http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=1050695

Hello Monks,

I don't mean to offend anyone here. And I know this is not a Perl question, but it is a question regarding PerlMonks.org.

I really wonder: why is the design of the site still so ugly and now so outdated? It's something that truly amazes me. I can just imagine how many people here has more than excelent qualifications (and perfectly good will) to rebuild the entire place into something really attractive, readable, mobile compatible and most of all, something that such an important place deserves.

I also tried looking for a similar question on Google but I found nothing. Maybe I didn't search for the right keywords.

This is one of the few places I currently don't like having to read, much less when it's about reading code. I find it exhausting even now that clear type is standar on web broswers. If I must read a large block of code here, I really need to put a zoom of 25% or 50% - or I just copy the entire thing and paste it on my editor so I can read it comfortably.

And then I really wonder, time after time: why is it so ugly and outdated still? Is it that no one wants to put work into it? That I could believe even less.

Before I posted this question, I thought: well, maybe it's just about making a great CSS over the existing HTML, which aparently has simple divs, headers and spans. So I looked at the source code... oh my God - the HTML is almost as old as this website. It's still using <font> tags, for crying out loud! The only thing that could make it look older is if it was all uppercase.

Again... I'm really not trying to make this offensive in anyway. It just amazes me and makes me wonder: Why?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by Perlbotics (Archbishop) on Aug 23, 2013 at 17:56 UTC

    You are not the first one...

    One of the bigger efforts lately: My redesign continues by kimmel.

    Most people seem to be satisfied with the predefined layouts or their own CSS tweaks. See Display Settings. Here's a screenshot using my personal CSS - setup. Maybe, you'll don't like that either, but it demonstrates that the current HTML layout already allows to tweak the sites appearance a lot.

    However, I fully understand what you mean. When I came here first in 2007, I thought that this site was abandoned long ago - maybe since the late 90ies? Then I scrolled down the alley of tables expecting to find an Optimised for Netscape! - but instead I found an excellent node by some ikegami guy, posted some minutes ago. Hooked.

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by Old_Gray_Bear (Bishop) on Aug 23, 2013 at 19:01 UTC
    Remember the Second Rule of Systems Design:
    If it ain't broke, don't fix it
    I have had my fill of 'change for the sake of change' from my managers over the years. We have something that works superbly (most of the time) and supports a thriving and vibrant community (see, all those hours spent in meetings with the marketing droids has enlarged my vocabulary).

    And this brings us to the First Rule of Systems Design:

    The New System has to work AT LEAST as well as the system it will replace.
    Any new "improvement" has a high bar to reach.

    Also, "If I must read a large block of code here, I really need to put a zoom of 25% or 50%...", I submit that it is high time you had your eyes checked and your glasses prescription updated. I only need a 5% increase in size.

    ----
    I Go Back to Sleep, Now.

    OGB

      ...or, I have 24'' LCD monitors with a resolution of 1920 * 1200 pixels, placed at a decent distance. The point being, I generally don't need to do that with other websites that present code-formated blocks. For example, I find Stack Overflow very pleasant to read.

        I have a 13 in (33 cm) 1280 by 800 monitor at a decent distance (a bit less than arm's length), wear bifocals, and, oddly, don't have any problems. It also doesn't waste my time with Flash, animations, or such nonsense.


        Information about American English usage here and here. Floating point issues? Please read this before posting. — emc

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by MidLifeXis (Monsignor) on Aug 23, 2013 at 17:59 UTC

    Go to your display settings, and do the following:

    • Turn on large fonts for code blocks
    • Turn on all of the "render .... as div" options near the bottom

    --MidLifeXis

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by moritz (Cardinal) on Aug 23, 2013 at 20:52 UTC

    There are several aspects to this. The first is that, as far as I can tell, there is no clean separation between code and templates in the perlmonks code, so modernizing the generated HTML involves far more than replacing a few templates.

    The second is that among the many problems that perlmonks has (regular performance issues, broken Unicode support (for example in code tags), spam, ...), the design is one of the lesser worries.

    And the third (please correct me if I'm wrong here) is that perlmonks doesn't really have any active developers. There are some pmdevs who occasionally tweak something here and there, but I don't have the impression that anybody is willing to do some major changes. Of course the lack of a test system would make such changes a major PITA.

