The old format could have been outdated on operating systems in the coming years, whereas this platform was built from scratch - they are working out the bugs and can make fixes for all operating systems that are not patchwork.

...I like it.

I would love to hear about your revenue model in the age of content aggregators that basically harvest all unique site content despite copyright - cannot get google numbers for advertisers based on content when it is being stolen by copy-n-paste spiders or RSS-fed all over the internet wihtout residual "visits" being logged (visit numbers that attract advertisers).

Since the content model (centering on the "just news" you love so much) is basically history (copyright be damned and subscriptions/ad revenue models be laughed at), SBN wants to build a superior community platform, one that is not some clunky messageboard with tit-n-ass pictures but rather a destination for people with a common allegiance for more than just content. The belief is that the lingering eyeballs will build brand loyalty that attracts committed advertising buys.

But let me know how your format - the one that is sinking newspapers every day - let me know how my boss can make money off it and I will pass the word on...

Since you asked, yes, overall we are happy with the redesign. However, we don't consider our work done. As I pointed out in my welcome post, we are still in a public beta with the new features and the design. That means we take all input and feedback seriously. And it also means we'll be evolving the platform based on what we hear. I appreciate that you care enough about this community to author a passionate post with your feedback and hopefully you'll stick around to help us improve the platform that powers it. Let me address a few things you mentioned so we can keep a constructive conversation going:

Load time - We're very sensitive to this issue. We tested this before we launched, but nothing beats the 'real world' data we collect. We have an ongoing special project to tweak and tune the load times. We're making progress, but aren't where we want to be yet. You mentioned Firefox as being particularly problematic and you're right - we've seen the same thing - and we're focusing on figuring out why that specific browser loads are pages slower than the rest.

Mobile - You brought up reading the blog on your Blackjack and we are absolutely committed to providing a mobile version of all our blogs. Not just something that is workable on your phones and PDAs - but a version of the site designed for that format. We hope to get you something soon. In the meantime, we're exploring short-term ways for Halos Heaven to work on mobile better.

"posting scheme" - I assume this means the FanPost editor. If you have any feedback on why you don't like this, we're listening. We've already made several rounds of adjustments to it based on the input of multiple SB Nation communities. So fire away and we'll see what we can do to improve it for you and everyone else. Or maybe you're talking about the comment posting?

Avatars - Feedback on this addition has been about 50/50 with the edge going to those who enjoy them and find them useful as a visual short-hand for reading comments and seeing who has published FanPosts lately. We are exploring ways to keep them out of the way for those who prefer not to see them.

"Interstitial Ads", "Multimedia", "Flash Overlays" - Just for the record, we don't do any of these things as part of the content in our sites. It's possible that some of the ads that are served from our ad network use Flash, but we don't utilize any multimedia beyond the occasional YouTube. We have zero plans to start using Flash or Silverlight.

Visual design - This is another area where we are collecting feedback from all our communities and making adjustments. 'Garish' and 'extra crap' is what I heard. Do you not like the colors? Is it just that we've added avatars? Apart from the load time, what do you not like about the new visual design? Specific input is more than welcome.

Finally, I'll just say that the changes we made were meant to elevate the content of the site. We added recs so that the community could highlight the best of your own FanPosts. We added FanShots so that FanPosts wouldn't be cluttered with posts containing only one link or video. We added a WYSIWYG editor for FanPosts so that those members who don't know HTML can publish well-formatted writing. We added avatars to reward those who contribute to the community with their face (or cat or logo or whatever) is on the front-page. We added auto-refreshing comments so that the great conversations around team news could fly fast and furious without a refresh. We added scores, schedules, rosters and stats content for the Angels and every MLB team. So we agree with you that the content is important, but would just add that community is the special sauce that makes SB Nation blogs like Halos Heaven even better. We're trying to find the balance. We'll only get their with your help. That goes for everyone else too - feel free to jump in.

