Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Come on, man.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I was promised a recession.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I really should read my own blog.

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Reader Interactions

180Comments

  3. 3.

    Ruckus

    John, I like it but as you see it needs a bit of touching up in a few areas. We’ll get used to it but as you know a lot of us are old and change doesn’t come easy to many of us. We like it when we realize that it’s better, it just takes us a bit of time to figure that out.

  4. 4.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    I like the addition of John’s twitter feed. That tweet about Fred Thompson having more energy than jeb? was both harsh and LOL.

  5. 5.

    Mike J

    Why do I have to scroll down to see the newest post?

    The formatting buttons on the text editor look like they may have some text in them until hover, when I can actually see what they do say.

    There are too many states these days. Please eliminate three.

    Lack of comment numbers sucks ass. Hard to tell if I’ve caught up.

  6. 6.

    Anne Laurie

    Ugh. Just verified I can’t use a twitter embed as a ‘featured image’… it’s gonna get old fast if everyone has to look at the same blurry shot of my dogs and/or tomatoes seventeen times a day…

  9. 9.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mike J:

    There are too many states these days. Please eliminate three.

    Which ones? Can we add DC and a few others to keep the number at 50?

  10. 10.

    Steeplejack

    Eh, I’m going to need some time to get used to this.

    Anyone know how to switch to the mobile site? My tablet and cell phone are both on the regular site, and now the column width of the comments is tiny. I can’t find a “Mobile” switch anywhere.

  12. 12.

    lamh36

    Hmmm, interesting things you’ve done to the place…

    Is the color pallet set in stone?

    IDK bout anyone else but the hidden writing/white background is a bit weird (like with the blockquote, link etc buttons)

  15. 15.

    Marcelo

    @Steeplejack: The website IS the mobile site. It’s dynamically formatted. You can test this by making your browser window mobile-sized and you’ll see the website dynamically reformat itself the smaller you go (the stuff on the right disappears as the window gets smaller, for instance).

    This is what a lot of websites do now instead of having a separate mobile site. Gawker sites actually do a really slick job of it. It’s a lot easier to code this stuff into one site that changes than to have two separate sites running concurrently.

  19. 19.

    FlyingToaster

    @Mike J: Hey, wait a minute! I was born there, but more importantly, so was Harry Truman!

    Though if I could evacuate my niece’s family, I’d probably turn on the orbital particle beams myself. I start with targeting my old HS, and then the country club in Indian Hills. And then every damn church in Jackson, Clay, Ray, Platte, Cass, plus Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas.

  21. 21.

    SG

    Poor Tommy thinks I called him a “designer tyrant” because the pages won’t zoom/resize on the iPad. If it’s merely a glitch and not a scurvy feature, I apologize. If it’s fixed.

    And don’t hide your lights under a bushel. All that intro/summary material at the top is annoying when I want to see the current post, like, right now!

    Thanks for the Tunch pic. It’s the one where he’s at his most handsome.

  23. 23.

    Mike J

    Can I continue to whine? I’m not really this picky, but I figure now is the time to let things be known.

    The contrast between the regular text and the link text isn’t that great. They look different, but not THAT different,. My personal preference is to have links pop out at me more. Honestly, my personal preference is for unformatted text files served from gopher sites, but nobody else is doing retro cool these days.

    Frankly I could use more weight on the body text, but I’ll probably just wind up replacing the CSS anyway,

  24. 24.

    Mike J

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Look halfway down the page on your left. Is there a little gray box with an arrow?

    Nope.

    ETA: Whoa. Quoted text looks the way I’d prefer normal text.

  25. 25.

    Tommy

    @SG: Oh I wasn’t upset I got what you were saying. I worked 15 years as a “suit” at high-end ad agencies working for Fortune 50 clients. I was the person that served as the interface between the client and our creative staff. I was the person that used to be saying all this kind of stuff (and exactly the kinds of things you said) to them.

    I taught myself all this as just a hobby and then next I knew it is my job. Funny to be on the other “side” to be honest :).

  27. 27.

    Mike J

    @Mike J: Turned off ublock and the next/prev arrows appeared. Guessing the name of the CSS selectors caused them to be blocked. Perhaps the word “pop” or “popup” in the selector name?

  28. 28.

    srv

    Uhm, you do know that 90% of your commenters are over 50 and can’t read 8 pt font?

    Bros, not everybody has Retina displays like me.

    And what’s up with the minaturized logo?

