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.

unnamed

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

FrankMurphy

June 12th, 2017 at 2:04 PM ^

I would move the icon that shows how many comments have been posted on an article (i.e., the talk bubble with the number under it) closer to the other info about the article. In fact, I would get rid of the icon entirely and just list the number of comments next to the author name, date, and time of the article, the way it is on the current site. 

Swayze Howell Sheen

June 12th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^

would be great to add a picture of author with the byline, as well as full names - imho looks more professional that way. First names only is too informal, and pics are like so 21st century :)

e.g.

Article name

by Brian Cook [ pic ]  date

not

Article name

by Brian  date

 

 

 

Michigan Arrogance

June 12th, 2017 at 2:30 PM ^

Suggestions

Would it be possible for you guys to make an upgrade so that when I hit the Tab key, the blog dispenses a can of refreshing Tab? Sometimes I get thirsty reading this here blog.

Ron Utah

June 12th, 2017 at 2:35 PM ^

  • Looks great!  Far more pleasing and modern than the current build.
  • Love the tiles (Seth called them boxes) at the top of the "Normal Front Page" look
  • Love the cleaner, more brief presentation of articles...will Brian start to use jumps more effectively?
  • Would like to see the tiles even when there is a featured article.  Perhaps they could/should shift to being below the article, but still prominent (displayed without scrolling)
  • Is there a way to integrate diaries into the "Message Board" and just tag them as "Diary" (and dispaly the tag) instead of having a separate menu bar for them? ie, the menu bar would display: Bringing some sensibility to the FBS; Diary - COLBlue - 2 days ago.  Makes more sense to me that way, and I agree that I usually scroll right to message board and skip diaries right now, so if you can't change the format, would love to see the two bars' positions reversed.
  • Thank you so much for all you guys put into this site.  It's a national treasure.

chatster

June 12th, 2017 at 2:44 PM ^

The guys at Hooli must be pretty pissed, too. They were counting on a major reveal at Hoolicon.

Is Keenan Feldspar working on getting the financing to help you launch the MGoBlog virtual reality feature for mobile devices? 

But seriously, folks, this sounds like a great upgrade. Congratulations!  Hope all goes well.

 

JBDaddy

June 12th, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^

I vote that the Lorem Ipsum text in the footer absolutely stays AS IS in the images, except add a Harbaugh every so often.

Also:

I agree "Message Board" is more visited than "Diaries", but it's usually a short list, and I can't imagine where else you'd preview/link often-useful content, so it should stay as-is.

I don't notice any social-sharing icons mocked into the content articles.  It's nice to have the option to easily share permalinks to the places.  I propose putting them near the post tags or Comments header under the main content.

 

Very nice job.

 

 

cloudman

June 12th, 2017 at 2:50 PM ^

Much cleaner design, good typography. I hope you will pay attention to the MBoard functioning. Even when I am logged in, I find it difficult to look back at older threads, which are not on the first page. Good luck with new apps. Given the wealth of new tech from Apple, take your time to digest the perks and costs of iOS 11.
Just out of curiosity, what is the predominant backend language: PHP, node.js, perl or Go?

maizenbluedevil

June 12th, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^

What I would like to see:

- as others have mentioned, board above diaries.
- also, hoping for an option to sort comments by most upvotes, like on Reddit.
- this is non-specific, but, I just hope the app looks clean and not cluttered. The HD app was perfect.
- also re. app - If there are ads in app, I hope there's an option to pay to remove them.
- also, hope up/downvoting is present in the app.

mGrowOld

June 12th, 2017 at 3:09 PM ^

I would just add that I agree with the others that Diaries & the Message Board should be flipped given how frequently content is updated on the Board vs Diaries.

Hey....could we have a MgoObituaries?  It could have the user name, date they either got caved (reason for caving) or committed board suicide ("I'm never posting here again")  

Might serve as a nice deterrent to bad actors.  Plus it would be kinda funny to read IMO.

In reply to by PeterKlima

M Go Old and I…

June 12th, 2017 at 3:42 PM ^

Peter:

It's because it's how us old people approach life, as illustrated by the following from Pete Seeger:

I get up each morning and dust off my wits

Open the paper and read the obits

If I'm not there I know I'm not dead

So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

 

 

PeterKlima

June 12th, 2017 at 3:16 PM ^

I think it looks better.

As requested, I have some personal feedback as an "old timer" here.  (BTW - I resisted signing up for the current site when you switched over to having a board. So, I may be a little crotchety even for an old guy.)

Anyway, my thoughts:

1, Are you keeping the links to other Michigan/B10 blogs on the left?  I liked this site because it introdued me to Johnny's Michigan blog, UMHOOPS, and countless other blogs.  I visit them all, but this was my home page because it had all the links to others.  It increased the number of times I came here eventhough you were promoting your "competitors"  I also learned about EDSBS, Black Heart/Gold Pants, etc. here and would check out opposing teams' blogs during game week.

So, are the external links still going to be here?

2. I like the Diaries on top of the general board.  I feel sites should have the mosty meaty substance at top and the random discussion lower.  Diaries take time and should be rewqarded with a higher placement.

3. Will the search function change? It could be better.

Thanks for all your hard work!!!!!!

WholeMilk

June 12th, 2017 at 3:22 PM ^

This makes me happy. I'm glad that the site's visual aesthetic and performance will be up to par with the content.

Some things I'm hoping for:

-Improved Embedding- Pics, video, Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, etc. Hopefully, the process will be easier, lowering the barrier for creating more informative, quality posts.

-Reply Notifications- A way to know when someone replies to us without manually rechecking the thread.

-User Tagging(?)- A handy way to "page" someone to a conversation of interest. On other message boards, adding @username to a post or comment will send a notification to that user, directing them to the thread. Good for when a certain user's knowledge or talent is required.

There's probably more, but nothing that isn't already a part of modern message boards. Or anything that helps foster the Mgoblog community, really.

lhglrkwg

June 12th, 2017 at 3:43 PM ^

You’ll be able to minimize a box to hide a part of the conversation and focus on the one you’re having.

So you mean when yet another thread devolves into pointless yelling about Richrod or the Freep or politics that I can minimize that whole section? That will be great

Also, this is stupid, but it would be great if somehow you could neg or posbang a post by more than 1 at a time. Like if someone is a collosal douche, I can donate 100 mgopoints on my end to -100 them. It's pointless, but satisfying on a personal level

mgobleu

June 12th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^

(More ideas to pack more hard work and functionality into a completely free website:)

How about a notification with a title every time a new article is posted, BUT, selectable by author; i.e., like when there's news and I'm waiting to hear Brian's pov on any given topic, but screw Seth's "dreck du jour".

Could we do something like that?

J/k, Seth. Everyone knows BiSB is the real boat anchor around here... ;-)