The color's a little bright, but otherwise this looks a lot less horrible than I feared it would. Just don't break current functionality and we might all get through this okay.

srhdt
Regarding the concerns from a few of you about the new “Most Liked” row on the homepage and the removal of Quail's Random, the plan is to eventually have every single row customizable by the individual user. Meaning that you'll be able to click on Top Ten and change it to Random, or click on Most Liked and change it to Top Ten, etc.

I'm sorry, but this fails to understand (and/or address) the concerns being expressed. Even after the ability to change settings is introduced, the default settings for those Top 10 lists are what most visitors to DD will see. Most visitors will therefore still see two very similar lists, and comics outside the Top 10 (maybe 15?) will continue to go relatively unnoticed.

Although my comic is now finished and will therefore neither benefit nor be harmed by these changes, I remember all too clearly just how difficult it is for a comic outside the Top 10 to attract new readers. The Top 10 “Likes” is going to do nothing to alleviate that problem for lower ranked comics and, as Harkovast said, will simply give additional free advertising to comics which are already on the front page.

Since this is the only feature of the new design which people are complaining about (colour aside!) and since you claim it is easy to change, I must admit I am puzzled as to why you seem determined to implement something which DD users are telling you they don't want, rather than something the community clearly does.

As I say, my comic is now finished but, for the sake of those whose comics are just starting (and those yet to start!), I really hope that - having asked for feedback from the community - you will actually listen to that feedback and take the opportunity to replace the “Top 10 likes” before the new look is launched.

DAJB
Since this is the only feature of the new design which people are complaining about (colour aside!) and since you claim it is easy to change, I must admit I am puzzled as to why you seem determined to implement something which DD users are telling you they don't want, rather than something the community clearly does.

I think the “like” list may replace the top ten list completely after a while.

I think they may be different, since the top ten only list comics that've had the most unique visitors over the course of about 3-5 days- coming from anywhere, so long as they're uniques.
I'm not 100% positive, but I think the “like” list will only reflect votes from DD users. THAT will be a little different because it means a comic will have to have not only devoted viewers, but they'll also have be to registered DD members and they'll have to click a “like” button, not just visit a page.

That means that a comic that does very well due to a lot of outside, casual viewers won't do nearly as well on the “like” list as it would on the normal top ten. The same for comics who get by with a lot of advertising.
Comics that will do best with the “like” list will need to have a lot of registered DD fans and they'll have to update regularly to attract those fans back to vote every day if they want to stay in that list. Comics that get a lot of “likes” in one day because of an update might shoot up the list on that day!

This system will also be open to exploitation because all you need is a DD account. Many people have several and could even vote up their own comic…
But then again, I' only guessing that it's tied to accounts. It could be tied to IP, or tied to IP and accounts.

Either way, it WILL be a different looking list!

personally i'd like to see the trophy system revamped. maybe a few more added. i tend to read a comic and leave a blank five or a blank message as more of a support than anything. unless youre a top ten performer, people need a little message of encoragement that says someone is reading your comic. i leave blank 5 posts because usually i'm flying brain fried and i want the artists of the comics i read to know that someone is out there and someone enjoys thier hard work

ghostrunner
i leave blank 5 posts because usually i'm flying brain fried and i want the artists of the comics i read to know that someone is out there and someone enjoys thier hard work

The “like” thing will serve the same purpose.

ozoneocean

DAJB
Since this is the only feature of the new design which people are complaining about (colour aside!) and since you claim it is easy to change, I must admit I am puzzled as to why you seem determined to implement something which DD users are telling you they don't want, rather than something the community clearly does.

I think the “like” list may replace the top ten list completely after a while.

I think they may be different

They may be slightly different, you're right. One or two comics only just outside the “regular” Top 10 may make it onto the Top 10 “likes”. The rest of the Top 10 may appear in slightly different positions relative to each other, but will still be the same comics.

Neither of these effects addresses the real issue though. A Top 10 “likes” will still advertise the comics already at or near the top, while the comics struggling to build a readership will still be left with no place on the front page. In contrast, a properly formulated “random” section (i.e. excluding dormant comics) would give some (albeit brief!) exposure to a completely different set of comics and, more importantly, to the comics that actually need that extra exposure.

I don't really see the problem here. Creators have said they want it; readers have said they want it; and Srhdt has said it's easy to do. Why, then, is there such determination to defend/cling on to the Top 10 “likes” instead?

srhdt
*nothing about the colour*

I notice you haven't addressed any concerns about the colour srhdt and there appear to be several. Should we take this to mean that aspect of the design is not up for negotiation? I don't know if it's the colour that's causing offence so much as the intensity: it's so intense it's almost impossible to focus on any other aspect.

Bearing in mind that we're already staring into a light source when we view this, wouldn't it be possible to just back off the saturation a bit for the sake of all our retinas?

