This is the new Wesleying!
It’s still a work in progress (hence the Beta sign in the corner), but the changes thus far should be immediately apparent.
Thanks to Sam DeFabbia-Kane ‘11 for modifying the WordPress Sandbox theme to better fit our needs for the layout/design you see, which was created collaboratively by Wesleying contributors and is still a work in progress. More changes will be made in coming weeks to keep improving the site.
We now have a nifty events calendar, along with a box in the sidebar which will automatically list upcoming events. So no more weekend update posts, although a minimum of human effort will now allow you to know what’s going on all week.
You can also create a username which you can use to leave comments on the site. Or you can stay anonymous, your choice.
Still to come: an automatic submissions page for events and tips. And more! Maybe. You’ll see.
Unfortunately, due to some issues importing our archives from Blogger, no comments were imported from the old site. Sorry for this inconvenience, we’ll let you know when it’s fixed (it will be). In the meantime, you can access the full archives at the old Wesleying.
Thanks to everyone who donated funds last semester, this move would not have been possible without you. And of course, thank you readers, for your support and for visiting this site as often as you do.
Suggestions or comments (or compliments!) are welcome, leave them below.
68 Comments
keep the old wesleying logo at the top
…the poorly photo-shopped picture isn’t fooling anybody
I like the photo and I like this site.
SOOO GOOOOD
i like the photo! i do miss the wesleying logo though.
For the Automated week(end) roundup:
Use different colors (or boldface) to separate the Dates from the events themselves; this makes the dates themselves, as well as the differentiation between the dates, more easily identified by the eye.
Please make the Calendar subscription available for Google Calendar!
#6: The sidebar formatting is definitely something we are going to tweak.
#7: Awesome feature: click that little speaker icon above where it says March 2009 on the calendar, and it’ll give you a .ical file that you can import into iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar, or what have you.
We appreciate all your suggestions and compliments while we work to perfect Wesleying during this beta period.
Anon 9:32,
If you go to your Google Calendar and select “Add by URL” you can copy/paste this address http://wesleying.org/?ec3_ical in and it should add the events.
The sense that the grey text on the side was intended not to distract from the main content, but it’s very hard to read on a grey background.
* I sense
-9:43
I noticed the “Register” link on the upper right hand corner of the page. What are the benefits of registering?
I know for a fact that the photo is not photoshopped
any way to have comments be pop-upable?
Is there an RSS Feed? (Not for comments, but for posts).
Please please keep the old header!
RSS Feed: http://wesleying.org/feed
i’m not a fan of the new logo either
but the automatic weekend roundup thing is a good idea
i like the picture.
i think the sidebar is too wide– could you make it a little narrower, so we have less scrolling to do to read the main posts?
also it would be nice if the links in the posts were a color other than dark grey– it’s hard to tell that they’re links until you mouse over.
it would be nice if the calendar events changed color as you moused-over so you could distinguish between each link
and it would look a lot cleaner/better with the old header, in my opinion
the photo is cool but not for a website header… “wesleying” is all the way over to the side
when i click to see what events are happening on a given day, i keep thinking that the date the event was posted (march 26 or whatever) is the day the event takes place… it’s listed funny. change it maybe?
thanks
I AM THUNDERCUNT
old header please!
unfortunately, blogger looked better.
Please put the shoutbox reply box back. “leave a reply” sucks…
the old header would actually look pretty nice i think
and give some much-needed continuity to this emotionally tumultuous time for me… i don’t deal well with change
The old header is iconic, in it’s simplistic imagery. This one is… not.
Change it, I say.
Have you considered drop-down boxes for all the links on the left-hand side? It would simplify the appearance and make it more immediately readable/handy
I’m sure you know that you could even us the type that automatically open links in new windows, if you so desired.
*right hand side
**use
yes!! these new comments have clickable links!
I’ll each the sentiments about the new header. It is unattractive and looks really amateur. Go back to the old one, or at least put a box around the words. Just using Photoshop’s burn tool to make the words legible does not count as good graphic design.
Graphic designer #32: Burn makes the image darker, not lighter.
And can we make it so that the top of first post doesn’t butt up against the header? And have the sidebar flush with the right part of the header and the header touching the top of the page?
…or just change the header and problem solved.
seriously do it.
Regarding the header: I’m not a huge fan of it myself, and I would like to see it changed too. This will be discussed, believe me. That said, there are several problems with using the header we had on blogspot. First and foremost, this blog is wider than the blogspot one (which was very very thin), simply scaling it up to fit makes it very tall and the text too large, and we don’t have access to the source file to make modifications easily.
As I said in my addendum to the first post, sidebar stuff will be worked on. Tomorrow or Saturday, hopefully, although not tonight because I think I’m going to be working all night anyway.