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by hominid (Priest) on Aug 23, 2013 at 19:51 UTC
    I'm here for the content.
Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation? (finish)
by tye (Sage) on Aug 24, 2013 at 22:15 UTC

    Because nobody has recently managed to follow through with a real improvement.

    Most of the people who have tried to update style have taken rather drastic approaches that were likely to have too much down-side and then never managed to get to the finish with a working replacement to try to get applied.

    If more people came up with much smaller improvements and did the work to really vet them and make them quite explicit and then worked with pmdev members to get them applied, then we would likely have much more progress on presentation.

    For my part, I just made one tiny change as documented in Tidings. The "Large Code Font" option is now enabled for anonymous visitors. I believe it is a better default experience when you look across a wide range of potential client environments. For some anonymous visitors in some environments, the size of the font in code sections will now appear noticeably larger than the size of the font of surrounding text. But that is less bothersome than the client environments where the code font ended up small enough that it was difficult to read.

    New users still get "Large Code Font" disabled and so may want to visit Display Settings to change that.

    - tye        

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by sparkyichi (Deacon) on Aug 23, 2013 at 21:22 UTC
    I, for one, like how the Monastery looks.

    Sparky
    FMTEYEWTK

      Me too.

      There are too many sites out there, which try to impress with menues, pictures, animations ... and fail. I'm here for the content. And I prefer that content without being surrounded by modern gimmicks. I have seen too many sites that want to be stylish, but are just a waste of bandwith.

      Rata (maybe too old-fasioned)

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by atcroft (Abbot) on Aug 24, 2013 at 06:36 UTC

    There is a quote I have heard recently, "Be the change you want to happen..." (or something like that). In the case of this site, remember that all of the work is done by volunteers, and in the case of volunteers, as their time permits and with the welfare and usability of the site (for all users) a primary concern. So, if you want to change something, discuss it in the Chatterbox, make a good case for it as a posting under Perl Monks Discussion, or, even better, show yourself to be a workman of quality work, then apply to become a member of the pmdev group, so you can help with the maintenance of the site.

    Hope that helps.

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by thomas895 (Deacon) on Aug 24, 2013 at 02:16 UTC

    You're but one of the many who fall into the "make everything pretty". Sure, it probably isn't too much work to slap on some newfangled jQuery widgets(like carousels, I hear that's all the rage right now), some distracting and very large stylesheets, and fluff it up.

    But what would it achieve? Would more people suddenly feel compelled to contribute useful things to this site? And would you -- say you were a user of this site since it started -- be willing to learn a new interface? Probably not!
    Besides, "ugly" is highly subjective. What you consider "ugly" I find anything but: it is functional, does not take forever to load, and has a high chance of working in many browsers. Find out how to apply custom CSS or what have you, and then you can make it look as you wish.

    ~Thomas~ 
    "Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven..."
      Who said anything about jQuery? A web site can be pretty, functional, and have a high browser compatibility, all without any of these new fads.

      I agree with the OP that this web site is rather ugly; it requires a bit more white-space at points, a bit of font and size changes at others, perhaps something to hint that the navigation 'cloud' is a navigation bar ... and that's about it. Not much. But it looks like someone just (in the past few hours) changed the code-block font size default to a more agreeable one (finally!)

      If there's one actual functionality change that's needed, it's not having to type out html tags just to get a damn paragraph break. Textile or Markdown or even just plain text, please.

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by ambrus (Abbot) on Aug 24, 2013 at 11:18 UTC
Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by QM (Parson) on Aug 27, 2013 at 09:51 UTC
    I'm happy The Monastery has stayed simple over the years. It seems like every time I turn around, one of my favorite websites has mirrored TMZ into eye-candy-land, which includes dumping the content.

    Perl Monks is as fancy or as simple as you want to make it, for the most part. I make good use of the personal nodelet, and sprinkle in a bit of CSS.

    If there's something you want to change, bring it up in a discussion. While it seems most suggestions are not followed up either for lack of tuits, or the added server load, some are, and you might be surprised at which suggestions do get in. Even better, make your own solution -- you might learn something about this site and hacking in general.

