The title was more to get your attention than anything else but some will think it is a coming apocalypse anyway.
Eye R bak! With a Vengeance Part deux. I have been gone for too long and it is time to reestablish my supremacy...or something like that but less in your face and more polite.
What does this mean and what am I threatening?
I am glad you asked.
1. Bugs, first of all. They shall be once again conquered with extreme prejudice and malice. I apologize for the few that are still sitting in the queue. THEY WILL BE DESTROYED. XP will be divvied out to the patient ones that helped on that glorious quest and another will start with the same rules. More because the other was getting long and I fear to miss something. Rather start anew as there will be plenty more that I hope you want fixed/changed/updated as we go.
2. The forum will be upgraded...again. It might be a little painful as they changed the default theme and I intend to use the new optimized one. I actually plan on doing a fresh install of it so it will take everything back to the stone age for a little bit but it shouldn't be but half a day of me being annoying on that one. I will give you at least 10 minutes warning when I start that.
3. With that new forum will come a new default color scheme...Mathom help me. This might be one of the more painful parts for some. There are enough complaints about this site's colors that I feel it is necessary. No, I have no idea what exactly I want to do. The demo I had is a little too extreme for my taste (the one with the red, gold and green) but expect some variation on that. I have had very few people say they like the current colors and when it comes down to it, I don't care what color it is as long as YOU are happy. So if you have an opinion, give me some hex colors and I will run with it! There are plenty of resources out there (many linked from past threads) that will give help picking color schemes. I will try ANYTHING if you all want it!
4. User orientated. And by user I mean the average Joe, not you uber users that may still not understand some of the undocumented crap I have coded. And I don't mean that in a mean way, I mean that I screwed up by trying to do too much without giving any help along the way. There is a usability book whose theme is "Don't Make Me Think!" which is what I will slowly attempt to do throughout the site. You should be able to look at something and understand it, not have to hunt and guess what the hell I was thinking when I coded it! That is all my fault and I want to make it better.
5. With the user orientated focus, average Joe median, and Don't Make Me Think there will be compromises. Which is why this is a new point. There are a core of you that I love and absolutely DO NOT want to alienate so I will do my best to continue to have uber informational options for you. But the philosophy behind Don't Make Me Think will force me to slim down some of the pages with too much going on that confuses people. We want new users to join and contribute. I hear that often, sometimes with frustration aimed correctly at me because this is still NOT a very newbie friendly site. Part of the problem is that the mass of options and information overload continues to be too much for the average Joe first visiting. This will be slowly worked on...again. We started out that way but quickly go back to information filling up all the spaces. We need to look for that balance.
6. As always, I will need YOUR help. I will be the catalyst for discussion in most cases but if you don't like it then tell me. I have a very small ego, among other things, so you WILL NOT hurt my feelings. At the same time I will take your recommendations I will think, perhaps incorrectly, that my way is better. Give me time to test some things I feel strongly about. I have done A LOT of reading on this web usability crap, I will have google analytics giving me hints at what may or may not be working and there may be private conversations going on in facebook or google that are driving other things. I will never ignore a suggestion and I think I often do a good job of acknowledging any comments. If you are certain yourself, don't back down. Moon used to tell me things, I would nod and do my own thing and then come back to what Moon said in the first place. "I told you so" is quite appropriate but sometimes I need to see something not work, so have patience with me...we will get there!
7. For those that read or skimmed this far. Thank you for your friendship as we continue to move down this ever changing road. Thank you for your continued patience with my ecletic coding and continuous upgrading. This is not an upgrade, this is a retool. At then end of this I want all the features that are halfway or confusing to just work. This is a fix sidewaysgrade, not an upgrade or a total rework. I like the base it is built on, we just need it working!!!
Remember, the Llama Loves you!
Prepare for the Rise of the Strolenati!