I've already posted this elsewhere in the forum, but…

Often people leave comments on my comic that I wish to reply to. Is there any way of having a ‘reply’ button (or something) on individual comments, so I can type a comment back? I'm thinking of how the Deviantart comments system works. Is this at all possible to implement?

Thanks,

Dan
Mr.Hades

Someone
Is there any way of having a ‘reply’ button (or something) on individual comments, so I can type a comment back?

that would be sweet :)

and i do agree with djab, the last thing hard working, less noticed, artists need is another way to be squeezed into obscurity

just a cautionary tale, i used to do mod work for beliefnet. they upgraded badly and tanked thier constituants. admitedly 90 percent of thier base was over the age of 60 and terrified of the change, but its a good lesson in what people want

Yeah, I could see the “like” list replacing the top ten but not the random. To me, a “like” list serves the same purpose as the top 10 (even if the comics would be different), as they both give nods to and exposure to known and popular/liked comics.

I think it's important to have front page exposure for the comics that are not already “noticed” as well.

As DAJB said, it's cool to have that customizable, but as the default lists I would think either the “most page views” or the “most liked” would be good to include but not both. If it's customizable, people can opt for the other one anyway. One of the list should, by default, provide exposure to lesser-knowns.

I know a lot of people find fun new comics through the random. And it was one of the best features added with the last site redesign (people were asking for something like it in the suggestion forum for a while). I think it would be cool to work with that by filtering out the abandoned projects – like random comics updated in the last X number of months or something.

The “random” list is more useful for regular DD users (and to give a chance of exposure to everyone), while the “top” lists are great for new users and visitors (and to give deserved acclaim to those comics). By default, I think we should include something for each of those demographics.

Hmm, the “like” list would also be more dynamic than the normal top ten .

I think people are forgetting the update list- everyone already has a chance at exposure there, as long as the comic updates ;)

on liking
years ago i posted my comic on another site that had a like don't like.. one of the problems it had was people could like more then once.. so some one could like something a 100 times readership would be 10 but it was “liked” into the 100s..hitting like over and over became a way to advance your own comic.. folks had more them one account so they could like.. stuff more..over and over again.. folks could also unlike a comic that was higher in the ranking then theirs was.. by unliking a comic a 100 times they dropped its ranking and theres could move up..a comic like mine with a huge archive has a lot to unlike if your annoyed.. there for one reader could dropping my ranking in to the nether world..by just unliking every page…

as far as being a reflection of the top ten maybe not so much.. why? a large number of my readers are not duck members they read but do not comment so most likely they would also not like.. not as a reflection of my work but as a reflection of how they read comics and respond to them.. .. so my readership could be high but my likes very low…

I like it for the most part. I always hated the current one, especially the width. I can't stand horizontal scrolling. :/

With that said, I have a few things I'd like to say.

1. THIS THREAD should be completed before doing any makeovers.

2. I don't like the top lists. It's not this incarnation, I didn't like the way they were before either. I liked the original Top 10 comic STRIPS / Top 10 comic BOOKS. They are two distinct types of comics and should be separated. I could care less what you did with a third list.

3. Put the duck back.

I'm not entirely qualified to respond to all of this, but based on my conversations with Kinh I can answer a couple of these.

DAJB
since you claim it is easy to change, I must admit I am puzzled as to why you seem determined to implement something which DD users are telling you they don't want, rather than something the community clearly does.

Think of it like an experiment. There WILL be a ‘like’ system (which manifests in a few places), and putting up a toplist of likes it will be interesting to see how that list may or may not differ from a top ten list. I had the same concern, that it would be the same- but what if it's not? We won't know til it's implemented. If it really IS easy to change, and the lists are pretty much the same, then we can ask Wowio to change the default. But if it's different and they never tried it, we would never have known.

Oz and I have lobbied hard to retain some ‘find a random comic’ element to the front page, and I believe they are going to implement something.

ozoneocean
The “like” thing will serve the same purpose.

Well, I have to disagree there, since the likes are anonymous and votes weren't. I'm also not clear on whether ‘likes’ will apply to SINGLE pages, or comics as a whole. IMO single pages would be an interesting element but perhaps less useful in other ways.

I also can't remember if people get a limited number of ‘likes’ per day (we told Kinh about the old ‘cookies’ system…) but it might be unlimited. Unlimited would mean you could like any number of comics, to replace voting, but it also creates the issues like people are bringing up about the top lists.

My main concern with the likes-replacing-votes is that people WILL see a drop in the number of comments they receive (especially if likes are limited). That could be devastating for some people. I suggested another type of ‘voting’ (like people were suggesting ‘great page’ etc quick-comments from ages ago) but that isn't being implemented. People just don't like to leave comments on everything they read and a vote was an easy way to say ‘I’m here, I'm reading, I liked it.' Likes may end up doing the same thing, but it doesn't have the same sense of readership.

