THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Looks good. Thanks for that. I won’t whine about anything else.

I have also added an extra bar that will let you filter by category:

ALL: the default

BASEBALL: only posts pertaining to baseball (sabermetrics)

OTHER SPORTS: posts flagged with hockey, football, etc

BLOGGING: mgl or I musing about whatever other than sports

NEWS: news items that may have an indirect relationship to baseball, or have no relationship at all to sports

WEB ADMIN: blog entries like this one, that pertains to maintenance of the site

So, this should definitely keep everyone happy.  If you happen to see a post that bothers you, you should use the filters more religiously.

In any case, adhere to the posting guidelines on the main page.

Someone at BTF mentioned that the green of the blog post makes it hard on the eyes.  If there are people bothered by the green, I can change the shading to something lighter, like a light yellow (or even white).  Personally, I don’t like the white, as it just seems as all the threads run into each other.

As well, I can change the gray of the comment boxes, too.

Really, anything.  So, ask away.

Someone at BTF made very helpful suggestions to improve the look of the site (purely things that don’t affect the bandwidth or speed).  His image files are no longer accessible for some reason, but here were my comments:

To answer your questions:
1. The header on the page is the spine of The Book (original edition).

2. Like mgl, I don’t really think of “selling a book”. I don’t really push the book. I understand I should put those big names out there. That’s what the publisher did, by putting those names out on its website. Let me think about it.

3. Good call on the picture. In fact, the picture of the book is for the original edition, not the new edition. So, in fact, people will not know what it looks like! This is what the publisher’s website looks like:
http://www.potomacbooksinc.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=153776

4. The USSM message. I see it as separate from the book totally. I really like that message. You really see it as coming off as arrogant? I’ll see what others on my site thinks. Thanks for giving me something else to think about.

5. Puke green. I really like the green. I guess that means I like puke! Seriously, no one ever said word one, and I’ve asked a few times for site suggstions. I’ll keep asking.

6. Search engines. Hmmm… again, I’m totally at odds with your point of view. I’ll ask my site readers.

7. Comments. Yeah, they should be on the right. That’s why I reserved the space there. I put them at the bottom to start, and have never really been bothered to move them to the side. Just have to set my CSS correctly.

8. Teaser for each article is definitely the right thing. Again, laziness on my part.

So, my questions to you, for each point:
1. Any issue with the spine of the book being the header to this site?  Does it look to “amateurish”?

2. The suggestion was to move the Wall Street Journal, et al’s recommendation to the front of the page, not buried on some inner page.  I suppose I should do that.

3. No argument here.  I’ve got a picture of the book that is outdated.

4. I really like the “terms of service” USSM message I have.  Somehow, that was perceived by this person as “arrogant”.  I don’t see that at all.

5. I can experiment with colors every day, and you guys can tell me at the end of the week what’s best.

6. I like the two search engines I have at the top right.  Use them all the time.  I would prefer if all sites did this.

7. When I come to my blog, I automatically just do an “end pagedown” to get to the comments.  I suppose I could move the comments to the right, though I kinda like the extra space the bottom of the page affords me.  You guys?

8. No issue here.

1. The header could be better.  It’s a bad scan and the subtle overlays on the authors and baseball don’t look like anything good.

4. The message is fine, but it doesn’t have to be so prominent on the page.

5. The green on my screen (OSX w/ Firefox) is very neutral—it almost looks grey in some light.  I like it.

Ok, I moved the TOS to the bottom of the page, to see how that looks.

5. Here’s a color wheel:
http://www.weborum.com/color/wheel.html

If you hover over a color, it’ll give you the 6 character “web-smart” code.  Try out colors, and see which ones you like, and post it here.

My site uses:
EEEEEE for comments
EEFFEE for the initial blog post

The other two choices, really, are the light blue (eeffff) and light yellow (ffffee).

Here is a better selection for the colors:
http://www.tangotiger.net/files/colorChoice.html

So, select the ones you prefer.

SirKodiak generously updated the header image, which I tweaked just a slight.  You can compare the two images here:
New:
http://insidethebook.com/spinetilt.jpg

Old:
http://insidethebook.com/spinetilt2.jpg

5. I changed the color to light blue (EEFFFF) if you look at the color wheel (in IE, not Firefox).  See if you like that more.

2. I put the reviews of the readers on the front page:
http://www.insidethebook.com/

I prefer the green to the blue. You should also update the color of the search boxes to match whatever you go with for the main post background.

Agreed on the search box matching color.

I’ll wait to hear back about more comments as to whether to go with blue or green.

The current color is making me homicidal.  I much preferred the older one.

