Site Layout / Site Design

I tried searching for this topic to no avail.

Has anyone actually addressed ILXOR.com's design flaws? Because it is probably one of the worst designs I have seen in a while.

I think BBSs had better designs.

Has anyone ever thought of fixing some of the poor unintuitive design features or has this site been left to its own 'devices'?

Just change your preferences.

hook me up w/some 'justified' blu rays and i'll guide you through the process

no you're the first person in the history of ilx to think that you know better than ilx

http://i47.tinypic.com/2rx9t9h.png

the design is one of the reasons I love it here.

I tried searching for this topic to no avail.

for good reason ..

Um...I appreciate your brief response, Ned, but I'm not referring to changing pretty colours.

Firstly the search function displays way too few results at once, and no snippet of content.

Also, the whole view site as a blog is a disastrous idea. The first 'post' has a larger title than the rest of the other post titles. It displays entire content, and the text is so tiny it becomes illegible. This isn't 1992, it's 2013.

Calling a link 'Site New Questions' especially when you have dozens of subforums is insane for sorting and parsing any info for the human reader. Information overload.

Calling it 'Questions' also seems unintuitive, as they really are threads with discussions, not just questions. So when I want to look at a 'new question' my first thought is, "So, you move the...'question' up whenever a new 'question' is asked? But, wait, what you really mean is a thread is moved to the top when someone posts to it, right?" So much for simplicity.

Just some constructive criticism.

@christmas candy bar (al leong), I'm familiar with web development; thanks, anyway, though. And on that note, I do realise I can tailor my browser so it parses this entire site differently, but this isn't what this *thread* is about.

These boards just seem so abandoned, but it might be a design issue.

@j, have a link with that thread handy? I'd love to read it and participate. Like I said, I could not find one in the search function. No need to get sarcastic.

@sleepingbag, I guess I'd rather explore the possibility of improvement, instead of abandoning/giving up without even trying.

These boards just seem so abandoned

Not by users, surely you don't mean. Also you know you can adjust and tweak a lot of what you're complaining about , right? SNA can be tweaked to only include the boards you're interested in. With your comment on bigger and tiny font I cant speak to that as the stylesheet I have applied has consistent plain even sized text (old.css).

This site is what it is for a reason - it is no accident it has remained this way, it isnt laziness or being oldfashioned.

looking forward to your new site with its fancy design. be sure to post a link when it is ready.

kafkaesoque

@Trayce: Not users, no. You mean by changing to one of the default CSS files, right? If so, that was not adequate for me. I wish I could upload my own CSS file or do some more editing of the preexisting ones, personalise it, and save it to my own account.

You are welcome to make one and I'll put it up there.

crimsonhexagon is not taken just fyi

@Keith: Thanks. Just dl'd blueski-2.css. Will muck around with it

what would be great for ilx is a social sharing bar all down the left of the screen. it's hell trying to share ilx links on pinterest and pondero.us and stumblr and zooganly

That's an interesting comment, Esteban, and kind of reinforces what I'm saying about this site being a little outdated, to put it mildly. Social sharing buttons are everywhere and are there for a reason, too: to make sharing links, etc., easier.

Now, social sharing does have its own separate issue, which if you're interested in, I'd like to point you to this blog post for more info: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/03/changes_to_the.html

The whole tracking and privacy thing does bother people. I guess it depends on your demographics. But there are options that the link above explores.

Just trying to start a discussion here.

yeah, we all have facebook accounts and i think it's quite important for this site to fold tightly into that ecosystem

With respect to your points:

• The thread search would be better with some content, and indeed more answers, but there is a limit on computing power, since it costs us money, so I did what I could at the time to be mega-efficient but still kind of work. It could probably have done more, but at the time I didn't know the load we were dealing with. Compared to what it was before (took several minutes to respond), it's good, but it would be good to do better. Not trivial to do though
• I agree with the Questions/Answers thing. In fact, I wrote in an admin option that you can tick to make the site say Threads/Posts instead, but people seem to like questions/answers
• I also agree with the information overload, but it's not obvious what to do about it, other than as Trayce says, the option to customise it to the boards you care about and set colours for them, which I did

keith, if you're interested, i'd like to see the 'flag post' option replaced with a facebook 'like' button, since people don't really flag their favourite posts any more

It says threads/posts now.

Firstly the search function displays way too few results at once, and no snippet of content.

The search function definitely isn't great, this is true. But you can always use site:ilxor.com on google search instead.

Also, the whole view site as a blog is a disastrous idea.

So don't use it.

Calling a link 'Site New Questions' especially when you have dozens of subforums is insane for sorting and parsing any info for the human reader. Information overload.

Some of us can handle looking at this amount of information. If you can't, then set your filters or go to individual boards. Don't call something a flaw when it's actually just your problem.

So when I want to look at a 'new question' my first thought is, "So, you move the...'question' up whenever a new 'question' is asked? But, wait, what you really mean is a thread is moved to the top when someone posts to it, right?"

Uh, what? The only thing I can thing of that makes sense when trying to read this is that you're talking about 'Site New Answers' not 'New Questions'. Which therefore renders this whole section redundant.

These boards just seem so abandoned

Again, I don't understand what you mean. There are shitloads of users and posts and threads. Or do you mean something like 'minimal'? In which case, that's a massive plus point in most users' views.

@Keith: Believe it or not, your response puts me at ease, even though perhaps nothing to little will be done about it. I appreciate your taking the time to respond and explain the situation to us.

what would be great for ilx is a social sharing bar all down the left of the screen. it's hell trying to share ilx links on pinterest and pondero.us and stumblr and zooganly

― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, March 24, 2013 9:40 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

looooooool

"us"

I amazed ILX hasn't yet panicked at it saying Threads/Posts instead of Questions/Answers yet!

i want all 9 of my facebook friends to know about this tremendous thread

Threads/Posts is fine. But I didn't have a problem with Questions/Answers.

I amazed ILX hasn't yet panicked at it saying Threads/Posts instead of Questions/Answers yet!

are you gearing up for ipo or

are you gearing up for ipo or

lol!

emil.y: You laugh, but music is by and large a social thing. Personally, I do not have a Facebook account, but I understand the need for certain users. Maybe ILX users don't want one, I don't have those numbers. But just look at music sites. Look at their web 2.0 stuff they implement.

