Mythical Front Page Upgrade

[Senator Seditious Maximus 360]

What's the consensus on Scooter's new FP?  He's been promising a refresh for years and finally, here in 19 it's here!  Personally, I was expecting something more...how do I say this...professional?  The only improvement I'm seeing is the former numerous dead-end links under the title have been reduced to what we might actually use.  The overall graphic layout and new For Sale forums are...well...more like Sears than say Amazon...dated.  My guess is he hired some local kid going to Southwestern Community College web-design program and it's his first paying gig.  Anyway, what say he anarchist?

Cool?

Meh?

Homo?

[the English Git 18]

Not a fan!

[Senator Seditious Maximus 360]

ps: bring back the "Meet Sexy East European Women" ads.  I'm guessing they pop-up on one's past browsing history?  lmfao

[OutofOffice 86]

9 minutes ago, JimBowie said:

ps: bring back the "Meet Sexy East European Women" ads.  I'm guessing they pop-up on one's past browsing history?  lmfao

Dude, you've got to expand your google searching...

You're really pigeonholing yourself.

Eh, the FP is...Still as useless as before. I started to like the commenting on the articles until I realized I'd have to create yet another account and allow someone else access to my data...Excuse me, I've got to go make a spare foil hat.

[Geff 195]

I like it.

[EvaOdland 168]

27 minutes ago, JimBowie said:

Homo?

Bless your heart.

 

[Grrr... 1,535]

Looks like it was done by some company who believes all the bullshit they sell you in college web design classes.  Way too much whitespace.  Individual items are way too large.  Clearly it was made primarily for mobile, instead of having a separate mobile experience.  Horribly slow to load, not optimized at all.  Pictures are only partially shown in the clickable links, to where a couple make you go "what is THAT supposed to be".  Having to click to go to another page to read the article is stupid - but they really talk it up in web design 101 because it gets extra ad views for scooter.  And opening stuff in additional tabs, like when you click on the forums?  That's shit design too.

Scooter got robbed.

Go figure - tried it on my mobile and it actually looks decent.  Like I said - designed for mobile and ignored the desktop userspace.  Maybe scooter only paid for half the package.

[EvaOdland 168]

the old site still delivered ads despite ad-blockers and my modified hosts file....this new site there is only one ad a UFO banner ad at the top...

So I am guessing my ad-blockers are now working....or your ad system is broken...

[SailBlueH2O 544]

1 minute ago, EvaOdland said:

the old site still delivered ads despite ad-blockers and my modified hosts file....this new site there is only one ad a UFO banner ad at the top...

So I am guessing my ad-blockers are now working....or your ad system is broken...

LOL....do not fear...the ads will be back....plenty of room on the 1960's Formica 

[Bob Perry 853]

I think it looks great. I never minded the ads on the old FP.

[full circle 43]

i dig the change, but where is the anarchy store? was looking to get a hat. scot?

[Hitchhiker 866]

What's this front page you're talking about?

[gaw 15]

1 hour ago, OutofOffice said:

Eh, the FP is...Still as useless as before. I started to like the commenting on the articles until I realized I'd have to create yet another account and allow someone else access to my data...Excuse me, I've got to go make a spare foil hat.

Yep. Fuckin Disqus. Every decent privacy protector blocks it.

[OutofOffice 86]

24 minutes ago, gaw said:

Yep. Fuckin Disqus. Every decent privacy protector blocks it.

I just don't get it. We have an account with SA. Why outsource it?

Plus, I want Ed to know which forum member is reaming him over the inevitable PA-esque article.

[solosailor 367]

I can't comment on the front page without "signing in" using facebook or twitter?   Or when I click on a video it brings up a notice that it wants me to allow facebook to track me???   I'm on SailingAnarchy, not fuckfacebook.

 

[solosailor 367]

And I had to come here to the forums to comment since I COULD NOT via the front page without signing in via FaceFuck, Google, Twitter, etc.    So we now have two comment sections that aren't linked together???

