So here it is, folks: the new We Hunted the Mammoth, which is exactly the same as the old We Hunted the Mammoth, but with a cleaner and more up-to-date look.
Hopefully this move to a newer WordPress theme, and some behind-the-scenes tinkering, will help to prevent the glitches that have been knocking the site offline in recent days.
The new theme should preserve the same basic functionality of the old theme when it comes to things like commenting and navigating. (In case you’re wondering, the “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments: widgets are now at the bottom of the page.)
I may do some additional customizing of the theme in days to come. Let me know what you think of this new look!
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Is it possible to reduce the font size for headings/titles a bit? They take up a lot of the screen.
And it seems a bit redundant to have the article name right above the comments as well.
I really like the new look; it’s very elegant. But in terms of feedback, FWIW, I’ll just reiterate the points I raised on the other thread.
Maybe move the ‘related’ bit to the bottom of the page. It splits up the comments from the article too much I feel. And also that way you wouldn’t have to repeat the thread title above the comments.
Very subjective, but I think the hot pink s a bit loud for the white background.
I like the stark white, but I can see why some people might not. So perhaps an off-white or light grey background. Egyptian cotton sort of thing. Something like that.
Maybe shrink the thread titles a bit?
Could the comments box be a bit larger?
Be able to directly go to a previous page rather than have to do ‘previous posts’ one page at a time?
Sorry, that’s a long list! But they’re just minor things really; and as mentioned, I do love the new look.
Or put the “Older Comments” link at the top of the comments, maybe? Saves a shitload of scrolling.
I’d prefer if we still had page numbers for comments. Or if the “Older Comments” links were also at the top of the thread.
Seconding Naglfar that the article title being on top of the comments as well is somewhat redundant (it’s also a little large).
The Related Posts widget shows up as a single (tall) column on my phone, bunched to one side, which is odd, because there is enough space for it across the whole width of the screen.
If possible, I’d like the site’s color scheme to change according to the Dark Mode settings of users. (Link to an example of how to implement this, not sure if it applies to this particular theme).
Seconding Alan that the comments box could be bigger. As could the box for editing comments.
More comments (and maybe profile pictures?) in the Recent Comments would be good. It’s how I follow most of the threads on this site.
It’ll take some getting used to– but if 2020 has shown us anything, it’s amazing what you can get used to…
Oh i don’t like change
The first thing I said when I fired it up was “BIG PRINT — BLACK ON WHITE!! I CAN SEEEEEEE IT!!!!!
Most web sites don’t lend themselves well to my “olde people’s eyesight”… particularly with the programming culture’s latest infatuation with light grey text on off-white background.
I’m also having the same wonkyness with the posts not showing up — tho I have seen this consistently for a long time, and I use two work-arounds:
1) I don’t comment again until the quarantine timer is timed out and the previous comment is seen
2) If my comment doesn’t show up, I close the site and re-open… if still nada, I close chrome and re-open. I have always been able to see the comments (after I exhaust the programming “glitch” by continually closing and reopening)
I realized that I didn’t say what I liked about the new layout, so here goes:
The search function being right at the top is nice (wish it also searched comments, but that’s besides the point).
I like that the article tags are now above the headlines.
The “Post Comment” button is now larger, which is nice and easy to hit with my fingers on mobile. Same for the formatting buttons on top of the comments box.
The Recent Comments box being at the very bottom is convenient, since (as mentioned above) it’s how I follow threads, so I can just scroll all the way down to see what I missed.
I like that you’re still going with the faux-retro imagery for things like the logo, the announcement image and the donation image.
I’ve looked at the new site on tablet as well as laptop now, and I don’t know that I have anything new to say. If I have a #1 suggestion, I’d say that the white background does seem a bit harsh/bright, so if that could be adjusted, that would be swell.
I’ll reiterate my request from earlier, which is to bring back the archive that’s searchable by month/year.
There is a lot of wasted space on both sides of the main column, and everything useful is now crammed at the bottom. This makes it look very phone-like on a desktop computer, which is annoying. If I liked the look of the site on my phone (I don’t) I would use my phone to browse and comment.
