Don't like the "stuff" on the left

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Much of the new Forums look and features are great, but I really do not like the stuff on the left (... My stuff... Ads by Google...).

It takes up too much room and scrunches the Forums menu & posts to the right. Don't like it.

I wish there was a way to hide that stuff on the left and let the Forums menu / posts take up the full frame / whole screen like they used to.

[stratostar 5]

I would have to agree with you, I think the ad's suck bigtime, while I understand the need to fund the site it would be nice if WE had a way to turn off the ad's.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[PhreeZone 15]

I'd like it if Premier members would be able to turn off at least the top Google ad. The My Stuff on the side is almost needsed or else the top bar with "My friends" and everything else would strech off the page if you tried to combine them.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[stratostar 5]

My stuff could be one word @ the top that is clickable to open the features contained with in and not run off the page.

I would think about becoming a premier member if that would mean we could do away with all the stupid google ad's.

I'm sure some fine tuning is in store as time gose by.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[shropshire 0]

Pssst... why do we need those damned Google adverts at the top and at the side. One or the other please (but preferrably none)

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[BIGUN 1,053]

My initial reaction is that dropzone.com's environment has changed from one of being a place for skydivers where there happens to be advertising; to an advertising forum where there happens to be skydivers. Having said that; the infrastructure costs increase proportionately as the membership and/or viewing increases. One suggestion I made some time ago was to allow a temporary free membership for thirty days, then a discounted membership scale based on subscription duration.

If one joins for 3 months - $30.00 (ten bucks a month),
6 month membership - $9.00 month,
12 month membership - $8.00 month
Lifetime membership - X

If > than 30 day trial period... disable profile.

As it stands now - we no pay; we have no say.
If we're not the paying customers; the advertising engines are, therefore they have the input on placement - not us.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[bigway 4]

Why would anyone pay $10 a month to use this site? That would drastically reduce membership.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[BIGUN 1,053]

Oh c'mon... $10.00 is about as much as a 12" Quizno's which lasts about ten minutes.
$25.00 for a jump that lasts 70ish seconds
How many hours a month do you have on here?

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[bigway 4]

It is free on here. Hardly anyone would be on here if it cost. Who the hell would pay $120usd a year to be a member of any website? Skydiving is expensive enough.

I doubt the owner of this website would even consider charging people to use this website, donations maybe for premier but charging people would be the end of what this site is all about

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Quote

Who the hell would pay $120usd a year to be a member of any website?

If it had lots of pictures of hot naked chicks, I just might.


Anyway, I agree, that I doubt I'd pay to be a member of Dropzone.com.

[bigway 4]

If they charged people to post on this website then they should pay for each and ever post that contributes to the knowledge base of the website.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

... and who would vet which posts were a contribution to the knowledge base and which ones were not (i.e. who gets paid for their post and who gets charged to post)?

Maybe a good idea, but impossible to implement, IMO.

[bigway 4]

My point exactly. There is no purpose or reason to charge people to post on this website. It is not a porn site, it is a site where we all post answers to each others threads.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[BIGUN 1,053]

Quote

Why would anyone pay $10 a month to use this site? That would drastically reduce membership.

Hence....

Quote

As it stands now - we no pay; we have no say.
If we're not the paying customers; the advertising engines are, therefore they have the input on placement - not us.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[LongWayToFall 0]

This new layout stinks, and I'm not going to pay for membership to remove the adds. I wonder if enough people stop coming to the site, that it would go back to the old style?

[skyjumpsteve 0]

At home I have a Mac cinema display and the new changes were not that bad....back at work today though on a normal 19" monitor and the "my stuff" on the left with ads does really make reading the forumns more difficult. I didn't know what everyone was complaining about...now I do. Horrible.

[Fast 0]

Quote

Much of the new Forums look and features are great, but I really do not like the stuff on the left (... My stuff... Ads by Google...).

It takes up too much room and scrunches the Forums menu & posts to the right. Don't like it.

I wish there was a way to hide that stuff on the left and let the Forums menu / posts take up the full frame / whole screen like they used to.

There are Ads on the forums? Who knew... (Firefox + Adblock Plus = most awesome web experience ever)

Anyways... uh, yeah the "My stuff" thing on the left really sucks. Wastes a TON of space on my screen for stuff that I won't click on hardly ever. There are now too many ways for me to get to my profile to edit it. It was easy before and its obnoxious now.

If you look at the way PHPBB/vBulletin manages profiles its a whole lot nicer.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[JohnRich 4]

I'm against it too. I hate having to scroll right on every single page I load in order to be able to read the messages. Having the content centered on your screen ought to be the default.

[PhreeZone 15]

What resolution are you running? At 1280*1024 I don't have that issue but could see it as an issue if you were running at 800*600

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

What resolution are you running? At 1280*1024 I don't have that issue but could see it as an issue if you were running at 800*600

Correct. But if I apply your suggested resolution setting, then the font gets so tiny that I can't read it.

[PhreeZone 15]

What size monitor are you using? On a 17 inch monitor I have 0 issues at a distance of up to about 5 feet reading the font at that resolution. If you are running on an LCD monitor if you are running at anything other then its native resolution you will have blurring anyways.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Fast 0]

Quote

What size monitor are you using? On a 17 inch monitor I have 0 issues at a distance of up to about 5 feet reading the font at that resolution. If you are running on an LCD monitor if you are running at anything other then its native resolution you will have blurring anyways.

As a person who often gets stuck doing web design, it's bad practice to start questioning your users. If a lot of people are running that low of a resolution, then this was a bad design change. You can't say to someone, "Well, why can't you read it that small, I can" because that's just insulting.

I have an office users of which most of them can't read the screen if we run the flat panels at full resolution.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[PhreeZone 15]

At the same time if 95%+ of the users are running at a resolution of 1024*768 or larger it does not make sense to design an application at the lowest possible resolution just to account for the few users that are at a low resolution.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp These numbers are old and for a global snapshot but they show the downward trend in 800*600 or lower resolution. In 2002 it was at 50%, in early 2007 it was at 14% and falling fast. Here is a reference that shows it was down to 8% and falling sharply in mid 2007 - http://www.hypergurl.com/blog/webdesign/monitor-resolution-standards.html

Do I like all of the new design? Nope but I also can understand what it was designed for larger then 800*600 pages. The new ads on the left are either 120 pixels wide or 160 pixels plus the buffer between them and the content of the forums would take up 1/4 of the page on 800*600 where on a 1024*768 it only takes up less then 1/5 of the page.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Bolas 5]

That doesn't account for people who like to browse in less than full screen mode so they can keep track of other things.

For a mostly text based website, IMO 800x600 should be the standard.

Either that or use dynamically sizing tables and fonts.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[LongWayToFall 0]

Does it really matter the percentage of the screen that is used up? What blows is that it is being used up at all. Why can't the adds on the top be enough? If the traffic to dz.com doubles, so does the bandwidth, and so does the cost. But so does the exposure of the adds!!!!!! What has necessitated this change, I am very interested to know.