The animated ads are particularly annoying. If you get rid of those, I might learn to accept the new version. It’s a fine balance between ads and content, but animated ads are the bane in my opinion.

I haven’t changed anything in the ads? You are getting the *exact* same ads on Modern as on Classic. And as said before, I try to keep the site clean of irritating ads like SmileyCentral and ScreenSavers.com. If an ad bothers you for a good reason (flashing, irritating sound or anything), notify me and I’ll see whether I agree. Popups and popunders are all disabled by definition.

I think you became popular with classic for a reason.

I have a faint sparkle of hope that the content is what made us popular

Love classic. Don’t crowd it up. The animated ads are particularly annoying. If you get rid of those, I might learn to accept the new version. It’s a fine balance between ads and content, but animated ads are the bane in my opinion.

I think you became popular with classic for a reason.

I completely understand the wish to move that information up front, As with any interface design there are so many solutions for every problem. I wouldn’t want to turn this into an endless debate though, but I am using Classic. Perhaps because I am not like the average Xboxic visitor — my primary interest is the latest news and nothing more really.

Curry has always liked backwards compatibility hehehe
*runs*

As for the decision to ‘hide’ certain info on the right hand side underneath the banner, that was a conscious decision to move very infrequently used items there, while keeping the important things to track on the left side. Our reviews for example weren’t getting nearly enough attention, so that’s why they are in the tracker now.

Thnx, I missed the Classic option, I’ll use that option instead

DAMN THAT’S REALLY A GOOD OPTION LEAVE IT THERE PLEASE

I am a glad man again for today reading the classic setup which my eyes like better and gives no headacke

The current layout has focus issues due to the increases contrast between the left and center column. The left column just screams for a lot of attention. While I can understand the decision to bring the information in the left column much more up front, I think it’s too much. A suggestion would be to increase white space and move the left column to the right hand side of the news, putting primary focus (at least in western cultures) to the news.

Typography wise I also prefered the increased size of the news headline, as it makes it easier to scan the page. I also prefer the bit of increased line height in the older version.

As for the items on the right hand side below the ads, I didn’t even see them until someone mentioned the Theme section there. It’s below the pagefold and a visitor would only come across it by accident.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts. I’ll be using the Classic theme, so I am happy to see that’s still there. As long as you guys keep up with the great news coverage, I am a happy man

I can deal with the new look (looks less like a blog - more news centric)

Thanks, that was one of the main ideas behind the redesign

but you need to reduce the size of the ads. The ads take up too much real-estate. The page takes up 80% width, and the ads take up approximately 40% width (not to mention height). I know you need the ad revenue, but there are better ways to deal with the ads.

Problem is that I am bound by standard sizes. The rectangle on the left is a standard 300×250 banners, and the one on the right is a standard 160×600. No standard sizes = no ads regrettably. However as you may have noticed I have a simply policy on ads: I’m serverside blocking all ads I wouldn’t like to look at myself, and the one on the left collapses ‘away’ when no fitting ads are available. I have not much room for navigation in that respect.

For facts by the way the site uses 976 pixels width, of which 460 for bannering, leaving without margins 500 pixels for the news section. In the old layout the news section was only 468 pixels wide. I cannot make it much wider than 500 even if I *had* the real estate since people cannot read texts too wide.

Kudos on the tablesless design

It even validates completely as XHTML

Kudos on the tablesless design; Two suggestions would be to center the ‘page’ div, and reduce the width of the left navigation bar.

Keep up the good work.

Much… I don’t know, cooler.

The nesting comments thing is sweet; makes it easier to argue. ;D

Do note that we don’t support the old template any more. It’s broken in a few ways and smaller than the new one, so you may be getting rendering problems. We will not be fixing that anymore.

Just kidding….maybe.