Kudos, Conrad! Once again, you've gone above and beyond the call of duty to better the lives of fat people and their admirers. I know that not many truly understand all that you do and have done for us over the years, but suffice it to say that there are those of us who have at least an inkling of it, and we cannot thank you enough.
I hope you don't mind if I personalize this with a little history. Many years ago, when I was running the NAAFA office, I remember opening the mail and finding a membership application from a man with a very unusual last name. It wasn't just your name that made you stick in my mind, however. It was the fact that there were few men who supported NAAFA by becoming members.
Most would simply take advantage of the social events we frequently had to run to raise money to keep our doors open. What they didn't realize, of course, was that without financial support, the group that fulfilled their special needs would ultimately fold. How ironic, eh? You were one of the few to put your money behind something in which you believed and that was giving back to you.
Over the years, I watched this intriguing young man spring into action. It took you awhile, but you got involved in the FASig, ultimately becoming its leader. You started publishing the FASig newsletter, and eventually turned it into a full-blown magazine that was fully supportive of our community. I know for a fact that you helped support this endeavor out of your own pocket, as subscriptions and advertising never covered the cost of printing and mailing.
While I have divested myself of much of my size-related collections over the years (donated most of my very extensive fatablila collection to NAAFA and fear it may have gotten lost during all the changes; gave many books and other things to people I thought would appreciate and take care of them), I still have every single issue of the FASig newsletter and DIMENSIONS magazine. Consider them hereby bequeathed to you and Ruby, since I understand you're missing some of the earlier issues.
You got more involved behind the scenes, supporting the movement with a great deal of time and money, and ultimately became NAAFA's hard-working Chairman of the Board. When I learned you were opening a Dimensions Website, I was envious of everyone who had a computer. I didn't get mine until 1999, and the first website I visited was, of course, Dimensions. I spent a lot of time posting there the first few years. Due to ever-increasing demands on my time, I was forced to become less of an active participant, although I checked in several times a day to feed my addiction.
And now you've taken another giant step. What a joy it must be to you to see so many long-time lurkers coming out of the shadows and actually posting on the new boards. Frankly, I was rather overwhelmed at first, and wondered if I'd be able to keep up with it all, but I imagine things will calm down a bit after the newness wears off. It's also good to see you posting much more than usual. I suspect it's because you're still trying to work out the kinks, but I hope it continues.
That being said, since you asked for comments from us about the new boards, I spent a lot of time the last three days reading most of the posts and trying to get set up and acclimated. I made notes as I went along, and hope you'll accept these remarks in the constructive spirit in which they're given. This post has been a work in progress that I've been writing offline, and I considered just sending it to you privately. However, I think there are some things I've written that will be of interest to others as well, and perhaps some will want to comment on my observations and suggestions.
Change is never easy, and, quite frankly, I'm the first to admit I don't roll well with the punches. Tauruses are an earth sign, and we love our creature comforts, including continuity. We're also very practical, and have little time or patience to be forced to learn something new when the old worked well. However, it became obvious over a period of time that the old boards had become a drain on the system, and you had every right to look for a solution. You are to be commended for continually trying to do the right thing for so many people, many of whom, sadly, simply don't understand or appreciate the amount of time and money you expend on their behalf.
I loved the old boards, but if an old, set-in-her-ways fogie like me can get used to the new boards, so can anyone. Although I belong to other forums, I spend little time in any of them. There are several reasons for this. I'd gotten familiar with many of the personalities on DIM, and looked forward with pleasure to reading my faves when they'd post. There's not much better than a good discussion with intelligent people, especially if they're like-minded and have a good sense of humor. I also made a lot of good friends over there, and it feels almost like losing some of them, even 'though I know they'll be on the new boards, and I'll probably even make some new friends with so many lurkers emerging.
I have to admit it can be frustrating to have to spend so much time trying to figure out how to use a board, which is time I can ill afford, and I suppose I got spoiled by the ease of using the old boards. I also don't enjoy having to spend a lot of diminishing-by-age time working out something that I use as a pleasurable escape from my work. When it becomes "work" to accomplish that, I sometimes just give up. I know there are a lot of busy people who frequent these boards, and I doubt they have much time for that either. However, we're all hooked, and I suspect we'll figure it all out soon and ultimatelym proclaim there's nothing better.
I love a lot of the perks and features on the new boards, but can't help but wonder whether we'll lose some of our regular posters from the old boards simply because they can't figure out how to traverse the new ones. Understandably, you do have to have some feeling of ease with computers to use these boards, and I can definitely imagine some who'll feel too intimidated to pursue it further, which would be a shame.
