MGoBlog 3.0: The Preview Comment Count

Seth

So you’ve probably noticed the content has been a little slow this summer. Some of that’s because Hail to the Victors 2017 is taking up my life, but the other huge summer project is rebuilding this site from the ground up.

THE DEVELOPERS

We’ve been working with a local outfit named Human Element. You’ve probably passed by their Kerrytown office at the corner of Detroit and Beakes (and Division and Summit and Carey and High and… you know the junction) a thousand times. Unlike our previous attempts at redeveloping the site they’re established enough to have a team and a schedule they’ve actually managed to stick to.

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We’ve insisted they go by “HUEL” for obvious reasons.

Despite all the curveballs we could come up with from a 10-year-old site on a no longer supported platform, this is happening, and on time. I can’t recommend these guys enough.

THE NEW LOOK

Since we’re deep into the design phase, we saw no reason to keep it to ourselves. So here’s a preview of what we’re sort of going to look like in a couple of months (click each to see a larger size):

Normal front page

Front page when we

have a major feature

Inside an article

MGB Design_Home_v5 MGB Design_Home2_v5 (1) MGB Design_Article_v5 (1)

Let me say a few things about what you’re looking at:

  • No that’s not the header. That’s something one of the HUEL guys whipped up in 30 seconds. We’ve engaged MonuMental to design the new official header. That’s still in the works but his initial thoughts are encouraging:

How about Harbaugh as Conan the Barbarian on a mountain of his enemies' skulls (helmets) with background landscape and Easter eggs inspired by the last few years (Florida palm trees, Rome skyline, stacks of milk bottles) and a snarling oversized Wolverine as his companion?

Open to suggestions about what he is wielding overhead. Maybe a football exploding with light and lightning?

  • It’s going to be a lot wider, since screens have become so.
  • The front page has two modes. Normally there will be some boxes on the top with the latest football article, the latest recruiting article, the latest podcast, and a t-shirt or HTTV something from our store or our top sponsor UGP—these boxes will change based on whatever’s going on at the moment. When we have a featured article (e.g. UFR) it goes to mode 2, with the feature dominating the top and the boxes taking a break.
  • Diaries and the Board are staying put, but your login is moving to the upper-right.
  • The comments will be threaded into boxes, but after a 5 boxes they’ll stop shrinking and just appear underneath. You’ll be able to minimize a box to hide a part of the conversation and focus on the one you’re having.
  • Some users will have little icons next to their names. These will signify things like this person is the OP, or one of our staff, or a moderator, or trusted contributor. Still deciding on how many badges we need—might just be site personnel and hot users (people who recently got a lot of upvotes in that thread).
  • Your MGoPoints should carry over to the new site. Apparently the 3rd party module for that hasn’t been upgraded to Drupal 8 so we may have to create our own, but if it’s possible it will happen.
  • We’ll be moving to a new server that should be able to handle a much greater load, so this place won’t become a disaster during high traffic events.
  • Apps will be brand new and better integrated.

Your feedback is most welcome—we’re building this for you.

Comments

BlockM

June 12th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^

Overall it looks VERY nice!

My 2-cents suggestions:

- Comments looks weird when they're nested like that with the boxes around them. it gets super cluttered with boxes on boxes very quickly.
- Any way to notify from the header when someone has replied to one of your comments?

bluebyyou

June 12th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^

What will be the item that controls the  order in which threads appear?  Most recent posting date/time or thread creation date/time.  I find that certain threads die a premature death because they disappear from view.

I'm for using the posting date in lieu of creation date as the criteria for placing threads in order as interest in a topic and not the order in which a thread is generated governs what we see.  This might also help avoid dupes during busy times.

I'd also like to see something where you could click on an MgoBoard link and get a listing that is longer than what we currently have posted on the main page.

rposly

June 12th, 2017 at 1:32 PM ^

I was afraid at first, but the functionality has all been retained.  Doesn't seem cluttered, which was my main fear.  Simple is always better.

Gulogulo37

June 12th, 2017 at 1:33 PM ^

I'm actually pretty ambivalent to it all except for the last 2 points:

  • We’ll be moving to a new server that should be able to handle a much greater load, so this place won’t become a disaster during high traffic events.
  • Apps will be brand new and better integrated.

Obviously it's nice that the site will work. The mgoblog android app isn't bad, but there are some features that don't work at all or work so horribly it'd just be better if they didn't work at all.

 

UM Fan from Sydney

June 12th, 2017 at 2:42 PM ^

I prefer a quote feature for comments, which would eliminate the indented reply boxes (and it would eliminate the person who loves to reply to the first reply when not even directly replying to the first reply, just so people see his or her comment almost right away). The problem with the quote feature is that many people don't know how to properly use it. Some folks will use the quote button, but not delete the text they're not replying to, which causes very long threads. The 247 forums use a quote feature. It's nice when people know how to use it the correct way.

Ali G Bomaye

June 12th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^

Until now, I never knew that you could get to the second page of MGoBoard by clicking the link in the top menu. I just thought it was irredeemably broken.

Now that that's fixed, I'm pretty cool with the current site.  /s

Mercury Hayes

June 12th, 2017 at 1:37 PM ^

I like the site and I'm sure it will just get better, but I wish the forum view could get better much like sites that are simply forums and not news outlets. Does this make sense?

MileHighWolverine

June 12th, 2017 at 1:42 PM ^

I'm disappointed (slightly) that they hired a professional firm to come up with the banner .... I really enjoyed when they opened it up to competition that one year as the submissions were fantastic.

Other than that, I would hope that spell check is added so I don't constantly have to check if I've made an mistakes for fear of the grammar police.

AeonBlue

June 12th, 2017 at 1:52 PM ^

Will comments still be sorted by time or will they be by popularity?

I'm with everyone else that would prefer the board to be listed above the diaries. 

I would be super on board with a feature that let you know that you've been replied to.

champswest

June 12th, 2017 at 2:50 PM ^

They repeated a show about how tech companies on building in addictive features in apps, games and sites. Your phone dings to let you know you got a text so that you will keep checking your phone. You get likes on Facebook so you will go back and check to see how many likes you get. You want to be notified if anyone commented on your post. Face it. You're addicted.

MichiganTeacher

June 12th, 2017 at 1:53 PM ^

Sounds great. Looking forward to it.

Feedback:

 - I don't care about points carrying over or not. 

 - Boards that actually function would be my #1 priority.

- Sub-boards for non-revenue sports, Xs and Os, etc. would be my #2 priority.

- If there are pop-ups, autoplay, etc. I will never return. Don't think you're considering that but I thought I'd put it out there.