    I keep coming back here for the content. I probably have my current $job because of the time I've spent here soaking up ideas, playing with things, and yes, even asking questions and getting a variety of good answers. (Even the occasional "WTF?" has been helpful.)

    If you want pretty, tittilating, and "you have to read this" headlines, try TMZ or The Sun or even HuffPost (sorry HP, you drank the Kool-Aid too).

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Aug 23, 2013 at 17:27 UTC
    Zarabozo,
    And I know this is not a Perl question, but it is a question regarding PerlMonks.org

    So why did you post here and not at Perl Monks Discussion? Perhaps it is because you haven't read Where should I post X?. If you haven't read that, then perhaps you haven't read the history of the site either.

    Cheers - L~R

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by runrig (Abbot) on Aug 23, 2013 at 17:28 UTC
    Because the alternative requires ... work?
Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by ruzam (Curate) on Aug 27, 2013 at 18:23 UTC

    I'm entirely happy with the way PM looks. The text is the right size and everything is super easy on the eyes. But I also have Perl-Blue theme set and a permanent login cookie.

    Occasionally I clear my browser cookies and then I'm faced with the default theme of an anonymous user. At times like this I'm reminded of how much I like the Perl-Blue theme.

    I agree that the default PM theme is a shock to the web surfing experience. I don't think it puts the site's best foot forward and I believe (with no facts to back me up) that many other monks have also changed their theme settings to avoid it. And because of that we just don't care what the rest of the world sees, because PM works for us.

    I would suggest changing the default theme is the simple answer to most of the 'why is this site so ugly' comments that pop up from time to time. But to 'what theme' is as subjective as anything else. Perhaps there are some stats as to the most used theme by PM users?

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by digital_carver (Sexton) on Aug 28, 2013 at 03:39 UTC

    The amount of self-righteousness in this thread is staggering. This is not about "prettiness" or "cosmetic" issues, this is about usability, and PM fails horribly at that. It is entirely newbie-unfriendly and has a worse learning curve than vi (with less justification at that).

    Look at the amount of information overload in the homepage. There's a mess of links at the top, mixing account management (logout and username), advanced search (why isn't that near the Search button!), category nodes, and misc. stuff (recent threads, newest nodes) with no distinction. Then there's this utter mess of a sidebar with no differentiation between frequently used and rarely-if-ever needed links (and does "Other users" really need such a prominent place?), along with possibly the world's worst chatterbox in existence.

    Now, you might have gotten used to it and "come to love the site" or some nonsense, but most replies here are firmly pretending as if a usability problem doesn't even exist here. The site is newbie-hostile and does not belong in 2013. And when a monk politely wonders why this is so, there's tons of comments getting up in arms against them, and very little actual discussion as to how this can be changed.

    There have been a few good suggestions to make the site look better, but they still only "prettify" the site, don't actually solve the usability issues. Also, the average newbie isn't going to know about these (and things aren't easy to find due the above-mentioned overload issue), so their usefulness is hugely reduced due to avoidable factors. If this site were open source, or if we had some active maintanence here, we could do so much better, but no suggestion has been made regarding taking steps towards that. PM is the biggest gateway to the Perl community, but right now it's unusable and very successful at scaring newbies away. Defaults matter, let's get some sane ones in place!

      This is not about "prettiness" or "cosmetic" issues, this is about usability, and PM fails horribly at that.

      Well said++

      Unfortunately, you're just pissing in the wind.

      The 'Queen bee hereabouts has "no time" to make major changes; and no incentive to allow others to do so.

      Like the proverbial Prima Donna; there is no incentive to train an understudy. Nor even to facilitate that training.

        I normally find myself completely in your camp but were you not going on about repeatedly refusing pmdevhood recently?

        The site's cosmetics don't bother me a bit. I'm here to read and that's best done in simple, even simplistic, layout. The UX/UI isn't great but meh. I tried hacking on Everything code. While it was years ago and before I'd hit my stride as a developer, it did bother me, completely. The best use of any dev’s time, really, in regards to PM is a total rewrite based on a functional spec of the current one with a little UX design input from StackOverflow and the like which themselves get enough wrong that I'd rather be here even with the inferior UI.

