LWN: Comments on "The new LWN.net site"

The cookie problem

mce — Sun, 09 Jun 2002 10:06:11 +0000

Actually, I spoke too soon. With Mozilla the cookie stuff now works, but with NS4 it still doesn't.

The cookie problem

mce — Sat, 08 Jun 2002 22:45:58 +0000

Thanks!

Also for the "plain text" option, by the way.

The cookie problem

corbet — Sat, 08 Jun 2002 14:16:44 +0000

The cookie problem should be fixed at this point - I just needed to make a tweak to the Quixote cookie setting code. And the boxes are off by default now...:)

Can't get old bigpage format

DeletedUser1786 — Sat, 08 Jun 2002 01:09:11 +0000

I can't get the old bigpage format -- when I enter lwn.net/current/bigpage in my browser's address window, I get redirected to http://lwn.net/Articles/806/bigpage, which might be the bigpage format, but is not the *old* bigpage format.

Screen too wide, consider a wiki, vertical whitespace?

DeletedUser1786 — Sat, 08 Jun 2002 00:59:43 +0000

Thanks for trying to improve, I guess. I'm sorry if this sounds somewhat negative -- I guess my biggest disappointment is that you didn't ask for comments before going this far. I'm going to list the the things that give me a problem. (I plan to read the "old format" (whatever it's called) unless I feel the urge to make a comment.) My screen resolution is set at 800x600, and will stay there for a long time. Your format is too big for that, which leads to a lot of horizontal scrolling, both for normal viewing, and to enter text in this comment box. (And that makes proofreading a royal pain.) I like the chance to add comments, but would like you to consider a wiki type approach -- display your article and then make a wiki page available for the comments. The wiki page approach has several advantages, one of them being that, for example, if somebody else had started a list of complaints, anybody else could add to the same list, not start a new list or add a new comment without being able to view the other comments. If you haven't used a wiki, please try one. If nothing else, try going to http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors -- anybody can edit that page. I like TWiki better because you can require registration -- see http://twiki.org. I'm losing track of the other comments I wanted to make because this comment entry process is so cumbersome (because the text area is wider than my 800x600 screen). There must be a way to put whitespace between paragraphs, because I've seen other comments with whitespace, but I haven't figured it out so far. What's the secret? Why is it a secret?

Comments and suggestions for the "New LWN"

DeletedUser1653 — Fri, 07 Jun 2002 19:15:15 +0000

I'm not sure what to make of the complaints about color changes - The colors are the same as I've always seen them, at least viewing from the "one big page" point of view. No problems with "salmon" here - it's always been that color for me. Is this some evil CSS-induced effect that I didn't see because I still use Netscape 4.x?

I do have a gripe about font sizes, though. The previous layout was compact and to the point, while the new version of the site blows up font sizes WAY too much, particularly in the item headlines - these were small and unobtrusive before, marked by their background color rather than their size. That worked *much* better. I find I want a bigger screen on which to view the new layout (to see more), despite the fact that I have a 1280x1024 17" LCD screen. The new layout must be very painful for those with lower res screens like laptop users stuck at 10x7 or even 8x6.

Finally, I'm not sure I like the comments idea at all. I fear that the Letters section, which has been of fairly consistently high quality, will suffer as a result, and that the comments areas will succumb to the tragedy of the commons here just as they have everywhere else. One thing I really liked about the Letters section was that it tended to focus discussion on topics and points that were of importance and general interest to the community at large - I'm afraid that won't happen with the new LWN comments mechanism, which is just Slashdot redux. (My own personal feeling is that Slashdot has become nearly useless, with a signal/noise ratio trending to zero. Compare Slashdot discussions of three or four years ago with today's and you'll see what I mean. The average intelligence of posters has fallen dramatically, and none of the moderation techniques tried have worked.)

So, here's a suggestion for a compromise that might work well: Since Letters *will* be written about things of interest and import, it might be best to limit comments to Letters rather than stories or news items themselves. This will serve to provide at least some focus on particular topic areas, although I still fear the eruption of brutal flamewars, from which LWN has been mercifully immune under its traditional structure.

Thanks for trying to improve, but wahtever you do, don't turn into Slashdot - that would be a great loss for all of us!

P.S.: The non-wrapping text entry box is a *really BAD idea* - it's impossible to see what you write in a constructive way. This one's easy to fix. Please do.

The cookie problem

mce — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 21:58:31 +0000

Is there any hope of more permanent cookies being implemented soon?

If not, I can stop coming back to check (or maybe even at all, although I'd hate for that to happen). I've set my preferences, but am not getting to see them without explicitly logging in each time (and yes, some people do quit their browser when they can make better use of the resources it occupies, so this is an issue). I find the default layout and colours to be so distracting that I'm now having a hard time actually reading anything when I visit. This is not good.