 

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

2 minutes ago, solosailor said:

I can't comment on the front page without "signing in" using facebook or twitter?   Or when I click on a video it brings up a notice that it wants me to allow facebook to track me???   I'm on SailingAnarchy, not fuckfacebook.

I adgree, fuckfacebooke.  It is the eville that growes at usseres exspense.                                  

[SailBlueH2O 544]

21 minutes ago, solosailor said:

I can't comment on the front page without "signing in" using facebook or twitter?   Or when I click on a video it brings up a notice that it wants me to allow facebook to track me???   I'm on SailingAnarchy, not fuckfacebook.

 

Just a guess...revenue from Disqus to SA....same way FB and other sell user digital profile...Big Pimp'n is now Big Brotha

https://disqus.com/pricing/

 

https://chrislema.com/killed-disqus-commenting/

[NeedAClew 1,145]

Fuck Disqus. What were they thinking or smoking when they chose this? At least weed is an excuse but need to fix.

[solosailor 367]

Fucking fuck that.   Back and forth clicking for every story sucks also.   And it's so convoluted with boxes everywhere I can't tell what I've read.   BOOOOOOOO.

 

[SPORTSCAR 696]

Been here for most of the 20 years and have seen a lot of changes over the journey, some good, some not so good. I have zero interest in signing up to a third party like Disqus; if I cant access anything on here with my existing SA identity then so be it.

[rb_stretch 4]

From the UK none of the video or picture links work anymore. Even picture links in the forum don't work.

[SPORTSCAR 696]

1 minute ago, rb_stretch said:

From the UK none of the video or picture links work anymore. Even picture links in the forum don't work.

Whinging Poms! 

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

 

1 minute ago, rb_stretch said:

From the UK none of the video or picture links work anymore. Even picture links in the forum don't work.

So, our you saying "fuck Scotte and hisse niewe FT10", juste wondreng......?

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

4 minutes ago, SPORTSCAR said:

Been here for most of the 20 years and have seen a lot of changes over the journey, some good, some not so good. I have zero interest in signing up to a third party like Disqus; if I cant access anything on here with my existing SA identity then so be it.

Thisse is oune the Pattrone Sainttes of SA commetnes, sertaine peopel shoude lissen.                         

[Veeger 336]

The FP is ded 2 me...

[Norse Horse 611]

So, the front fell off?

Oh wait...

 

[solosailor 367]

 

Quote

 

sailing anarchy Mod  SAcommenter • 8 hours ago

so that you can reply to the article directly

 

I can't.   And if there is another thread regarding the article in the "forums" they are not linked together so now we have two comments sections>?

[Zonker 2,657]

4 hours ago, JimBowie said:

ps: bring back the "Meet Sexy East European Women" ads. 

I'm getting UNICEF ads.... Wonder where I've been visiting??

[basketcase 410]

 

[solosailor 367]

And everything is SO FUCKING BIG.    The SA logo and one ad take up one half the large desktop screen.

[AlphaPuppy 5]

horrible

[halfhour 0]

massive dislike of the new format

[VWAP 961]

who cares

[Varan 1,927]

What front page?

[Black Sox 710]

It's good.

I would imagine that an ad-blocker would make your experience nicer but that could rob the site owner of the revenue required to run the site and that would be just mean.

As many have said above, I won't be signing up to any other system, especially FaceTwitTubeGram, so I'll stick with the fora for commenting.

Some people are just naturally change-resistant but it can be surprising what you can get used to and how quickly. (Starting to channel my inner Snaggletooth)

[Omer 34]

Once you are on a speciific forum page say ''Sailing Anarchy'' why do we have to go back one page to select another page, say ''cruising anarchy'' Can we not have all page titles visible and clickable without having to go back.

Mind you this is not new.  The old version was the saame.

[JimC 671]

Hate two separate comment systems. Really bad idea.

Currently getting several syntax errors both with antique laptop and android phone.

