New site

I was wondering who likes or dislikes the new site.

Change is always scary and threatening at first. But after a while, you realize that it's all for the best. There is no way to avoid change. As one poster on my undergrad dorm room wall said,
"We will not survive unless we change, but we will not change unless we survive."
Or something like that. It was a long time ago.

Yeah I'll get used to it. I just don't like all he white.

seems to have some server problems that the old site didn't...

and I miss the old banner

I voted yes, because I really like the new organization and layout. However, I think the color scheme could use some tweaking. I think some of the the yellow greens and light grays on the white background is a little hard on the eyes, because there isn't a strong contrast.

....technically speaking... the site isn't new... just it's look.

I like the new look - particularly the top of the page-, the clearer organisation, and the improved navigation.

-Eva

Its going to take a week or so for me to decide. I do miss the old banner. All the white reminds of a mental hospital. Which may be perfect for some of us. It might make us feel at home.

I think there are quite a few pluses and minuses to this new look. I didnt vote because I dont think either choice suited my opinion.

bewilderbeast said:

seems to have some server problems that the old site didn't...

Click to expand...

The two are unrelated, just slightly coincidental (the slow down happened a few days before the new look).

Is the server issue affecting everyone? For as much time as I spend on here I have only seen the server busy message like 4 times and for the longest time had no clue what people were talking about.

Greatwtehunter said:

Is the server issue affecting everyone? For as much time as I spend on here I have only seen the server busy message like 4 times and for the longest time had no clue what people were talking about.

Click to expand...

The server is set to give a busy message when loading pages during very busy times - these are usually transient. Lately we've been receiving a lot of guest traffic above and beyond our normal traffic and this has put a lot of strain on the site. We are also running new software that optimises the site for search engines like google and yahoo. It has the side effect of using a lot more server resources than the vanilla forum configuration we had been using, but it has increased the size of our community considerably, and is continuing to do so. Again, this has nothing to do with the change in look of the forum - that took place a few days after I put in that new software.

The real problem is that the provider seems to have assessed our requirements based on the vanilla configuration we were running until recently and they have squeezed us into a small hole regarding processing time on this server. Now we need more and I expect them to take care of that in the coming days. In the mean time I've attempted to streamline our requirements as much as possible without losing much functionality (the forum jump menu is the major function missing right now), but the core problem is what I've described - they pigeon-holed us "Caudata.org only needs X amount of processor time and we can use the rest for others" and that was their mistake. They will rectify it soon or lose our business.

After the initial surprise, I now really like the new look...even the whiteness has grown on me. It took me ages to find all the functions on the previous site, (but then I am not too good with using these new fangled things)..hopefully I will be far quicker with this!

I will not cast a vote. It is not my call to make.

I greatly enjoy the new layout and better functionality.The new format is faster and easier to navigate. It greatly enhances my personal functionality as a user. (I read fast and blow through links like a hurricane.)

I admit, the change was a bit shocking to me at first. As for color schemes, brightness and the like, we all have our own preferences. I am lucky enough to run a quad monitor system, so I just open the new format on one of my smaller monitors rather than forcing the page to snow blind me on the 22 and 24 inch screens with all the real estate.

I like the new site. The white background is a killer to my eyes though. My 12 yr.old thinks the new banner is boring.

As the white is alotand bright, I love the new banner. It looks more mature and organized.

The new layout looks alot "neater", so to speak, but I loved the Old Banner, though I don't think the new banner is bad at all.

I was also a fan of the old banner. However, I must say that I find this new banner much more fun and interesting. It has a veracity and a naturalistic character that the older banner lacked.

They are beautiful photos, John. You really do have a gift for photography.

Cheers.

Thank you very much. I much prefer Aimee's "naturalistic character" to Steve Roman's "tacky".

The white is very harsh, and the page does not fill my browser window, so the fonts are tiny and crammed in the center. I think I like the new look, but it needs some tweaking to suit my fancy. I will procrastinate voting

In order to see the whole page I have to scroll to the right all the time. That is annoying and not something I had to do before. I can't figure out where the "for sale" section is, as it appears to me to be jumbled together with everything else when I look at it one way, but then if I click on something else, other posts pop up. I doubt this way that I will ever come across the same post twice. I like the old way before and how it was organized. Maybe it is because I was on it so long like that but it was easy to me with them all right there listed under their respective headings and sub-headings and categories. I knew where to look for my stuff. I suppose I will eventually figure this out too. I just have not seen it organized like this elsewhere.