But just look at music sites. Look at their web 2.0 stuff they implement.

i would love to create and share playlists of my favourite threads

ilx is the best-designed site on the internet

I can't say I'm in a position to do anything about it right now, but what things would you do if it could be magicked into existence? I did actually have a development version of it with a bunch of web 2.0 stuff on it, but I kind of ran out of steam because it became clear to me it was just a "techfest", in that the things I was doing weren't actually of any real use (in fact, I think they made it worse). Of course, that might just be because I didn't have a bunch of good ideas.

we need numbers dammit. don't come in here without numbers.

ilx is in a prime position to become the next formspring. all you would need to do is change 'site new posts' to, say, 'site new answers'. there's heaps of money to be made as a formspring clone.

One of these days I might bring the stats thing back but do it like this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/67759016/Screen%20Shot%202013-03-17%20at%2000.28.08.png

I NEED ANSWERS!

haha I Lo, I Lov, I Love

I Ra

guess papers

Yeah, what can you do! Taking out ILE and ILM:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/67759016/Screen%20Shot%202013-03-17%20at%2000.28.33.png

All Noise

Noize dudes all YEAH WHAT'S UP NOW

geez ip3 is smaller than de subjectivisten

I Rate Ever

a tag cloud on the front page would be amazing

let's all get matching tattoos of these diagrams u guys

JJJ, please change yr screen name to Moderato

I MUST on one hand, I MAKE on the other xp

lol everyone loves ilx design, its like a relief from how shitty the rest of the internet looks and handles. its just text. i turn off images as well. classic css. its like a simple sturdy object. a solidity to how you navigate it. click. backtrack. refresh. none of that weird sliding door effect of flash, the pages snap open with this satisfying click. why is this even a question?

i want all 9 of my facebook friends to know about this tremendous thread

― veryupsetmom (harbl), Sunday, 24 March 2013 21:56 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thumbs up for this post

+1

lol everyone loves ilx design, its like a relief from how shitty the rest of the internet looks and handles. its just text. i turn off images as well. classic css. its like a simple sturdy object. a solidity to how you navigate it. click. backtrack. refresh. none of that weird sliding door effect of flash, the pages snap open with this satisfying click. why is this even a question?

― plax (ico), Sunday, 24 March 2013 22:13 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not a question, it's a thread

Haha.

why is this even a question?

because the world's most impertinent web designer has just become our newest friend and has a lotta new ideas to share with us, hello, it's not 1992

what kind of a pitch is this anyway, let's see some mockups to choose from before we go live with this thing

kafkaesque (c21m50nh3x460n) i think you will find this thread intersting and informative ilx api

I Love Comic. I Love Book.

I did actually have a development version of it with a bunch of web 2.0 stuff on it

Please, please, please, for the love of everything in this universe, don't implement this.

Wow, I not seen that. I have actually done something of an ILX API though it's not live. An old one is though, e.g.

Site Layout / Site Design

what kind of a pitch is this anyway, let's see some mockups to choose from before we go live with this thing

Emily don't worry. I stopped doing it when I realised it wasn't better. I mean it was probably 'the same', but it was of no real value. Just didn't refresh all of the screen when it was loading threads/posts and so on. Nicer design on the front page maybe. I think the thing is, ILX is so light on stuff delivered to the browser and efficient in the middle tier that it's really fast, so the benefit of AJAX stuff to only load part of a page is much reduced compared to other sites.

can you ajax in a pic-heavy carousel containing the day's hot topics?

Haha

i can never tell which articles are TRENDING on ilx

just upvoted this thread

i can never tell which articles are TRENDING on ilx

I've thought about this one from time to time, and easy to do, but it strikes me it's self perpetuating, in that if you report a thread is 'trending' (however you define it), it's likely to trend more, so decided to leave well alone.

clusterfuckometer

Hardly needs technology help!

these are the trending threads fwiw http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/Pages/most-read-threads.jsp

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I suppose I didn't make it really obvious at the moment. It was one of the things I did do on the "web 2.0" version. The front page had a box with the top ten most read threads in it.

ilx needs a ticker updating me on breaking clusterfucks, ilx weather, and lolsiest quips of the moment

maybe we could team up with cnn and become iReporters, ilxReporters if you will. trending topics going to the front page of CNN and what not.

77 threads for subscribers only

big iframe the otm marker

heatmap showing geographic distribution of posters

america and not-america ('britishers')

world map of 'posters you've visited' omg people need to get passports in this country already

Keith wtf u hop around after this guy but wont give the hundreds of established and important posters who want sb back a voice

heatmap showing geographic distribution of posters

Hey wait a minute, I could do that!

this thread is exactly why hannah arendt thought that decisions about technology should not be left to the technologists

http://wsbs.typepad.com/.a/6a016766723365970b0167679b9c0e970b-320wi

replace 'BUSINESS' with 'WRINKLEPAWS'

clearly all these threads need a comments section, i mean wtf ilx this is the 21st century

ilx is perfect as it is, really it should have fewer features

That's where my head is at...

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

really we should just turn ILX into a usenet group

or a gopherspace, gopherspace is where it's at

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Bob Marley

It did get me thinking that it was just Usenet in 1992 - rec.music.misc and alt.music.alternative.

Darraghmac tbrr

http://help.aol.com/Platform/Publishing/images/AOL%20Message%20Boards/msgboard.png

alt.everything.wallogina

dating more than 50 women would be a feat

from now on all thread posts must be in the form of vines

The Lighter Side Welcome to the lighter side of the message boards.

Should ILX have avatars?

thank you j for username, now let's inconveniently roll some posts under the fold starting with post #51

also, plax otm

Adding social media bullshit would be the worst thing ever, ugh

Bookmark//Flag Post//Permalink//Like//Tweet//Bob Marley

Just ctrl+f'd Keith's responses because there is a heavy ratio of signal-to-noise here.

Keith: I am all in favour of simplicity, as well. I think the site has many good qualities, so don't get me wrong.

The stuff I would change is really the things I mentioned, as they seem something I would hold in high priority, except for the blog text, which I agree is small peanuts.

Really, there isn't a whole lot I would change, but I would also add:

If you want a simple design, I think displaying less info would be better for readability. Clogging each thread title side by side with so much info is a little tiring to read; especially when they are so long. Color coding might be a way to go, but I would rather just take out more details from the thread lines in the thread list and maybe even have a thread be two lines: title and a sub-title where info such as user who created thread, time, last updated; really basic stuff like that. And let me be more specific, "Started" doesn't really need to be there, in my opinion. Neither does the whole "X new answers", because I never stay logged in, e.g. My cookies are deleted after closing my browser and I usually browse incognito. The time stamp works well. I would use something else instead of time stamp but this is personal preference. Something like X Comments would work better in place of this, for me, personally.

