Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

I'm still waiting for my headache, I guess... I find the new color scheme easier to read than the old one.

Tim

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

I understand what you are saying Tim. I just disagree.

Judging from the results of the poll, I am neither crazy nor alone.

http://penguinbait.com/results.jpg


Why did they not mock up a vBulletin dev site and put up the themes prior to going live, and get some freaking input from the community. This would have saved many people headaches.

I really really REALLY am not trying to be a prick. Its like when facebook put out new terms of service, enough people complain, threaten to leave, throw tantrums, things tend to get accommodated.

Changing ITT, without having the minimalist theme or a dark them was a colossal mistake. The people who used the minimalist theme, were used to white/blue, its now black, and not completely functional. The people that wanted the black theme, try the minimalist theme and it is not fully functional.

Things I do not understand.

1) why was a dev site not put up, and approved by some community consensus?

2) why were the old themes not available on the new site?

3) why couldn't the new default theme be copied and colors changed to be a darker theme to more align itself the ITT's image for the last three years?

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

Maybe you should start a new poll with just two items:

• I prefer a light theme (dark font on white)
• I prefer a dark theme (light font on black)

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

Come on: this is theme.

Debated on this forum before hand. Did you not contribute?

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=27963

Another quote:

This is a complaint about content, and the term "newbie". Perhaps the discussion about removing the newbie forum concluded correclty, if it ends up not offending a large segment of the community?

I agree entirely with your analogy: fora are like people. I disagree that we've transplanted the guts from one person (ITT) to another (talk.maemo.org) and claimed they're the same.

What we've done is put different make-up on the person, given them a bionic leg but kept the brain and heart. Communities like ITT aren't based on themes or domain names: they're solely based on people.

Sorry, when you say "more open" it just sounds like complete and utter bollocks. In what way is maemo.org more closed?

• The theme changes were discussed on maemo-community.
• The theme deployment was discussed on maemo-community and in IRC meetings. All are minuted.
• The bills being paid by Nokia and the giving of maemo.org to the community was announced months ago.
• You've now got a list of moderators (sourced from very active members of this forum who volunteered) ready to jump on spam faster than Reggie could.
• You've now got no ads, and no worries that as the fora get more popular, Reggie alone is getting hit by the bill (did you ever donate? I didn't. Now I don't need to, and I don't need to feel guilty about it).

Both Reggie and other moderators have said they'll happily accept theme submissions from other people. Yes, penguinbait (and yourself?) would have liked to have retained either the existing ITT theme (which I always hated), the classic theme, an inverted theme, a pink theme, a theme with purple polkadots - but that's not happened.

Do we sit around wasting time discussing what you'd've liked to have happened, or deal with the reality we're now in?

Sit there moaning about how the heart has been ripped out of this poor forum (with the apparent consent of its owner) or do something constructive. I ask you, in the spirit of what's made this community, to please do the latter?

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

Hehe. Judging from the poll results, neither am I. ;)

While you are correct in the fact that this didn't happen, the theme for maemo.org as a whole has been discussed and scrutinized since last August. The idea that itT was coming to maemo.org has been discussed since December. Logically, all parts of maemo.org were/are going to look the same.

This was done at http://newstyle.maemo.org (discussed on the -community mailing list as well as several blog posts by me), although we never had the "talk" section working until Reggie converted the new maemo.org theme to the forum.

First, I'll defer to my post about usability and cohesiveness. Second, I'll add that maintaining a number of different site styles (especially for vBulletin) is just plain hard... We already have to style Midgard, Bugzilla, Mediawiki, etc., let alone the idea of maintaining all sorts of other styles.

Again, more themes = more maintenance.

The whole maemo.org umbrella is a community effort. Our community, while pretty large, has a limited amount of individuals who are both willing and able to help with website design and maintenance. So far, Reggie has been very accommodating -- as has Andrew Black. If other would like to join in and help do all of these things that are being requested, that's complete fine -- and appreciated. But, so far, all I hear are a bunch of people making requests for changes -- not requests to participate.

Tim

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

I don't want to change the default theme, I want to have options.

I asked why can't the old options be available to choose? Perhaps there is a technical reason, I don't know, why they were not included?

Why can't we continue to have choices? Why must we choose to only have dark or light backgrounds. I really wish there was a mod to allow vbulletin users to set their own colors, but I did not see anything like that.

Adding a FULLY functional dark theme would knock my bug request out of the water, and shut me up. Is it really that hard to copy the new default theme and make some color changes? Perhaps this is more work than I anticipate?


Is there some cost?, is this because maemo wants to control the look? Why can't we have choices, why would existing themes not be moved also.

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

Tim, the problem was that the new maemo.org style was never discussed here. I don't subscribe to any maemo.org mailing lists -- I don't really like mailing lists, I prefer forums.

I did not know that maemo.org was changing its style until relatively recently and after the theme was nearly complete.

I did know itT was moving to t.m.o and acquiring its theme, but thought it would acquire the old maemo.org theme (which I was more or less OK with) not a new one that I didn't even know about.

If, for example, back in August there was a thread started here titled "Input on a new maemo.org and talk theme required" I do not believe we would be having this discussion.

As a person that has trouble with their eyes and needs to administer eye drops that dilate them, I have trouble with reading extremely bright displays especially ones that are low-contrast.

Unfortunately, itT now falls into this category, and if it were to stay as it is, I would probably not visit here nearly as often.

It is unfair to say the new maemo.org theme was openly discussed by the community, and everyone had a chance to give their opinions, when in fact I, and I'm sure many other itT readers knew of no such change. And were of course never given the opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns.

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

Have they not been? As far as I'm aware, it was an open invitation. It just happens to be that very nearly everyone who is of moderator quality happens to be a member of maemo.org.

maemo.org isn't just a website, it's the home of the Maemo Community. So if you're a member of the community, you're a member of maemo.org.

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

I think when major changes like this are happening they should be coordinated by the Maemo Council and emails should be sent out, just like they did for voting for maemo council.

These email would send us all to a development website and we would give our input prior to the change in production.

As someone who has worked in IT for most of his life, this seems like a no brainer. Get all the complaints and problems worked out in development, as to not piss off all your users, also known as customers.

Re: Who finds themselves coming to these forums less after the change of image?
 

First, I answered the question posed by the OP and commented on it. Don't need your blessing to do that. Second, you sir, are the one who ASKED (post #25) what are the perceived changes (other than theme) in the forum. I responded to your question, and if answering it is wasting time, then don't ask the question.