The 17S 4 Discussion Thread

[Delightful]

The amount of times I came to post and the site was down.....at least I got to laugh at Chaos holding the Well of Ascension.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Delightful
Is this unquotable? The place you put controversial statements you don't want thrown back at you? I DONT THINK SUSHI IS THAT AMAZING GUYS! ITS JUST RICE AND FISH AND A TINY PIECE OF CUCUMBER!

[Windrunner he/him]

44 minutes ago, Nyali said:

I don't like round profile photos. They take up the same exact amount of screen space as a square picture, except they guarantee extraneous whitespace in the image box outside the circle. And, since images are saved as rectangles, you have to guess what's going to be cut off of the image, or use trial and error. There's no functional reason to use a round image, using them is a purely aesthetics-based decision, and it's not an aesthetic that I particularly like. From a functional standpoint, using round images limits the profile pictures and adds to the feeling of extraneous unused screen space so popular these days for some reason I can't fathom.

Leaving the reputation titles in the sidebar but getting rid of the reputation number seems like an odd decision - the titles are meaningless without the number, so why not hide those too and just put it all on people's profile pages?

Personally, I really like the circular profile photos. They, as you say, fit better with the aesthetics of the site, with minimal cost. I don't know about everyone, but it seems like the important stuff in an icon is never in one of the corners anyway. We don't lose that much real-estate with the images and it does fit with the more modern theme.

As for reputation titles, those are the fun part of the rep system. It's cool and fun to see that someone has an interesting title and makes me want to check out how much rep that's at. Also, it does communicate some information, especially if you've been around long enough to recognize titles. And any layperson can figure that "Bridgeman" has less rep than "Stormfather". It doesn't hurt anything, and if we display "no" part of the rep system anywhere but on the profiles, I don't think it really has a purpose anymore, and we should probably just get rid of it.

[Joe ST he/him]

Just now, Windrunner said:

Personally, I really like the circular profile photos. They, as you say, fit better with the aesthetics of the site, with minimal cost. I don't know about everyone, but it seems like the important stuff in an icon is never in one of the corners anyway. We don't lose that much real-estate with the images and it does fit with the more modern theme.

just because you already had a round profile picture :|

[Chaos he/him]

55 minutes ago, Samaldin said:

Is there an option to change the colours? I find the white design somewhat steril and lifeless and frankly i just don´t want to look at it. Additionally i find it hard to notice that there are new posts if the lines are just thicker instead of another colour. 

I can understand that perspective on the color scheme. May I ask if you had similar issues with the old version? It had a very similar white color scheme. 

As for the new posts, that is a thing actively on my agenda today. It didn't turn out good enough on the live site compared to us testing.

Someday there could be other skins that are darker, but it is more effort than is immediately obvious.

48 minutes ago, IrulelikeSTINK said:

I like how I got a notification when one of my posts was upvoted, but I can imagine that for some people that might be annoying  It's probably an option somewhere, but it's still a cool little feature.

You can turn them off in Notification Settings if you like  

44 minutes ago, Delightful said:

I feel like someone just turned the light on. 

Currently on mobile: it's great how easy it is to see who posted. Names and profile pics definitely stand out against the white.

....and double tapping space isn't giving me a full stop/period. Not sure if that's the site or my phone? 

Thanks Chaos, Rubix and crew! You guys are awesome! 

Thank you for the encouragement! 

I tested pressing space twice on my phone, a Nexus 6P, and it worked, but it might depend?

38 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

It's ... bright!!

It's so bright that I can feel the environment being destroied just by logging in this site, as a brighter screen means greater energy consumption. Probably one can calculate that for every minute one spend logged on, the pollution lowers the average life expectancy by a small, but meaningful amount.

Ok, joking here, but really, it is incredibly bright. It's hurting my eyes, and this time I'm not joking. Could the brightness be turned down a bit? Also increased contrast for some of the light gray or blue features wouldn't hurt.

P.S. I went to the oculist a few months ago and she told me that I am normal both for light sensitivity and contrast perception, so it's not a defect of my sight.

 

EDIT: To avoid looking like the guy who always complain at everything, I will point out that there are many improvements I like. But the brightness is too much.

I can investigate the brightness issue. It is, however, pretty comparable in brightness to the old site, I think. But I will look into this. It's a bit more work than you'd imagine so it might be a bit.

