They Changed It, Now It Sucks
Good now that that’s out of the way, let me say I really like the new header, but replacing things like “deleted”, “report” ect. with pictogram’s is unnecessary in my opinion.
The new nesting seems less aesthetically pleasing, though I think that is outweighed by it being easier to follow so that’s a good change.
Thumbs up and thumbs down however seems to me, to have a different implied meaning compared to up vote and down vote. Is this a bug or a feature?
Edit: One month later the pictograms seem a much better idea than they where at first.
I find it very frustrating that I’ve seen dozens of posts expressing dislike or annoyance at TrikeApps’ work, which I’m pretty sure they provided at no cost by the way, and yet I’ve seen no expressions of thanks. What the fuck. This is partly why basically nobody at SingInst knows anything about what other people think or why, even on critically important subjects. Dismissal and disdain disincentivize all attempts at improvement or communication. The threat of unfair dismissal causes fear of proposing ideas or doing work that others will see, and even when good work is done it’s kept quiet. There is something seriously wrong with an organization if accomplishments go unreported and ideas unshared due to negative incentives. (ETA: I should note that this trend isn’t entirely pervasive and has been somewhat ameliorated lately as far as I can tell.) Can we please buck that trend here on Less Wrong? Please? It’s hard enough to try to make big improvements without that bullshit.
Anyway, thanks, Tricycle! I praise your right action.
I genuinely don’t like the new design, and prefer the old one. Why should I express gratitude if I don’t feel any? From my perspective, they’ve put in all their hard work messing up/taking away something I liked just fine.
I don’t even know what it is that’s supposed to have been “improved”. I don’t notice any convenient new features. Maybe they’re there, but I haven’t come across them. All I notice are visual differences such as icons instead of text (where I strongly preferred text), and various bugs. This just looks to me like one of those periodic aesthetically-motivated “revampings” done by people with different aesthetics from mine who undervalue constancy relative to “change”—like TV shows changing perfectly good theme music for no other reason than they’ve “had it for a while”.
I acknowledge that there were problems before, and that this redesign could have been even worse. But I don’t see the need for a new visual look at all—why not just fix the bugs, and leave the basic appearance alone?
I dislike it enough that I probably won’t be participating much anymore. (Needless to say, the account under which this comment is being posted is not the one I usually post under.)
Why are so many assuming that we’re not paying any attention to feedback, and that our most recent changes are the last we’ll make?
In case anyone wonders, I_Disapprove is not me. The changes are not fundamental enough to deter my participation. And if I was quitting then I don’t see why I would care about hiding who I am while doing so. That seems pointless.
You shouldn’t, but I address why you shouldn’t whine either in my comment. I’m sure LW will let you know if a poll of the peanut gallery is required.
After they gave it to you in the first place. Your position isn’t very sympathetic. I’m sure there are many somewhat costly solutions that would let you view LW with the old interface, all the old code is still hanging around after all. Have at it.
Oh my God this is so stereotypical.
So thanking is allowed (even encouraged) but “whining” is not. You can’t be serious.
(Also fake account, different person than I_Disapprove)
If Will is correct and they did the redesign for free, then surely they at least intended to help us? Given this fact, as a general rule, do we want to encourage or discourage such behaviour?
If the behavior is “redesign the aesthetics to be less pleasing, and introduce a bunch of bugs” then I think discourage is probably winning out here...
I personally would prefer to encourage it, since I don’t view it as that bad, but I can see where people are coming from here. Especially since the entire membership is being used for rather unexpected live test. I totally understand that at a certain point you have to just go live and hot-fix from there, but a top-level post saying “site is live, please discuss” or at least a solid reassurance of “we will fix these bugs” would have been very nice.
Yes, I am completely serious, and the Thought Police will shoot anyone who disagrees with my mandate.