 

[Gweudo in oz 10]

For fucks sake scott what are you fucking thinking 

this is nearly as bad as our tracker fuckup fuckup during the Hobart 

if you need help fixing this I'll send our navigator, he's international and good at electronic stuff

 

Fucking regards,

Mark

Wild Oats XI

[mad 3,830]

15 hours ago, JimBowie said:

ps: bring back the "Meet Sexy East European Women" ads.  I'm guessing they pop-up on one's past browsing history?  lmfao

I used to get those along with Russian and Thai brides...........something I've never googled for.

[sunseeker 139]

It’s fine. Besides, show me the site that everyone agrees is graphically and technically pleasing.

[SailBlueH2O 544]

hmmm...has not seemed to have bothered anyone in PA ,couldn't find a thread started addressing the changes, or a clue they are even aware ,only a passing reference in the thread titled The Wall...  ;-).

As other have said I will not register Disqus, after surfing the www since my first computer a Gateway 486 using Compuserve, enough is enough. I remember when content providers and www hosts proclaimed the were not going to commercialize  the internet ...they were going to keep it "pure "....the internet was a wonderful place it the wild wild west days late 90's...online trading and Yahoo finance message boards had the stuffy brokerage houses on the heels and individual investors ruled the markets on many ticker symbols....Oh well as it was before the best commentary from the FP always found its way down to the SA-GA pages anyway ,often ignoring the page started in the FG article link

[Old and tall 0]

This new format sucks just like fucktards proposed wall. It doesn’t work.

[Schnappi 60]

Too bad he didn't spend any effort implementing SSL on the forums.  

 

[psycho tiller 189]

Many of the classified ads the are gone too, most notably the one I paid for.  Hoping this is temporary.

[Meat Wad 564]

17 hours ago, solosailor said:

I can't comment on the front page without "signing in" using facebook or twitter?   Or when I click on a video it brings up a notice that it wants me to allow facebook to track me???   I'm on SailingAnarchy, not fuckfacebook.

 

It's just another WordPress Bog engine . Scot always told me he did not want a blog.

[NeedAClew 1,145]

I was hoping for more pictures of hot guys, sailor boy toy of the week or whatever.  But I still would not sign up with Disqus.

[Jubblies 63]

I would say the ad-blocker is working now!

 

In all fairness, I will give my professional opinion on the new home page.

It's very much a cookie cutter Wordpress site. There are some pretty solid glitches that are indicative of a DIY, or "my brother's uncles's cousin's best friend's college roommate builds websites, and he can do it for you" type job. With that being said, It's an honest effort. I've never known any very popular sites to not have glitches and complaints on a relaunch. There are better Wordpress templates out there that have much more eye appeal, but I'm guessing the thought was not to stray too far from the old format and confuse the hell out of people.

One of the challanges using a system like Wordpress is that for it to look polished, it really takes time and money to take all the little add-ons you need and stylize them to match your theme. You really have to know how to deconstruct some of the HTML/CSS/JS going on and make it your own. This can happen over time of course, if the time or money budgets are tight. Most will work out of the box, but you will get some glitches.

Wordpress has it's own commenting system, but Discuss will always beat it on anti-spam and security. So this actually makes sense to me. Now with that being said, Wordpress now allows you to expose it's database to a REST api. Discuss also has a client-side API. I would have to imagine with some work you could expose the Forum's database to an API. With a little more trickery you could fairly easily write a script that ties the three systems together

Overall I'll post some screenshots for my review.

1. is the error log, nice to see my ad-blocker is working!

2 & 3. there are some weird blocks here. Something in your setup is generating empty content I suppose.

4. This is really bad placement. Consider moving it below the menu and above the featured stories, and size it so that it is as wide as the fetured section.

5. I would be a little bent if I were paying for an ad and my cover image was chopped off and cropped up. Have the designer look here for how to fix this...https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/o/object-fit/

6. No need for a dropdown here, there is only one option right? I would expect to just click and go.

7. Lock that baby up. Most hosting systems now will offer some type of free, minimal, signed SSL certs via LetsEncrypt or something similar. There is no excuse now that you can have them for free. Eventually google will start penelizing the site as a result.

