frog is…. is… well…
GONE! 🙁
::wanders off to find chocolate::
I still see him at the top of the page? Yikes–hope I’m not hallucinating again. Time to up my meds?
Well… our real frog is gone. He’s been replaced! For a younger, brighter, trophy frog.
I mourn the frog. I will call this one Other frog, and maybe that’ll help.
Sigh!
(But your meds are fine, lol)
Or the artist formerly known as Boo Frog. . .sigh. . .
Here he is:
Thanks BooMan,
We can just have visitations from the (ahem) real frog from time to time maybe, for comfort ;).
The new one is okay for our coffee mugs and t-shirts….but this one is our baby…
Can I put this one our yahoo page?
I read the above commentary before taking my first look back since washing my hands of the place weeks ago.
Looks like I missed the worst of the carnage.
Still not impressed. Ad’s down the center is extremely annoying. Margins are junk, colors are ugly, and stylistically reminds me of wading through a hundred really amateurish skins for phpBB.
Being that its formatted and colored via CSS, I wonder how long until someone comes up with a “sane” replacement for use with the many Firefox Extensions that allow users to override site CSS.
I think a booman-green one, with the margins corrected and the ad column reduced to say a single pixel wide might be nice. Maybe could even streamline the page banner and change the graphics.
If you limit yourself to just color changes, and skip the reformatting, I think it should be easy to convert it to a “Gitmo Theme”. All those big boxy graphics rendered in gray oughta do it.
Booman, can you explain what CSS means for those of us who are technologically illiterate?
From htmlhelp.org:
Does that explain it or is that too geekish?
I think I understood that…thanks. 🙂