The page numbers on top AND bottom of page were ridiculously useful, so please bring them back.
Everything is TOO BIG. It’s so weird that there is so much wasted space given that all the fonts are gianormous. You could move the center column to the left and have a right-hand sidebar with useful links and not make anything any smaller, if having huge fonts is important to you, but the fonts really don’t need to be this big.
Please increase the number of recent comments, not reduce. 5 is not enough.
What do I like? Err … I’ll get back to you on that one heh.
@ Lainy:
I agree with most of the feedback here. Over all not thrilled, but hopefully this fixes the crashing issue.
Oh, I love the yuuuge font, although I see it isn’t for everyone’s taste :/
Sometimes I like to recline at my desk (I bought a mini-recliner just for this), and I have to set the font very large to read from back yonder. Now I don’t (yayyyy).
Conversely, sometimes I like to take off my very thick glasses and read while upright. Again, this new, “grown-up font” helps immensely.
Either way, it makes one think of John Hancock’s signature being so large so that King George wouldn’t have to put on his spectacles.
Weird Eddie said:
I really feel this. My eyesight is okay, but I have a visual processing disorder. I appreciate not having to zoom in on the page anymore!
I also like the new compact logo image.
O/T: Just realized we have 2 weeks until the 10th anniversary of the blog
Thanks, everyone! I’ll do my best to implement (most of) these suggestions, especially when it comes to the navigation stuff. Some of the old plugins that did those things don’t seem to work with the new theme so I’ll see if there are new ones or if that can be coded into the css. It may take a little while before I’m done tinkering with everything.
All the white space! Wow! It’s … bright! My oldster eyes like that. But if the majority seems to favor less glare, I’d be cool with what Alan R. calls Egyptian cotton, or similar.
The fonts (except for the main article/comment text, which are perfect) all seem huge to me on my 13″ MacBook screen, but to those using a smaller device they might seem just right.
I agree with others that paged comments would be nice instead of one looooong scroll, and with page numbers at both the top and bottom of the comments section because it’s super convenient that way. I also think that if the main post column is going to be so narrow, perhaps a sidebar or second column could be used for the Related articles and the Recent Posts/Comments. Sidebarring this content and limiting comments to x per page would make the page seem less intimidatingly vertical in a long discussion. Without paged comments, if someone isn’t committed to reading all the comments or doesn’t want to leave one of their own, they’ll likely never even see the Recents.
I feel like some content has disappeared – from practical things like links to blogs with a similar sensibility, or helpful tips for those being harassed or doxxed, to the more Mammothy Fun stuff like gift packages for newbies. Is there some way to include that content again in an easy-to-find way?
I know retooling a website is a project that can spawn kinks as you go, and they have to be worked out one by one. For now, be proud of your bouncing new baby Mammoth!
Ooh… I don’t like change, just in general, and the overall newness of this is making me feel a bit overwhelmed. That said, I have no specific criticisms, and I freely admit that most of my discomfort is just my usual “aaaah but it’s different than what I was used to!!!”
If it makes the site more functional, I’m all for it!
It is very bright, kind of hurts my eyes a little. I am happy to finally have a proper quote function.
Edit: test Yay I finally see my edits and not wait for minutes for my post to show.
I second the request for a dark mode. All this white in the background hurts my eyes.
Hmm, your comments aren’t as different as they were in the older layout, David. It says ‘by post author’ at the bottom, but that isn’t as immediately obvious as it was before. (Though now i of course couldn’t describe what ot was, in the before time!! XD)
I’d like ‘the new misogyny, tracked and mocked’ to also link back to the main page, i was clicking on that on my desktop to go back, and it’s just text.
I don’t know if it’s possible tp have both a light theme (for those who like the suuuper bright white background) and a dark theme, for those of us who find it a little much.
I would also quiiiite like a larger comment box, at least on mobile. It currently fits 5 lines, which makes it a bit much to type up a long comment, and then proof read it for typos.