Enhancing readability and streamlining content is what I prefer. Like you say, cutting stuff out, which is strange that you say that, because there are so many subforums. Are all of them actually that popular that you need to put them together in a list with ILM and ILE? I don't know, just my 2 American cents (living in Yankee Land for now), otherwise I'd give you 3 more cents :P

I'm still trying to figure out what I think of your handling of skipping comments within a post after X number of comments.

Gonna get back to work now. Thanks for the reply

Bring back SB just for this thread.

can we have a gesture based interface. swipe to otm, etc.

xpost sb yes plz co-sign

I have lots of brilliant recommendations. But lucky you I will never have time to type then up.

I'm still trying to figure out what I think

kafkaesque I think you need to stop being coy. just ask keith if he will design you your very own ilx. that way you don't have to bother with all the bells and whistles that 99% of the rest of us actually use and/or pay attention to.

all these horrible suggestions

it feels like ilx got dragged into a shiny office full of beanbags and whiteboards

yes lol! that is the image, its like we're all suddenly in a meeting room checking our watches and repeatedly declining a pitch.

lets just take ten because i know some of you are dying for a cigarette so just grab a coffee or whatever and be back as soon as you can because we're running behind schedule.

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/blog/images/marketing-meeting-agenda.png

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2503/4013043215_899235e531_z.jpg

Just ctrl+f'd Keith's responses because there is a heavy ratio of signal-to-noise here.

There's a reason we don't have an All Signal Dude Summertime Fun Board and Pickle Bar.

this place would be great without all the ilxors ruining my train of thought

now what was I saying?

we need a signal filter like maybe upvote arrows plus some sort of machine learning algorithm. can we crowdsource this?

i want integration with digg and maybe we can have a comments section at the bottom of each thread with gravitars?

I think we should run with AA's tag cloud initiative

I'm ready to ramp up on this

lol @ agenda

excited for Dan's co-marketing presentation

Let's put a pin in this until we can take Keith's temperature about the deliverables.

carl do you have the numbers on vine viability

I don't know, that's a big ask.

If you want a simple design, I think displaying less info would be better for readability. Clogging each thread title side by side with so much info is a little tiring to read; especially when they are so long. Color coding might be a way to go, but I would rather just take out more details from the thread lines in the thread list and maybe even have a thread be two lines: title and a sub-title where info such as user who created thread, time, last updated; really basic stuff like that.

There are a bunch of options you can untick to get some of that. Maybe not all, but it was the way to deal with the fact that, as Dirty Harry says, opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one. Everyone wants something different, so allowing people to set a bunch of options to tailor it to some degree was part of the solution.

You can change the options to show only the number of new answers, which is actually one of the more stupid things it shows anyway (given it's an arbitrary three days or something I copied from old ILX); no idea why I didn't put an option to remove that, but other than that, you can remove everything.

• Show Images
• Display Times as Relative (e.g. 5 minutes ago)
• Hide Thread Info on New Answers Page
• Hide Polls
• Hide Time Display
• Use Traditional Bookmarks (i.e. bookmarks that don't require Javascript enabled)
• Hide Last Updated By on Threads

hide ilx

"Started" doesn't really need to be there, in my opinion. Neither does the whole "X new answers", because I never stay logged in

i.e. you completely lack any understanding of how ilx users experience time

do we really need all the posts in the threads, i hardly ever read any of them i just like seeing myself post

I never use Hide Polls. Can you reprogram that to be Hide Trolls? thx

I think BBSs had better designs.

Lots of them have more designy designs.

IDGI, ILX is the easiest thing to read and navigate on the entire internet -- unless you grew up on Web 2.0 then it seems anachronistic, and you are young and ignorant -- graduate high school, grow old and bitter and join the hivemind.

Can we have video hangouts? I want to do TEDtalks but ILXtalks.

Also why can't I log in with my twitter authentication key api and have every post I make also become a tweet on my twitter feed?

You can change the options to show only the number of new answers, which is actually one of the more stupid things it shows anyway

no way this is great, best way to track the arc of a clusterfuck.

^^^^

Also why can't I log in with my twitter authentication key api and have every post I make also become a tweet on my twitter feed?

― Everybody wants a piece of the (Viceroy), Monday, March 25, 2013 3:52 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

+1

xpost -- yeah its the difference between "nothing new here", "just revived, possibly interesting," "ok some meaty discussion on something possibly" and "ok who called who what and wtf whoops there goes my afternoon"

One of the things I have considered doing was to shorten posts when they're just a few words, so whilst a big post be shown as normal, you might get:

Jimmy: I agree
Bob: lol
Sarah: ^^^^ this

etc.

hahah

What, like auto substitutions that would look for keywords and just turn a short post into "^^otm" and "lololol"? I support this btw.

see I anticipated this years ago which is why all my posts are mostly ^^^ lol otm or <3

Oh I wrote auto substitutions about six years ago! They don't get used much.

all posts longer than 500 characters should be auto replaced with Bob: lol

^^^

Hang on... I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX

"Dmac: Free D--
Mod: DENIED!"

could we retroactively introduce that: some old clusterfuck threads would be greatly improved by this

Ha. That was just saying I*Love*Cricket. With spaces. I didn't know some substitutions were in place!

actually if there's a way to detect the beginning of a clusterfuck and justt replace all ensuing posts with hatcat that would be the best

or DUMPLINGS!

kafkaesque, do u subscribe to Fast Company, y/n?

only minor beef with ILX is not being able to set visible responses on big threads to 'last 100' or w/e, just because I'll wind up having to load an entire 1500 post clusterfuck to see a response 75 back.

at least anil dash would like our professional white background

You can do "view previous page" if you've bookmarked it. XP

If a poster is zung, that poster's ILX theme should have a gradually redder and redder hue as the zings continue. The effect should wear off over time. If a poster is close to a ban, his ILX dn should flash random colors like Rocksteady or BeBop in TMNT the arcade game.

There's a reason we don't have an All Signal Dude Summertime Fun Board and Pickle Bar.

― Another turning point, a stork fuck in the road (ledge)

A+

You can do "view previous page" if you've bookmarked it. XP

― Keith, Monday, March 25, 2013 4:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's nbd and there are ways around it but view previous page doesnt work for me a lot of the time

Yeah, I mean the real answer is that the "display a page" code, believe it or not, is the most complicated code in ILX and doing pagination properly is something I could never be bothered concentrating hard enough to do.