MrHades
Often people leave comments on my comic that I wish to reply to. Is there any way of having a ‘reply’ button (or something) on individual comments, so I can type a comment back? I'm thinking of how the Deviantart comments system works. Is this at all possible to implement?

Kinh didn't post the comic page templates yet, but that is being implemented. YAY!

SpANG
1. THIS THREAD should be completed before doing any makeovers.

3. Put the duck back.

A g-g-g-GHOST!

The duck is coming back. :] There's something underway.

As for the Big List of Bugs, I reviewed that when I knew Wowio was planning a redesign. Most of those bugs were one-off reports, specific to now out-of-date browser versions, things that I can't emulate and verify, or will go away with the revamp. (Some of them have actually been fixed at some point in the past.) A couple of things were retained and passed on but I think for the most part, most of those bugs are not currently issues.


Kinh, I think you need to address the colour thing, and perhaps elaborate a little more on the ‘like’ system, since they seem to be people's main concerns right now.

DAJB
I'm sorry, but this fails to understand (and/or address) the concerns being expressed. Even after the ability to change settings is introduced, the default settings for those Top 10 lists are what most visitors to DD will see. Most visitors will therefore still see two very similar lists, and comics outside the Top 10 (maybe 15?) will continue to go relatively unnoticed.

The rationale behind the Most Liked row was to give some sort of meaning or weight to a new kind of rating system on the site. Currently there is no way to really view, browse, search, or sort comics on the site based on the user ratings, so it ends up being kind of a useless feature. Actually having the Liked votes affect what comics show up in the homepage will add an extra incentive to having people “Like” those comics.

You seem to be already assuming that the Top Ten and the Most Liked lists will be identical, which we don't yet know will be the case. It could quite possibly turn out to be that way, and if it does, we may end up changing up the rows, or modifying the parameters by which we determine “Top Ten” or “Most Liked” to create more diversity between the lists. Until then, I don't believe it will be a huge detriment to the site to experiment with a new feature.

There are still several ways to find new comics on the site that aren't in the Top Ten, and simply displaying a list of ten random comics isn't necessarily the most elegant solution. Certainly the Featured Comics section has a great selection of comics on the site to look through, and users can still browse and search based on genre and style filters.

Since this is the only feature of the new design which people are complaining about (colour aside!) and since you claim it is easy to change, I must admit I am puzzled as to why you seem determined to implement something which DD users are telling you they don't want, rather than something the community clearly does.

As I say, my comic is now finished but, for the sake of those whose comics are just starting (and those yet to start!), I really hope that - having asked for feedback from the community - you will actually listen to that feedback and take the opportunity to replace the “Top 10 likes” before the new look is launched.

Most likely some form of “Find a Random Comic” will remain on the new homepage when it rolls out, and the feedback from the DD community is very much appreciated and will be taken into account, but we probably are not going to entirely dismiss a new feature we've developed for the site before it has even gotten a chance to be implemented and tried out. If all of the concerns users have stated here turn out to be true, then at worst it will have been a very brief, failed experiment.

Ultimately when the lists become customizable, the users who enjoy having a Random row will be able to have one.

On another note, expect a post regarding the new color scheme shortly.

When do you expect to be able to give a preview of the forum functionality?

bloody hell that's a generic appearance.

so the random comics is getting replaced with most liked? why have a top ten around then, they're more or less the exact same concept. seems like an uneeded redundancy to me, just nix the top ten to begin with.

i'm sure it will all work just as smoothly as the new comic updating system!
(does anyone actually use that thing, anyways?)

One of the main fears about implementing something to just see how it works is that we have grown accustomed to nothing being changed after it's implementation!

So it's a gamble we really would rather not take either to be honest =p I don't see how the like column could be much different than the top 10.

And even if it is it would still be primarily 10 comics staying there not giving exposure to other comics randomly.

The recently updated comics is not a good solution to anyone that preuploads either. They will NEVER see the front page unless they manage to get in the top 10 or the most liked (or stop pre uploading O_o)

skoolmunkee
I'm not entirely qualified to respond to all of this, but based on my conversations t it doesn't have the same sense of readership.

MrHades
Often people leave comments on my comic that I wish to reply to. Is there any way of having a ‘reply’ button (or something) on individual comments, so I can type a comment back? I'm thinking of how the Deviantart comments system works. Is this at all possible to implement?

Kinh didn't post the comic page templates yet, but that is being implemented. YAY!

Excellent! :)

Continuing on what MrHades said, can we have a proper way of being notified about each comment? (and reply, for the future!) At the moment the only tool for this is the DD Notifier, which only takes you to the most recent comment. I have missed many comments this way, and I'd rather not have to hunt through every page of my comic!