        I've thought about tackling this. It's actually probably not all the that much work. Porting is easier than designing. It's mostly busy work. But I'm busy so keep my pot shots a little more Nerf than buckshot.

        Well said++

        Not really, just more childish rudeness -- boring

      it is entirely newbie-unfriendly and has a worse learning curve than vi
      Wow, thanks. Because now I feel really smart. Because for me the learning curve for this site was flat. Vi however is a different story...

      The amount of self-righteousness in this thread is staggering

      Great first post, I love you, you're master of diplomacy. "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by boftx (Deacon) on Aug 24, 2013 at 05:31 UTC

    Other than having a WYSIWYG editor for entering text I can't think of anything that would actually improve the operation of the Monastery. (I already have to worry about syntax and formatting at work, I'd really like to just type and have it DWIM when I'm relaxing here.)

Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
by wjw (Priest) on Oct 03, 2013 at 05:53 UTC
    I have read through this thread a number of times over the last couple of weeks. Having had some unexpected time to spend here at the monastery has allowed me the opportunity to browse around, try a few things, get a feeling for the usability of the site in general. I conclude that the site is (as it always has been) enormously useful. It is not an eye-candy site, and I do like eye-candy!( Staunch user of e17 regardless of how often it confuses me and it's constant state of beta-we will release someday....maybe ).

    However, I don't come here for eye-candy, I come here to learn and to participate. I come here because I think Perl is the coolest thing since the Z-80 micro-processor, and it continues to be high on the list of cool in a world where 3D printing is just beginning to be cool. That is a long way from the Z-80! Talk about sustainability!

    • Are there things about this site that I might consider changing if I were level 40 - God-of-all-Gods? Yes.
    • Would they change the way the site looks? Yes.
    • Would they make the site more usable? Yes(to me...)
    • Would anyone else like it? Questionable.
    • Would everyone like it? Most assuredly not!
    • Will I be disappointed if things don't change? Yes
    • Will I be disappointed if things do change? Yes
    • Will this site diminish in value if things don't change? Maybe

    Those last three: A community is an evolving thing, just like Perl is an evolving language. If it don't change, it is probably in rigor mortise. Change is good, sometimes even if the initial result is bad. That is the way evolution works. Change proves that a system is working. It does not prove improvement however. There are two questions which I feel need to be asked when deciding whether to change something or not:

    • What is the compelling reason to change?
    • What is the compelling reason not to change?

    If the answer to either or both of those questions is driven by something other than a motivation to address a real problem, then return to question 1 and continue iterating until something breaks loose.

    I can almost guarantee that I will be unhappy with some change that is made. I am opinionated, and I have a lousy sense of style. Is that important? No.

    There is a difficult balance to maintain when operating in a community like this. PerlMonks is about Perl. But Perl is about so very many things! Web sites, command line tools, GUI tools, bioinformatics, databases, linguistics, ...and on and on. That is part of what makes Perl so cool to me. It is also part of what makes this site so good. It manages to stay focused on Perl without being overtly exclusive.

    PerlMonks is a very inclusive site

    And there in lies the real danger of resisting change. As I perused various other postings regarding the technical challenges and resource challenges posed by making changes, I was reminded of some of the projects that I have been involved with. Those challenges are very real and very important. I hope that they are not insurmountable, because the value of change is very real and very important too.

    I have been using the site on my GalaxyTab 10.1 this last week or so. It took me a fair amount of time to get the site tweaked to where my old farmers fingers could move about the site without the utter frustration of ending up somewhere that I did not want to go. I have finally made a few mods in the "Display" settings which make it a lot easier. I ran into a node somewhere that mentioned an effort aimed at small/touch screens...something about "/bare/perlmonks" if I recall correctly. Frankly, I think that is a darn good idea! It is an effort that addresses a changing environment. Signs of life!

    I recently proposed a change to the "Nodes to consider" section. Looking back with what I know now, I may not have made that RFC here. But I did not know then what I know now, and I would not have learned how to "tweak" things if I had not made that suggestion. I would not have been as vested in it if I had not posted. Some of you knew right away that the suggestion has limited value and pointed that out. I still had to experience it for myself to really know what they meant. Along the way, someone pointed out via cb that there was a css mod which improved that section. I would likely not have known about that without posting as I did, and would not probably have been able to make the site work better on my GalaxyTab. My suggestion, as silly as it might have seemed to some, brought value(learning) to me.