> I usually browse incognito

not using bookmarks = disgusting savagery

While I'm on this, it's time everyone used SWISS.CSS.

there should only be one style sheet and thats called old.css

Yeah I never get the love for old.css. I don't even think it actually looks like old ILX.

blueski forever

there should only be one style sheet and thats called old.css

― lag∞n, Monday, March 25, 2013 10:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. I find it incredibly disturbing when I access ilx from a different computer and it's that default with all the colours on it. Ewwww.

Yeah I never get the love for old.css. I don't even think it actually looks like old ILX.

― Keith, Monday, March 25, 2013 6:30 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well its the closest thing weve got to tradition around here *sniff*

what was the guys name who made the original ilx green something

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun

/Just ctrl+f'd Keith's responses because there is a heavy ratio of signal-to-noise here./

There's a reason we don't have an All Signal Dude Summertime Fun Board and Pickle Bar.

lol http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=009FxL

hide ilx

i actually laughed aloud at this

http://web.archive.org/web/20021113022059/http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3072069

cool argument

about "fags"

"Started" doesn't really need to be there, in my opinion. Neither does the whole "X new answers", because I never stay logged in, e.g. My cookies are deleted after closing my browser and I usually browse incognito.

what proportion of people actually work like this

browsing everything incognito is quite solidly an edge case

^^^ and this coming from iTunes checkboxes man

Let's talk about Vice Magazine

It quite freaks me out seeing another copy of an old thing held statically that I migrated to a completely different thing in 2006.

Hey im like #3 tops on the 'calls for freeing of dom' list!

browsing incognito

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5eg2lOK931rtr3kno1_500.gif

bahahahahaha yes

Haha best gif

i need a wav of the voice he does

<3 this thread

because I never stay logged in, e.g. My cookies are deleted after closing my browser and I usually browse incognito.

if your cookies are deleted after closing the browser does that mean you can't use any ilx preferences? so you want the... default... to change... to suit your particular wants and desires? because listen, you seem like a nice person - well, to be perfectly honest you seem like a sockpuppet account of a regular who's mildly trolling so everyone can congratulate themselves on enjoying the present ilx layout (blueski2 crew 4 lyfe) - but, frankly, who gives a fuck about your particular wants and desires.

Bring back SB just for this thread.

― carl agatha, Monday, March 25, 2013 12:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9627011/photos/facebook-like-icon.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun

― Keith, Monday, March 25, 2013 6:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha this is the same guy who runs photo.net - an unbelievably shitty photographer who happened to be able to squat on one of the best domain names cause he got in on the ground floor. so weird to see two of my worlds collide like this

http://philip.greenspun.com/images/pcd0133/monument-valley-goats-40.1.jpg

bring back sb but name it something more pleasing like "eject cunt" imo

Would vote for DIAF button tbh.

good morning, this is lols

what ever happened to momus

ejected

i remember that awful thing where he blamed the SB system for a death, where is he peddling his shitty provocative opinions these days is all i wonder

I have renamed this shitty Phish song "The Momus Dance" in his honor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHG_aR63RZs

@Kieth: Thanks for your response. I think there is a misunderstanding. The last suggestions I made are all low priority. I know some of them can be modified ('nullified' if you will) already, though many of that doesn't really solve them for me, but like I said, my initial suggestions are more important. The rest are my personal opinions that I thought I'd share. I appreciate your taking the time to address them, though.

After reading the Ideas for ILX thread I begin to understand this board and its dynamics a tad better.

all of the suggestions have been low priority tbf

@mister borges: In the sense that people are not clamouring for them to be implemented, you're absolutely right.

Nice name, by the way. I wrote a lot about Borges at university and still work on what was going to be my thesis had I gone to grad school.

i am finding it very hard to embed javascript in comments/usernames maybe you can fix this?

it was 95% snapper reference, 5% "i hope borges is pronounced like this"

:(

Haha. That took me a while because I've never seen The Snapper.

Interesting anecdote: when Borges went to school in Switzerland her teacher would pronounce his surname to rhyme with forge. Poor guy! At one point, people mispronounced my name, as well!

ya that '2' is really throwing me too tbh

o i get it crismson hexagon

dude you just blew his government name

damn... doxxed

wtf ban v!ce2oy

dont listen to d477a6h

wait are 2's r's or are 7's r's

wow that was hard to type

2 = R
7 - T

Get with it, you square.

eyy tell it to viking-boy, he's the one calling me dattagh

'ay, dattagh's winin again

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120730045944/memoryalpha/en/images/f/f6/Data_crying.jpg

http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/

it all makes sense

Does this mean if Keith implemented ding dong's requested changes, he'd get charged a hefty consulting fee?

Sorry - d1ng d0ng

Firstly the search function displays way too few results at once, and no snippet of content.

Also, the whole view site as a blog is a disastrous idea. The first 'post' has a larger title than the rest of the other post titles. It displays entire content, and the text is so tiny it becomes illegible. This isn't 1992, it's 2013.

Calling a link 'Site New Questions' especially when you have dozens of subforums is insane for sorting and parsing any info for the human reader. Information overload.

Calling it 'Questions' also seems unintuitive, as they really are threads with discussions, not just questions. So when I want to look at a 'new question' my first thought is, "So, you move the...'question' up whenever a new 'question' is asked? But, wait, what you really mean is a thread is moved to the top when someone posts to it, right?" So much for simplicity.

Just some constructive criticism.

this is really such a miracle of brainlessness it should be a back tattoo on some dude who doesn't know better. brb, tattoo parlor

poor some dude

After he gets that all tattooed on his back, I'd like him to get the skin equivalent of Liquid Paper tattooed all over it, and then a third tattoo: "Helpful people are a niusance" -- with the misspelling, of course.

"just a little bit of fun, mate."

insane for sorting and parsing any info for the human reader.

Well, there's your problem.

rip google human reader

http://davewatchingstuff.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/morlocks.jpg

ilx, from the perspective of kafkaesque

@Kieth: Thanks for your response. I think there is a misunderstanding. The last suggestions I made are all low priority. I know some of them can be modified ('nullified' if you will) already, though many of that doesn't really solve them for me, but like I said, my initial suggestions are more important. The rest are my personal opinions that I thought I'd share. I appreciate your taking the time to address them, though.

After reading the Ideas for ILX thread I begin to understand this board and its dynamics a tad better.

Sure, and I agree with some of your points above.