I do like the large buttons for the various features, though!!
It would also be nice to have a functionality built in to do the quoting thing that ariblester’s plug in does. I’d love to be able to quote specific messages easily! (Don’t know if that’s an available wordpress thing.)
Here’s a website with the code to do this, as well as an explanation of the code.
As i said in the other thread, i miss the random posts, as well as the icons on the lastest comments.
Perhaps a page could be added for ‘how to blockquote’ and ‘how to get a profile image’, so people can more easily slay the blockquote mammoth, haha.
Page numbers at the bottom and the top, please. They were very helpful.
Good luck adjusting!
I like the direction towards which this theme is moving, but I really don’t like the spot we’re in now on the way.
I would repeat just about everything Alan said up top – we clearly have similar tastes in web site design.
To add to that, I would bring in the general “too phone like on a laptop” mentioned by Policy of Madness, but go further by saying a couple things about what makes it seem too phone-like to me.
Phones, with their small real estate, tend to put in extra spaces that aren’t necessary on a larger screen. This is most readily apparent in the space between the masthead and post title and then again between post title and the lede graphic/picture. WAY too much blank space there. And again, there are lots of websites that have a separate mobile style and computer style. If that’s not too expensive to implement, then maybe you keep all those blank spaces for the mobile users. But for computer users, this looks … bad. There’s no continuity between one element and the next. It seems a trail of jetsam on a sea of white foam.
I’m also against the solid white, as others. As this was mentioned by Alan and I endorsed Alan’s comments it would seem that I shouldn’t need to make it, but I just wanted to say, Oh my precious! The white! It burns!
Seriously. I desperately in favor of something more nuanced as a background.
Some people have commented on huge fonts. I don’t think these are always too big, but the “21 comments on Welcome to WHTM 3.0” text is definitely too large. We already know the name of the article and the content. This isn’t the name of a new, separate article, it’s just a section transition. I understand you need something, but this isn’t a case where you need to shout.
The “Related Stories” section leaves such huge, wasted chunks of space to the right. Either the graphics should be big enough to stretch across the screen or there should be multiple columns of graphics. In either case the name of the article shouldn’t be dangling off in space to the right. There are tricks to super-impose the text over the graphic (which I think would serve this theme well) but absent that you could just put the text below the graphic. The text in this section should also be larger. With everything else so much larger, having the text of those article titles in such relatively small print only reinforces a depressing sense of emptiness.
Also… although I like the style, it tends to clash with David’s own style. Look at the riveter graphic encouraging donations. It’s lovely and I would never want to get rid of it, but it’s also not all thoroughly-modern-Millie like the rest of the website is now. Does this mean that David will struggle to make posts like critiquing sexist and racist old Valentine’s cards look reasonable? Will there constantly be a style clash here between the graphics and the site’s theme? I hope not, though I’m not sure exactly what to do about it not being a graphic designer. My best suggestion is that maybe graphics should by default come with a border that serves as a “picture frame”. It’s the lack of boundary between the nostalgic and ironic images and the hypermodern environment that causes the problem, but the right picture frame could serve as a transition from the “space” of clean, flat, open and modern spaces to the “space” set aside for other styles originating in other eras and from other design sensibilities.
I’d hate for the riveter to go, but she really, really clashes with this new space.
Okay, two additional comments:
1. On the home page can we get a button under each article to jump directly to that article’s comments? Commenters here are wonderful and a big part of the draw and, given human realities, there are always going to be more new articles than new posts by David, so it’s inevitable that some of us are returning to WHTM, see no new post, but want to check on the comments of one or more recent posts.
2. This comment box has a weird gray shadow for the space holding the bold/italic/link/quote buttons. That should be fixed as it clashes with the new theme. Also, I think that writing “Link” and “Quote” in lowercase with only an initial capital fits the new theme better as well.
……….
And a third comment that I didn’t have in mind when I came back here: I love the change to lavender from white! Well done, David! Getting better all the time.
Wow. I daresay I’m impressed with the rollout of the new and improved WHTM.