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Mike J: They pop in and out… annoying. And it’s still too white and too spread out.
    I normally don’t care about upgrades, I’m used to them because I worked in IT for 15 years, but this isn’t an improvement to me.
    Some of this is just flash “because we can”, not because it’s actually more functional than the old way.
    Yeah, so far not a fan at all.

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    @Marcelo:

    Well, when the site “dynamically resizes” on my phone (Moto X original), this is what I get:

    The Moto X screen is 2¼” wide. I get 5/8″ of white space on the left, 1″ text column width, 5/8″ of white space on the right. There is no way to “spread” the page to make the text bigger or the column wider (to take up the whole screen).

    So I am reading a 1″ wide column of text with about 25-30 (tiny) characters per line. That is not good.

    Similar on the tablet (Nexus 7). The screen is 3½” wide. I see 5/8″ of white space on each side, 2¼” text column in the middle of about 55-60 (tiny) characters. No way to spread the page.

    ETA: I understand dynamic websites. What I am suggesting is that the dynamic resizing needs some work.

  31. 31.

    Smiling Mortician

    If I can’t see how many comments a post has on the main page, how on earth will I know which thread has the best fights happening?

    ETA: Oh. Never mind. Hey, the edit button’s still here. Cool!

  32. 32.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Whoah.

    I guess I chose my once in a blue moon visit on an auspicious day. Wow.

    Seems to work okay. But will I be able to make clever, pithy remarks?

    Yes?

    Great, I could never do that before.

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @Mike J:

    I agree. Blockquote text is a lot bigger than the comment body text. I’d make them both the size of the current blockquoted stuff. The default comment text is tiny.

  36. 36.

    srv

    Okay, I have a BIG bug! Under Categories, Immigration is not capitalized. But everything else is.

    I’m sure someone will take offense at this.

    Please put your best people on that one.

  38. 38.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Well it sure loads faster and has a nice zoom, zoom feel to it. But I’m going to have to quit for tonight because seriously hurting my eyes, even with the little bit of blue added to the background.

    Tomorrow is another day.

    Thanks Tommy, don’t get discouraged!

  39. 39.

    Steeplejack

    @Darkrose:

    Well, Harvey practically held a gun to his head demanding to be kept in the game. And then he promptly shat the bed. Typical New Yorker hubris.

  40. 40.

    Tommy

    OK, close to a universal comment is the white background (changed) and all the white space. About to change that somewhat so let me know what you think.

  43. 43.

    FlyingToaster

    @Mike J: My middle sis went to Law School there, my ex-BIL to Med School. I’m not planning on targeting the Unis. Even with some of the assholes* I know who teach at [redacted], the only hope the state has to progress beyond 1948 is if there’s an educational system.

    Cape Girardeau, OTOH, can go the way of the Dodo.

    * I went to HS with one. Jesus Christ on a cracker, talk about tunnel vision. Even in 1977, if you weren’t EXACTLY like this freaking nutcase and his lunatic family, you were of the devil and should die, preferably in his personal bonfire. And someone thinks he’s qualified to teach, rather than be a cautionary tale to every psych and sociology student on the planet.

  44. 44.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Tommy: The background still looks painfully white on my screen (Firefox, Win10). And in Chrome as well.

  47. 47.

    FlyingToaster

    FWIW, for the last two years I was in Bloomington, we had a poster on our fridge, text over a socialst-realist female worker:

    Enough with the Fascism! Get us out of Indiana!

  49. 49.

    Mike J

    Major, major bug (not a bug with regular commenter major major). In the colophon at the bottom of the page ( Design, WordPress integration, and database wrangling by weBranding.), when I click on weBranding, I get a 403. Not the best way to show off your chops.

  50. 50.

    Suzanne

    If you’re kicking out any of the states, there is no reason not to start with Texas. Hell, they’re still deeply ambivalent about this whole ‘Murica business as it is.

    I might support the whole building-a-wall thing if we just keep Texas on the south side of it.

  51. 51.

    Comrade Luke

    You need a higher-res image for the header. It looks like poo even on my non-retina MacBook Air

    Just trying to fit in :)

  52. 52.

    Tommy

    @Mike J: Fu*k. Thank you so much for pointing that out. Kind of forgot it was even down there, lots of moving parts w/ this site. Literally in the process of moving my site and domain from one GoDaddy account to another GoDaddy account because I am sick of paying for two hosting accounts when I only need one.

