New Design? Good, Bad?

March 31, 2002 9:46 PM

New Design? Good, Bad? What the hell? Did I click a skin option?
posted by physics (52 comments total)

what's the date today again....? and looka looka at that URL.
posted by jessamyn at 9:49 PM on March 31, 2002

Yeah I'm just waiting to see the other half of this joke on kuro5shin.org
posted by betaray at 9:50 PM on March 31, 2002

Very nice, I love it!
posted by riffola at 9:53 PM on March 31, 2002

Yeah, I certainly hope it's part of the K5 joke because I don't like all this white, it's giving me a headache ;-)
posted by wackybrit at 9:53 PM on March 31, 2002

That URL is awesome.

(Also, MetaTalk...)
posted by mrbula at 9:53 PM on March 31, 2002

By the way, Kuro5hin is already running the story about this.
posted by wackybrit at 9:54 PM on March 31, 2002

If it is a new design, I suggest:

.button {background: #069;}

be changed to:

.button {background: #069; color:white}
posted by MidasMulligan at 9:54 PM on March 31, 2002

No joke. Well, ok, the design is amusing, and it is April Fools and all, but see the rest of the story for the reason behind it all.

I imagine Matt will be posting some more explanation here soon enough. :-)

Oh, and the mostly-joke on The Register? BlueTrain: you weren't so dumb after all.
posted by rusty at 9:57 PM on March 31, 2002

Hang on, this can't be an April Fool's joke, it's still not April 1st in Haughey Land (also known as the West Coast). If you do an April Fool's joke before or after April 1st, then the fool is on you!
posted by wackybrit at 9:58 PM on March 31, 2002

You've been bought. Check it out.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/1/05035/09001
posted by tiamat at 10:00 PM on March 31, 2002

ah yes, still got 2 hours to go before april 1st here. yet maybe they're working on east coast time. nonetheless of course it's a joke. right? ;)
posted by physics at 10:00 PM on March 31, 2002

It's an outstandingly good look. Hopefully someone won't steal it for non-4/1 use.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:01 PM on March 31, 2002

Ah, my eyes!

Seriously though, not too shabby. I was waiting for a white version of mefi.
posted by Aikido at 10:06 PM on March 31, 2002

Btw the new tagline kicks ass. :)
posted by riffola at 10:07 PM on March 31, 2002

So, umm... does this mean ESPN is buying spofi? :)
posted by louie at 10:10 PM on March 31, 2002

no no the tagline should be "silly links for bored people, from the trenches"

KURO5IN IS LAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

wait we need haiku links too

SHOUTCAST!!

confused

flap flap flap
posted by Settle at 10:11 PM on March 31, 2002

confused

flap flap flap

Someone is over stimulated. wo0t wo0t!
posted by Aikido at 10:13 PM on March 31, 2002

A whois shows this site to be registered to one Matthew Haughey. So those of you freaking out......
posted by Salmonberry at 10:14 PM on March 31, 2002

See also the sideblog on the front page.
posted by rusty at 10:17 PM on March 31, 2002

*golf clap*
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:21 PM on March 31, 2002

mommy, why does the kuro5hin textad keep coming up on the upper right corner?

. . . I'm scared, mommy . . .
posted by yhbc at 10:23 PM on March 31, 2002

Check out Rusty's link for the full story.

I've been increasingly busy over the last few months, too busy to keep up with the code, and too busy to admin the entire site. In the past few weeks, you've probably seen more than one bug not get fixed and you've probably seen me freak out on someone when they didn't deserve it. My time is short, and I can't dedicate the necessary time and money to the site. The more I looked at Kuro5hin's scoop code that runs their site, the more ideas I got for an implementation at MetaFilter. In case you've never seen the scoop engine, it's quite a bit more advanced than the stuff you might see at slashdot. Readers can rate any posting, sort posts on several sets of criteria, and the stories on the index page only get there after being voted up by the members. It goes way beyond simple filtering and reputation management, as you end up with a truly democratic, emergent system running the site.

I talked to Rusty at sxsw about a migration of MetaFilter over to scoop, and we kept talking. K5 has a hardware sponsor, and we discussed moving over to some free linux boxes, and it grew from there. Eventually we both asked ourselves, how much difference would there be between MeFi and k5 if they were functionally the same? Last week, Rusty found an anonymous donor, emailed me an offer, which I accepted after seeing the correct number of zeros in it.

As part of the acquisition, first off the name has been changed. We agreed to do this just a few days ago, to ease the transition to the new server hardware and software. K5 and the new M4 may even reside together at a new url (currently codenamed O3), with the two userbases joined. That last part is still up in the air.

Anyway, now that M4 is part of Kuro5hin's new network, I'll still be around to admin the site, and after the migration to the scoop engine and linux boxen, the need for me around will greatly diminish, as you will get to pick what shows and what goes on the future version of MetaFilter. Thanks to all, it's been a fun ride.
posted by mathowie at 10:26 PM on March 31, 2002

Aaiieeeeahaieeaaaaaieaa!

*thud*

*dies*
posted by yhbc at 10:35 PM on March 31, 2002

errr. i'm just going to not look at metafilter at all for the rest of today (good god, its only 2 am for me... this is going to be hard) and hope to every god in the world that this is still an april fools joke. which it better damn well be...
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 11:02 PM on March 31, 2002

I for one am glad that we no longer have to deal with Matt Haughey's heavy handed post deletions and discussions of etiquette. Maybe with rusty's guidence we can give this site the edge it needs. M4 forever! Viva M4!
posted by eyeballkid at 11:07 PM on March 31, 2002

i can only reiterate what yhbc said.

at least its going to be *nix hosted???
posted by Dom at 11:09 PM on March 31, 2002

Thanks to all, it's been a fun ride.

