We have made some changes to the DU Homepage

[Skinner]

It's been three months since we launched our comprehensive overhaul of the site. One of the things that we changed was our homepage. But over time the admins decided that we needed to revisit the homepage and make some changes in order to make it fresher and more compelling. The updated homepage is now online:

http://www.democraticunderground.com

One of the driving principles of our comprehensive overhaul has been to give greater control of the site (including its content and its standards) to our members. But the homepage we created last December went in the opposite direction, giving greater control to the administrators to determine what appears there. This was a mistake which did not leverage our community's greatest strength: Our members. Our new homepage is an attempt to remedy this error. We believe this new homepage will much more interesting and useful than before.

The DU Administrators are working hard behind the scenes to make this community the best it can be. The next items on our agenda: Polls, Advanced Search, Spell Check, and improvements to the DU Journals.

Thank you for being a part of this community.

Skinner
DU Admin

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. And the Homepage looks great!

The judicious use of red makes it pop.

I like it!

But the best news is what's finally coming next! FINALLY!


Thank you Skinner, and all the admins. This is, bar none, the best site on the internet. I am proud to be a member.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. Pleeze poot speal chezk att te topp ov tha liest!

[tridim]

9. IESpell

http://www.iespell.com/

I'm sure there are spell checkers for the other browsers too. I use IESpell on every post.. It's great.

Ironically the only word it caught on this post was "iespell".

[jeff47]

58. Firefox and Chrome have spell check built in (nt)

[freshwest]

29. I loved the DU2 spell check since it was so easy to use.

[Rhiannon12866]

60. +100! Me, too!

I had no idea how many typos I made until we were without spellcheck...

[freshwest]

61. Hi right back at you! One day, it will return!

[tk2kewl]

3. .

[TBF]

4. Looks great!

[sinkingfeeling]

5. My only complaint is that it's expansive. I kind of liked the more

concise format.

[tridim]

6. Much better. I like LBN at the top. Good work!

[quispquake]

7. Excellent!!!

Full of info, but not BUSY looking...I love it!!!

[southernyankeebelle]

8. Skinner it looks great, especially the red headlines. It stands out. Thanks it is helpful.

[Kali]

10. jonesing for a better search, myself

[rox63]

11. I'm seeing pictures and ads overlapping text

On the right side of the screen.

[Skinner]

13. Hmm. What browser are you using? (nt)

[rox63]

20. IE 9.0.8112.whatever... n/t

[Skinner]

15. I think I know what the problem is.

Gimme a few minutes to see if I can fix it.

[rox63]

21. Much better!

Whatever you did worked. Thanks!

[Skinner]

22. Great.

If anyone else is having this problem, you may need to do a Shift+Reload/Refresh on the homepage to load the fix.

[NEOhiodemocrat]

33. I was having the same problem

found out all I had to do was maximize the page to fix it Good thing as all that Shift+Reload/Fresh stuff is greek to me. I also want to put in a word for spellcheck! I need it!

[gademocrat7]

12. I like it!

[longislandAnnie]

14. Yay!

Blogroll is back!! love it!

[denbot]

16. Gawh..! My eyes!!!

Oh wait, this ain't so bad.

[Hollywood Hills]

17. Much better.

I like the new look.

[Maven]

18. I like this better. Glad you got rid of the "Enter the bestest discussion forums on the internets"

button. It was a little hokey.

The red is nice too.

[madrchsod]

19. looks a hell of a lot better but....

where`s the old check spelling? the new one is crap!

[William769]

25. The new one?

[MindMover]

23. Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.......

[bluedigger]

24. Well done!

I like this much better. Hopefully, it will add a little vibrancy to the site.

I would consider expanding the size of the DemocraticUnderground.com banner/button in the upper left of the screen. The real estate is available, and as it is, our "branding" is overwhelmed by our content. It should be just a little more obvious. But that is just a quibble.

Good job!

