MOD ANNOUNCEMENT -- OH, LJ

[singularitymods.livejournal.com]

Bonjour, Carolyn ici.

As you may have noticed, either by your plurk timeline exploding, or by, I don't know, attempting to use the site, LJ has put their foot in it again. One hopes they'll roll back the changes, but until then, if we switch to the Minimalism style with custom comments on for the comms, we can get halfway-usable comment pages back. (Example Paradisa thread.)

But we don't want to spring this on anyone, so discuss in comments. Good idea? Glaring flaws? Just not too much discussion, or the threads will collapse and then we'll be in trouble.

ETA: Okay, there we go. Hope this helps at least somewhat.

ETA2: With the help of stoppedhiding and our own Larissa, we've got a style in place that maximizes use of screen real estate and doesn't hurt to look at. It should work for both Paid and Plus accounts.

Comments

[basileusphobe.livejournal.com]

Honestly this is probably the best idea unless LJ rolls this shit back. And even then, is that really going to be our long term solution?

[myownbestfriend]

It's 3:00am here. I can't handle long-term planning right now. :P

Regardless, we'll discuss it with players before making any radical decisions.

[brbvirmire]

Do it.

If they don't roll back the changes, then what?

[myownbestfriend]

Not sure. I don't think we should start worrying about it until it becomes clear LJ's not fixing things. And certainly not while everyone's still freshly angry about it; that's just a recipe for bad decisions.

[articletwelve]

The Minimalism layout is a-okay by me just for the basic functionality back. The way they're collapsing threads is hideous, and not in the fun way.

As far as long-term solutions go, I'm willing to help out with any CSS coding that pops up -- I'm not familiar with how LJ does stuff because I've stayed the hell away from it for the most part, but I can probably muck something up if we need it.

[myownbestfriend]

I don't know how much of this godawful crap we can circumvent clientside, but I'd certainly be willing to give it a try.

[checkthetapes]

I'm cool with changing it over.

/speedster lean.

[eppy]

whatever gets minimum usability back is fine by me.

also yes this is eppy on her personal lj god i can't log into anything at the moment the site is running so slowly for me.

[edgeoflucidity]

I say do it. I can handle the new stuff, but I know plenty are having issues.

[myownbestfriend]

Stupid UI decisions aside, there's so much client-end load in the new layout that people with older computers/netbooks are having a lot of problems.

[fuckinghubble]

Best idea I've heard yet.

[cloverdaleboy.livejournal.com]

Has LiveJournal never heard of the saying "Don't fix what's not broken"? I, personally, would love to have the minimalist comments. I do not think LJ will revert these changes they've made, since they rarely listen to reason anymore. <-- bitter LJ user, I admit

[myownbestfriend]

Hah, I've had a personal account here since 2002. LJ has never had its act together.

[avengerofjade.livejournal.com]

I say go for it. This is painful.

[allshock-notalk.livejournal.com]

I'm okay with this. SO okay with this.

[selfkismesis.livejournal.com]

i'm game.

[fuknfreelancers]

>refresh page on right account to put in a +1 vote
>see changes already implemented
>sits back and sips a latte

|D ❤

[myownbestfriend]

Yeah, we were like "oh god this is so awful and everyone seems to be on board so far DO IT DO IT DO IT."

[these_fish]

Go sleep. I'm not leaving the game with my two boys, here or wherever it might go.

<3

[myownbestfriend]

Haha it's 3:30. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN. Yeah, bed seems like a good idea.

Vic and Nie are both farther west than I am, so they'll be up a little longer if anything else explodes.

[rustigedraak.livejournal.com]

Thank you for switching it over! I've got a paid for Ladon that allows me to use custom comments, but I was afraid I'd have to brave that crapfest with Dana.

Honestly if the comment page is the only majorly broken part of LJ, there's bound to be some fixes from outside sources. Though considering how much more buggy and bandwidth-eating the new style is, no doubt there will be other repercussions involving server overload and downtime that aren't so easy to work around.

I recommend the layouts on fruitstyle in terms of functional S2 styles that don't squish the hell out of comments. Let me know if you guys need help with tweaking the CSS. I'm kind of rusty but I can poke at things until they look nice.