I also really think the black outlines should be off by default. Or at the very least there should be some padding around than text block they contain.

PS: I know I'm repeating myself (call me a whiner), but that's because at I care about lwn!

RSS Syndication: Examples Please?

AnswerGuy — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 19:36:41 +0000

Under the topic of "Syndication" (following the link at the top of the page) there is discussion of RDF/RSS for pulling in an LWN feed. However I could find no documentation for how one would use this feed.

I was able to find and follow some sample python code for using the XML-RPC feeds through Meerkat (http://www.oreillynet.com/meerkat/) which could get me the LWN feed and others. However, I'd like to know how to get the RSS directly.

I know that the LWN staff is fond of Python; and that they use it on their site. Perhaps they could provide a snippet of code as an example.

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

kubrick — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 17:34:37 +0000

Slashdot wasn't built in a day

I don't think Slashdot was built, as such... Slashcode just evolved from the primaeval muck. (at least, the earliest source release definitely looked that way :)

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

leandro — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 17:31:21 +0000

I agree totally. Salmon hurts. I wish old yellow back. Typing yellow in the relevant text box gives bright yellow only.

BTW, I just noticed the comment entry page does not include the article or message one's commenting, that's also annoying.

Another thing: we're not told the comments are HTML.

I'm all for comments, but perhaps this could have been beta-tested better. Slashdot wasn't built in a day, neither will its wannabes!

LWN Big Page

kubrick — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 17:03:23 +0000

Yes, I like bigpage too :)

I'm pretty much agnostic about the changes overall... seems to me like lwn.net/daily. grew up and ate the rest of the site :)

lwn big page rocks

DeletedUser1610 — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 16:44:04 +0000

The "big page" is fantastic - please keep it. I just use the spacebar to scroll down and read the whole thing (though usually in several sittings) - lazy I know, but I'm usually trying to do other work at the same time. No, I'm not anti-mouse, I'm just lacking in a bit of manual dexterity. Oh, and the big page is better for the occasional printout - very useful for reading lwn on trains.

The new LWN.net site

dave — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 16:30:03 +0000

Hi utoddl,

Jon had said previously that he will be releasing the code.

dave

The new LWN.net site

corbet — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 16:29:00 +0000

Releasing the code is on our list - competition isn't really a concern. The bigger issues are (1) getting the code into good enough shape to release, and (2) doing a real security audit. Until I feel a little more solid on the latter point, I guess we'll have to say with the Microsoft approach to security...:(

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

jeremiah — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 16:15:08 +0000

I think the new site is great, except for one thing. Salmon is not a good color. The yellow was good, easy on the eye, calming, upbeat etc. Salmon is just plain distracting from the content of the pages, esp. in the amount the you are using. Please switch to a cooler color.

The new LWN.net site

utoddl — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 15:31:47 +0000

I don't suppose you would be interested in sharing the code you use to create/run the site, would you? While I can appreciate that you would like to avoid competition in the Linux News area, it seems a shame for the web site creating world-at-large not to benefit from the hard work you've put into crafting your code base.

If not, then perhaps just a tech-heavy description of how you do what you do would be welcome. If I can't use your code, maybe a few of the ideas behind it are novel enough (if not [gasp!] patentable) to be useful to your site-building readership. (BTW, not that it matters in this case, but I did give you a donation. :-)

The new LWN.net site

DeletedUser1505 — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 15:06:41 +0000

Where did you leave the Software Announcement tag?

weekly front page link missing

seanMcGrath — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 14:37:27 +0000

The link at the bottom from the weekly front page to the security page is missing. I tried to use the comment link on the bottom of the weekly front page to post this comment, but it is broken.

LWN Big Page

anth — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 13:54:27 +0000

I like the bigpage too, and read it until a few weeks ago. Unfortuantely I will soon be moving to a new apartment where I won't have a permanent net connection, and once that happens I'll be glad to have something convenient for offline reading.

LWN Big Page

gjw — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 07:25:39 +0000

> So we restored the "one big page" as an option,
> and it is still used by a (declining) number of LWN readers.

I like the big page very much.
It's so easy to read the news offline with the big page,
because you only need to open one page :-)
This is my most favourite lwn feature, please keep it.

LWN: Comments on "The new LWN.net site"

The cookie problem

The cookie problem

The cookie problem

Can't get *old* bigpage format

Screen too wide, consider a wiki, vertical whitespace?

Comments and suggestions for the "New LWN"

The cookie problem

RSS Syndication: Examples Please?

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

LWN Big Page

lwn big page rocks

The new LWN.net site

The new LWN.net site

The new LWN.net site (bad color choice)

The new LWN.net site

The new LWN.net site

weekly front page link missing

LWN Big Page

LWN Big Page

Can't get old bigpage format