[99th_Monkey]

26. I love it, nice improvement. ~nt

[MissMarple]

27. Awww...I donate and and a day later you get to redecorate.

[ca3799]

28. I like it

I like it and I usually don't like sudden changes to me favorite on-line places. It looks good and is easy to use.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

30. thank you for planting the seed that created this community

[highplainsdem]

31. Love the new look! Thanks!

[Robb]

32. My eye loves this.

Content freaking everywhere. Love it, love it, love it.

[one_voice]

34. It looks great!

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. Love the colors!!

[Lugnut]

36. Wow!

Very nice. I like it! Thank you.

[MADem]

37. I know! It's all quite nice, too! Every day, in every way, you are getting better and better! nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. Wow!!!! My eyes like this, very much.

Just enough color to draw my attention to the headings, looks "fresher" and easier to find things at a glance.
Pic of the moment is such a great feature, btw.

Thanks again to all of you for your hard work.

[louis c]

39. I haven't participated since the change was made

I really enjoyed the original DU. I am a member and a contributor since 2004.

I'm too busy to check every spelling error and I have come to rely on spell check in all the writing that I do everywhere.

I won't post again or contribute without spell check and a return to something closer to the original DU.

This is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

louis c

[montanto]

40. I like it. It pops!

[FailureToCommunicate]

41. Fresh !!

(And ditto what Blanche said above thanking y'all for DU !)

[Atypical Liberal]

42. Yup, the DU3 homepage kinda sucked.

On the old DU, the home page was pretty much my "portal" into DU. It was where I could easily scan for new content on DU. Most of the time I never even bothered with the "greatest" page, just the DU home page.

Since DU3, the home page seems cluttered and confusing to me.

For some reason my eyes don't like the video articles down the right sidebar of the screen. My mind keeps interpreting these as advertisements (because sidebars are usually advertisements, I guess), and I ignore them. The video articles used to be one of my biggest draws on the old DU home page.

I still think the home page is far too long. I don't tend to scroll down very far on web pages without something drawing me there.

The most important DU jump points for me are "greatest" and "trending now", which seems to be just another name for "greatest".

Other than that, I jump to my pet forum (guns).

[scarletwoman]

43. There seems to be a glitch in my view of the home page.

When the page is minimized, I see "Latest Breaking News" as a column to the right of the "Pic of the Moment". But when I maximize the page, the "Latest Breaking News" header appears at the bottom of the column under the the "Pic of the Moment" - following the "Around DU" section - and the whole area to the right of the Pic is completely blank.

I just logged on this minute, so I don't think refresh/reload would help. I already closed the Home Page once and reloaded it - same thing.

I am also using IE 9.08112345.whatever. I'm on a laptop, circa 2009.

Any ideas on why it's doing this?

Other than that, I heartily approve of the changes!

[Skinner]

44. Did you refresh the page after you resized the window?

Sometimes, things look funky when you resize, but they look fine when you load the page fresh with the page already at the desired size.

[scarletwoman]

46. What I did was navigate away from the Home Page to a different page, and then back again.

It stayed the same.

BUT!!!! I have just now hit refresh on the Home Page, and - voila! - the "Latest Breaking News" section is indeed appearing as a column to the right of the "Pic of the Moment".

I am convinced that there is no technical explanation for this, and that the problem was corrected solely through your awesome mental powers decreeing that it should be so.

[Skinner]

47. LOL.

Let me know if the problem reappears.

[scarletwoman]

48. Yes, I will.

Via mental telepathy, of course!

[siligut]

45. Attractive and convenient

Even nicer than before, thank you

[Tuesday Afternoon]

49. Yay!! All of those were my top priority wishes! Thanks for listening - guess I wasn't the only one

[OneAngryDemocrat]

50. Great!

Keep up the good work!

[mopinko]

51. awesome job guys.

you guys are geniuses in my book.

[oldhippydude]

52. thanks for all

i am totally impressed with du3... glad the spell check among other features will be added as you can.. one feature that i used occasionaly was the ability to forward a thread via e-mail... was a handy feature that i miss... just glad that all is working congats on getting it up and running.. oh yes big THANKS

[Auggie]

53. Love it -- excellent change!

[Paper Roses]

54. Thanks for the much needed adjustments! n/t

[tclambert]

55. I like it.

[Botany]

56. Once again we have been "sucked into" a Skinner test

[GOPonziconz]

57. It looks AWESOME! Nice job DU Admins!

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

59. Much easier to scan and read, thanks.

[Little Star]

62. It looks great! But I'll miss the Cool topic...

That topic alone made me visit the front page every day. Thanks for all you guys do! Great job!