  55. 55.

    Death Panel Truck

    @Mike J: I have an old 48-star flag I got from my mother in the 1970s. A couple of years ago I displayed it outside the house on Memorial Day. The neighbor across the street came over and asked why I wasn’t flying a 50-star flag. I told him (with Abe Simpson in mind), “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I recognize Idaho or Texas.”

  56. 56.

    worn

    Good fucking lord the body text is tiny in the iteration that’s presented to my iPhone – like 1 mm high. Please help me escape this.

    Also, too: the 4 formatting buttons are white text on an almost white background. What are they? How could I know?

    But seriously 1mm text? That’s kind of nuts

  59. 59.

    Mike J

    @Tommy: Been there, done that. Please don’t think that anything I point out is meant as personal criticism. I crashed the front page of AOL more than once when it was the way half the people the in US got on the internet. There is nothing you can do to this site that I haven’t already fucked up worse somewhere else.

  60. 60.

    srv

    @Suzanne: You people have no respect for States Rights. People are fed up with intervention:

    AUSTIN – Laura McIntyre began educating her nine children more than a decade ago inside a vacant office at an El Paso motorcycle dealership she ran with her husband and other relatives.

    Now the family is embroiled in a legal battle the Texas Supreme Court hears next week that could have broad implications on the nation’s booming home-school ranks. The McIntyres are accused of failing to teach their children educational basics because they were waiting to be transported to heaven with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

    At issue: Where do religious liberty and parental rights to educate one’s own children stop and obligations to ensure home-schooled students ever actually learn something begin?

  62. 62.

    katie5

    There are issues with the font sizes–don’t know if you can control these, Tommy. The font size of the block quotes is larger than the font size of the text.

    BTW, I’m looking at this on the website on a laptop. Firefox.

  63. 63.

    Irony Abounds

    Just testing out the Archive feature and came upon a May 2002 post from John Cole linking a Jonah Goldberg piece with the thought “this may by Jonah Goldberg’s best ever” and I don’t think it was being said sarcastically. You’ve come a long way baby.

  64. 64.

    katie5

    @efgoldman: it’s the relative size difference. I can zoom in to make the text larger; the blockquotes are still much larger than the standard comment text.

  66. 66.

    scav

    The block quote text seems to be a few sizes larger than the regular text, which seems overkill especially given the weight of the blue line to the left (in comparison to the lightness of the rest of the visual elements especially). Anyone else see this?

    So, for people looking for an easy fix to text size, block text everything — metaquote!

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    We need a different color for commenter names with a hyperlink, e.g., Satby.

    Also, the (site-specific) “back” button functionality has mostly gone away. I use the feature a lot where you can click on the time stamp right below a commenter’s name and it will pull that comment up to be at the top of the current screen. It used to be that you could press the backspace key or use the “back” arrow to navigate back through that chain. It was very useful.

    Now the back function sort of goes somewhere random and then back to the previous webpage (e.g., the home page). Me no likey.

    Also, comment numbers! Much easier to deal with “Okay, I’m reading down to see if anyone addressed this and then I want to go back and reply to #78,” rather than “Now I’m going to try to remember and look for the name on the comment at about—2:40? 2:45? Screw it.”

    ETA: The italic tags don’t seem to be working. I put them on both instances of “e.g.” in this comment, and I can’t tell that they’re italicized.

    ETFA: Are the bold tags working?

  69. 69.

    Tommy

    @efgoldman: Or CTRL +. Just saying. If I make the font bigger others will say it is too large. For as long as people have put letters to paper or a screen this has been a never ending cycle. Right up there with a client saying “couldn’t we make our logo larger” and “there is some white space over there, why don’t we put something there.”

  70. 70.

    katie5

    @Steeplejack: Yes! If we can have a return of comment numbers. Don’t know if it’s supported in the current template but it sure was useful.

    This should be bolded (although hard coded the tags)

  72. 72.

    eemom

    It’s just not HOME. Yet. Change is hard.

    Cole chiming in with a nice long rant about how we all need to STFU and what a bunch of WATBs we all are and a big fat fuck you to everybody might help.

  73. 73.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Steeplejack:

    We need a different color for commenter names with a hyperlink, e.g., Satby.

    I think they have a darker shade of blue, but it’s a bit too subtle.

    e.g. Look at Redshirt’s comment. ‘Redshirt’ is a slightly darker font than other commenters.