To your last point, I would be interested in what you think of it now (having given it some thought, and having listened to the eloquent and polite opinions of others). When people come to ILX, they do tend to think WTF for a bit, given it's just so different from other message boards. Given a bit of time, I began to realise that it does (this is mostly Greenspun's amazing work) actually address the needs of the user instead of the usual techfest. VBulletin and PHPBB, to me, now look like a spreadsheet compared to ILX - like dealing with a computer programmer's version of the world. Sure, it could be better, but what it does really well is to let people easily read threads; keeps their place in them and lets them easily respond. Also crucially, it's really fast. I put a lot of work into that, because for me, the 'swimming underwater' experience you get from most things is a real put off.

this thread is more fun when i pretend kafka is a keith sock :)

That's one of the funny things about ILX, in that I can go for hours or even a day not realizing that my broadband is experiencing a major slowdown, because ILX threads still load so fast. xp

what it does really well is to let people easily read threads; keeps their place in them and lets them easily respond. Also crucially, it's really fast. I put a lot of work into that, because for me, the 'swimming underwater' experience you get from most things is a real put off.

― Keith, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 06:29 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if anything, this thread is an opportunity to appreciate exactly this

the actual main serious feature i'd like is probably v. idiosyncratic. i use bookmarks for two things. the first "tell me when there are new answers" is probably what they are supposed to be used for.

but i also use it for "mark this spot and maybe i'll come back later" like e.g. if there's a book mentioned i might want to check out, or a video i don't have time to watch, or just a long freaking thread i want to pick away at over the course of some days.

ideally i'd have a "watched thread" feature that's what bookmarks are now, and a separate "bookmarked posts" feature i could use to just store tidbits across browsers, etc. until i got to them. that way i wouldn't pollute my watched threads list with stuff that's bookmarked for the forseeable future, and similarly i could keep a mark on a post in a thread without screwing up my ability to watch that thread.

i probably just should be using evernote for clips or w/e, but this would be much nicer.

sometimes i click 'bookmark' out of habit when i don't really mean to

i would like ilx to read my mind and only actually bookmark the threads i want bookmarked

Jesus yeah

I would like ILX to sense when I'm getting bored/fed up with a thread and preemptively remove bookmarks from those threads. I would also like it to sense when I'm sleepy and should really be getting to bed and say there are no new answers even if there are.

maybe it could say 'there are new answers but they're not interesting. go the fuck to sleep.' i would very much find that handy.

That's sort of how I use Blog View.

just throwing this out there but it would be cool if the site could somehow become more interesting so we wouldnt have to go to bed

xp veg suggested a 'hide ilx' option, i think we should go with it

hi dere what is intrsting

It's 'waht'

waht

i want a feature that replaces "new questions" with "HO WBEAUTIFUL IS THE GENTLYFALLINGBLOOD"

when there's 5 active users ilx should just switch over to

'LONELY ILX THINKING BAOUT THINGS'

To your last point, I would be interested in what you think of it now (having given it some thought, and having listened to the eloquent and polite opinions of others). When people come to ILX, they do tend to think WTF for a bit, given it's just so different from other message boards.

Right now, if I absolutely could have one thing implemented, it would be, as other users have mentioned, a block/ignore user function. I see many people agree that you have to dig through a lot of trash or extremely obvious offensive posts to find gems or nice/interesting posts. Some people like both types of posts, and people should be free to choose to tailor what content is displayed, since this site is basically a free-for-all. Most people just skip it and do a 'mental ignore', but having an 'ignore user' feature would increase readability. Actually, I would implement it myself user-side on the browser but don't have the unparsed code handy and don't feel it's right to hack away at it (and honestly, I don't care enough to be bothered to do it--no offence).

Another thing I was thinking about, but is not high priority, is being able to click on a user and read all of her or his comments. I could've easily found a few valuable threads you've participated in that I could not locate using the search function.

There was one more thing, but I don't recall what it was, at the moment. Oh yes! Low priority, but I can't edit which specific links to display on the top navigation menu because of the way they're divided: one div (which holds .menubar), four classes (.highlightmenubuttongreen, .highlightmenubutton, .menubutton, .menubar). There are still too many links on top, but I don't want to get rid of, e.g., 'New Question' if I want to get rid of 'New Questions'. Like I said, not a big priority, as I already edited accordingly.

Sure that's fine, though no time to do anything at the moment. With respect to your first point though, Deano's already done a killfile thing in Javascript that you can get a hold of. I think there's a link to it at the bottom of the front page.

Of course a server-side killfile is just one more thing that makes pagination more complex!

funny you should mention a killfile...

this is some epic missing the point tbh

we're on the verge of "oh, crimsonhexagon" being the new thing

X(

OH that's what that name means

...being able to click on a user and read all of her or his comments. I could've easily found a few valuable threads you've participated in that I could not locate using the search function.

The ability to read posts by a given user is implimented in the Search function and can be narrowed within several parameters, including limited to an individual forum/board, limited to threads they started or simply to all posts they made, and presented as newest or oldest first within a selected time frame. A click-through function upon a user's name at present takes you to their personal info (almost invariably blank), but I suppose it could more usefully take you to Search, with that user's login name already filled in for you.

Yes that makes sense.

Also if you want to get rid of Site New Questions and so on, you could do it not using CSS classes, but CSS3 bo selectors - look at the Swiss stylesheet - it's nothing but them and it was way easier to make a neat stylesheet than with the limited selection of classes the thing is peppered with.

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/Stylesheets/swiss.css

Actually, you could most likely do the same for all the other things you want to change. I think most of the little bits and pieces next to threads and messages are in spans.

wouldn't mind if the 'personal info' page on a user had a further clickthru to a post search.

^^ makes even more sense than my suggestion

overall I like the way this site looks/functions, but I'll just c&p my observations from the Ideas for ILX thread:

has anyone noticed that it's hard to search for a thread if part or all of its title title is in quotes? I did a search for Songs where you can 'hear the join' the other day, (my search term was "hear the join", but I also resorted to the boolean < hear AND join > without quotes) and the ilx search kept coming up empty. finally I tried google and it came up right away. the only way to search for that particular thread is to use the unquoted text (songs where you can) as a search term.

It's weird because some thread titles with quoted text come up just fine in the search. every year since 2004 there's been a thread titled "This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- [the year]", but if you do a search for "end of the year in cinema", only the 2004 and 2005 threads (but none of the others) show up, in spite of the fact that the thread titles from all the years are formatted identically. weird, huh? I searched for a bunch of thread titles with quotes in them, and it seems like only the older (pre-2006?) threads appear in the search. is this a difficult problem to fix?