[Skinner]

63. Funny you mention that.

I kind of miss it too. I enjoyed scouring DU for the hidden gems. Maybe we can bring it back somehow.

[CottonBear]

69. Oh! Please bring back the cool! I love the new-old home page. Thank you for the changes!

I am so happy to find the DU homepage as my one stop information source (once again!)

PS: I need spell check ASAP!

[Celebration]

77. can group hosts submit possibilites to the forum and Group hosts group?

I loved the cool stories.

First thing I looked at.

[Mira]

80. Love the new look. It is concise and easily maneuverable though I miss the COOL page as well.

I'm happy about that overall change, and also that the polls are at the top of the list.

[scarletwoman]

81. Bring it back under the heading, "Cool - Admin picks"

That way you clearly differentiate it from the user-determined Home Page content.

[Daemonaquila]

64. Huge improvement!

DU's home page had turned into a dead snooze. This looks much more like the DU we know and love. Less control makes for a more dynamic, interesting community space.

[uppityperson]

65. Thanks. I am so looking forward to a better search engine. Thanks guys.

[Tumbulu]

66. I like the set up, but the colors are identical

to the Bank of America corporate colors. Instead of doing the red/blue thing, could you go with some other combo, or make the red more orange or more purple? When Bank of America switched all of their signs to mostly red rather than mostly blue, it actually corresponded to their corporate headquarters moving from San Francisco to North Carolina......

So, I don't want to see that color of red here, it has too much baggage with it. But it is a good idea to have color contrasts.

[NICO9000]

67. Looks good to me

I didn't really care for the redesign of the home page - too subdued for my taste. This is much better, methinks.

[Speed8098]

68. Looks Great

It's much better. Thanks

[davidthegnome]

70. Looks good

"This was a mistake which did not leverage our community's greatest strength: Our members. Our new homepage is an attempt to remedy this error. We believe this new homepage will much more interesting and useful than before. "

I'm finding it both more useful and more interesting. Thank you to all the DU admin for your work over the years. This is one of the only forums I frequent on the net, in large part because I agree with the above statement. The community's greatest strength is in our members. No need to differentiate between admin though, aren't we all in it together? Technically, aren't we all members? Much praise. Well done.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

71. Why can't we have nice things?

[Hoyt]

72. Big improvement. Thanks.

[Gore1FL]

73. How about Jury remediation being placed on the list?

When a jury fails, there needs to be a recourse.

[Pharaoh]

74. It's a start...........

[april]

75. Thank you Looks so much better ! NM

[Celebration]

76. I miss "cool" stories

Could we get some of the group hosts to submit possibilities to the Forum and Group Hosts and return that one feature?

[MicaelS]

78. Looks great, any chance to give us an easy way

To increase the width of the pages for those of running 1920 x 1200 or 2560 x 1600 monitors?

I use W7 64Bit and FF 10.0.3, and still see about 4 inches of white on either side with a 24" 1920 x 1200 monitor.

[butterfly77]

79. Good

bout time.

[scarletwoman]

82. What is your precise meaning of "Advanced Search"?

On DU2 "Advanced Search" was used for archived posts (and was mostly useless, imho). So far, there are no archives on DU3.

So, is the DU3 "Advanced Search" only going to search DU2 archives? Are you going start archiving DU3 threads, and THEN activate "Advanced Search"?

Does this mean there will never be a "Simple Search" on DU3, like there was on DU2?

I think a lot of us would really like to know what the intentions are vis-à-vis a DU Search function on DU3.

Thank you in advance.

[Skinner]

83. The search function on DU3 will be as functional as the DU2 search.

Hopefully more so.

[scarletwoman]

84. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! That's so good to know!

MUCH appreciated!