#10: I think it’s your monitor, because it’s quite readable on the one’s I’ve tried. I will make it a tad darker though–if you’re having trouble, chances are someone else is too.
#12: Well, you have your own account here for commenting. Other than that not a whole lot, I think, although that may change.
#19: noted.
#20: Yep, that will most certainly happen.
#26: It needs to be formatted, yes, and it will be better then, but I am not going to put the hideous old shoutbox widget on here.
#29: I agree that the links take up too much room. I’ll try to look into some methods of cleaning it up. My personal preference would be to keep the most important ones and move the rest onto a separate links page, but I’ve been overruled on that.
#33: Yes on all of those as soon as I am able.
What’s up with the smiley face on the left side, a little ways down??
Please use the old header. The photo is nice, but the photoshop job looks so amateur.
i like the photo maaaaaaan. don’t hate!
Don’t use the photo as a header, but use it somewhere else in the page. It’s not header material, but a nice photo nonetheless.
Where did the “event submission” link go?
But more importantly (and the reason I went to comment initially), the event submission link didn’t allow for multiple dates and times (which many events are).
Hey #40 – we’re still working on the event and tip submission forms. They were taken down because they’re not finished yet, but they’ll be back up soon. Your suggestion is one we’ll take into account.
Where’s the favicon?
why is this still at the top?
You should post a link to this post somewhere near the top of the page, while the page is still under construction, urging students to leave their feedback here.
the events listing on the right side is really hard to read. perhaps space it out more, and make the dates font bigger and a different color.
I don’t understand the new shoutbox. Why are there no shouts? Is it just that nobody’s used it yet?
The Events calendar is now imported into my google calendar, but for some reason many events are duplicated unnecessarily.
It might be the cause of editing and re-posting events, or it could something else altogether. Regardless, it’s quite annoying.
props on the calendar
the sidebar looks much nicer now. please put more space between the articles.
yes THANK YOU for the new sidebar!! improved a billion percent
But the header still desperately needs to be changed! Badly! Especially since Mads Vassar now has a non-stupid looking one. The old blogspot header was so nice pleeease keep it!!
The sidebar still has a few things I want to mess around with, but I’m glad to hear it’s better. The header is definitely being discussed.
#49: Will do.
Can you make the upcoming events section not show events that have already happened?
thanks for the new site, and thanks for keeping up with suggestions.
Could you not have this post at the top anymore? Most people have read it at this point, and it’s kind of annoying having to scroll past it, especially since its such a long article. Maybe just condense it, or add another, one line post requesting comments and suggestions. Having this automatically on top is confusing, I thought there were no new posts for a week, until I finally scrolled down.
test
#53: no idea why it’s doing that but I’ll look into it when I get a chance.
obviously this is low, low priority, but the little avatars don’t really match the rest of the site (duh).
i’m just curious what you’re going to have instead?
cardinals for anonymouses (anonymice?) and photos for admins?
The picture at the top of the site should be updated every day with a picture from that day…. Kind of a visual weather report.
i love the header! i love the header! i love the header!
why do people want wesleying to be boring and institutional looking? this is so great and colorful!
i know this has nothing to do with how the site looks but where’s the s&c menu
@59 (11:11am)
I think a picture like that is too much a matter of taste to be representing our primary campus blog. It’s analogous to having some pop song embedded on the page that plays each time Wesleying is opened; it’s media that a person (or a group of writers, in this case) personally enjoys and want to share. But it’s not representative of all of our tastes.
To demonstrate my point:
Personally, i think the new header has an air of faux-cool that I can’t stomach. It’s a superficial/oversimplistic representation of the eccentricity for which Wesleyan is known (not that it’s trying to be such, necessarily, but that’s the association it automatically has with me). It’s just not an interesting photo. It looks like it should be on a Hallmark card with a cutesy quote inside or “Go wild!” or something.
SO: this is why just the words “Wesleying” had served us so well at blogspot; it gave all the information you need to know in a header (the title and, in our case, the tagline) and included a picture of the Wes shield, which isn’t as much taste as it is representative of the school we all attend. And the text was in school colors. Really, the only noticeable subjective aspect was the typeface.
So, try out some new typefaces if you’re looking for some excitement, Wesleying. Please. Do not use this photo.
Oh, and the reflection of “Wesleying” across a horizontal bar.
-#61
why is this header back??
everyone loved the april fools one…
i don’t understand
April Fools’ Day is over…
@64
But… it seemed to garner an overwhelmingly positive response, as seen in comments and such. So, where’s the problem?
As stated in the shoutbox, a Poll about the header would be nice and democratic. Then we would really have a feel for what people think of the header.
Is there any way to have pop-out comments again?
1. pop-out comments
2. johnwesleying header
and then i will be happy. i promise.
Change the Header please — the old Wesleying back!
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