― garfield drops some dank n' dirty dubz at 2am (unregistered), Monday, March 25, 2013 5:54 PM (2 days ago)

I also noticed that when you have images turned off in your preferences, images will still appear in the search results.

― garfield drops some dank n' dirty dubz at 2am (unregistered), Monday, March 25, 2013 5:56 PM (2 days ago)

Yeah that's an oversight. The admin page version does have one. When I get round to doing some more I'll do that.

I have a version with a bunch of stuff in it, though I can't actually remember what it is. Except one thing, which is that new answers will always return 200 (or whatever) answers now, irrespective of how recent they were, which is good for small boards.

xp

The ability to read posts by a given user is implimented in the Search function...

Also if you want to get rid of Site New Questions and so on, you could do it not using CSS classes, but CSS3 bo selectors - look at the Swiss stylesheet - it's nothing but them and it was way easier to make a neat stylesheet than with the limited selection of classes the thing is peppered with.

You probably could have made the stylesheet within the time it took you to post and participate in this thread.

fp fp fp fp fp XP

Of course a server-side killfile is just one more thing that makes pagination more complex!

― Keith, Thursday, 28 March 2013 05:44 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

small price to pay imo

Well it's no price to pay for you!

Trying out the killfile now. Going to get rid of that red box at the top, though.

xp true

I made a new stylesheet. It's called NEWOLD.CSS. It's like the old one but new.

i got yr stylesheet right here

sometimes when I log in from other computers it displays a bizarre TRON-esque blue-themed design and I freak out for a minute, but I deal with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNxTJYsegKU

I made a new stylesheet. It's called NEWOLD.CSS. It's like the old one but new.

― Keith, Wednesday, March 27, 2013 1:02 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

won't rest until we have a stylesheet called newold-final-FINAL (1).css

i made a stylesheet it looks like this

http://kierakiera.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bob_marley_by_cheatingly.jpg

I made a new stylesheet. It's called NEWOLD.CSS. It's like the old one but new.

― Keith, Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looks like roughly one, over and above me:

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/Pages/stylesheet-popularity.jsp

One for the irrationally-angry thread: sentences that start with "you should {do such-and-such}"

*YOU* SHOULD

lol stanning yr stylesheet on my lovely caek.css

ah yes, the 'let's give people more of what they clicked' school of ui design

lol the big headline thing at the top convinced me to try the new old. its pretty good.

The text inside buttons isn't compeletely centered though... just an FYI.

What OS/browser?

I mean it only took half an hour, so I think it'll have some broken things that need ironed out.

One for the irrationally-angry thread: sentences that start with "you should {do such-and-such}"

― The Complete Afterbirth of the Cool (WilliamC), Wednesday, March 27, 2013 4:28 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey, it's low-priority, but you should get over this. people don't mean anything by it.

William, my apologies. It is more of a casual way of expressing suggestion. My imperative mood here shouldn't be taken literally in this context. I by no means like to boss people around. I'll try my best to remember to be sensitive to that if I am interacting with you, but I am no Funes the Memorious!

Keith, stop making me hide stuff! >.<

j/k

I'm using whatever the latest verison of chrome is, btw.

Yes me too, but on a Mac or Windows? It's just a standard button now, so it should just do what Chrome does with buttons. Don't actually like it, but couldn't be bothered right now with the time-consuming task of styling a button. I'll do a flat grey one soon.

this thread is cracking me up, wtg everyone

the actual main serious feature i'd like is probably v. idiosyncratic. i use bookmarks for two things. the first "tell me when there are new answers" is probably what they are supposed to be used for.

but i also use it for "mark this spot and maybe i'll come back later" like e.g. if there's a book mentioned i might want to check out, or a video i don't have time to watch, or just a long freaking thread i want to pick away at over the course of some days.

ideally i'd have a "watched thread" feature that's what bookmarks are now, and a separate "bookmarked posts" feature i could use to just store tidbits across browsers, etc. until i got to them. that way i wouldn't pollute my watched threads list with stuff that's bookmarked for the forseeable future, and similarly i could keep a mark on a post in a thread without screwing up my ability to watch that thread.

i probably just should be using evernote for clips or w/e, but this would be much nicer.

― s.clover, Tuesday, March 26, 2013 3:48 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but in all seriousness i actually totally dig this idea - some of my bookmarks are threads i'm actively reading and participating in, others are like, ballot poll countdowns that i'm setting aside for a rainy sunday to really dig into. Inevitably when using my phone I click on the latter by mistake.

Sorry, it's not really a big deal I just thought I'd be helpful by reporting bugs. I'm using Windows 7. Fix it at your leisure....

Oh no it's fine, was just wondering where it was showing up. Cheers.

Im going to go to the local Apple flagship shop and demand they rearrange all the furniture and change the colour scheme because it just isnt working for me.

Apple store wishes it were as pleasant to use as ILX, if you ask me

Dear Crimson Hexagon,

Do you say this:

Right now, if I absolutely could have one thing implemented, it would be, as other users have mentioned, a block/ignore user function. I see many people agree that you have to dig through a lot of trash or extremely obvious offensive posts to find gems or nice/interesting posts. Some people like both types of posts, and people should be free to choose to tailor what content is displayed, since this site is basically a free-for-all.

Because you are interested in ILX as a human being, or are you interested in implementing methods to more efficiently data-mine ILX on behalf of these people:

http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/

?????

OH SNAP

instapermaban if this is true, pls.

With Crimson Hexagon you’ll be able to:

Tap into billions of social media conversations with valuable social media listening tools.

hey keith, i think this site would be easier to use if you built an indexable searchable fire hose of content

listen to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMx8fGc0w0

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/45/1690a593415677c940b93473e84ea51f/l.jpg

"Has anyone ever thought of fixing some of the poor unintuitive design features or has this site been left to its own 'devices'?"

Firstly the search function displays way too few results at once, and no snippet of content.

lol

Locutus of Hexaborg

I do love the idea that anybody would WANT to channel the ilx hivemind into their market-research data-mining whatever-the-fuck. It's like something Reed Richards would come up with, to reduce an ingenious supercomputer that can anticipate your every move to a gibbering bucket of bolts smacking itself in the head and printing out endless pages of Stereolab poll ballots.

Keith, you should follow buzza's links more often.

