@naxa welcome. find anything interesting?

actually I gotta go back :)

just wanted to check in, but we got a lots of work left

by the way I like questions like the one asking for accurate musical instruments

i think noone expects a complete answer

it's a great opportunity to gather the knowledge of the community if you ask me.

and am particularly disappointed with, for example scif-fi.SE, focusing only on plot and universe. This is a bit unrelated but I often think: there are so much art out there that was never meant to be a canon dogma but spark discussion and thought instead. Is discussing what is actually in the plot really the best thing we can do with the work? :)

well maybe next time if I won't late I can put my thoughts in

@naxa feel free to leave your thoughts in the meta, the decision is by no means final

but the more important thing I was always thinking about that anime.SE needs a nice CSS layout with anime images. look at photo.stackexchange.com everyone loves that! the default beta site is just not very well fit for anime if you ask me

@Krazer sure thank you :) I will see if I have the time started to write an answer already but I got stuck because I can't recall hitchhiker guide quotes from memory and only have a Hungarian edition :P

@naxa we're still in beta, when we graduate, we'll have a nice and spiffy one xD

@Krazer is it not possible with beta? I always thought it really puts people off and drive them away the way betas all look the same, and not particularly well-defined if you ask me... looks is important nowadays!

would be great if betas could do it

can they not? have no possibility for that?

@naxa Jin the lead designer for SE has a lot of work and it takes alot of effort to do a original design for each QA site

@Krazer ah I thought each site does it's own design!

so it's not feasible atm

yes.. I understand if it gots official it needs official level arts...

@naxa the community can vote on what they want, but the final creative decision is up to Jin

but until beta? can beta admins not change the looks with their own work? huh?

@naxa this might help: goodreads.com/work/quotes/…

thanks I've checed some quote pages but couldn't yet find :)

the quote

@naxa the mods cannot, but we do have a community site if you want to check it out of have suggestions

can the technical and design work be done by community members, so Jin only have to approve and upload the already ready work, if the community supports it?

eg. is there some kind of templates that one can work with

so the community just do the design, it's a beta site so no big review is needed, and then someone who has the rights just applies it...

@naxa Any work on the branding of the StackExchange sites is up to the SE community team, we moderators have no sway in the design

you may propose templates on MetaStackOverflow, but it's not priority atm

I mean technically do I download a css file, put my stuff in, upload so community can vote on it and then send it to Jin in email who copies it to a folder and thats it?

:)

in contrast to a free-form css work when I have no domain knowledge of the stackexchange template

so noone can apply my template technically easily and the max I can propose is a psd file :)

oh thanks :)

really didn't get this one

I don't think it's a very nice idea by the way

Jin uses LESS for his styles, the community runs on MVC4

While designs for beta sites would be really nice, I don't think SE has the time to do that, and even if they did we wouldn't be anywhere near the top of the list. It would be nice to at least be able to change the color scheme so that we don't look exactly the same as every other beta site, but even that's not likely to happen any time soon.

yes. whatever technology it is, what I'm trying to ask is "can I do all the work without Jin, eg. because stackexchange provides me with the basic template which contains everything a stackexchange site needs so I know what classes I have to define etc." ?

:)

but from the conversation I suppose it's not like I can download the basic stackexchange template and put my work in it, but extract the css from an existing site at best, put my work in, and then it will be incompatible with Jin's LESS so it needs to be rewritten

@naxa if you'd like you can create can Greasemonkey script to style the site as you see fit based on it's current templates and propose it on MetaStackOverflow

it's very counterproductive that a beta site like graphics design or anime can't get better looks. there are communities that just expect compelling visuals for their sites.

@naxa There's nothing like that at the moment officially. You could probably host a mirror of the site with a different design, but the main site is going to look like this for a while. You could put a feature request on meta.stackoverflow.com but I doubt it would be acted on anytime soon.

@naxa LESS is an extension to CSS, and is not only backwards compatible with CSS, but the extra features it adds use existing CSS syntax

@LoganM Greasemonkey does what you propose, but on the client-side, so no hosting is needed.

@Krazer the point is not me viewing the site differently, I do that currently with stylish. the problem is that it would be great if Jin wouldn't be overloaded with graphics work. the community has so much more people. on a site like graphics design anyonye could put together a good design. there is no reason to stand and wait in a queue until Jin has free time. especially for a beta. except the thing that it seems that SE doesn't support this! :)

yes I know LESS

it's a great thing

@Krazer That's probably a better way to go about it.

I'd write it in LESS but until there is no official template it's pointless since someone still would need to rewrite it :)

Greasemonkey is not useful for the community to grow. the problem is not that I can not get great looks on any site I point to if I really try hard.

the point is that the beta site will have a harder time growing a user-base if it looks bad for most of the people

and if there is only a limited number of graphics designers, then there is no time to work on beta sites

but if there were an official template and support for posting design works for the SE beta sites that would be actually compatible with the real SE system, than anyone from eg. a site like graphicsdesign SE could create a great looks for their beta site and noone would need to wait, and because the site would look better more users would come and use it because for everyone it would look better, not only for the technically more proficient.

@naxa I agree, but I don't think this is the most serious issue we are facing at the moment. In any case, the only people who have any control over this are the SE devs, so unless a feature request gets posted on MSO they probably won't change anything.

I agree the the beta sites need more customizability, but there not much we can do here

okay I see. just tried to make my point clear. :)

I'll go apply for a job at SE and mention this to them

wow great! :)

I gotta go.... my gf is waiting :)

thanks for the chat

bye!

@naxa have fun~

I'm starting to like this avatar. I'm not sure if I should switch back to the old one tomorrow or keep this one for a while.

@LoganM well the weather is getting warmer~ miki would want to cool off a bit more

@Krazer you are really applying for a job at SE?

@JNat should I?

@Krazer I don't know. Depends on your goals or something I guess

@JNat not sure really, thinking about it

@Krazer I have considered it too, but only after I end this semester

and that is in October, since it is my final semester

@JNat what about your trip to Japan ;D

@Krazer I think it'll have to be postponed

I'm considering London ATM

@JNat wut about amurica?!

@Krazer It's not a closed door for me, but it's not one of the top countries either

what are your top 3?

@Krazer UK, Japan and probably Brazil, although I'm not sure about the third

but I'm basically open to anywhere where good opportunities come up

I may even stay here

although that is not likely

@JNat I want to journey around the world too :D

@Krazer have you lived outside the US?

@JNat yes

nice

big culture clash?

@JNat depends... I enjoy the food culture clash

@Krazer yes, I enjoyed that too

and I have some pics for you :P

I'll show you when I upload 'em

@JNat :D~

where have you lived outside the US?

far far away?

@JNat china for about a year

I sincerely apologize I couldn't make it.

How was it?

@JNat @Krazer?

I've seen it.

Was that all you've discussed?

we didn't go massively over time this time~

@MadaraUchiha that's right

Alright

@MadaraUchiha well, now you know :)

@MadaraUchiha and no problem

The Japanese cover version of "Telephone" (originally by Lady Gaga)

Beach/swimming day is disappointing so far. I was hoping for dozens of questions with pictures of cute girls in skimpy swimsuits, but so far there's only 5 questions.

I guess this proves that no one can question babes in swimsuits

Indeed, there aren't as many as I'd expected for such a... ehm... hot topic.