    I hope that suggestions for change to the site are handled for others the way you handled it with me. That is inclusively.

    The suggestion that the site presentation be changed does have value. It may not be itself presented with a great deal of tact, but it is valid. Is it important? Maybe...

    Is presentation ever important? Yes.

    Is it a compelling issue for PerlMonks? Not yet...

    I hope I am still around when it becomes so. I would like to think that this community and (selfishly) I am around to know that we have lasted long enough to require that much change...

    Update: fixed unterminated italics tag pointed out by jdporter. Thanks!

    Following is what I added to the "Display" settings node to make things work nicely on the tablet...just in case there is someone like me out there still fumbling about...


    • ...the majority is always wrong, and always the last to know about it...
    • ..by my will, and by will alone.. I set my mind in motion

        Totally new to this site. I registered a few days back. May be I'm in a better position to review to give some useful feedback on this. Or may be you might dismiss my suggestions as not so significant, for a user who just signed a couple of days back

        Firstly, content and good aesthetics are not opposites of each other. Its not like if your site is good looking, it must have bad content. And if it has good content it must look bad.

        Secondly good usability can be achieved by little trickery. In fact good usability is all about doing little trickery and maintaining simplicity. The total net information on a Perl monks page is simply too much. Lesser we display the better. None of this requires usage of shiny new technology.

        Just some points from my end

        1. Displaying relevant information is very important. And what is important with regards to that is to not display irrelevant information.

        The entire right section can go. Voting booth, Left overs, Find Nodes, Information, Sections, Other Users, Chatter box and settings nodelets. Of all these the only ones I see relevant are 'Chatter box' and 'settings'. Which I'm pretty sure can have their own page. Settings definitely can go in the user profile page.

        2. By looking at the whole site it can probably put into front page, questions, user profile & settings, your questions and comments. And that can go right next to the search box.

        3. Search box can be improved, even better can be pointed to Google. The current search is basically an extended SQL command interface. And there is nothing really wrong with that. A lot of sites do it.

        4. We don't need so many categories and sections. One main one for questions and another for meta questions will do.

        The best site I use these days is Hacker News. The interface is so simple and very relevant to exact purpose. There is 0 clutter. It looks welcoming, intuitive, and very usable right from the very first visit.

        The best part? They don't use any shiny new technology, no heavy page payload. And rarely change the site.

        https://news.ycombinator.com/

          Welcome to the Monastery!

          It is good to hear first impressions I think. I took a look at the site you point out in your post and agree that it is minimalist, almost to an extreme. I like it.

          That being said, hang around a while longer and look at the plethora of things available on this site. There is a lot going on here in terms of content and context. Additionally, there is a pretty long history...amazingly long actually.

          Which is why I would encourage you to take a good long look around. Some of what you suggest certainly has merit, but there are long-standing reasons for them to be the way they are, most of those reasons I can only surmise due to the fact that I have been intermittently involved, and mostly as a consumer as compared to a contributor(If that ain't a run on sentence...)

          I think that part of the reason for there being what could be perceived as 'more info than needed' available at any given time is that the members here are encouraged to be involved in most everything. From posting to answering to suggesting to developing(eventually I guess) to, well whatever else is involved in keeping both the site and the community going.

          This site was transparent before being transparent was thought of as a good thing. We used to refer to it as 'open' as I recall.(we being folks of my age, measured more easily in decades as compared to years).

          The users here are the site. Perhaps it would be better to say that the site reflects the users as a community. Communities are messy things sometimes. Too much polish and the site becomes a slick whitewash instead of a reflection of what it really is.

          The other part of that is, at least in my experience, this site is not a service that is offered. In other words, this is not a client/server application. There isn't a 'they' who provide the service and a 'us' who use it.

          Now that I have said all that: Note that I am just some other monk who happens to hang out here. I don't speak for anyone else let alone the community or the site. So what I say above may be a gross mis-representation of what others perceive as reality. At the same time, others may feel free to verbally kick my stupid/ill-informed a$$ for having spoken out of what they perceive is my turn. That is community...and it is fun and informative as well as messy.

