Beta Testing New Thread Layout

[John Robinson]

I'm testing a new thread layout. On latest posts, you will see a "beta" link for each article. Click it to read the article in the new thread style.

"Why fix it if it ain't broke?"

Well, it is broken, and it needs to be fixed. The old style Free Republic threads on average consumed 65 kilobytes per view. Multiply that by 600,000 articles served per day and that adds up to a big chunk of bandwidth.

I believe this new format will consume less resources. An eyeball estimate would put that average at about 15-20 kilobytes per view. You may have noticed how bandwidth starved Free Republic has been lately. It's been real slow during the morning. This new software, when fully implemented, should alleviate that problem.

[francisandbeans]

1. It's great that you have a link to the original posting being replied to. It helps keep track of ongoing conversations, jokes, etc. But - isn't it true that the moderator can yank specific postings? What happens when an intruder posts obnoxious post #3, someoen replies to #3, and the later #3 is yanked? (Just playing devil's advocate).

What happens is when you click it....and the reply is pulled, your computer gets infected with the NAMBLA virus. Your computer will start directing you to websites that feature 'N Sync and the BackStreetBoys and when you try to click off it will alert the FBI that you are a pedophile and they will come to your home and steal your children, and any pets you have. They will also sieze your assets and give them to the UN.

Please avoid clicking on links to non-exsistent replies.

[John Robinson]

I haven't looked in a long while, but what I saw wasn't bad. However, I don't believe Slashcode is capable of handling FR's volume. I believe it also locks older stories into read-only mode due to this limitation.

[francisandbeans]

the other problem I see with slash code, is that you have to give users security levels in order to allow them to post. Otherwise, posts would have to be approved by moderators.

[francisandbeans]

although the floating moderator power is kind of a neat feature. I dont think it would work here....but it is kinda cool.

[John Robinson]

Yes, if you are at all familiar with Cascading Style Sheets you can upload your own custom style sheet. If not, I will later provide a tool to allow anyone to easily customize the appear of the forum, without having to be a wizard.

[cynicom]

John...

There are many threads that should be taken down right after birth as they are trash, censorship would have nothing to do with their exclusion. Also many threads live long after being newsworthy, off with them also.

[smith288]

Here is a hint.... at the end of the url where it says
page=60,20 (or something) i was able to put

page=100,100 and it loaded the whole thread up to 100. try it.

[homegroan]

You are a veritable cornucopia with legs.

The gods are pleased! ;-)

[Texas Yellow Rose]

Want a cleaner font?... go to "Tools", "Options", "General" and change your default font. Works great for me.

[John Robinson]

It's really too early to say, but I think FR could save $30-40k/year in costs if this new format works to my fullest expectations.

[smith288]

actually, try this

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/posts?thread=544318&q=1&&page=1,100
Notice the page=1,100 at the end....loads up to 100.

[moonhawk]

I like the fact that you now list the poster at the top of a reply...

I often find myself scrolling to the bottom of a long reply to see who wrote it before I finish reading it.

[John Robinson]

I may end up with several thread templates, including the old style but broken down into groups for bandwidth efficiency.

To me, this new format makes more sense. The most important information, poster and recipient, is listed where your eyes are most likely to be. For most reading, date and reply # are noise, so I toss them in the corner. YMMV.

[supercat]

On the old threads, the very bottom line was visually distinct from any of the other "Reply/Private Reply/Etc." lines. It might be nice to make it continue to be so, esp. since that would only be for one line out of many. Also, it would be nice to include with each post links to all replies to it. Since you're obviously parsing posts as you display them it would seem this shouldn't be too hard.

[John Robinson]

Ah, you must not have a style sheet aware browser. If you have style sheets, the header information is indeed shaded. Hrm.

[flair2000]

It looks great and loads a lot faster on my slow connection.

[savedbygrace]

John, I agree with Judy about separating the Reply from the From/To lines at the top of the Reply.

BTW, great work. It looks good. I especially like the "View Replies" button. Thanks.

[francisandbeans]

will the beta version look just like it is now, or is this a generic mode?

What I mean is, the current version is pretty reader friendly and even the most novice of users can get the basics down pretty quickly. The newer version, I dunno, looks like you are looking at an internal message site for some company. Are you concerned about turning away new partcipants?

I know that this isn't a for-profit site, but is increasing the number of participants a focus for this site?

I'm trying to view the new version through the eyes of a new visitor, and I am not sure that if I were a new visitor, I would be particularly interested in sticking around to figure it all out. Is there a middle ground, John?

[Bernard Marx]

Some ideas for making it a bit easier on the eyes though...make the links on each message a darker blue like on the old style, and try making the heading of each message look different than the actual message itself, like bolded or with a different font.

I agree. While I'm in favor of speeding things up, the colors used in the links made it feel like my eyeballs were being pulled out while I tried to read the body of the message. While the idea is good, I think it needs work.

[George W. Bush]

I was going to ask if there is any chance you could make a DIV class for the By field. Like <DIV class="by George W. Bush">? I know it would add some bandwidth to the page but it could be very handy. We could make up ignore lists individually and we could make the forum highlight our favorite FReepers. Just an idea. I can think of some people I'd like to ignore and some that I'd like to highlight so they'd stand out.