  74. 74.

    srv

    Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush blamed the “cable shows” and “political press” for the struggle he has had connecting with Republican primary voters.

    Bush told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he does not understand why his supporters think something is missing from his campaign.

    “Do you know why they think that [something is missing]?” Todd asked.

    It’s the Font size JEB! Clue!

  75. 75.

    Tommy

    @efgoldman: Thanks. It is actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, the comment box being FUBAR, the block quote text being larger, numbered comments, no super white, blinding background, and issues with mobile (I had to turn off the app that controls this — this will change quickly). That is most of the comments and I don’t disagree with any of them. Or I can’t get that upset people point them out :)!

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack

    @efgoldman

    True, but unfortunately it doesn’t change the line measure, so as your text gets bigger the lines get “shorter” (fewer characters per line).

  77. 77.

    Redshift

    It sounds like all the things I would complain about have already been acknowledged. I’m happy that when I follow an external link and then hit the back button, it now returns to where I was scrolled to instead of to the top.

  78. 78.

    amk

    ok, bigger fonts, better line spacing. what else you got?

    the hyperlink buttons (b, i, link etc.) are unreadable with white buttons in pale blue background.

  79. 79.

    srv

    @Tommy: Dude, send your dad to this site and tell us what he says.

    That’s your market here. Don’t make them all run out to Walgreens to buy +1.5 granny glasses. What was the old sites size?

    Is this what Death Panels are like?

  80. 80.

    scav

    @Tommy: Can you just make the block quoted text and the regular text the same size? Their comparative sizes are going to make the other solutions to text size less effective and there’s already a sizable clue to the left for the quoted nature of block text (so the difference in font size doesn’t actually add information).

  81. 81.

    Mike J

    @scav: If fontsize on comment text and blockquotes were reversed I’d be happier, but I realise that’s a personal preference.

    What’s more annoying is the grey space on either side of the content on the desktop, and the narrowness of the text (and all the whitespace) on my phone. Only on the comments. On the front page text is wonderful and goes wall to wall, even on the phone. Comments, half the screen on my phone is given over to whitespace.

  84. 84.

    Tommy

    @srv: The font thing is just funny on many different levels. The people on the “client” side of thing here liked the font the way it was, when it was 3 points smaller and I said I wanted it larger. They said no, I did it anyway. I can’t image what people would be saying if I hadn’t done that. Just saying.

  86. 86.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: It won’t fix the fact the block quotes are in a gigantic font and regular text is not. I would guess that it is a fairly simple fix to normalize somewhere in between. I also don’t think that anyone should get on Tommy for not taking care of this tonight. I assume the process will take a week or so to perfect.

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    I still think the comments column is too narrow. I am seeing 6-8 words per line, which is fine for a comment that is three lines maximum. But for deeper, more penetrating discussion, this results in one paragraph becoming tall and skinny and looking ludicrous. There’s plenty of space to use up.

    I also miss comment numbering. A few versions ago, the comment numbers were in a great Didone typeface.

  89. 89.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah the block quote is a flat out mistake on my part. Stuns me I have said this time and time again and people keep mentioning it. Clearly people read the comments in a thread a lot less than I realized (and I thought most didn’t), Not making the change to the size of the text in the block quote tonight, again as I have said several times, because that will require me to get into the CSS and PHP files. Nothing close to rocket science but I am tired and making a mistake with one click of the mouse is not something that is going to happen tonight.

  91. 91.

    Steeplejack

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Here’s an example of why the “back” function needs to return. I see BillinGlendaleCA’s comment at 11:55 replying to Suzanne. I click on the time stamp to put it at the top of my screen and also anchor it as my “last” position. Then I click Suzanne’s name to go back and see what BillinGlendaleCA was replying to. Previously, I could then press backspace or click the “back” button to return to my “last” position, with BillinGlendaleCA’s comment at the top of the screen. And then I could continue reading down the thread.

    That has gone away.

  92. 92.

    amk

    another snafu. when I go to a previous comment (via @ linky) and then click back, it takes me back to the main page, not to the last comment I was viewing (unlike in the earlier avatar).

  93. 93.

    Steeplejack

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I checked before I made my comment, and the difference was imperceptible on my (notebook) screen. It shouldn’t have to come down to fine gradations and how recently your monitor was color-corrected.

  94. 94.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mike J: For the ‘next post / last post’ function, there’s a little white arrow (caret) in the middle of the side of the screen. Click on that & it’ll take you where you wanna be.