Holy unexpected. Holy white. Holy cow (why not?). Thanks for putting Metafilter out there for as long and for the way you did Matt. It's a great way to cut it loose.
posted by holycola at 11:12 PM on March 31, 2002

Loose Schmoose. It'll be back, just be patient. Mark my words.
posted by bonheur at 11:24 PM on March 31, 2002

I'm impressed. This is fabulous. A really beautifully crafted hoax. And to think that Matt bought and redirected a domain for it. Don't you just love Matt? I do. And I would so love to see the mail in his inbox right now.

By the by, Matt - all of a sudden I can't post in any thread, either on Metafilter or MetaTalk, using IE6, pc. I get javascript errors as soon as I type anything in the comment form. I'm pretty sure it's the onkeypress attribute in the body tag.
posted by iconomy at 11:38 PM on March 31, 2002

These pretzels are making me thirsty.
posted by owillis at 11:44 PM on March 31, 2002

eerie.

All of my coworkers will ask, "What happened to that blue page you were always looking at?"

I miss it already.
posted by David Dark at 11:58 PM on March 31, 2002

Goodness -- now this what I call a kink in The Matrix ...
posted by feelinglistless at 12:01 AM on April 1, 2002

Additonal April Fool's spottings: ebay seems to be getting into the spirit of April Fool's by reversing their navigation bar and logo. That will really throw some people off.
posted by nix at 12:24 AM on April 1, 2002

So am I the only person here who finds this new color scheme easier to read? Especially the font size -- much more information on a page. Oh well, it'll probably be back to BLUE BLUE BLUE BLUE tomorrow.
posted by milnak at 1:00 AM on April 1, 2002

I guess the next logical step is st1leproject...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:55 AM on April 1, 2002

kinda diggin' it....hope the fact that it now needs to follow some sort of revenue model doesn't kill it (i.e., if I see ads, I'll loose my bookmark...)

it does seem to be faster...must be the *nix backbone, though I'm too lazy to actually check what the site is running...

damn- I miss the random saying under the Metafilter logo...

hmm...the individual pages and post comments page start w/ "Metafilter" still, as does the copyright at the bottom...hmmm...I guess that's just template migration pains...


oh- yeah...the white bg is killing my eyes too (sorry)
a changing skin via PHP would rock (+ font switcher and size switcher :) )
posted by ayukna at 2:02 AM on April 1, 2002

errr milnak, i dont want to cause a brain rupture - but the font size is the same as it was before (as set in your preferences - perhaps you were logged out when you first saw it?)
posted by sawks at 2:12 AM on April 1, 2002

You know, for "an out of work actor from Los Angeles" that Matt sure can be a convincing guy.
posted by MUD at 3:23 AM on April 1, 2002

All of my coworkers will ask, "What happened to that blue page you were always looking at?"

Story of my life. Seriously, though, I would love a skinnable Metafilter.
posted by adampsyche at 5:27 AM on April 1, 2002

another april fools site revamp here
posted by juv3nal at 5:34 AM on April 1, 2002

Good, buy not perfect. The site www.met4filter.org is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
posted by Mick at 5:36 AM on April 1, 2002

I hope you got all the cash you deserved mathowie (if this is the real deal)! Oh, and as noted above--many script errors posting comments from IE6 (cutting & pasting this comment in from Notepad seemed to do the trick.)
posted by macadamiaranch at 5:44 AM on April 1, 2002

Ha! Good joke.

I don't know what everyone's griping about; it's so much easier to read dark text on a white background! This look is easier on the eyes than the usual one...

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 7:53 AM on April 1, 2002

Update [2002-4-1 10:8:22 by rusty]: True? No, of course not. :-)

It was swell.
posted by iconomy at 8:04 AM on April 1, 2002

It may be an appropriate color for the rebirth of Met4filter, but it would be nice if we didn't have to suffer through our retina's being burned out by the white background.
posted by Wong Fei-hung at 8:06 AM on April 1, 2002

not willing to be outdone, quonsar feverishly works to revamp the esthetic zeitgeist at blort.
posted by quonsar at 8:14 AM on April 1, 2002

that was most enjoyable, had my hopes up too :)

anyone who prefers white bg can always use the lofi mefi...
posted by sawks at 8:41 AM on April 1, 2002

Announcing Met4Filter.org (Site News) By rusty
Mon Apr 1st, 2002 at 12:50:35 AM EST

Update [2002-4-1 10:8:22 by rusty]: True? No, of course not. :-)

One of these is the joke. Maybe its the second one.
posted by Voyageman at 8:53 AM on April 1, 2002

so-so, time will tell...
posted by Bag Man at 9:44 AM on April 1, 2002

This design is okay.. but with the other design, it was easier to differentiate between stories because the link colors were more distinctly different from the text... so you could see where things began and ended easier..

Everything kinda runs together with this design..

Maybe encasing the stories in boxes, or at least having a higher contrast link color would make it more readable?

It definitely looks cleaner.. but I don't like how things run together ...
posted by twiggy at 4:03 PM on April 1, 2002

These pretzels are making me really thirsty.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:01 AM on April 2, 2002

These pretzels. Are making me thirsty.
posted by adampsyche at 5:30 AM on April 2, 2002