PG-rated

Hey Core!

On most of the forums your Views-to-Replies ratio averages something like 30:1 and it’s not like the Replies are growing exponentially every day either. That’s quite an achievement looking back at the old format. You guys must be really proud of your new baby Core.

Hint: window-shoppers don’t pay the rent!

Suggestion: Get rid of that Saturday morning children’s TV look, make available the old posts and quit asking for ID at the doorway, this profesion is clubby enough as it is. Next thing you know you’ll charge admission too.

Oh yeah, and check out less “sophisticated” web sites out there on how to do a scrollbar that actually works.

Talk about a bad image for design!

You’re not the first to complain about the look. The thing is this (unfortunately) is the trend in the aesthetics of interfaces. Just look at the interfaces of:
• Mac
• Windows XP
• New updated hotmail

Its ironic. Back in the 80’s when very few knew to use a computer the user could have found these types of GUI useful. (Of course we didn’t have the technology to afford those wonderful graphics.)

Now that we don’t need them as much but for some reason this is the trend. Granted the ‘kid-toy’ look is everywhere. You see adult women carrying Hello Kitty stuff, fifties style retro also has a playful look, Alessi stuff still sells and etc. Maybe we are trying to lighten up and have some fun in our lives.

Here are the thoughts of Core77 management:

  • The overall design and look/feel of these boards is largely out of our control. We have a limited ability to modify some of the colors and such in the control panel. The look of the scroll bar is not something we can adjust. Granted, we could hire someone to customize the CSS, and then review the code to ensure that the setting is not overwritten. We could also hire someone to design and implement new icons and such. But given the limited income available to us at the moment, we won’t be making changes like that soon.

Of course, if someone wants to donate their time and expertise to do this for us, we would be overjoyed. Just let me know and we’ll work something out.

  • We will be bringing the old threads back on line as an archive very shortly. PLease be patient.

  • We implemented registration as a means of raising the quality of the discourse here. I agree that the number of posts has gone down dramatically. But I also suspect that the missing posts are all the negative, racist, homophobic, and otherwise useless posts that forced us to implement registration in the first place.

That is all for now - thanks for the feedback!