    If there’s no arrow on the right-hand side, you’re already reading the ‘top’ (most recent) post!

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack

    Another thing about comment numbers: If I reply to a comment, I sort of subconsciously note the number on my reply, and then when I go back to continue reading the thread at the comment I replied to I get a sense of how big and busy the thread is. “I replied to #78, my comment was #213, I’ve got a long way to go.” That’s useful navigation information.

  99. 99.

    Mike J

    @Anne Laurie: Not with an adblocker running on firefox. Too much malware served through ad networks (even from this very site (although it’s been a couple of years)) to browse without it.

  100. 100.

    lurker dean

    Nice work, Tommy. There are some nits that others have identified, but imo it’s nice and clean.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman:

    We may do verbose (hi, mclaren) but deep and penetrating?

    Every once in a while, we do deep and penetrating.

    Although, now I’m thinking how a maclaren comment will look and I’M AFRAID.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tommy: I’ve been reading the comments and that wasn’t a shot aimed at you. It was a reply to efg. That is all. I am not criticizing your work in a negative way. As I noted before, you have done a nice job. OTOH, there are details and loose ends that that need to be attended to. IMO the new site should provide the functionality of the old site and add to it. Yes?

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    Oy vey. Please, please eighty-six the cutesy round images that sometimes appear along with the post title when the previous or next arrows are accessed. Pure frippery, and unnecessary. Plus they extend the pop-outs so much that parts of a comment are covered.

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Yes, agreed. Speaking for myself, I’m documenting stuff as I notice it. Not intending to sound (too) ranty.

    (Although I thought comment numbers were one thing that many people said to keep in their pre-upgrade comments. And there are other things that I thought people were adamant about that seem to have been jettisoned.)

    ETA: Okay, italics definitely not working in any visible way for me. The word in bold above is also in italics.

  106. 106.

    scav

    @Tommy: This style of reading more towards the bottom of the active conversation while skipping or skimming early stuff works fairly well for ongoing topic based conversational threads, but is probably exactly wrong for a concise, non-repetative list of corrections! (or suggestions, from earlier in the process.) Oh well, at least you’ve got a ranking to triage efforts with.

  107. 107.

    srv

    I’m just going to have to comment in big boy fonts.

    To the e-books!

    Desperately seeking to revive a campaign rocked in recent weeks by budget cuts and a poor debate performance, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is hoping that his political past can jump-start his political future.

    He will release a new e-book this week, “Reply All,” a raw, exhaustive anthology of hundreds of self-selected e-mails he sent and received as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007.

    The new tome from the avid e-mailer who traveled the state with a BlackBerry holstered to his waist is packed with messages from aides, state legislators, federal officials and everyday Floridians on issues including education reform, immigration reform, tort reform and the state’s response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

  108. 108.

    NotMax

    @MikeJ

    They show up as intended on my Firefox, with Adblock Plus enabled, NoScript putting the kibosh on Javascript, and images shut off. All are the newest versions thereof.

  110. 110.

    Mike J

    @Steeplejack:

    Okay, italics definitely not working in any visible way for me.

    There were originally four ways to emphasize text in html. i (talic), b (old), strong, and em (phasis).

    Balloon-juice’s toolbar uses em and strong (even though they’re labeled i and b (and always have been (this is nothing new))) , and there’s no real standard for what those mean.

  111. 111.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @Tommy: You might want to Front Page the suggestions you are working on to get people to stop commenting on them. Right now, the comment section is a little unwieldy to get through, so I’m not surprised they are missing it. I stopped on the first one at about 100. That might lighten up what you have to weed through…or not.

  112. 112.

    Mike J

    @NotMax: I’m using ublock. I might have to switch back to adblock, Ublock is a little easier on cpu cycles, but if stuff doesn’t look right, it doesn’t really matter.

  113. 113.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It is the word many in “comment numbers were one thing that many people said to keep” in the first sentence of the second paragraph. I don’t get italics, but for bold I get text that is both bold and light blue.

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack

    Does <em> work for italics?

    ETA: Yes, it does. But it’s still bullshit that <i> doesn’t work now.

  117. 117.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Things I love – the little side arrow to get to previous and next posts. The arrow at the bottom that takes you to the top. I didn’t know how much I wanted something like that until I had it. YAY.

    Colors are getting better.

    Love having John’s twitter feed handy.

    And as I said before, it has a real zippy feel to it now. Again, didn’t realize how sluggish it was until it wasn’t.

