RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Five for the redesign, minus fiddy for the cruel and unusual color scheme. Reminds me of that sheriff in Arizona that paints the jail cells pink and clads the prisoners in pink underwear because some shrink once did a study and found that it quieted the inmates.

Didn't work there, won't work here. F*cking pitiful...

It's different, but I like it.

I liked the old format better, but there are some things I like better. The one major thing I dislike is no longer being able to do unhelpfuls.

Well the saying goes that a change is as good as a holiday! Well me personally, I have mixed feelings. Well I havent been on RIA for a few weeks then when I came back a month ago, wow! I was suddenly shocked by this big, awkward new RIA style. Well Ill be fair and list the pros and cons. The pros for the new design is that the writing is bigger which makes it so easy to read, there is a feeling of newness to the site and new things can be exciting. Plus there is no hiding on RIA now which l love eg in the past, I noticed that some people didnt want to disclose eg whether they were male or female and you can give more personalised profiles of yourself. Plus you can see when the person first joined. I do like the fact it is more user friendly ie the bigger writing, big stars, clearer descriptions and there are some new functions which I am yet to discover. I love the new feel because it is almost like a new start. But on the other hand, the cons are, for a start, I really didnt see the need for them to change RIA because I liked the format the way it was ie there was nothing wrong with the old format. I actually found the smaller print easier to read because I didnt have to spend all my time scrolling. I liked the compactness of the old design and felt it was far easier to navigate around because since everything was more compact, you got a more birds eye view of where you were. But now since everything is so big, I find it hard trying to figure out where I am! I have to scroll until I can finally see where I am. They have made it too big. Plus I dont like the way weblists are structured eg I liked it how there would be item numbers eg 1 to 20, now you dont know which is which unless you count them. Plus eg when you get a private message, the writing is so big in the box it is hard to see what you are doing, plus in this new design, the private message is a whole page below you and you have to scroll through all this white space. That is a real pain. But in the old style, the message would be right in front of you, instead of you having to scroll all the way down. Overall, I actually find this site to be slower and I have to spend half my time scrolling where as before, I could eg make a comment so easily and quickly. Overall, I was originally against the changes when they first occurred and was shocked. But now I am starting to get used to them and maybe I might grow to like it. But for now, I like the old design far more. It was compact and I knew exactly where I was on the screen and things were laid out in a way where you could more easily locate them. There was no need to change the overall design but nevertheless, instead of resisting change, I may as well make the most of this change and just focus on the good points. Im sure in time, Ill get used to this design.

I know some people struggled in getting used to the redesign, but it's definitely an upgrade over what used to be here.

It gets better as you get used to it. Nothing new is ever as good as the old, but after you get used to it, you would never go back to the old. I suspect this will be true of the redesign.

If the point of the redesign was to facilitate reading, writing, and interacting, as Magellan says, I say Mission Accomplished. The site is sleeker, logically laid-out, easier to navigate, and easier on the eyes in every way. (For the record, I happen to like the new stars.)

Sort of concur with the comments of Frogio. Life is about change, and it always takes some getting used to. This is taking some getting used to. In time, my feelings about it might improve...I'm sure they will. For now, I'm decidedly and emphatically ambivalent.

Ah...such is life, and it does go on. Ok, so I feel the format is not as warm and fuzzy as it was in the past...but then again that's exactly how I felt when I moved into my second home and compared it to my first. It's not perfect, but neither was the last format. This one is flashier and the user friendliness only comes in time. Like all of you, I've been fumbling around here trying to understand where it all fits. As for the newest members, they will never know (or care to even read this), but to the "carry overs", we will get the feel of it soon. Sure, I see flaws, but overall, you're reading my message now and tht's what it's all about...in any format, that's what it's all about. All I know is if it attracts new blood it's a good thing...and if it drives away the adapt-disabled then that's a good thing too.