Simply put, the old boards were easier to read. I don't know whether it's because my eyesight, despite bifocals, isn't that great now that I'm getting older, or because the type was not only larger, but spaced out more. A poster noted that the type size can be adjusted in your browser, but if I recall correctly, that would apply to everything I view on the 'Net, which I definitely don't want, as most sites are pretty easy to read (except for the ones that employ a dark font on a dark background, something artsy but complicated, or a very small font size), and I wouldn't want to chance screwing up any of that.
Other things I liked about the old boards were their ease and speed of ascertaining very quickly what was new the several times a day I'd check in. I miss the big red NEW! from the old boards. On the new ones, it's not only difficult to figure out what's new (especially if you're not computer literate, which I more or less am, but I'll never forget how I floundered...and sometimes gave up...in the early years), but the cues for discerning what's new differ from one venue to another.
For instance, on the opening page, there are two little grey arrows to the left of the name of each board. When they are a little darker, it means there are new posts on that board. However, due to the color scheme, the difference in the lightness and darkness of these arrows is so slight, it's difficult to quickly ascertain (without squinting) which boards have new posts and which don't. Would it be possible to change the arrow color to red or something else that stands out better on the grey background to indicate when there's something new?
When you click on a board name to view the threads, you discover there's a different way to ascertain which are new, and then again which posts are new in each thread. To make matters worse, that differs if you've got it set at hybrid/threaded or linear. On the former, you see the threads, and a white box indicates a new post, while on the latter, you must click on the link at the top of the thread that says "View First Unread." How does it know whether or not you've read something yet? There are some things I don't read or care to read, and after I've logged off, they should no longer be showing up as new, right? Yet, they often do, and remain marked as unread even when I hit "Refresh."
When a thread is new, it's indicated by a darker title of the subject than those that aren't. Then the little icons to the left of each thread tell you more about what's in each thread. The little envelope icon (the code to which, it seems to me, should be at the top of the page, rather than the bottom, as it makes more sense to have a such a necessary aspect of the board where it's more noticeable, thus more helpful) have inherent problems. For instance, the icons that indicate "Hot thread with new posts" and "Hot thread with no new posts" look exactly the same to me (unless my eyesight's even worse than I thought, and I'm missing something). Perhaps some kind of color coding that would stand out more would be helpful to people like me.
To further that, there have been a few times when it looks like there are new posts when there aren't, yet when I tried marking the forums as read, the next couple of times I logged on, even though there were new posts, the arrows indicated no new posts.
[See rest of post in next post, as we're limited to the number of characters we're allowed per post.]
I hope you don't mind if I personalize this with a little history. Many years ago, when I was running the NAAFA office, I remember opening the mail and finding a membership application from a man with a very unusual last name. It wasn't just your name that made you stick in my mind, however. It was the fact that there were few men who supported NAAFA by becoming members.
Most would simply take advantage of the social events we frequently had to run to raise money to keep our doors open. What they didn't realize, of course, was that without financial support, the group that fulfilled their special needs would ultimately fold. How ironic, eh? You were one of the few to put your money behind something in which you believed and that was giving back to you.
Over the years, I watched this intriguing young man spring into action. It took you awhile, but you got involved in the FASig, ultimately becoming its leader. You started publishing the FASig newsletter, and eventually turned it into a full-blown magazine that was fully supportive of our community. I know for a fact that you helped support this endeavor out of your own pocket, as subscriptions and advertising never covered the cost of printing and mailing.
While I have divested myself of much of my size-related collections over the years (donated most of my very extensive fatablila collection to NAAFA and fear it may have gotten lost during all the changes; gave many books and other things to people I thought would appreciate and take care of them), I still have every single issue of the FASig newsletter and DIMENSIONS magazine. Consider them hereby bequeathed to you and Ruby, since I understand you're missing some of the earlier issues.
You got more involved behind the scenes, supporting the movement with a great deal of time and money, and ultimately became NAAFA's hard-working Chairman of the Board. When I learned you were opening a Dimensions Website, I was envious of everyone who had a computer. I didn't get mine until 1999, and the first website I visited was, of course, Dimensions. I spent a lot of time posting there the first few years. Due to ever-increasing demands on my time, I was forced to become less of an active participant, although I checked in several times a day to feed my addiction.
And now you've taken another giant step. What a joy it must be to you to see so many long-time lurkers coming out of the shadows and actually posting on the new boards. Frankly, I was rather overwhelmed at first, and wondered if I'd be able to keep up with it all, but I imagine things will calm down a bit after the newness wears off. It's also good to see you posting much more than usual. I suspect it's because you're still trying to work out the kinks, but I hope it continues.
