Two Weeks and Counting -- November 2nd!

[Zurai]

The site's free. Anything provided is a bonus.

Of course. That doesn't change the fact that feedback has been presented (and not rudely, that I've seen) and not only brushed aside and intentionally disregarded, but specified as a reason for the object of the feedback being delayed/not implemented!

"Lots of people want a dark theme for the site. Thus, I'm going to make a dark theme a service for supporters!" would be brilliant.

No, it'd be capitalistic and not at all brilliant. I've got nothing against capitalism, but that smacks of pure greed. "Let's take away a feature that already exists for free and has a large support base and require people to pay money to get it in the future!"

EN World is not beholden to you.

I never said it was. Thank you for putting such loaded words in my mouth though.

 

[Dimwhit]

I think it's spiffy, Michael. I've never been a fan of light text on a dark background, hence my use of the Player's Handbook theme. I think you're new theme will work just fine.

Looking forward to the final product!

 

[Michael Morris]

"Lots of people want a dark theme for the site. Thus, I'm going to delay the creation of a dark theme!"

Brilliant. Way to provide top-level service.

Continue being rude to me at your peril. You are not allowed to make such snide remarks in the course of discussing RPGs on this site and you are not allowed to be rude and uncough towards me or anyone else regarding the design of the site or the work done upon it. Criticism of the design is one thing, but that comment crosses the line of criticizing the design by quite a margin.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Once EN2 is up, it should be relatively easy for someone to put together a greasemonkey script for firefox to enable a dark theme for text. That'll be a usable stopgap until a supported skin appears.

 

[Zurai]

I am not being rude or uncouth regarding either the design or the work done on the design.

I'm being snippy at the response to valid feedback. A third to a half of the posters in this thread have stated that they prefer a dark theme for the site. Your responses to that feedback were:

A) Calling the feedback invalid,
B) Threatening a thread ban for people discussing it, and
C) Stating that discussion of such an obviously desired feature only delays the feature being implemented.

That has nothing to do with the design of the site and everything to do with you not being open to feedback on the matter. That's fine. You're the technical admin; it's your right to say "discussion is closed on this matter". I would hope that it is expected of you to be nonconfrontational about it, however, when the feedback has not been rude or confrontational.

 

[Michael Morris]

Of course. That doesn't change the fact that feedback has been presented (and not rudely, that I've seen) and not only brushed aside and intentionally disregarded, but specified as a reason for the object of the feedback being delayed/not implemented!

There is no single theme that will suit everyone. I don't have to be told that by every third poster. I also know from looking at the user account settings that three quarters of the board is using stealth or the PHB style, both of which are dark text on light. Go browse around major sites - ENWorld is the exception, not the rule. It is for this reason the main theme is being switched up.

Another change that cannot be derived from the screen shot is that I am pointing every single element of the design to a style sheet setting. vbulletin doesn't do this by default, so it means an extensive rewriting of the templates. The finished site can be reskinned by anyone who knows CSS without worrying about the javascript or the templates. If anyone wants to do that work before I can get to it I don't mind uploading and adding what they come up with.

 

[Zurai]

There is no single theme that will suit everyone. I don't have to be told that by every third poster. I also know from looking at the user account settings that three quarters of the board is using stealth or the PHB style, both of which are dark text on light. Go browse around major sites - ENWorld is the exception, not the rule. It is for this reason the main theme is being switched up.

Another change that cannot be derived from the screen shot is that I am pointing every single element of the design to a style sheet setting. vbulletin doesn't do this by default, so it means an extensive rewriting of the templates. The finished site can be reskinned by anyone who knows CSS without worrying about the javascript or the templates. If anyone wants to do that work before I can get to it I don't mind uploading and adding what they come up with.

See, that's fine and I accept it. I'm not trying to be rude and mean - I understand that a major site upgrade like this is both stressful to everyone involved (especially the guy who does all/most of the coding!) and by neccesity involves trimming down the available options for a time. I also appreciate that you are making changes based on observed data.

I just didn't like the way the feedback was handled. If this post had been made first, I'd have had no objections whatsoever.

Anyway, I do apologize for getting snippy.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Did you know that EN2 has a handy dandy feature called thread-ban? And if we were on EN2 those types of bans would start coming down already?

You know, I know absolutely nothing about the volume of work involved in putting together a new site. I didn't suggest it would be easy, nor did I suggest that we were entitled to it - I merely offered an opinion in a nonconfrontive manner.

For this I receive a threat of a ban - & a threat delivered in a rather snippy manner. Quite honestly, if a poster had spoken to a mod in such a tone, I would expect to see the poster banned at least temporarily. Apparently the same rules do not apply?

If it's too hard (& your later post definitely makes it sound like a lot of work) then fine - but please have the courtesy to say so in the same manner in which you would expect us to address mods & each other when posting here.

 

[Henry]

Ladies and Gents, let's cut Michael a little slack. I understand that things have gotten a little overheated in here, but let's dial back a bit and give the benefit of the doubt to both him and to everyone else posting here.

For the themes, we'll have more customization soon enough - once the mountain has been conquered by ONE guy, putting in his time. it'll get there, but kinda like 4th edition, there's that "new edition" hurdle to get over first, before all the extra options come rolling out later.

We'll get the bard and the gnome, we promise, let's just get the fighter and dwarf finished first.

 

[Morrus]

Did you know that EN2 has a handy dandy feature called thread-ban? And if we were on EN2 those types of bans would start coming down already? The color scheme is not going to be changing at this point and continuing to harass me regarding it will only cause me to move the creation of a dark theme further and further DOWN the list of things to do - right now it's sitting at about March on my calendar savvy?

Michael, calm down. If you don't want peoples' opinions, don't start a thread on it. If you do want peoples' opinions, don't get angry at people because they give you their opinion.

To everyone else - I apologize for Mike's outburst. He's been working hard at this, and got a little too emotional. And don't worry, Mike doesn't have the authority to issue bans.

Feel free to continue offerimg your opinions, both positive and negative (that's what a messageboard thread's for), but please understand that the initial version is largely done, and later versions will take extra time.