          To wind up this windy post:

          1. Give yourself a bit more of a chance to determine relevancy
          2. As you do so, think in terms of community as well as information dissemination
          3. Look closely and you might find that some of what you suggest is already there..
          4. Categorization and sub-categorization tend to happen when there is depth as well as volume, which means that sometime even the little things are held as valuable(a good thing for me because I tend NOT to do astounding things but I get to feel valued anyway)
            1. Mostly --- Welcome and enjoy!


              • ...the majority is always wrong, and always the last to know about it...
              • ..by my will, and by will alone.. I set my mind in motion
    Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
    by sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Aug 27, 2013 at 15:55 UTC

      Second your thoughts about “eye-candy land.”   Consider GMail, for instance.   Or, “I don’t want Chat to go away.”   Not one of Google’s millions of customers is given any say in the matter; or, any warning; or, any recourse.

      PM is, to me, above-all an information resource.   It has quirks and lacks things that I sorely wish that it had, but it runs reasonably fast and it gets me the answers that I need to know, quickly.   For any browser that I could think to throw at it.   So, I would suggest that we all should proceed with caution.   I don’t give a damm if an oracle has a wart on his nose and buck teeth if he gets me the information I need to know and gets it to me now.   Which this site does do.   And if it continues to attract the quality of participants (present company not included) that it does now do.   (Which also it does because there is one “go-to site for Perl,” not several competing ones, and this one is “it.”)

      Cosmetic improvements are not terribly important to me, especially to the extent that they might cause disruption of access to the information resource and/or “no real improvement” to that information service.   I prioritize search-tools (and now-missing IMHO ratings tools) highly; cosmetics very low; strictly in terms of “what’s in it for m-e yo moi.”

        Clearly cosmetic improvements are not terribly important to you! Your posts look like an explosion in a punctuation factory! Can you at least try to get through a paragraph without sprinkling in scare quotes?

          ... and can you please bother to log in?   Heh.

          Cosmetic improvements, of course, would be nice ... bring ’em on.   Lord knows that this site could use ’em.   I have also offered many specific suggestions for ways that the site could (IMHO) be made even more useful to me (in terms of searching through decades-old posts) ... none of which suggestions happen to be “cosmetic.”

          IMHO, this really comes down to the essential web-site question:   Why are you here?”   For me, and I daresay for a great many other people, that answer is:   because here I can ask almost any question at all about Perl, and in a matter of minutes/hours get a great answer from someone who actually knows Perl.

          But wait ... there’s more ...

          The other answer is:   because, no matter what it is that is confounding you right now, the odds are very excellent that someone else has beaten his/her head against the very same rock, and talked about it such that you can now avoid repeating the same snafu.   Priceless.™   And you can find it all right here.

          I am not apologizing for the site’s present it-sucks visual appearance, nor am I arguing that it should not change, when I say that I can easily tolerate its present suckiness in my daily pursuit for what it can do for me.

          Clients pay me to pull rabbits out of my hat.   They do not care where those rabbits came from.

    Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
    by Anonymous Monk on Aug 24, 2013 at 07:47 UTC

      I don't mean to offend anyone here... makes me wonder: Why?

      How does your shoe taste?

    Re: Why is PerlMonks.org still so ugly and outdated on presentation?
    by sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Aug 29, 2013 at 01:15 UTC

      Okay, okay ... we’ve all been here ... (in fact, we do this for a living).   So... let’s try to turn this into a punch list.   “Action items.”   And, to that end, let’s try as quickly as possible to get specific.   What, exactly, would you (whoever you are ...) propose to do, and why, and what is the impact/risk of it?   (Don’t just say that “this sucks...” that’s much too easy.   Tell us exactly what you would do to replace it.)

      Hey, we’re all professionals here ... as I said, we do this for a living.   We all know the game.   Put your proposal into brass-tacks form, and put it right here on the table, accompanied by a schedule and a deployment plan.

        Okay, okay ...

        Why don't you start the list instead?

          In case it helps, here's my list of things that suck about this site's design:

            And here's how I think they should be fixed: