Notice Anything Different?
Yes, it's the changeover to a new format.
First off, to our angel computer whiz, thank you, thank you. It went much more smoothly than if Charlie or I had attempted this ourselves. (Our whiz has asked to remain anonymous to you but I count the kindnesses of our readers among the blessings of this blog.)
Second, still a work in progress. Lists have to be cleaned up. There may be some font and color tweaks. We did choose to stay with Blogger because of its ease of use and protection of our content. (I understand the issues of the spam filter and I am going to do more in-depth research on how to avoid that issue.)
Third, you'll note the new calendar off to the right. It is going to be updated to include events outside of the district's calendar. We did put the Labels in a cloud at the bottom that can be scrolled. It's kind of big and messy looking but also kind of cool to see what are the big issues that we write about frequently.
Fourth, we have a quick link to e-mail Charlie and me for corrections, new thread requests and guest postings.
The one thing we didn't do was the comment thread following with Disqus as some of you had requested. (This would be where a chain of comments would follow one comments so you could track who comments on what.) The hesitation is because while Disqus is easy to install, it can have some issues (like eating up all old comments). I'm thinking of waiting to see if some bigger entity (like Google) buys them up. If you have any thoughts on this issue or experience, please let me know.
I find this a cleaner, lighter presentation and hope to have more content (updated links to documents, a SPS glossary, etc.). I hope you like it as well.
Last question; we're still thinking of changing the name. I do understand about branding, etc. but the "save" has always been problematic for me. What about: "Seattle Schools Today"?
First off, to our angel computer whiz, thank you, thank you. It went much more smoothly than if Charlie or I had attempted this ourselves. (Our whiz has asked to remain anonymous to you but I count the kindnesses of our readers among the blessings of this blog.)
Second, still a work in progress. Lists have to be cleaned up. There may be some font and color tweaks. We did choose to stay with Blogger because of its ease of use and protection of our content. (I understand the issues of the spam filter and I am going to do more in-depth research on how to avoid that issue.)
Third, you'll note the new calendar off to the right. It is going to be updated to include events outside of the district's calendar. We did put the Labels in a cloud at the bottom that can be scrolled. It's kind of big and messy looking but also kind of cool to see what are the big issues that we write about frequently.
Fourth, we have a quick link to e-mail Charlie and me for corrections, new thread requests and guest postings.
The one thing we didn't do was the comment thread following with Disqus as some of you had requested. (This would be where a chain of comments would follow one comments so you could track who comments on what.) The hesitation is because while Disqus is easy to install, it can have some issues (like eating up all old comments). I'm thinking of waiting to see if some bigger entity (like Google) buys them up. If you have any thoughts on this issue or experience, please let me know.
I find this a cleaner, lighter presentation and hope to have more content (updated links to documents, a SPS glossary, etc.). I hope you like it as well.
Last question; we're still thinking of changing the name. I do understand about branding, etc. but the "save" has always been problematic for me. What about: "Seattle Schools Today"?
Comments
momster
If you highlight the whitespace to the left of the time stamp at the bottom of the post, it should reveal it to you.
Other than that, I'm liking the format.
-D's mom
One other change I wanted to surface for feedback is that we're considering using twitterfeed to channel the blog to facebook and twitter. Let us know if you would find that beneficial / objectionable / problematic. Thanks!
-Eric
Yes on twitterfeed!
I see the spam filter is still just as active as before, as I'm evidently caught up in it in an earlier post.
-CT
A request for those of us with poor eyesight- please put more contrast between the print and the background---the light blue & grey print just blends into the white background. Bolder print would help but the color difference is really important.
For example, look at the West Seattle blog- the easiest sections to read with contrasts are their highlighted boxes with light blue background, as well as their comments section with grey background, instead of all white. That contrast would be really be appreciated, both for your main commentary & the comment sections. Besides, a bit of color is a nice break- there's almost a big whiteout on the screen right now, like the blinding snowstorm up in the mountains.
Thanks for all your incredible efforts!
I've never really like the name "Save Seattle Schools". "Seattle Schools Today" does feel a little generic. I like Seattle Schools Community or Community for Better Seattle Schools or something along those lines.
-regular reader
Don't care much about Twitter or Facebook since I don't use them.
I mostly like the new look, though.
I personally prefer the current name - I do think name recognition is a vital component of such sites.
I would echo the request for a slightly off-white background and more contrast on the right column text.
As for the name, I think just dropping the Save would be fine, leaving it as Seattle Schools Community Blog, but keeping the name does have the continuity appeal as well, so not a huge deal to me however it falls out.
Lastly, for TwitterFeed, I don't see the need, and in fact I would prefer our posts don't find their way to Facebook without explicit permission from the contributors, many of whom post with their real names, but many do not. I don't even understand what it would mean to "feed a blog to Twitter" for a blog like this. 140 characters doesn't buy you much in this context, and there's a skill to writing blog post titles/text to take advantage of that.
Before doing anything with twitterfeed I'll wait for renaming decisions.
-anon dev, aka "angel whiz"
Your tweek improved the light blue font considerably (one more+ would be even better!), but the light grey font in both links & titles is still way too light.
The white background still looks so sterile & harsh on the poor eyes- any chance of just even a slight color background?
I also agree that the font size (especially for the comments) seems smaller than before. The Most Popular posts from last week is handy.
BTW- my computer seems to be a lot slower now in switching windows/links on the blog now- does this new format require more juice?
Note that the font size bump messes up the blog archive title trimming. I'll look into fixing that with some custom css later on...
-angel whiz, aka "miracle whip"
The font itself looks almost too big now (more difficult to read for most people that way?)- it looks like everything got larger, not just the comments section (which was smaller than the rest). Like you say, when it gets larger it also gets wider which gets awkward. Maybe with the better contrast, the original font size you had might be easier to read?
FYI- I find the combination/size that the West Seattle blog uses is quite readable with great contrast, easy to read paragraph width, etc.
Thanks for tweeking!
I like the changes, except the white is still too white.
-ABC
I don't understand the white background issue, as most sites are all white (e.g. nyt.com, seattletimes, and so on). It could be there's too much purple, or maybe it's just a matter of adjusting to the new layout. We could also go with light on dark like metafilter.com, which I've always thought is very easy to read.
-angel whiz
Overall, it's visually pleasing, but like Sahila, I prefer, or need, the definite layout separating different types of content.
Rather than the "most popular" list, I preferred the topic, with the # of comments in parentheses next to the topic.
Plus, Contributors & other links, subscribe buttons, are currently where I'd like to see the latest posts.
Form follows function, not the other way around. WSDWG