 

So that's my 2 cents worth...

[Jubblies 63]

 

22 hours ago, Grrr... said:

Looks like it was done by some company who believes all the bullshit they sell you in college web design classes. 

http://everyfuckingwebsite.com/

Quote

Check out these helpful fucking icons! What will they fucking do?

We expect you to click on them in order to find out, for some fucking reason. Because you know - words are so pre-mobile or some bullshit. Basically, it was time to redo the fucking website. So... icons.

[Grrr... 1,535]

1 hour ago, Jubblies said:

 

http://everyfuckingwebsite.com/

That's hilarious.  I'm using adblock plus + uorigion and the list of stuff they are blocking is pretty common on the front page.  You're probably right about who did the design.  I don't mean to beat on 'em too much.  Maybe they are young and don't exactly understand things like minimizing clicks, maximizing space use, etc.  The amount of empty space on my desktop computer is just.... criminal.  Perhaps it's all the missing adds... but the padding seems pretty damn thick on most of the site.

[Call me Tiger 0]

[SpongeBob 0]

Fucking hate it!  I hope you're paying attention to your analytics.  Analytics always prove that the smartest people in the room are simply wrong!

[Blitz 85]

Looks like my Android text message screen.  I thought SA was where the status quo blows?

[Varan 1,927]

15 hours ago, Gweudo in oz said:

For fucks sake scott what are you fucking thinking 

this is nearly as bad as our tracker fuckup fuckup during the Hobart 

if you need help fixing this I'll send our navigator, he's international and good at electronic stuff

 

Fucking regards,

Mark

Wild Oats XI

Well then, file a fucking protest.

[EvaOdland 168]

Design Ideas for Redux

 

 

 

[AnotherSailor 257]

Oh, it is intensional? I though the site was hacked!

[outoftheoffice 1]

On 1/16/2019 at 5:40 PM, solosailor said:

Fucking fuck that.   Back and forth clicking for every story sucks also.   And it's so convoluted with boxes everywhere I can't tell what I've read.   BOOOOOOOO.

 

This!  Not a fan. 

[SailBlueH2O 544]

42 minutes ago, outoftheoffice said:

This!  Not a fan. 

I simply am not going to register with Disqus.....a decision I made several years ago....enough is enough...don't need another place to pop off on....

[J28 885]

FUBAR!  

[Monkey 1,326]

It’s not that bad. Lots of non-profit sites and cobbled together sites done by high school kids are barely better. 

I just hope it was a nephew’s high school project. I’d actually feel bad if he paid someone for that. 

[B.J. Porter 2,852]

On 1/17/2019 at 7:58 PM, Omer said:

Once you are on a speciific forum page say ''Sailing Anarchy'' why do we have to go back one page to select another page, say ''cruising anarchy'' Can we not have all page titles visible and clickable without having to go back.

Mind you this is not new.  The old version was the saame.

You may not be aware, but there is a "Front Page" on the site that has news articles and is not the Forums...

[B.J. Porter 2,852]

I had to work hard to get the ads to show. I had to turn off Ghostery AND AdBlock Plus to get anything but the one ad across the top to come up.

The new design doesn't bother me at all. It's pretty straightforward Wordpress blog content with a couple of widgets mixed in. It's what I've been using on my own blog for years. It's an easy content management tool, I understand the appeal of using it. You can get up and running for not a lot of bucks and there are a zillion customizations available and a lot of people that know how to tweak it.

I can't say Disqus makes any sense to me; I've got an account but I don't see why I'd want to discuss an article on SA with random loobies on Disqus. We have our own perfectly serviceable loobies, after all. But if that's what Scot wants, it may make some sense from sight reach maybe though it seems it would draw traffic away from the forums.

As my signature says...

 

[B.J. Porter 2,852]

With all that turned on, the only ad I see is this:

[George Hackett 55]

I have gone through several FP upgrade/changes, and well, I can get used to it. 