34 minutes ago, Unodus said:

For people who don't like circular avatars and want more allomantic symbols... Is it possible to have profile pictures be in the shape of allomantic symbols? .o.

Because I'd definitely be on board with that... Not sure if it's possible or not though... Just a suggestion .x.

 

Probably not, unfortunately.

25 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

Only if admins won't cut my head off for spreading this knowledge

I don't mind! I would just say that there's a caveat in that complex tables might look really weird on mobile, so be careful.

21 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

All right, I'll make a topic about it once I get home. The site is easier to use on mobile now, but still not as comfortable as PC

Nothing is ever quite as good as PC  

19 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

Oh, and I'm having some problems with the "my content" section. 

So, I used to just click on "my content", see all the threads I posted in, and see if there was anything new posted in them. Now, it does something similar under "see my activity", but it does only show my latest posts, not if somebody else replied to those threads. In the old forum I could with a quick glance see which threads had something new. And if I go to "manage followed content", it's empty. Maybe because I never actually set something on "follow", since the "my content" page was fine. So, what is the best option now? I put my settings on "automatically follow everything I post", which should fix the problem for the future (I hope), but it won't help if someone revives an old post. I'm never going to notice that if it happens. Any suggestion?

I shall get you a proper answer for this.

16 minutes ago, Delightful said:

This is a web literacy question more than a site one....

so we have buttons to share to Twitter, Facebook, what the heck is digg? Instagram? Reddit and....snake drinking from a bowl?

...Huh. Yeah, I'm going to remove some of these xD

13 minutes ago, Nyali said:

When you go to "Mange Followed Content," do you click down to the "Topics" section? Weirdly, it defaults to "Articles" instead of "Topics." I find Topics something I'd check constantly and Articles something I'd only check occasionally, so I kinda wish Topics were the default. But, other people likely use the site differently than me, so maybe it makes sense to others!

I agree. It's incredibly annoying that it does that.

12 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

Thanks for all the hard work Chaos & Co. I feel all shiny and chrome.

To pick at a very small nit:

Could we possibly make the email alerts less verbose? There's no functional loss, but it's making it a bit less easy to just glance at the first-line email preview and know what's what. In the good old days of yester-year (/-day), there was some unnecessary text, but little enough that right off the bat you'd be seeing the username of whoeever replied. Now alerts are "from" "17th Shard, the Official." and all start out "17th Shard, the Official Brandon Sanderson Fansite Hi Kurkistan..." Emails used to be just from "17th Shard" and the body started out "Kurkistan, Bob (<url of profile> has posted a reply..."

I like that the profile URL has been taken out (save space), but otherwise that's a lot of repetitive content.

I can edit the email templates, so I'll get to that soon.

11 minutes ago, Argent said:

Hmm, yeah, a little darker layout (or a full dark theme) wouldn't be bad. 

Someday, perhaps. It is harder than is obvious--at least, to do well.

8 minutes ago, Haelbarde said:

Re: Theming - I know it's something that takes a lot of work to do well, but is there some way that users could help get that worked out, rather it being left all to the admins?

Honestly, probably not? Sometimes more cooks in the kitchen don't make things go faster.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

50 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

Press the little star on the left of the topic name, that works for me

That takes me to the newest post, which isn't always the same. 

[Delightful]

I really like the yellow heart upvotes. It's a much softer color and makes it more "I like this! I like you!" and less "points! Competition!! Must win!!!!"

ok so slight bug. I went back to edit the long 'edit comment' and I couldn't scroll sideways to writing that didn't fit in the text bar on screen. 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Delightful

[Nyali she/her]

A few tips:

If you're using uBlock Origin, you can block the giant header on all the emails (at least in gmail, or, well, at least it worked for me) by adding this filter to your inbox:

##div:nth-of-type(2) > table > tbody > tr:nth-of-type(2) > td:nth-of-type(2) > a[href="http://www.17thshard.com/forum/"]

To hide this site's entire header, including the menu (sadly), you can block:

###ipsLayout_header > header

Nothing I try seems to be able to keep the menu, unfortunately. You can block this site's background though, which makes the background navy blue, if, like me, you find the new site too bright for your eyes. It doesn't help much, but I find it helps some:

||www.17thshard.com/images/new/background13sized.png

 

Also, don't forget that if you want a new line without the paragraph break, you can hold shift and hit enter and it'll do just a newline. This was true on the old site too, but there, there was less extra space after the enter key by default, so it wasn't as necessary.

