Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

[Anon21456]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

The alternate is a great-looking site that tells you absolutely nothing (like 99% of all financial sites).

So true. Barry Ritholz's Big Picture became almost irrelevant when he redesigned his blog :confused:

[zoog]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

Agree with what others have said about the front page. In the time that I have been here, the various iterations of the front page have always seemed like a trainwreck to me, and like others, I almost immediately bookmarked the forums page as my entry into the site.

Perhaps a poll would be useful to provide some hard data, but I suspect that most regular visitors to the site bypass the front page in one way or another, while new visitors either google search their way into the middle of a thread and then perhaps click the home page link, or type in the site address and get the home page. So it may be wise to consider designing the home page primarily for people who have never been here before. To that end I would say "less is more".

A minor thing: the Recent Forum Posts area on the front page. I noticed one time after I had posted something that included a chart, the beginning of my post showed up in this area on the front page, with the html code for the IMG tag and all that. Seems kinda messy. If there is a way, might be nice to strip media tags, or basically anything that isn't text, from this little summary area.

[Chomsky]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

Agree with what others have said about the front page. In the time that I have been here, the various iterations of the front page have always seemed like a trainwreck to me, and like others, I almost immediately bookmarked the forums page as my entry into the site.

Perhaps a poll would be useful to provide some hard data, but I suspect that most regular visitors to the site bypass the front page in one way or another, while new visitors either google search their way into the middle of a thread and then perhaps click the home page link, or type in the site address and get the home page. So it may be wise to consider designing the home page primarily for people who have never been here before. To that end I would say "less is more".

A minor thing: the Recent Forum Posts area on the front page. I noticed one time after I had posted something that included a chart, the beginning of my post showed up in this area on the front page, with the html code for the IMG tag and all that. Seems kinda messy. If there is a way, might be nice to strip media tags, or basically anything that isn't text, from this little summary area.

I always bypass the front page, which really is a trainwreck and takes forever to load, and start with the forums via "new posts" -- never miss anything that way.

[Down Under]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

I always bypass the front page, which really is a trainwreck and takes forever to load, and start with the forums via "new posts" -- never miss anything that way.

Same here

[zoog]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

p.s.

are the new em:eek:ticons really going to be four times as tall as a line of text? maybe a little excessive? lol?

seems a little distracting when you've written a paragraph of erudite prose but then it becomes visually overwhelmed by a giant animated smiley in the middle.


Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla volutpat mattis orci at dictum. Sed rhoncus bibendum metus aliquam ultrices. In vel dignissim neque. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Vestibulum id est id massa varius ornare. Nulla facilisi. Curabitur et lectus vel sem vulputate dapibus in sed arcu. Proin semper laoreet consequat. Duis condimentum, augue id convallis suscipit, velit justo cursus lorem, sit amet imperdiet massa sapien nec eros. Hilarious Sed enim massa, fringilla nec tempus a, molestie id erat. Aliquam quis augue dolor. Vestibulum congue risus nibh. Morbi eleifend scelerisque ante, vel dictum velit pulvinar eu. Praesent quam dolor, pulvinar sed mattis ut, mattis id tellus. Cras sed est nibh, quis congue nibh. Praesent auctor sollicitudin diam, eu rutrum nunc luctus commodo. Mauris varius erat sed velit consectetur at bibendum orci luctus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean mollis vulputate massa quis rhoncus.

screenshot for posterity:

[bpr]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

While we're in the suggestion box, the tulip logo is horrendous. Looks like a scan of an old Huysum that remains in CMYK.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

I always bypass the front page, which really is a trainwreck and takes forever to load, and start with the forums via "new posts" -- never miss anything that way.

Same here, but then I usually go to the search mechanism to search on EJ and FRED to see if they've posted anything in the past 24 hours. The new search appears to be broken, returning false positives. It's a bit of a pain to have to go through all the threads that have been updated.

[jpatter666]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

Same here, but then I usually go to the search mechanism to search on EJ and FRED to see if they've posted anything in the past 24 hours. The new search appears to be broken, returning false positives. It's a bit of a pain to have to go through all the threads that have been updated.

Sigh...one of my long-time requests was for subscribe to user for exactly this reason, but looks like this version of the software doesn't support it?

Odd, you'd think that would have been an early request.

