Welcome to the New CalStuff
If you’re reading this, it means you found your way to our new site or have your RSS feed working properly. Here is a brief introduction of some of the things that are different. This represents the third or fourth version of CalStuff; some changes have been minor, while others were major overhauls. As always, we welcome your comments on ways that we can improve things for you.
The new blogging platform that we are using, wordpress, allows us to create expandable posts. Now, with lengthy articles we will have the beginning visible on the front page, and the rest can be viewed by clicking a link. This make it much easier for us to run lengthy guest submissions without cluttering up the front page with lengthy text, so if you are interested in writing something (or know someone who might be) please send us an e-mail with your idea. Also, expect more picture below the fold, as we don’t have to worry about a bunch of them slowing down loading on the front page.
Posts on CalStuff are now going to be categorized, so if you read something that interests you, there is a link below the headline that will show posts about similar topics. These categories will become more and more useful as we post more on this new site. Comments are slightly different, something you should notice when you go to read them or post a comment for the first time. For those people using RSS feeds, the links are on the left. We’ve added some new blogroll categories, including links in the lower left that show some of the (non-Berkeley) interests of the CalStuff authors. We are currently working on moving the old CalStuff archives from the old blogspot site over to here. The rest of the changes are mostly behind the scenes stuff that make things much more easy and useful for us, but I won’t bore you with the details.
Those people with bookmarks or website links (or links in your IM profiles), please direct them to this new site, or to www.calstuff.com, which will soon be pointed here. We are continuing to go over CalStuff and make some minor changes and any comments from our readers are always appreciated. As before, you can reach us at calstuff[at]gmail[dot]com. [As I said before, Allen did the vast majority of the work to make this move possible, so he’s totally awesome rad.]
Can you have comments say “x little bears said” like before?
Comment by Andy R. — June 15, 2005 @ 8:15 am
Also John, look out for Panhellenic to launch a Greek blog over the summer. We’re trying to evolve the old newsletters and we’re (we meaning me) thinking that a blog is both more cost effective and gives the community more of a voice. And instead of the depressing news that you’re used to, we’ll also be carrying the cool stuff that conventional new sources don’t like to carry because its not excitingly scandalous. Anyways, its on my summer to do list along with moratorium stuff and up-dating the officers on the Cal Greeks facebook group so that people will stop bitching at me…though once I do that, I won’t get any more facebook mail and will feel sad, lonely, and unloved…almost as unloved as I feel when people bitch at me about their damn officer positions on the Cal Greeks facebook group. Anyways, look for it by fall for sure
Comment by Lauren Karasek — June 15, 2005 @ 4:48 pm
Very nice. But I think the timezone is a little off? Not a big deal, but it’s noticeable.
Comment by patr — June 15, 2005 @ 5:06 pm
Uhh scratch my previous comment… But for some reason, the comment showed up as comment 3 instead of 8. I’m assuming you guys switched the date settings or something. Whatever, it’s all good.
Comment by patr — June 15, 2005 @ 5:10 pm
Is the font permanent?
Comment by Anonymous — June 15, 2005 @ 5:35 pm
A new LiveJournal feed of the RSS:
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=calstuff_rss
Comment by GB — June 15, 2005 @ 5:57 pm
It’s nothing we can’t change. Is there any particular font you think would be good?
Comment by Allen — June 15, 2005 @ 6:17 pm
Love the new site, all in all great improvements. I would personally like to see a “Greek News” category even if its contents are only likely to depress me.
Comment by John — June 15, 2005 @ 7:46 pm
John: There actually is a “Greek” category. Categories aren’t going to show up over on the right until we post something that gets placed in that category. Once we begin posting more content, you will see the Category list expand.
Comment by Andy R. — June 15, 2005 @ 8:09 pm
i would darken the fonts a little. it is a little hard to read some of the text because it blends into the background too much.
Comment by anony — June 15, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
Fonts are now darkened.
Comment by Allen — June 16, 2005 @ 10:15 am
i would make the main calstuff flag (and maybe also the calstuff and most recent posts yellow boxes) link back to the main page since the home link isn’t very visible.
Comment by Anonymous — June 16, 2005 @ 6:28 pm
is it possible to make your names link to your most recent posts? or at least find somewhere where people can find posts categorized by author. (speaking of authors, is cooper even part of this anymore?)
Comment by Anonymous — June 16, 2005 @ 6:35 pm
#12-done
As for categorizing posts by author, it can be done and was planned, but seemed unnecessary. If there’s more of a demand for it, it can be done.
Comment by Allen — June 16, 2005 @ 8:31 pm
can you all change the font that the headlines are in… this seems too cartoony
Comment by Anonymous — June 17, 2005 @ 12:00 am
OMG LIKE THIS SITE NEEDS MORE ANIMATED GIFS LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111
Comment by John — June 19, 2005 @ 12:11 pm
The new layout blows. Give me the old CalStuff!
Comment by Anonymous — June 23, 2005 @ 9:51 am
Most recent anonymous: Over here at blogsome we can recreate a layout that looks almost identical to the old one. We made some changes during the move to improve the sight, but if you can be more specific about what exactly you would want us to change, we can look into it.
Comment by Andy R. — June 23, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
Andy, I thought the overall format of the old blog was much cleaner and easier on the eyes. I don’t like the dashed lines underneath the subject titles, and I really, really don’t like the italicized font for the main subject headings (as has been expressed by others as well). Also, I would like to see more horizontal distance between the main central column and the side columns. The present format looks too cluttered and busy.
Comment by most recent anon — June 24, 2005 @ 12:51 am
This layout is practically the same as the old Calstuff, except coded differently (an HTML table was used before, but now it’s all CSS).
-dashed lines underneath the subject titles
What dashed lines? Do you mean the categories?
-italics in the subject headings
gone, i started to not like them either
-horizontal distance
what desktop resoultion and browser are you using? I’ll see what you see then, and make a judgement from their
Comment by Allen L. — June 24, 2005 @ 7:49 am
The dashed lines under the “In” Titles under the date.
Using IE 6.0 1024 x 768
Also, yellow (light gold, whatever) titles on white background are tough to read. Powder blue used extensively through site is too UCLA-ish; move to a true Cal navy.
Comment by most recent anon — June 24, 2005 @ 8:27 am
Apparently IE rendered those dashes incorrectly. They were dots in Firefox. I changed that to solid lines.
I’m going to keep the width the same. I adjusted my window, and while it did look a tad crowded, it didn’t bother me that much.
Colors were slightly adjusted.
Thanks for the comments.
Comment by Allen L. — June 24, 2005 @ 6:32 pm
is it just me or does the ‘bears said’ link pop up automatically underneath each article, If I want to read what people say I should be able to click a link rather than scrolling through 8 million comments
Comment by anon — September 4, 2005 @ 6:39 pm