[Ecthelion III he/him]

Also, I like how you can now undo accidental downvotes!

[Mestiv he/him]

What I miss a lot right now is "go back to top" button on the bottom of the page. We had it in the previous version and it shouldn't be hard to add here too. Scrolling back to top on mobile is not the greatest thing and I have to scroll to top to see notifications

[Chaos he/him]

16 minutes ago, Mistrunner said:

Cons (all to do with navigation, for some reason):

• Maybe it's just how my brain works, but I find it really difficult to detect where things are with so much whitespace. I can't compartmentalize them into sections, especially with the new sans-borders design; things just seem to bleed together.
• The extra space looks really good, but it makes the site take a lot longer to navigate, especially on mobile. It's much harder to easily scroll and select a subforum or topic quickly.
• Like a few others, I'm not too big on the simply bolded Allomantic symbols rather than golden ones for unread things. It makes it harder to see and recognize.

Question:

• When editing my sig to remove the extra space, I didn't see options for aligning and coloring text. I see those options for normal replies, but are they no longer available in signatures?

Mostly, I'm glad that the site is up again after all that time updating. It was terrible having it gone for so long! 

Edit: Oh, and I can't find the "go to first unread post" star or button that people are talking about. Can someone point it out to me?

The new plans I have with the Unread forum marker should help this. I kind of like the borderless feel, though.

Mobile will require some more scrolling, indeed, but that's because the old mobile version was weirdly smooshed.

They aren't Allomantic symbols! Those are Aons  And that will be adjusted.

As for your sig, it seems that that editor is using the Medium sized editor there due to it being a bit smaller, I guess?

14 minutes ago, BeskarKomrk said:

This isn't specifically design related, but: what's the spoiler policy for the new Q&A board? The intent seems to be that new readers can browse pretty freely, which would imply tagging and hiding pretty much all spoilers. However, I think people are used to the Q&A thread which, by virtue of being on the Cosmere Theories board, did not need to have spoilers tagged. Either way, I didn't see it established anywhere.

That's a really good point. I would say you can be spoilery because if they ask a question, it's kind of relevant to spoil some things.

7 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

That takes me to the newest post, which isn't always the same. 

It should go to the latest unread post, in my experience?

5 minutes ago, Delightful said:

I really like the yellow heart upvotes. It's a much softer color and makes it more "I like this! I like you!" and less "points! Competition!! Must win!!!!"

ok so slight bug. I went back to edit the long 'edit comment' and I couldn't scroll sideways to writing that didn't fit in the text bar on screen. 

That's exactly the point. For those commenting on the lack of rep number in posts, in the previous huge site-wide argument about rep, it was determined that this was a big problem and made people feel very competitive. It's supposed to be more fun.

4 minutes ago, Nyali said:

A few tips:

If you're using uBlock Origin, you can block the giant header on all the emails (at least in gmail, or, well, at least it worked for me) by adding this filter to your inbox:

##div:nth-of-type(2) > table > tbody > tr:nth-of-type(2) > td:nth-of-type(2) > a[href="http://www.17thshard.com/forum/"]

To hide this site's entire header, including the menu (sadly), you can block:

###ipsLayout_header > header

Nothing I try seems to be able to keep the menu, unfortunately. You can block this site's background though, which makes the background navy blue, if, like me, you find the new site too bright for your eyes. It doesn't help much, but I find it helps some:

||www.17thshard.com/images/new/background13sized.png

 

Also, don't forget that if you want a new line without the paragraph break, you can hold shift and hit enter and it'll do just a newline. This was true on the old site too, but there, there was less extra space after the enter key by default, so it wasn't as necessary.

The emails will be fixed soon, worry not

As for the header... Yeah, I did kind of design it with the logo in mind. I was well aware that it was a bit bigger than the old logo. I don't think it's necessarily bad but I can understand people disliking it. We may investigate making it shorter, but it wouldn't be shortened more than 50px or so, which would make it on par with the old height. 

8 minutes ago, Ecthelion III said:

Also, I like how you can now undo accidental downvotes!

It's about time.

2 minutes ago, Mestiv said:

What I miss a lot right now is "go back to top" button on the bottom of the page. We had it in the previous version and it shouldn't be hard to add here too. Scrolling back to top on mobile is not the greatest thing and I have to scroll to top to see notifications

Yeah... I wonder where that went. It's also not necessarily as easy as you'd think, potentially! But I will add it to my action list.