[DtM 543]

Not a fan of the new format. Too distinctly sectioned.   but if the Ed is happy it is his sandpit.

[Rain Man 875]

I don't like it - too much clicking and context changes.  

[numl0ck 5]

Chrome on Windows 7 produces this result. Makes it a wee difficult to read the articles. 

[Laserslave 0]

+1

On my Pixel 3, this is how it loads and the left and right scrolling function doesn't work. When in desktop mode, looks like what numl0ck describes. 

[Frumious Bandersnatch 14]

Not good, too much clicking required to read anything. And the pictures have shrunk to postage stamps. 

If anything, put all the advertisements on the first page, so we click to Gigantic, Full width photos on Page 2.

[hobot 1,928]

There's a page 2???

Oh no, no, no this will not do!

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

13 minutes ago, hobot said:

There's a page 2???

Oh no, no, no this will not do!

Our you sayeng that in a Jerrey Cologna voise or Ed Wynn?

[hobot 1,928]

LB15.

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

2 minutes ago, hobot said:

LB15.

evan bettere!                

[Axyl 6]

4 hours ago, Frumious Bandersnatch said:

Not good, too much clicking required to read anything...

 

That's generally done to increase the view count on advertising.  You see them on the home page and then on the "read more" page for each article too...of course, it all goes backwards if everyone's ad blockers now start working and no adverts show anymore...

[M@AYC 82]

If the Clean had still been standing watch, this abomination of a front page would not exist in this awful form.  Bring back the Clean!

[Brain-O 4]

Sucks

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

9 minutes ago, MikeR80 said:

If the Clean had still been standing watch, this abomination of a front page would not exist in this awful form.  Bring back the Clean!

hahahahahaha!                                    

[Varan 1,927]

We need Rimas!

[hobot 1,928]

*record needle scratches across the record*, everyone in the room turns and looks at Varan....

[Snaggletooth 3,017]

3 minutes ago, hobot said:

*record needle scratches across the record*, everyone in the room turns and looks at Varan....

 

added forre reallitey affectte             

[Varan 1,927]

Then they play it backwards and discover the true meaning of life. 

[Senator Seditious Maximus 360]

Sweet!  I get to keep my "Sexy Asian Ladies" ads popping up on my version of this shitty FP.  Thank you lazy fckn-assed Scooter for being cheap ass and getting the sorriest website possible, allowing us creepy old guys to maintain some semblance of respectful decrepitude, dude. 

[Varan 1,927]

How did you do that?

[Varan 1,927]

Hey Ed, I know you exist. You sent me a sticker once. So, if you seek suggestions, or not, I have one. Occassionally, more often than not, we (me) indulge a bit too much and get a bit too chatty. How about a delete12 button that deletes every post one made in the last 12 hours?

[Oz Scout Sailor 10]

Yep any page that tries to force me to log in with facefuck is heading towards losing my attention. 

[DSE 2]

It's the status quo and it blows.

[d'ranger 2,658]

Since nobody else did I will mention:

Made you look!

[tiz 17]

Sucks.  Hard to read.

--Kevin

[Chasm 617]

At least it is Disqus and not facebook comments.

Using uBlock Origin and having the whole network behind a pi-hole there is only the UFO ad left. Good, they need to sell a few more to take over the world.

 

If you are using AdBlock / AdBlock plus think about moving to uBlock Origin. It is much more modern can do more things if you want it to but first and foremost it does not come with "acceptable ads".
If you are still using Ghostery, they have changed a lot. Selling tracking data and replacing some ads with their own...

[Ricky Craven 31]

New site funkin blow. Also, lots of links, no more scoops, Mr. Clean AWOL (which might be for the best - is there another forum for that?), re-post Brian Hancock and Blue/Seahorse content, seems like the SA team has checked out. 

Hire some fresh blood with energy and interest to say on top of things. 

[Parma 192]

big fat no

[Switchtack 2]

As usual, what was wrong with the old FP?

[Kevlar Edge 3]

April fools 3 months early?