AN threads: Yeah, game threads are the focal point of our work to improve load times.

posting scheme: There is no way to opt-out of the preview, but we've found that it doesn't seem to slow anyone down. The threads you referenced on AN are a good example. We don't allow editing comments because we believe these threads are conversations and people reply to comments as they are written. So, we ask everyone to take the quick step of previewing what they've written before they post something that can't be changed. And I think many people have discovered that you can type a comment, tab to preview, hit return then hit return again to quickly post.

interstitials/modals: those are relatively rare and we display those only when there are two different roads to take: login or signup.

fixed width and busy-looking: As I said before we're working on the visual design and avatars.

thanks again for the feedback.

and I like the preview. But, for those who do not like previewing, there should be a way to turn it off.

but I miss the link to view all the open polls. It was nice to be able to click on one link to view them, and go into the post to then see if i want to vote

I often leave the game thread open in a tab in Safari for the duration of the game. I'll read, post, whatever...then have to look away for a few minutes to do something constructive, then come back and read, post, whatever again.

When I come back, it's often difficult to distinguish the posts that are new since looking away because the posts that were new when I first opened the thread, that have already been read, are still highlighted yellow. I'd like to see the yellow highlighted posts return to the normal white background reserved for "old" posts after a certain amount of time. Maybe after 5 minutes, those posts highlighted yellow as "new" revert to plain white, or "old" so I'm not re-reading stuff attempting to find the truly "new" dialogue.

Make sense? Other than that I'm pleased with the new format.

Pros:

Keep the new format for those who like shiny things and have a low bandwidth alternative for those with iphones or live in a place with limited access to good internet.

if you type your own LINKS into a post manually writing the HTML code, when you preview or post, the finished link is changed to the thread in which you are posting instead of the intended link destination... meaning, I type < a href = "link" > fake link here < / a > manually. Click preview, mouse over the link in the preview and it says that the hyperlink properties are the page of the thread, not the intended link.

If you use the link ICON within the "post a comment" editor, it links it just fine.

Every picture loaded is firewalled and then the anti-virus program checks it. There is an additional layer of security in Firefox.

If you dont use the firewall, the anti-virus and Firefox, you still have the problem of which image loads the slowest. If web pages were simply text and images resided within the web page, then you would eliminate part of the bottleneck.

However, you have to evaluate the time spent in each process and the network error rate per packet. This is not a simple point at this and blame that.

The way to figure this out technically is to start a program which measures time starting from the moment the web page is requested and tracks each part of the processing along the way.

There is always a trade-off in every user application. One is how secure do you want your environment to be. Spyware blockers, anti-virus programs, firewalls, poorly written Java or XML code both on the server platform and on the client PC are just some of the issues.

However, one of the major bottlenecks is always the packet error rate. The packets generated by the server may receive negative acknowledgments and have to resend. If the page has multiple servers sending pictures, ads and numerous other error prone processes, then the page can not complete loading.

So sure moving from platform-a to platform-b can be a learning experience. It's like making a good meatloaf. Put it in the oven for too long and it comes out hard and not juicy. To get a technician to pinpoint the source of the bottleneck is time consuming and expensive. You can't just lower the time and temperature in the oven. You have to identify ALL the elements that currently exist in this computing process vs. those that previously existed and report.

Now whether one can do anything about it, assuming the owner of this venture is willing to pay, is a different story.

In case nobody has noticed they added a new option to make the layout wider. It's in the first box on the left sidebar of the main page, or the first box of the right sidebar when reading a post.

That said, clockwerks if you're still checking up on this thread, I noticed that if I click the Wide link before the page has finished loading it will revert back to Narrow when it's done.

a second longer but no problems. At work, it is probably at about 5-7 seconds.

to make the main page reload automatically as well?

Also, I think it would be cool if the 'z' button worked on the main page as well, telling us what stories or posts have new comments it them so we don't have to scroll through the entire page.

Just some thoughts.

An actual "post" button in addition to the "preview" button in comments?! Thanks for listening and adjusting accordingly!

Can you make the new posts on these bold. It is really hard to tell if I have read them or not. The "new" is light and does not stand out like it does in the fan posts.

Thanks

the new format is way too cluttered the old format was way better