King of nowhere, I have an answer for you. Use this to do unread content in posts that you made: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/discover/content-started/?&stream_include_comments=1

[Mistrunner]

2 minutes ago, Chaos said:

The new plans I have with the Unread forum marker should help this. I kind of like the borderless feel, though.

Mobile will require some more scrolling, indeed, but that's because the old mobile version was weirdly smooshed.

They aren't Allomantic symbols! Those are Aons  And that will be adjusted.

As for your sig, it seems that that editor is using the Medium sized editor there due to it being a bit smaller, I guess?

Okay, thanks.

I knew I'd mix up Allomancy and Aons.  I'm blaming it on the fact that I'm kinda sick and not quite working yet.

Different-sized editors? Huh. It wasn't a big problem, in any case, but it's still interesting.

[Magestar he/him]

6 minutes ago, Chaos said:

That's exactly the point. For those commenting on the lack of rep number in posts, in the previous huge site-wide argument about rep, it was determined that this was a big problem and made people feel very competitive. It's supposed to be more fun.

-grumbles-but I like being competitive.-grumbles-

 

I do understand the rationale behind it, however, and it is not something that I really need to worry about.  (Anyway, for the people who really feel the need to be competitive, they can still check profiles. 

[Chaos he/him]

Just now, Mistrunner said:

Okay, thanks.

I knew I'd mix up Allomancy and Aons.  I'm blaming it on the fact that I'm kinda sick and not quite working yet.

Different-sized editors? Huh. It wasn't a big problem, in any case, but it's still interesting.

By the way your sig has a bunch of empty lines at the end  

Yeah basically the editor using a different set of buttons depending on the size of your screen, which makes most sense when you think about it in terms of desktop, tablet, and phone, but I guess the width on that edit window on your screen size slapped you into the tablet breakpoint.

[Jondesu he/him]

I didn't read the whole thread, but my one request: can the icons next to topics be made a bit larger, at least on mobile? I use those constantly to jump to the latest unread post, and they're a bit harder to hit with a tap than they were.

Edit: one more thing I just found. If I click a topic in the activity feed, it takes me to the beginning of the topic, instead of the new post. I still have to click that tiny circle or star. I'd prefer the opposite behavior. Minor niggle there.

Otherwise, love it! The new editor is great, too, especially with the nice spoiler option even on mobile.

jW

Edited June 14, 2016 by Jondesu

[Nyali she/her]

37 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

Personally, I really like the circular profile photos. They, as you say, fit better with the aesthetics of the site, with minimal cost. I don't know about everyone, but it seems like the important stuff in an icon is never in one of the corners anyway. We don't lose that much real-estate with the images and it does fit with the more modern theme.

As for reputation titles, those are the fun part of the rep system. It's cool and fun to see that someone has an interesting title and makes me want to check out how much rep that's at. Also, it does communicate some information, especially if you've been around long enough to recognize titles. And any layperson can figure that "Bridgeman" has less rep than "Stormfather". It doesn't hurt anything, and if we display "no" part of the rep system anywhere but on the profiles, I don't think it really has a purpose anymore, and we should probably just get rid of it.

Eh, if you hide the background and the logo, they no longer fit the aesthetics since all the other circles are gone <.< I'm joking - I do get your point, I just hate whitespace. Also, this site really is hurting my eyes - the old one didn't for some reason despite having a relatively similar color scheme. I recall it having less crazy amounts of white though. Maybe that's just because of the old background/logo, which weren't white. Or maybe it's just because of all the extra spaces on old posts and in sigs that will be fixed later.

 

Regarding the rep system, well, then I would suggest getting rid of it. Keep the upvotes/downvotes, ditch the rep system. That way, people can downvote posts they don't agree with without it saying something negative about the poster. Having the titles without the number might be nice if you're someone who's really familiar with the site, but to a visitor, it's completely meaningless. Sure, bridgeman is lower than stormfather, but a lot of the other ones are not as clear, especially ones from works you haven't read yet. If the point of the rep system is to give new members a rough relative sense of someone's seniority on the site, well, we have a post count for that. If it's to instead give a rough relative sense of how much a person contributes to the discussion, well, the ranks without the numbers are really meaningless for that. Is God of Colors higher than Lerasium Mistborn or Stormfather? I have no clue, those all sound really high. Certainly higher than, like, Dragon, which is just a race from Yolen, right? Splinter has to be pretty low too, because Returned and Spren are splinters, so it's right around there, right? Truthless are the lowest of the low, so that's probably a negative rank, likely down there with Midnight Essence, which is just an evil Spren.