This is needlessly insulting. And I’ll have you know I haven’t “whined” at all. My only comment was a reply to your comment in which you “whined” about people expressing negative opinions. Well, from what I see, there are mostly positive opinions, and praise, and karma for people who approve. You yourself got upvoted to 15 in the great-grandparent, for example.
Just be glad I told you.
Ah, but you see, my fundamental point is that there’s a big difference. I am trying to disincentive disincentivizing progress. My whining is double-negative virtuous! Om nom nom delicious moral high ground. You’re right that I was needlessly insulting, but there are no incentives to avoid being needlessly insulting. Maybe you should write a top-level comment about the importance of not disincentivizing criticism? Karma is just a weather vane that tests for attributes of strings, it’s not hard to milk it, and I think your agenda is roughly as virtuous as mine. You just need better rhetoric is all I meant to say.
Upvoted for this line.
Thank you to Tricycle from me as well! Despite having some complaints, this redesign is nonetheless a definite step towards the better.
“What the fuck”? The fuck is that you don’t thank people for doing things you would prefer that they did not do.
I deny your grasp for moral superiority! Doubly so for the misuse of the “What The Fuck?” phrase. That rhetoric is something I reserve for clearly valid objections that require particular emphasis. Do not defile it so.
Upon reflection I agree that this was a poor use of the phrase, and will attempt to keep from defiling it in the future.
Thanks from me as well, I like the pictograms.
Yes the site is even sexier!
Thank you Will.
The original announcement just said “professional designer”. For some reason I’d assumed they were paid. I couldn’t locate evidence either way, but I didn’t look that hard.
That said, this is a geek community, so I think there’s a strong culture of “get it fixed first, praise it second”. I noticed myself doing the same and was inclined to drop a “thank you, BTW!” comment out there to offset that, so I’m glad to see this thread already doing that :)
Once the delete function is back, I’ll consider the design a net positive; until then I’d actually prefer the old version.
TrikeApps paid an external designer, and pays our own staff to make changes. We do this from a budget we make available to SIAI. We have not been paid for this work or any other work we’ve done for SIAI.
Thank you Tricycle!
I like the new nesting better, and don’t really mind the pictograms. I liked the old map banner, but this also totally goes better with the rest of the site. I’ll grow to like it.
The site looks much nicer, and has lots of features that we really should have. The change is definitely for the better.
Maybe I should have taken greater pains to emphasise that the new nesting is better overall.
My only real complaint is the pictograms.
The seemingly different implied meaning of the up and down vote are perhaps a feature, and I was more or less seeking feedback if people agree with this.
BTW Is there another thread where the changes are discussed? Somehow I feel like I’ve missed a part of the conversation that most of the community hasn’t.
Yes.
And previously here, here, here, and here.
Judging from the body of your post, the complaints are relatively minor and there are changes which you find pleasing. Yet the summary in the title reads “it sucks”. Why?
It’s a TV Tropes reference.
Warning: TV Tropes!
Ironic self depreciation.
Yes, I find it odd not many seem to have caugh on to that. Since I’m not a hipster that makes me feel a bit sad.
I recognised the allusion, but read it as HaHaOnlySerious. I.e. the person “joking” in fact means exactly what he said.
Same here.
I am not familiar with TVTropes, sorry. I wonder what is the proportion of TVT connoisseurs here on LW.
Warning: This post links to TVTropes.
This probably should have been a comment in the earlier thread about the site revamp. I think that explains part of the negative reaction.
I also don’t like the extra whitespace.
I like the new site’s esthetics, but my favorite thing is the “Parent” button. I used to get lost occasionally in threads where multiple comments all reply to the same comment and then get replies of their own (e.g. Methods discussion threads). The parent button will be really helpful. Thanks for implementing it!
Actually, it’s not new.
Huh. I guess it isn’t. I never knew what it did before. Color me surprised.
While it’s not new, and I used the old one reliably, for some reason this one still feels better. I have no clue why—I think partly the pictogram is more intuitive for me, but there might be an actual behavioral difference?