That being said, since you asked for comments from us about the new boards, I spent a lot of time the last three days reading most of the posts and trying to get set up and acclimated. I made notes as I went along, and hope you'll accept these remarks in the constructive spirit in which they're given. This post has been a work in progress that I've been writing offline, and I considered just sending it to you privately. However, I think there are some things I've written that will be of interest to others as well, and perhaps some will want to comment on my observations and suggestions.
Change is never easy, and, quite frankly, I'm the first to admit I don't roll well with the punches. Tauruses are an earth sign, and we love our creature comforts, including continuity. We're also very practical, and have little time or patience to be forced to learn something new when the old worked well. However, it became obvious over a period of time that the old boards had become a drain on the system, and you had every right to look for a solution. You are to be commended for continually trying to do the right thing for so many people, many of whom, sadly, simply don't understand or appreciate the amount of time and money you expend on their behalf.
I loved the old boards, but if an old, set-in-her-ways fogie like me can get used to the new boards, so can anyone. Although I belong to other forums, I spend little time in any of them. There are several reasons for this. I'd gotten familiar with many of the personalities on DIM, and looked forward with pleasure to reading my faves when they'd post. There's not much better than a good discussion with intelligent people, especially if they're like-minded and have a good sense of humor. I also made a lot of good friends over there, and it feels almost like losing some of them, even 'though I know they'll be on the new boards, and I'll probably even make some new friends with so many lurkers emerging.
I have to admit it can be frustrating to have to spend so much time trying to figure out how to use a board, which is time I can ill afford, and I suppose I got spoiled by the ease of using the old boards. I also don't enjoy having to spend a lot of diminishing-by-age time working out something that I use as a pleasurable escape from my work. When it becomes "work" to accomplish that, I sometimes just give up. I know there are a lot of busy people who frequent these boards, and I doubt they have much time for that either. However, we're all hooked, and I suspect we'll figure it all out soon and ultimatelym proclaim there's nothing better.
I love a lot of the perks and features on the new boards, but can't help but wonder whether we'll lose some of our regular posters from the old boards simply because they can't figure out how to traverse the new ones. Understandably, you do have to have some feeling of ease with computers to use these boards, and I can definitely imagine some who'll feel too intimidated to pursue it further, which would be a shame.
Simply put, the old boards were easier to read. I don't know whether it's because my eyesight, despite bifocals, isn't that great now that I'm getting older, or because the type was not only larger, but spaced out more. A poster noted that the type size can be adjusted in your browser, but if I recall correctly, that would apply to everything I view on the 'Net, which I definitely don't want, as most sites are pretty easy to read (except for the ones that employ a dark font on a dark background, something artsy but complicated, or a very small font size), and I wouldn't want to chance screwing up any of that.
Other things I liked about the old boards were their ease and speed of ascertaining very quickly what was new the several times a day I'd check in. I miss the big red NEW! from the old boards. On the new ones, it's not only difficult to figure out what's new (especially if you're not computer literate, which I more or less am, but I'll never forget how I floundered...and sometimes gave up...in the early years), but the cues for discerning what's new differ from one venue to another.
For instance, on the opening page, there are two little grey arrows to the left of the name of each board. When they are a little darker, it means there are new posts on that board. However, due to the color scheme, the difference in the lightness and darkness of these arrows is so slight, it's difficult to quickly ascertain (without squinting) which boards have new posts and which don't. Would it be possible to change the arrow color to red or something else that stands out better on the grey background to indicate when there's something new?
When you click on a board name to view the threads, you discover there's a different way to ascertain which are new, and then again which posts are new in each thread. To make matters worse, that differs if you've got it set at hybrid/threaded or linear. On the former, you see the threads, and a white box indicates a new post, while on the latter, you must click on the link at the top of the thread that says "View First Unread." How does it know whether or not you've read something yet? There are some things I don't read or care to read, and after I've logged off, they should no longer be showing up as new, right? Yet, they often do, and remain marked as unread even when I hit "Refresh."
When a thread is new, it's indicated by a darker title of the subject than those that aren't. Then the little icons to the left of each thread tell you more about what's in each thread. The little envelope icon (the code to which, it seems to me, should be at the top of the page, rather than the bottom, as it makes more sense to have a such a necessary aspect of the board where it's more noticeable, thus more helpful) have inherent problems. For instance, the icons that indicate "Hot thread with new posts" and "Hot thread with no new posts" look exactly the same to me (unless my eyesight's even worse than I thought, and I'm missing something). Perhaps some kind of color coding that would stand out more would be helpful to people like me.
To further that, there have been a few times when it looks like there are new posts when there aren't, yet when I tried marking the forums as read, the next couple of times I logged on, even though there were new posts, the arrows indicated no new posts.
[See rest of post in next post, as we're limited to the number of characters we're allowed per post.]