In other words - I think the ranks, while somewhat interesting when we have context (ie: numbers), are totally meaningless without them. Also, without the numbers, the ranks look like titles people have chosen. Some of them are pretty negative. In context, whatever, they're clearly linked to rep, but out of context, I certainly don't want to be a Gyorn. I also don't want to be marked as a Silent Gatherer or Bloodsealer, and I have no idea what a High Prelan even is  

[STINK he/him]

I can confirm that post count does not equal seniority  Some people post loads of small, rubbish posts (certainly not me). Anyway, I've already been in the rep discussion once and I ain't getting back into it so I'll just leave it at that.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

I love the new pop ups at the bottom of the screen. Those are great!

[CarolaDavar she/her]

I really like the entire change, the symbols are cool, and the Shadesmar back ground is super awesome.

It will probably take a while to get used to, but it'll be worth it

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Oh, is there a way to change alignment in the editor? I don't see it on mobile. 

[Jondesu he/him]

Ooh, shiny, I just noticed that on iOS, if I save a link on the home screen, I get a nice new icon instead of a "preview" of the page that looked like nothing. Looks awesome.

jW

[Chaos he/him]

1 minute ago, Mailliw73 said:

Oh, is there a way to change alignment in the editor? I don't see it on mobile. 

On mobile some editor options have been hidden, which are not hidden on desktop.

Just now, Jondesu said:

Ooh, shiny, I just noticed that on iOS, if I save a link on the home screen, I get a nice new icon instead of a "preview" of the page that looked like nothing. Looks awesome.

jW

Thank you! That was definitely a thing we've been annoyed about for a while.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

3 minutes ago, Chaos said:

On mobile some editor options have been hidden, which are not hidden on desktop.

What would the BBcode for it be? 

[Kaymyth she/her]

I agree with the folks saying the site is REALLY bright - I'm not sure how, but even if the difference is small it's having a disproportionate effect.  Black text on bright backgrounds can cause folks with eye problems a lot of trouble.  My husband would never be able to read this site without considerable pain.  (Not that he's a Sanderfan, but he has eye issues that are a good example.)

Dislike the round.  It cuts off my ponyself's pretty hair.  Yes, I am shallow.

Also, all my friends are gone.  I am friendless.  Alas.

 

ETA:  I am having a lot of trouble with the Managed Content section.  I...where are all of my threads I posted on?  I can't find them.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Kaymyth
avoiding double post

[The Invested Beard]

@Kaymyth I'll be your friend.

Also the content section thing sounds like something is fishy, multiple people have commented on it. I think Chaos is looking into it. After he sleeps of course (sublte poke)

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Overall, it is different! Hooray! I think, after some time, I will become more accustomed to it. In just the time it took me to read this thread I have gone from mild dislike to neutral. Also, as a programmer-by-trade I want to thank all of the staff for the immense amount of work they put in to this site. I know enough about website upkeep to know that it is a massive undertaking so bravo to @Chaos and all of the other staff who put blood, sweat, tears, time, and unbelievable amounts of consumed pizza into this effort. You are the unsung heroes of the Cosmere and I hope you know you are truly appreciated for all you do. If I ever meet you at a signing or what-not then I will buy you a drink/food/something-not-too-expensive-because-I-am-saving-for-a-new-computer-haha!

Pros:

• editor. Woohoo!
• fixing downvotes. I have yet to accidentally downvote but I know it will happen and I am glad that I can fix it now.
• better mobile support. THANK! YOU!

Cons:

• Storms this site is BRIGHT! I think some of the contrast is whitewashed out by the brightness. The distinction between each reply is barely noticeable (the light gray bars outlining each reply are washed out by the super bright off-white background), the contrast between read/unread topics is harder to see etc etc. Perhaps, over time, it will be less noticeable but I miss the easy, at-a-glance nature of the previous iteration

Please know that the "Cons" are given in the spirit of feedback and not criticism. I love this site and would use it even if you colored it black, pink, orange and banana!