  118. 118.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus: No I know and I didn’t mean it as a shot at you.

    @TaMara (BHF): I don’t have the energy. I take good notes and I’d say 85% of the comments break down to the same 5-7 issues along with many issues with any Apple device in general. Think I have a pretty good feel for what needs to be done.

  119. 119.

    Mike J

    Ok, taking off for a while. Overall, it doesn’t look bad, Probably needs a few tweaks here and there and me getting used to it, but I approve.

    You may carry on.

  120. 120.

    scav

    ok, testing bold hard coded then bold as strong button
    then italic hard coded then italic as em button

    same in block quote
    bold hard coded then bold as strong button
    then italic hard coded then italic as em button

    ETA Golly do some of our minds work in similar fashion.

  121. 121.

    Tommy

    Look folks I get the comment box sucks. This isn’t an excuse but background/history. There is just NO good commenting plugin for WordPress. Period. Believe me I looked. And I didn’t realize how much, ducted taped though it was, the last person did to get the comment box to what you got used to. The last roll-out might not have been great, the site slow, but I got work to get the comment box/area back to what it was. But we will. Just saying ….

  122. 122.

    Steeplejack

    @Mike J:

    A key thing for me will be how much I can tweak it with Stylish (or something else that someone might recommend?) to improve it.

    Don’t want to start a flame war, but as a former typographer I consider it a war crime to have Arial (or whatever sanserif face this is) as the font for reading huge threads of text.

  123. 123.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tommy: The problem people see right now is that the new system adds some features but also looses some other ones. It can be perceived as different, but not an improvement.

  124. 124.

    Bobby Thomson

    I also, too, think the font is way too small and hard to read against the Kubrickesque expanse of white space. And the old numbering of comments helped with signposting.

    I’m sure there are things I like, too, but it’s human nature to notice the changes that upset first.

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    @Steeplejack: Concur heartily. MUST have a good serif face. Like Scala or something.

    However, as I primarily view this site from mobile devices, I had to use the mobile site exclusively after the previous upgrade, because it was really a downgrade. So I am more used to the sans, though I agree it sucks.

    Big, sexy comment numbers, PLEEZ…..

  128. 128.

    DH

    This is probably because I don’t know where to look or I am dumb, but where are the definitions? If nothing else, I want the 27 per cent crazification factor link available.

  131. 131.

    NotMax

    @DH

    Was mentioned in an earlier thread that they’re to be reinstated later. Granted, a placeholder notification would be helpful.

  132. 132.

    Tommy

    @DH: You are not crazy, it isn’t here. Whomever did the coding to have anchors and hyperlinks must have used a problem from like 1995. When I opened it up in Dreamweaver (a state of the art HTML/CSS editor) it went crazy with both error message and alerts of malicious code. It will be back, just not today or tomorrow.

  133. 133.

    scav

    But, remembering some of the utter chaos of earlier rollouts, this one is exceedingly well-behaved (although there is a certain personal thrill in working through and reverse engineering the chaos). As my thinking seems redundant, I’m removing myself from active stomping on the suitcases.

  135. 135.

    Roger Moore

    Minor complaint: there is no longer a distinction between “Blogroll” and “Blogs we monitor and mock as needed”. That and there’s no link to the lexicon from the “About” page, which seems like the logical place to put it. And the pie filter doesn’t work anymore; that isn’t your fault, but I’m going to complain about it anyway. Most of my other complaints have been made so many times by others that I’m not going to clutter things by repeating them.

  136. 136.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Oh, brave new world that hath such features in it!

    Greetings from die Schwartzwald.
    On my iPhone the block quote text forms nearly a column of single words in the center of the screen. Lotsa wasted space on both sides. It’s readable though.

  138. 138.

    Steeplejack

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    You said “a bit too subtle.” I think it’s way worse than that.

    ETA: Although now I can detect a very slight difference between my name and Darkrose’s just above.

  139. 139.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I just switched from iPhone Feedly to iPhone Chrome and the difference in font sizes is more prominent on Chrome.
    So glad I’m not a programmer any more.

  140. 140.

    Tommy

    @Steeplejack: You folks are good at beating a dead horse. There reason there is a difference, slight and it shouldn’t be slight and I’ll made edits, is you clicked on that name. It is a “visited link.”

    About time for me to leave and find my bed, cause I said I wouldn’t get frustrated and this is the first time tonight.