As long as you’re experimenting, could you try changing the site background from white to perhaps light grey? I have a widescreen monitor, so there’s a vast expanse of white space lighting up my screen. And since this place tends to make me really concentrate, the brightness can start to hurt my eyes after a few minutes.

Just clicking some of my bookmarked sites at random...USSM has a light grey background, Bronx Banter a sort of Padres sand color, Uni Watch has green (which surprisingly works for them), Athletics Nation has dark grey…

I’m probably in the minority with the brightness issue, so if everyone else is cool with the white, I’ll shut up.

1.  The header is fine with me.  I suppose that’s more about setting a tone with first-time visitors and what not.  I don’t care.

4.  The USSM message, if I remember it correctly because I don’t see it now, I thought was helpful in setting out how discussions here should be approached.

5.  I liked the green better.  It was more soothing.

6.  I love the way you have the second search engine set up.  Please do not change it.  I don’t actually know what the first search engine does since I’ve never tried it.

4. The USSM message is at the bottom of the home page. 

5. Ok, I’ll switch back to the green, as it doesn’t seem anyone cares for the blue.

6. The first search engine uses the blog software’s own search engine.  So, theoretically, it should work better (especially if you clicked Advanced).  But, it works too good sometimes.  Google search engine (the second one) has a “relevancy” built into it.  So, when you get back too many hits, the Google one is better.  If you know you’ll get back few hits, the first one is better.

Status:
1. Completed. SirKodiak provided an update for header.

2. Completed.  Site home page has the reviews.

3. Deferred. Right now, the Amazon link has the picture of the book.  I should update though to the new version of the cover.

4. Completed. USSM message appears at the very bottom.

5. Closed.  Green wins over blue.

6. Closed.  I’m happy with the way the search engines are laid out.

7. Deferred.  Recent Comments functional for me at the moment.

8. Open.  Last thing for me to do is to add teasers to the articles list.

I made a couple of changes.

9. Moved the byline from the bottom of the post to the top. 

For the main blog post, I thought it is important to note whether it was me or mgl that was talking from the outset, even though our styles are fairly self-evident.

I did the same for the comment posts, too.  Plus, I highlighted each poster.  As a result, the gray background wasn’t working, so I made it all white in the comments area.

10. Line spacing is now 1.5 (halfway between regular spacing and double-spacing) for the main blog post.  The comments remain at regular spacing.

11. I added “year” to all the posts, as the only showed month/day. 

Feel free to comment as you wish.

Couple of little tweaks in the comments:

12. I boxed the username section of the comment post.  Let’s our name stand out a bit more.  I can take it out if it seems to separate the name from the comment (i.e., does more harm than good).

13. Added a bit more space between comments.

14. Moved the date/timestamp to a right-alignment.  This lets the name stand out at the left, and the date/time on the right.

Mailbag:
15. Top right MAILBAG section now has a background to make it stand out more.  I didn’t want to add it to the main nav bar, since I want to have the two links.  I wasn’t sure whether to make the background that light purple like the main nav bar, or the light green like the search boxes.

***

Any other suggestion, please let me know…

I like the new format a little better, not that the old one was bad.  Readability seems improved with the white background from the comments, and it’s easier to pick up the writer’s name with it in a box at the top of the comment.  You also seem to have retained the basic look and feel while changing a few things around for the better, so that’s a plus.

16. If you go to the bottom of this page:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/categorylinks/

And you click the last link ("readers that post here"), you will see the comment leaders, as usual. I have added a link called “all posts”.  That will let you see all posts made for that person on this blog, on one page.  So, if you want to see all 340 posts made by studes, now you can.

The only ones I disabled were mgl and me, only because of the sheer quantity.

Regarding #16 (in post 22): I also added a complete list of commenters, sorted alphabetically.  I also included the last 1000 posts by me and MGL.

If there’s someone out there that wants me to consolidate his names into one, just list all the names that you posted under.  For example, there’s 4 different variations of “rally”.  If Rally wants it consolidated, then he should list all his names, and what he wants to consolidate as.  I’ll then run a script to do the update.

Tango,

If it is possible with this engine, have you thought of allowing optional password logins?  I was thinking this would allow those who wanted to keep one identity to do so.

Not an option here, unfortunately.

17. As per MGL’s suggestion, I have added a “RECENT ARTICLES” section at the very top of the page (between the blurb for the book, and the search boxes).

18. I added “(see all posts)” next to each of our names in the comment posts.

Also note that this “see all posts” feature now sorts by your most recent comment first.  It used to sort by MY most recent blog entry creation.