As for the rest of it, plenty has already been said - although none of it really bothers me, as I remain a hermit in my own space, and acid green is one of my favourite colours :P

Rain27
Does it have to be bright green? Could you possibly have the option to change the colors?

Themes or something. I like the green. Although it might give me eye strain.

I'm actually a pretty big fan of the redesign myself. I remember being really disappointed when the news section was moved off to the side years ago… Good to see it back in the center. The layout as a whole seems a lot more effective. Glad you're getting rid of the loud green color, I think it might look nice with an understated blue. :)

As for the whole most liked debate, I'm inclined to side with the majority here and say it seems unnecessary, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this. srhdt has said that if it turns out to be as similar to the top ten as people think he'll take it down, so I think it's worth at least trying out for a few weeks. Though I am all for replacing it with Quail's random if it doesn't work out, I've actually found some good comics using that.

P.S. It's great to hear about the reply feature. SUCH an improvement over those big “mass reply” comments lots of us had gotten used to doing. :P

JustNoPoint
One of the main fears about implementing something to just see how it works is that we have grown accustomed to nothing being changed after it's implementation!

I think JNP has hit the nail on the head here. The reason there is such heated resistance is that we have learned to translate “trial period” or “just to see how it works” as “Since there's resistance, we'll tell you it's temporary to appease you – even though it won't be.”

If you can fit in some kind of “random comic(s)” function on the front page, I think that would be good. It's a feature we would miss and I don't think anyone wants to lose it. But please make sure there's at least a thumbnail involved. If it's just a random link, it could be pretty frustrating since people are picky about comics and don't want to click one that is of no interest at all.

Alright. First off, you guys are doing a bang-up job with the new redesign thing.
I like the arrangement, organization and such. The color while certainly fun, hopefully won't be on the individual comic pages…(I can't tell you how terribly that would clash with my personal layout) :D

A couple of ideas:

* A way to mark a comic as “Finished”. So you could search for finished comics specifically and such.

* A “Random Webcomic” button - click it and it takes you to a random comic that has been updated recently and/or is “Finished”

* A “Random User” button, to take you to the page of a random active user.

* A “Random Comic Page” button, for use inside the comic navigation (either at the top or in the body of the page) which sends you to a random page inside that particular webcomic.

* A way to specify an time during the day when your update will go live, not just the date.

* Social Media links built in. “Tweet this comic page” buttons or “Share this page on Facebook” buttons would be an interesting feature.

* A way to skip to the end (or to a certain page) in the “Edit Comic Pages” control panel. Many people have a large number of pages and not being able to jump back more than one page at a time is frustrating. Especially if you are trying to change the order of some comics or adjust the naming convention.

Right, well, that there is what you call a list. Not a long list, mind you, but definitely a list. I'll let you lot digest those nuggets, while I pump the ol' grey matter for some more pearls to share.

Oh, too add onto Loud_G's list. Being able to upload and/or delete multiple files at a time would be really useful (for customizing our own templates). :)

Oh, and one more while I'm about it….

If there is going to be a “Homepage” feature for comics, there should be a way to create your own template for said homepage. And a list of widgets, etc that can be used on it….

Alright, now I'm really gone…

ayesinback

srhdt
On another note, expect a post regarding the new color scheme shortly.

YAY!! That green was uber ouchy.

Why are we assuming that the green is going? This simply says there'll be a post about the colour scheme at some point: it gives no indication of what's going to happen, or not happen, as the case may be.

Loud_G
* A way to mark a comic as “Finished”. So you could search for finished comics specifically and such.

I like this, i'd also like ‘random comics’, but instead of a button i get something like ‘quails random’. Only difference is i want to sort these comics by genre and exclude anything that hasn't been updated in 4 months.

I think the ‘like’ feature should be like smackjeeves hot comics panel. None of the ‘most popular’ comics appear there, only upcoming/somewhat new comics getting a large following do.

I think people who are suggesting new features etc RATHER than direct feedback on the things Kinh posted should put those items in the “suggestions” forum. Otherwise they might eventually be lost, because we're not going to go digging all over the forum for random suggestions, we'll be going to the subforum all about suggestions. :] Also it will keep this thread less complicated and not get conjecture mixed up with this first stage.

Just piling it on a little thicker here (cuz if I don't complain now I have no right to complain later), I have my reservations about the Most Liked feature. It probably won't be exactly the same as the Top 10 because it's based on recent feedback, which will make it more dynamic, but only within a limited range. I don't so much mind it being up there, but if you're replacing the Random feature with that in the hopes that it will get more exposure for lesser-known comics, then that will be counterproductive. It's a slightly-improved Top 10 List, still ultimately slanted toward comic popularity. Having two popularity gauges is redundant. And if the purpose is to “give weight” to user ratings, that's also misguided because as we all know the user ratings are meaningless to begin with, regardless of what system you implement.

Aside from that, I like the look. The green doesn't bother me. Much.