Upgrades on creativebits

I'm sure switching can be a pain, but sounds like it was worthwhile. Thanks for giving us speedier viewing!

What happened to subscribing to posts? And what is the pink message on the top of every page? "No image toolkit is currently enabled. Without one the image module will not be able to resize your images. You can select one from the image toolkit settings page."

Where's the Tarmac theme? :)

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Hello!

First, thanks for this amazing and simple site. :)

Would be very cool to rate the critique posts. Something easy, like click and rate with 5 stars...

That way lot of people who don't like to write can demonstrate their opinion and would be easy to see the public opinion without reading all posts.

Just an idea.

Regards!

a new site design! :) I like Creative Bits but I've always wanted to see a different design for the site. I think a dark background with light type is hard to read.

Thanks for the upgrades! It's much faster now. I really appreciate it. :)

I'd like to see the site use up more of my browser window... the current theme is way to narrow and fixed width. My macbook makes the site seem small.. i hate to think what it would look like on a 30inch cinema display ;)

other than that. the site content is great.. i agree about the dark background and readability.. but i also wish the layout was elastic (set with ems) so i could just zoom the font size and read easy...

Gratulations to the new home.

I always hated moving sites to a new server. But you seem to have handled it perfect. Great job.

I have a suggestion regarding the critique section and blog posts etc. How do you feel about having some kind of grading system for all users. Like you get points for writing a comment, a forum post etc. And when you've written a critique, others may grade your critique. So that when ppl the get critisized they can see if its a "heavy" (experienced) user who wrote it. It could also be a way to motivate users to write more (and better), and make this page more alive.

just a thought;)

thanks for a great site

How about the layout being left-aligned? Am I being too picky? :)

That ad bar at the top of the screen is incredibly offensive to the eyes.
Does it really need to be orange?

Some form of user rating that determines whether someone's critique should be used or accepted with a pinch of salt. Some users are experienced in their fields and deliver good critique like Mara or Nato for instance while others might not be able to deliver critique based on experience and/or talent.

I'm not sure exactly how that would be done yet, but I do think some form of rating + membership time would be a nice indicator.

Just a thought.

hey ivan, glad to see the sites being updated and re-thought out..
i know i've said my suggestions in the past, but here's a review on them

1) avoid a rating system, the last thing we need is a pissing contest between members
2) a critique section with categories, sometimes i'm just not in the mood to look at posters and just wanna see logo's. would love to be able to click and see just the logo's (that's just an example)
3) a slightly wider site (as previously mentioned by others)
4) require a minimum of 20-25 words in the description of a critique posting. if i'm going to spend my time giving my opinion, i'd like to have an idea of what the brief for the design was.
5) a way to send messages to other members without it being visible to everyone.
ps. i'm curious, whatever became of this...
http://creativebits.org/files/cbv3-loginarea.jpg

This isn't meant to be directed at anyone, just my opinion:

These voting/grading/karma or whatever you want to call it systems are an insult to everyone. Who are you (or me) to decide what is good or bad on a post? Just because you (or I) find a post boring, ill-advised, amateur or whatever, doesn't mean that someone else doesn't find incredible value in it. What you find incredibly mundane or bad advice, or whatever - other's may not. By giving negative feedback/karma points or whatever to the post (which is the same as giving it to the person who wrote it), you're insulting the person who spent time writing it, and to the people who did enjoy it or find value in it.

Furthermore, it just invites a whole lot of worthless nonsense into the "community" that isn't necessary and isn't isn't good for the community health. You turn it into a "I have a higher rating than you" type of place. People end up being slighted, hurt feelings, etc... Then they leave. This isn't what CreativeBits was founded upon.

If you don't think it'll happen, visit Digg.com and see what happened there. Basically if certain people high-up on the Digg rating chart don't like your article submission, they bury it and it never makes the home page. The whole site has turned into a nasty stone-throwing playground.

Everyone here is perfectly capable of judging whether or not a post is valid, valuable, enjoyable, or not worth reading at all. The important thing is to let everyone form their own opinion.

i'll be honest, i haven't been checking on the site for a few reasons, and i can't help but wonder "what the hell happened"

1) not being able to be automatically signed up to a post, let alone signing up at all to receive updates about it, drives me nuts! I think 95% of my traffic on here was cause of an email saying someone replied to a thread i was signed up to

2) only one critique at a time now? what happened to previewing 6? why the downgrade?

3) the CSS is STILL not what it used to be. what happened? let me guess, testing the site LIVE was a mistake? lol, i'm sorry, but i still think that was a foolish mistake.

4) a bunch of changes a few weeks ago, and we haven't seen a thing since, let alone at least getting things back to what they were..

as i was saying, i haven't been on the site much, and quite honestly, those are the reasons why. I'm still shocked some of those changes were made. it didn't make things better for the "community" in my opinion. sorry for being blunt, but that's the truth.