    Makes me think of that Seinfeld episode where the lady comes to his show at a bar and heckles him, so he goes to her office and heckles her … where do you work now :).

    Good night everybody.

  142. 142.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Tommy: Get some sleep Tommy, it looks good; just some nits here and there.

    ETA: Scrolling is really fast, I likey.

  143. 143.

    Steeplejack

    @Tommy:

    I didn’t click on Darkrose’s link, although I did hover over it to see if it was a hyperlink.

    Don’t take the criticisms personally. The site is a work in progress.

  144. 144.

    Origuy

    Tommy, I like a lot of the new site and appreciate the amount of work you’ve done on it. I’d rather write 10,000 lines of Java code than mess with HTML and CSS. Could you put up a Known Problems List so that people won’t keep bugging you about the same things? They will anyway, but then you could say “That’s #17” and shut them up, briefly.

  146. 146.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    I missed the reference above. I actually like the format on the phone overall. But on Chrome I have a refreshing button that Feedly doesn’t.
    I haven’t looked at it on IE/Windows yet.
    ETA: I’m in Germany for a week. Just enough time to adjust to the time zone and then back to EST.
    weather should be perfect this week and I kinda like it here this time of year.

  155. 155.

    BGinCHI

    One thing for the new site designers to address.

    I notice that under Categories (Catblogging, Animals, Cole Falls Down, etc.) there is no category for The Wisdom of BG.

    Under this category could be a number of sub-categories, such as: Bars of the Upper Midwest, Calvados: Its Use & Abuse, Books for Smart People, Films of the early 70s, British Crime TV, Scandinavian Noir, Shit my kid says, and so on.

    Baud For President probably needs to be there too.

  158. 158.

    Anne Laurie

    @Steeplejack:

    Don’t want to start a flame war, but as a former typographer I consider it a war crime to have Arial (or whatever sanserif face this is) as the font for reading huge threads of text.

    Us lysdexics *love* Arial (and other sanserif faces)!

    Tommy: Thank you for greyscaling the background, much easier for my eyes now.

  159. 159.

    Anne Laurie

    @Tommy:

    Whomever did the coding to have anchors and hyperlinks must have used a problem from like 1995. When I opened it up in Dreamweaver (a state of the art HTML/CSS editor) it went crazy with both error message and alerts of malicious code. It will be back, just not today or tomorrow.

    I wouldn’t mind retyping the Lexicon (chunk by chunk), if you manage to set up a shell I can use. You have my email addy!

    I’m quite an experienced typist, though a tech-idiot.

  163. 163.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mike J: Yes, the comment numbering system was very useful. If it isn’t reinstated, I will miss it a lot.

    Other than that, new set-up easy on these old eyes and still has recognizable Balloon Juice look. So really is an upgrade.

  164. 164.

    Sherparick

    @Darkrose: A Grady Little moment. Not quite as bad, but almost, especially leaving Harvey in to face Hosmer. I doubt Collins will admit it, but Familia blowing two other save opportunities in the Game 1 and Game 4 probably had caused a loss of confidence. As it was, Famila almost saved the Mets and Collins but for Duda’s bad throw. For a series that only went 5 games, the Mets must be kicking themselves about losing 2 extra inning games and blowing a late inning leave in the 8th in game 4. In the close games the Royals contact hitting stressed the Mets defense and bullpen, and caused them to win all the close games.

  166. 166.

    HeartlandLiberal

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Also, Puerto Rico. DC and the island should both be states, with full privileges of citizens ship. Absurd it is the 21st century, and we still have vestiges of colonialism and DC is like the seat of kings, surrounded by underprivileged peasants.

  167. 167.

    father pussbucket

    A bit of a shock, but I’m getting used to it. Requests (most mentioned by others; consider these additional votes):
    * Bring back comment numbers.
    * Tighten up the white space.
    * Pop-out tabs are cute, and helpful if you’re deep in the comments, but I’d like the prev/next links with titles at the top as well.
    * The captions on the editing buttons are essentially invisible until you mouse over. No like.

  168. 168.

    Betty Cracker

    Good job, Tommy!

    Here’s one suggestion I haven’t seen addressed elsewhere: The heading copy under the post title kind of runs together, particularly if the author has chosen multiple categories. For example:

    November 2, 2015/0 Comments/in All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Austerity Bombing, Election 2016, Fables Of The Reconstruction, hoocoodanode, Republican Venality, Ryan Lyin’ Weasel, Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver /by Zandar

    It might be clearer if the author’s name, date and comments count were on one line and the categories on another or maybe if the categories were italicized or something to set them apart. Not a big deal or huge priority, but some folks use tons of categories, so the other info could get lost in the block of text.

    Thanks!

    ETA: It would also be helpful to have a time stamp on the post heading in addition to the date, author, etc. Thanks!

  169. 169.

    Tsukune

    It looks like text in the main posts are 10 point, but block quotes are 15 point. It makes alot of the text look like footnotes.

  170. 170.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Steeplejack:

    Here’s an example of why the “back” function needs to return.

    Second this. Not that I minded seeing Tunch again (and again), but I don’t see an alternative workflow yet.

    Also, why am I getting a “Firefox prevented this page from automatically redirecting to another page” on every page of the site?

    And even I can barely see the white text on light gray buttons above the edit box, and I’m very, very good at differentiating colors. (Drives fabric shop clerks crazy when they try to help me match colors.) (Datapoint, not whining. Really.)

  172. 172.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @schrodinger’s cat: If you go to the “Balloon Juice Blog” link at the top of the front page, rather than the bare first page, it looks more like the old layout. (At least it did last night – I don’t know if it’s changed again.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    VFX Lurker

    First, the new website looks great. Congrats to all involved.

    Two minor quibbles from this Google Chrome user:

    — When I try to post a comment, the “b”, “i”, “link” and “quote” buttons have white lettering against a white-to-pale-gray gradient. I can barely read these buttons at a glance. Moving the mouse pointer over these buttons makes them highlight with white lettering against a blue background, making each button readable when highlighted.

    — I use a Chrome extension called “Greenhouse.” This extension causes havok in the comments section whenever someone writes the full name of an American politician. The name gets highlighted in green as usual. However, a paragraph break gets inserted after each politician’s name. This is an example of the formatting I got on a recent commenter’s post:

    @Sicilian Dish:

    A Republican induced economic apocalypse will turn the 99% into Democrats by the mid-terms.
    Paul Ryan
    would not be Speaker in 2018,
    Mitch McConnell
    would not be the Senate Majority Leader, John Roberts would tie himself into knots and in 2020…

  174. 174.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    Reading this on Chrome, noticing the following:

    – As others have mentioned, the comment formatting buttons are unreadable until you hover over them – you have white text on a light grey background. Foreground color needs to default to black or something.

    – Text size is a bit small for someone with aging eyes. I realize I can adjust that in the browser, but a different font/size choice might be better. Relatedly, it seems weird for the tag text to be larger than the content text.

    – Sidebar seems unnecessarily wide.

    I do like the side-scroll buttons – very swoopy.

    Not a bad job so far, just needs some tweaking in the formatting.

  175. 175.

    Pee Cee

    @SG:

    the pages won’t zoom/resize on the iPad. If it’s merely a glitch and not a scurvy feature, I apologize. If it’s fixed.

    This is my biggest problem with the redesign. I need a friggin’ magnifying glass to read the site on my mobile, now.

    That, and the white buttons with white text over the comment boxes. Has the web site turned into a cloud when I was too drunk to notice?

  176. 176.

    ShadeTail

    Three things I’ve noticed so far that could use some touching up:

    1) When multiple block quotes follow immediately after each other within the same article, they are way too hard to separate. A single line break and a small interruption of the vertical blue stripe on the left side aren’t enough visual clue to casually pick up on it. There needs to be a more clear break between block quotes.

    2) The “read more” links take us to the top of the article rather than to the page break.

    3) The text on the formatting buttons on the reply-post box is white-on-light-grey, which makes that text nearly impossible to see. Change the text to black, please.

    EDIT TO ADD: 4) Please return the numbers to the comment posts.

  178. 178.

    Exregis

    I hate rollovers. They constantly distract. Make navigation obvious and you don’t need to hover to find out how to do something.

    Just because you can do some tech trick doesn’t mean you have to.

    OTOH, I like the light background and have no problem with the font size in Safari when I double-tap with mouse or trackpad to embiggen. The key is easy reading and convenient navigation. Who gives a shit if you meet those goals and the site becomes “boring”?

  180. 180.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Quick iPhone notes (not from mobile site) — the comments column is very narrow, but at least I can scale the font. Scrolling is super slow, much slower than the previous site, which is extra annoying since, with the column so narrow, a lot more scrolling is needed.

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