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

... The new search appears to be broken, returning false positives. It's a bit of a pain to have to go through all the threads that have been updated.

There's 2 tabs when you go under "Advanced Search". Try clicking on the "upper left one" labelled "Single Search Content Type" before you do a search.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

There's 2 tabs when you go under "Advanced Search". Try clicking on the "upper left one" labelled "Single Search Content Type" before you do a search.

Already tried it, same bad result.

[jimmygu3]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

I always bypass the front page, which really is a trainwreck and takes forever to load, and start with the forums via "new posts" -- never miss anything that way.

I haven't been to the front page in years. Besides the fact that it's unnecessary for a subscriber who knows how to search the forums directly, the front page gives the wrong impression about iTulip. It gives a frenetic feel that is the opposite of the careful analysis that we all come here for. Why have "News" with titles like the ones below on the front page at all, much less ahead of links to EJ's calls and commentaries? A first time visitor connot immediately distinguish between user posts and Janszen commentaries.

Today's News
• Why Gold Will Rise to $50k to as much as $500K per Ounce • FIRE Dance • Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters • Two more Census workers blow the whistle • Japan "Bitch Slaps" America • The Patrons Of Imagination • Stimulus Working • When Masculine Virtues Go Out of Fashion • Soldier in Iraq Loses Home Over $800 Debt

Today's Select($) News
• Learning from the Bank of Dad • Einhorn bets on currency collapse and major rate increases • Canada vs. the PIIGS... a new cochon? • SEC Finds Its Backbone • Are you delusional about the Economy? • Libertarians and Synthetic life • Rand Paul wins. • Early Signal to Exit Gold Soon? • Warren Buffett now sees inflation in currencies... duh • From the Trenches

In my opinion, the front page should be the place that shows new users what a badass macroeconomic forecaster EJ is, with easy links to major calls, commentaries, glossary, etc. No need for extraneous user content and other clutter.

-Jimmy

[metalman]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

Sigh...one of my long-time requests was for subscribe to user for exactly this reason, but looks like this version of the software doesn't support it?

Odd, you'd think that would have been an early request.

read the vbulletin forums... vb didn't add a 'subscribe to user' feature due to complaints about privacy or some such. i made shortcuts like this one to track c1ue...

http://www.itulip.com/forums/search.php?do=process&searchuser=c1ue&exactname=1&showposts=1&searchdate=lastvisit

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

are the new em:eek:ticons really going to be four times as tall as a line of text? maybe a little excessive? lol?

I hesitated to complain :confused: about this yesterday, because either

1. I was glad the iTulip admins listened to our concerns, so I did not want to seem ungrateful , or
2. I had a lurking suspicion that these new icons were a hoax -- "You want bigger icons Here you go Easy We'll show you Hilarious"

But I agree entirely with your post (well, except that I've forgotten my Latin, so cannot comment on that part ;).)

Earlier some folks had commented that the old smiley's (prior to the changes of this last month) were just fine. I agree. I'd like them back.

[metalman]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

I hesitated to complain :confused: about this yesterday, because either

1. I was glad the iTulip admins listened to our concerns, so I did not want to seem ungrateful , or
2. I had a lurking suspicion that these new icons were a hoax -- "You want bigger icons Here you go Easy We'll show you Hilarious"

But I agree entirely with your post (well, except that I've forgotten my Latin, so cannot comment on that part ;).)

Earlier some folks had commented that the old smiley's (prior to the changes of this last month) were just fine. I agree. I'd like them back.

old ones sucked... new ones were useless... these are just toooooo cute

[zoog]

Re: Dear Fred, EJ, Webmasters

Already tried it, same bad result.

The results are not intuitive at least, to me. When I do the Single Search Content for user EJ, I get something like this. Where I expect to click for the latest EJ post in a thread is not where it is. Once I figured this out though, it's not so bad.

read the vbulletin forums... vb didn't add a 'subscribe to user' feature due to complaints about privacy or some such. i made shortcuts like this one to track c1ue...

http://www.itulip.com/forums/search.php?do=process&searchuser=c1ue&exactname=1&showposts=1&searchdate=lastvisit

Hm, I get false positives with this method. Each individual post in the thread "How I learned to love the economic crisis: 2010 edition" shows up as a search result... not just c1ue's posts, but everyone's.