[myownbestfriend]

Thanks for the offer. <3 We're not gonna worry about it too much yet, since LJ has a habit of going "HAHA JUST KIDDING please believe us" when they pull stuff like this. We'll see.

[fight4theusers]

Looks good to me. Just don't make any snap decisions that'll affect the whole comm before you give LJ a chance to fix this.

[myownbestfriend]

Whoops, missed this last night.

Snap decisions are not happening, I assure you. <3

[truthwontrest]

Um... this is not a request to switch it RIGHT NAO OMG, and I'm too cranky to actually look at the available layouts myself atm, but is there an S2 style that has a broader "content" section and less sidebar? Or a way to scale the sidebar so it's slightly smaller? Because I only ever tag on a netbook with a tiny tiny screen, so the number of comments I can see on this layout before they get squished is... not many.

This is still preferable to the new comment pages, for the record, but something a little less squished on my computer would be nice if possible.

[myownbestfriend]

We're looking at other styles, and ways to shrink/kill the sidebar entirely for comment pages in Minimalism. It should be doable, but I've never worked with this particular style before, so I don't want to break anything. Minimalism has a reputation as being hard to work with, because it has a lot of nested divs.

But yes, the sidebar is a problem.

[sopor_pies]

this is fine in terms of functionality, though i already miss the beautiful singularity custom layout :( i am more than willing to deal with that until they fix this.

Also, I know that it's too soon to be considering it, and I certainly wouldn't encourage a mass move, but I hope it's okay if I preemptively ask: would the mods entertain the idea of moving everything to dreamwidth?

[myownbestfriend]

I don't think any of us are dead set against the idea if LJ continues to be unusable. Importing communities isn't possible, however.

[destinist.livejournal.com]

this is fine with me for now!! thank you very much for switching.

but just

lj

why

WHY

[manipul8trix.livejournal.com]

My computer is one of the ones that is old and cranky and telling the new LJ to get off its lawn - so thanks for the switch!

[notsoloyal]

someone made a temp layout that's similar to the old style

http://stoppedhiding.livejournal.com/1903.html

if you guys want to use that one since it lacks the sidebar

[myownbestfriend]

Yeah, looking at changes now. It won't help Plus users, though. Which is a problem since I find myself with a sudden objection to giving LJ any more money.

[doesthemath]

Late, but I woke up this morning to the switch and thought maybe, just maybe LJ had realized they'd really screwed up this time and rolled back overnight. Not the case, apparently, but the change is definitely welcome. Thank you!

[noliektinyspace.livejournal.com]

weh, Cloud can't get the Minimalism or the custom communities option because he's a Basic.

It worked with my Zack account, though!

[myownbestfriend]

Basic or Plus? Basic's probably entirely screwed, but I don't know about Plus.

[heterochromiia.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out that this is apparently only the beginning of the LJ redesign.

Read 'em and weep. (http://manonon.livejournal.com/6816.html)

I know it's too early after the update's release to pull up stakes, but I think we should at least have a discussion about what to do in days to come. LJ is gutting all kinds of things here - no more second line for text on userpics, for example, which means no crediting art/iconmakers (which I know is important for a lot of us who rely more on fanstuff than canon!)

[notthatbuffy]

Yeah, it's definitely too early to go "OMG MOVE TO ANOTHER SITE!", but I think we should definitely have some dialogue about what to do if LJ doesn't roll the changes back in a week or two and shows no sign of rolling them back.

I love this game too much to abandon it, but I've gotta say that LJ is not cooperating with my computer that well since last night...

[twotailmechanic.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this is old news yet, but I've discovered that apparently icons that have multiple keywords don't work anymore. It'll still work when you're starting a post in a community, but that's about it. Annoying thing about it is that's half of my icons. =/

Also using the extra icon trick is easier to do now.

[twotailmechanic.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm sorry, but the new one looks really ugly to me. I don't know if it's because this is a plus account, but ick. Also, you can't see icons in the main comm. Not to mention confusing.

Sorry if it's sounds like I'm whining, but it was bothering me. I understand you're trying to find the right style to deal with this change and I appreciate it.

[aroseinblue.livejournal.com]

You know, at first I was wondering what the big deal was. But yeah I...I like space LJ. I like not reading a wall of text with a dotted line separating shit. This is really silly.