(damn it, whare's that Submit button)

As many of the old regulars have noticed (and commented to me) I have been pretty scarce since around November 2005. I came back a few weeks ago and made a few comments on old Mustangs and Shelbys and was starting to get back into RIA. Now, I feel as if I am no longer on my familiar website and although I am not against change, I am not comfortable with changes that are made simply for the sake of changing, and that's the way I view the current format. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the old design and speaking for myself, I am a creature of habit and no longer feel "at home" on RIA as I once did. The larger font and the different layout seems okay but there was nothing wrong with the old setup. It's probably my browser but now the pictures are all distorted and the one problem that I requested be addressed has been conveniently ignored. Because we lose our helpful and unhelpfuls when we resubmit posts, I have to leave several posts with incorrectly spelled words because to correct them would cost me about 18 helpfuls. It's bad enough that I lost over 900 helpfuls when Goneaway and PBeavr bid us good-bye but I'll be damned if I'm going to shoot myself in the foot as well. Bewteeen the changes that I see as pretty useless, the crummy pictures and the fact that a real problem has been ignored, the chances of me become a regular contributor again are zilch. I won't delete my account because I don't want the other members to lose the helpfuls which I have given them. It was fun while it lasted but it's no fun any more.

I haven't been visiting RIA for a while now, but when I logged on for the first time in a few weeks the other day, I was SHOCKED! This is horrible, you can't check the latest reviews on your weblists, apparently you have to pay to make new weblists, and the overall format and design are crap. BRING BACK THE OLD!!!!!!!

This is definitely going to take a while to get used to. I'm already missing the old look and format.

I'm still ambling my ay through it. But heck, I complained when I had to move away from MS-DOS to Windows.

In a word.....terrible. The font size is too thin, too feminine, and too big (feels like I'm working in a children's word processor). I detest the horizontal scroll; the pages are loading even slower than they used to; the increased size of the avatars washes out detail; I'm getting a steady diet of Google Maps pop-up windows on every new screen; spell-checking is now more time-consuming, because you have to backscroll through more lines due to the increased font size; and there's too much wasted space along the right side of the pages. Barring some newly-installed option that customizes the displays (like an adjustable drop-down menu with a "classic" choice), and assuming this even shows up (yesterday's post didn't), this'll probably be my last for the forseeable future.

I'm definitely not sold on the changes yet. I think there are a lot of things to be worked out for this change to be an improvement. I noticed while checking my google/adsense account this morning, that I got significantly less hits than usual to my pages since the change. It will be interesting to see if the number of page hits returns to normal, or if the new changes decreases them.

Personally, I don't like the new look dudes. It's too big, and I also don't care about the scrolling. It was perfect the way it was before.

It's a mess. What was a logically organized site has become a byzantine maze that is most noticeably an assault on the optical senses. And on a somewhat related note, I'm going to disagree with my colleague from Arizona. All change is not good. Examples of Bad Change: Ronald Reagan being replaced by George H.W. Bush; Me losing my hair; Palestinians selecting Hamas as their new government; Cancer cells spreading to a patient's vital organs; The New York Nets trading Julius Erving's contract to the Philadelphia 76'ers; My newfound inability to break this comment down into separate paragraphs.

I'm pretty happy with it. My favorite parts are the freshness of the stuff on the home page, the profile pages, and how clean and easy it is to read. As far as navigation, I think we'll get used to it. If you remember to look for the Shortcuts box on every page except for the home page, you can get pretty much everywhere you need to go. Yes the stars are a little radioactive, but I think they're sort of distinct, which i like. I agree with Git R Done that the old site had sort of a folksy appeal to it. It was cluttered and messy, but it was friendly somehow. I'll miss that about it. But at the end of the day, the site is about reading, writing, and interacting... my hopes is that we've made those things easier.

i love it. its new and fresh and its a whole new adventure trying to figure out what i'm doing. change is good.

The new design looks too professional. RateItAll has always struck me as an easy going place to share opinions. This new design is too complicated. I have a hard time navigating. Even for people who will sign up for this site, I think they'd find it compicated. The old design was much simplier and easier to navigate.

(Wow. I just got assaulted by those big, huge stars to choose our rating from. If I touch one, do I become invincible like in "Super Mario Bros." or something?) There are many strong points to the new design that I like: the ratings breakdown scale on the right side of the screen is a nice touch. The Reviewer pages are great. I like the type face being large, but I think that it could stand to be a tad smaller without sacrificing readability (so as not to be so "loud"). And I think do without the gigantic Nintendo-esque stars for rating (which I'm not sure if it's just for this page or not, but it's freaking HUGE). Maybe something more subtle. Either that, or just go all the way and give 'em those two beady eyes and make the assimilation complete.

It's better and appears to be faster. I do like the new design and will like it more as I gain greater familiarity with it.

For the love of God, why do we need the "Japan Surrenders"-size font? Have the elderly taken this site hostage?