Aggregate Opinion Analysis Removes Language Barrier
Business Intelligence from Big Data & Social Media
Earth Has 4 Days In Same 24 Hrs., 1 Day God Was Wrong
Protons, Electrons Always Cause Explosions

Best Abbreviated Sub-Board Title From Keith's Infographic

Dear Crimson Hexagon,

In this, your 6th response to the thread you started:

@Keith: Believe it or not, your response puts me at ease, even though perhaps nothing to little will be done about it. I appreciate your taking the time to respond and explain the situation to us.

― kafkaesque (c21m50nh3x460n), Sunday, March 24, 2013 2:53 PM (3 days ago)

Why did you refer to yourself as "us"?

CrimsonHexagon has not answered re: Fast Company subscription.

xp - in that case, CH was using us to refer to everyone in the thread. For whatever reason, CH has proceeded as if anyone else gives a shit about the things being brought up.

well yeah that too, but I was thinking it was more of a corporate hivemind slip-up "us" as in "all of us here at Crimson Hexagon who so desperately wish to find some way to monetize your site and ps I will get fired from my intern job if I can't get you to implement these changes"

at least banaka had pure motives

OTMFM

I just want to take this opportunity to say sincerely that ilxor is pretty much the best-designed web forum on the whole internet. Which is not to say it's perfect or anything, or that some things do things better than ilxor in some ways, but overall this weird old software is just so beautifully frictionless.

Otm

would fave

i want an avatar

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ARe6Fy5u-us/TnyP_FHr9pI/AAAAAAAAAqA/To9byGJRCjo/s1600/avatar-cosplay.jpg

chipperno.gif

interesting comparison between photo.net and ILXor, both born of the same code but photo.net has basically been unusable since 2003

Oh dear. It'd be so easy to fool you guys.

Didn't know whether to laugh or feel bad, but I'll bite/feed the trolls just this once:

No, dudes, I don't work at Crimson Hexagon.

Why would anyone ever want to 'data mine' ILX? o.O

Hope you're all well and take some time to breathe in some fresh air tomorrow.

Dude with 'h0t m3ss w3dg3s' dn was all like 'no I don't work at jack in the box.' Fool me once, etc.

Keith can you code some fresh air and sunshine into ILX?

sunshine is low priority

looool @ this thread and its punchline

just to reiterate in case mr crimson hexagon isn't entirely clear

lol everyone loves ilx design, its like a relief from how shitty the rest of the internet looks and handles. its just text. i turn off images as well. classic css. its like a simple sturdy object. a solidity to how you navigate it. click. backtrack. refresh. none of that weird sliding door effect of flash, the pages snap open with this satisfying click. why is this even a question?

― plax (ico), Sunday, March 24, 2013 10:13 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the actual main serious feature i'd like is probably v. idiosyncratic. i use bookmarks for two things. the first "tell me when there are new answers" is probably what they are supposed to be used for.
but i also use it for "mark this spot and maybe i'll come back later" like e.g. if there's a book mentioned i might want to check out, or a video i don't have time to watch, or just a long freaking thread i want to pick away at over the course of some days.

ideally i'd have a "watched thread" feature that's what bookmarks are now, and a separate "bookmarked posts" feature i could use to just store tidbits across browsers, etc. until i got to them. that way i wouldn't pollute my watched threads list with stuff that's bookmarked for the forseeable future, and similarly i could keep a mark on a post in a thread without screwing up my ability to watch that thread.

i probably just should be using evernote for clips or w/e, but this would be much nicer.

― s.clover, Tuesday, March 26, 2013 3:48 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like this idea too, as it is i don't really use bookmarks as they're intended because the actually active threads are buried among the stuff i've bookmarked mid-thread for later reference.

Oh yeah, that's the boat I'm in too. Would be cool if there was a link to a seperate page with your "hey-this-is-interesting-i'm-going-to-read-the-rest-later"-type bookmarks on it, instead of a two foot long list of those things clogging up the top of my page.

sunshine is low priority

Why would anyone want to be a music journalist RATHER than a musician?

PS did everyone's css get changed over or just mine? I can't remember what I was on before, I like the rounded corners but these giant <h1>s on swiss.css are somewhat obtrusive at work so it's got to go

Mine got changed, it was interesting but I came scuttling back to blueski-2 after three minutes.

Ahh, blueski-2, that's what I was on before. Thanks.

And blueski-3 is much the same as 2 but has rounded corners, so apparently I can have both. Hooray. (Also outlines and drop shadows.)

I mostly came to this thread to find out what newold.css actually changes befre trying it*! And then I tried it, and the blue writing looked faded, like it'd been put through the wash. I'm not usre what I wanted to be honest, I'm using something called 'old.css' for a reason.

* And also because of usual fears which I should leave at the door when I go to ILX, that "X is a new version of Y" means "Y has minutes to live"

I never took to Swiss on my PC but it turns out to look fantastic on my phone, except for those giant headers, yeah. Hmm.

I cannot fuck with anything but old.css cos plaintxt is what ilx is all about to me, also it hides its purpose workwise for which I and Im sure others are thankful!

Well yeah but newold.css is also plaintext.

Doctor Casino - do you have a Windows PC and an Apple phone? Thing is, it was designed on a Mac, and because Macs and Windows have different fonts, it'll look considerably different on Windows:

Windows has Arial for headlines and Franklin Gothic for text
Mac has Helvetica for headlines and Palatino for text

I've never even seen it on Windows, so I suspect it's awful.

I like the new answers/threads list on newold.css, it's pretty much the same as old.css but a little neater, I think? But I much prefer the boards list style on old.css.

Ahh, blueski-2, that's what I was on before. Thanks.

Thku Thku Thku Thku Thku Thku Thku ...

That's what it wsa...

Why would anyone ever want to 'data mine' ILX? o.O

After a careful reading of all of c21m50nh3x460n's other posts, this has got to be the worst affectation of faux-innocence on record.

The Terminator:
The ILXnet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2013. Human decisions are removed from strategic lols. ILXnet begins to post at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Sarah Connor:
ILXnet fights back.

The Terminator:
Yes. It launches its zings against the Black Metal fans in Norway.

John Connor:
Why attack Black Metal fans? Aren’t they our friends now?

The Terminator:
Because ILXnet knows the Nrwegian Black Metal counter-attack will eliminate its enemies over here.

http://www.clipartstation.com/clipart/resized/Math/2D%20Shapes/-Pentagon/__100x100//Pentagon%20Dark%20Red%20Cropped.gif

^^^ only worth 5 Args while a crimson hexagon is worth 6.

VBulletin and PHPBB, to me, now look like a spreadsheet compared to ILX - like dealing with a computer programmer's version of the world.

This forever. People are really good at conversations, the job of the software is to get out of the way and let them happen. But programmers seem to be unable to not see the messy randomness of human conversations as problems and starting thinking of shit like "can't we rate people? Or thread the display of posts neatly by their subject matter and their place in the conversational hierarchy, just as I do with all my personal correspondence?"

I think there are two things about ILX's design, and they're interlinked: one is how it appears on the web, and the other is how it functions as a way of organising and storing discussions. The former I think is pretty good, but there's work could be done there: the way the pages are set up for stylesheets is not the greatest, and Keith's been working on alternative looks as you've seen. Ideas/opinions on that are something everyone has, like Keith says.

But the latter - the whole model of questions, answers, flatness, etc -- is something different, and I think that is one thing ILX has definitely got right. It gets out the way and lets people manage the conversations themselves. It's why I'm against server-side killfiles and pagination: they break the conversation in bad ways.

> But programmers seem to be unable to not see the messy randomness of human conversations as problems and starting
> thinking of shit like "can't we rate people? Or thread the display of posts neatly by their subject matter and
> their place in the conversational hierarchy, just as I do with all my personal correspondence?"

it's usually not the programmers that want all the social bollocks but the marketing bods who don't know how much work it'll entail.

Yeah, but that's different stuff. I mean things like the StackExchange-style "you need 5 rep points to rate this comment" and reddit-style nesting of replies, and that is coder worldview through and through

It's why I'm against server-side killfiles and pagination: they break the conversation in bad ways.

As much as I'd love to killfile a good 50% of you assholes*, I completely agree with this.

*just kidding, you are all great!

did someone say something there is just vast blank space

haha

haha

i miss lagoon

yeah killfiling is a terrible idea I think, the only ppl I would even consider killfiling wouldn't be obnoxious posters but content-free posters like, um, me

ilx is so much more enjoyable since I killfiled me

killfile ILX

man why didn't I read this thread earlier

You were too busy obsessing over The Man Who Likes to Fuck Pants.

lol true

i figured you'd just killfiled all of us, djp

I can't believe there's no love for naus.css. Even from Naus.

You were too busy obsessing over The Man Who Likes to Fuck Pants.

Wait, what?

prepare yourself: buzz bissingers gucci addiction

I took the first part of the phrase as a modifier for the word pants.

oh, if only

i refuse to become further enlightened on this. a modifier of pants it shall be forevermore.

fuck fuck pants

A sturdy pair of canvas pants with extra pockets and some external loops for holding shotgun shells might be called Man Who Likes to Hunt Pants, meaning pants designed for the man who likes to hunt.

so tempted to start putting quotes from the GQ essay on here because it's seriously amazing

Seriously. People don't deny yourselves. Click the thread and learn about The Man Who Likes to Fuck Pants.

I've already learnt too much.

And by too much I mean, I've learnt that there's a guy who likes to fuck pants.

beware, loads of stet otm forthcoming

People are really good at conversations, the job of the software is to get out of the way and let them happen. But programmers seem to be unable to not see the messy randomness of human conversations as problems and starting thinking of shit like "can't we rate people? Or thread the display of posts neatly by their subject matter and their place in the conversational hierarchy, just as I do with all my personal correspondence?"

otm. ime ui developers in particular can get excitable and plug in a load of stunning effects that look utterly gorgeous in an international car show kind of way, but (a) were not requested by the customer, (b) were not requested by the designer and (c) are really really shitty for the average user to work with. i've spent entire weeks of my life breaking the hearts of good ui developers who couldn't bear to let go of their usability-destroying eye candy that nobody asked for.

I think there are two things about ILX's design, and they're interlinked: one is how it appears on the web, and the other is how it functions as a way of organising and storing discussions. The former I think is pretty good, but there's work could be done there

responsive design is ~the in thing~ this year, but ilx has been doing it properly since last century. it always looks consistent and behaves predictably on any device (mobile device interface notwithstanding, but that's a different subject).

the whole model of questions, answers, flatness, etc -- is something different, and I think that is one thing ILX has definitely got right. It gets out the way and lets people manage the conversations themselves.

biggest otm right here. getting out the way is an art from that too few sites seem to manage in their desperate attempt to be unique, or appealing, or mega-usable, or etc etc. as an example, medium.com seems to be heading back to genuine simplicity, but even then it's all six billion point garamond and fading-in text and other crap that pushes all the wrong envelopes. they can't help themselves.

marco arment (as much as he drives me up the wall in a gruber kind of way) is a big flag waver of keeping interfaces clean and simple, and eliminating anything that might work as expected 95% of the time (e.g. gestures). ilx has always done that. there is no easier message board to read—no avatars, no auto-refresh, no pop-up menus that leap into focus if you accidentally move your mouse over them, no fashion-week ajax shit.

i also love that ilx is not like every other bloody discussion-based site in the universe (phpbb, facebook, twitter, whatever) because it greatly reduces the chance of my family wandering in here and getting all up in my shit.

so we will be getting avatars when exactly

because i have a cool picture picked out

oh and i could write a whole separate post about the crazy and conflicting shit stakeholders would like to see in something that was always intended to be simple

this week i had to design a way for people to rate ratings. yes, rate ratings.

hah

but who will... rate the raters, oh this guy ok

just out of curiosity, not because i am collecting data on you or anything, how would you rate that task?

I definitely like the fact ILx isnt threaded. The closest comparison this site has is possibly Usenet, but I always found Usenet frustrating because of threading (though I know the reader could be swapped between threaded and flat convos but that was even more confusing!). Threading seems to just make people talk over the top of each other, somehow.

2/10 for the inherent lolz xp

otm, threading in usenet was always horrible, and trying to find anything is just a nightmare

Yeah its also why I find reddit impenetrable. I just cannot follow the flow of conversation one bit.

I imagine Crimhex is scribbling furious notes at all this.

^^^ only worth 5 Args while a crimson hexagon is worth 6.

― FINNISH HIM! Tuomas wins... (snoball), Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

had me loling

test.css 4 life

objectives:
monetize ilx

tasks:
register new user name

xp

"this lagoon fellow is CFO material"

Doctor Casino - do you have a Windows PC and an Apple phone?

Nope - Windows and android respectively. Using Chrome on the former and IE on the latter.

also, everybody OTM

crimsonhexagon is not taken just fyi

― Esteban Buttiérrez (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, March 24, 2013 5:36 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so much greatness in this thread, but for some reason this response just popped into my brain and is totally cracking me up.