MathOverflow

Martin Sleziak

2:20 AM

No worries, it's a subtle difference since, especially because there's no longer a way to take screenshots of how it used to look to illustrate what we're talking about. Thanks for your research! — Tim Campion 1 min ago

In fact, for some question you possible could be able to find something about the old look (and made some screenshots) using Wayback Machine. However, it takes more searching and trial-and-error than on live site.

Here is a random example - on purpose I chose a question which has an accepted answer, namely Why do roots of polynomials tend to have absolute value close to 1?

Here are all snapshots and the snapshot from August 4 2017.

Do you think adding a screenshot to მამუკა ჯიბლაძე 's answer would help to clarify it?

Tim Campion

2:48 AM

@MartinSleziak Thanks for tracking me down! Definitely, I think it would make a lot of sense to to add a screenshot to Mamuka's answer.

Martin Sleziak

I went ahead and edited the answer.

@TimCampion One minor disadvantage it that the most recent activity is now directed to the answer I have edit.

So if you have something minor you can still edit in your post, that would get a bit more attention back to your post.

Tim Campion

hmmm ill take a look

Martin Sleziak

I should say that I appreciate you constructive way of approaching the new design. The participation in meta on MathOverflow is (in my opinion) generally very low, but maybe MO users will pleasantly surprise me this time.

Now the lastactivity link directs user to your answer. (Which is probably better - since it is the most recent answer.)

Tim Campion

Thanks! I suspect most people who have already seen my post about MO vs MSE are unlikely to revisit it and see the answer suggestions I put up on it, so it might be worth breaking them out as separate questions in a few days.

if nobody else does it, i'll probably do that

Yeah, the edit i made was very minor. But as you say, it probably wasn't an inappropriate thing to do in this case.

Martin Sleziak

@TimCampion My personal experience (or observation) on MathOverflow Meta is that typically the questions gets most attention (views, occasionally comments and answer) while they are displayed in community bulletin. Which sounds logical, since that is when they are displayed more prominently.

IIRC the eligible questions are displayed there if they are not older than fourteen days, so you have at least 10 more days when users will be looking at your question.

Tim Campion

3:02 AM

that's good to know, thanks

who controls what appears up there? is it all automated?

oh, i guess it says on the link you gave me!

Martin Sleziak

41

Q: What criteria is used to select the links that appear in the community bulletin (events / featured / hot meta posts / blog) sidebar block?

On Drupal Answers, the number of meta posts shown in the Hot Meta Posts block on the right (previously called Community Bulletin) is now 2. Previously, there was just a single meta post linked from that block, and it was a featured post; the total number of links was the same, as there was a link...

Of course, mods can add there anything from meta for any time period they wish using featured tag - but this does not happen too often on MO. I count 27 questions in total that were featured at some point.

Tim Campion

Interesting. I suppose my worry is that people will see the question still there on the bulletin and think "Oh, I've already read that" and never see the changes. But if it's up there long enough and they're really frustrated with the new theme maybe they'll circle back.

Martin Sleziak

Perhaps adding link to Carlo Beenakker's post in your post on main meta would be reasonable, too? Just as a way to give them credit - showing where the screenshot is taken from.

Tim Campion

good call -- just added

Martin Sleziak

8:10 AM

I have added a screenshot to illustrate your answer (see also the discussion in MathOverflow chatroom). Feel free to revert my edit if you consider it unnecessary. — Martin 5 hours ago

@Martin Thank you very much for your time and effort to investigate. The screenshot is fine except it would be more informative to include a whole page with the question and a couple of other answers. — მამუკა ჯიბლაძე 1 hour ago

@მამუკაჯიბლაძე I am afraid that if we include other answers then the screenshot would be either too big or after scaling almost unreadable. Of course, you can take a screenshot in the way you like from the lined snapshot. (Or you can try to find some other question which is more suitable for illustrating this.) — Martin 1 hour ago

@Martin Thank you for the suggestion. I believe readability is not that important in this case. Let me try, if you will find it unacceptable please revert it back. — მამუკა ჯიბლაძე 4 mins ago

The current revision now has a different screenshot.

It seems to be from some archived version of: Elementary subgroups of surface groups.

Link to all snapshots and snapshot from June 19 2017.

Martin Sleziak

6:47 PM

I was wondering whether it would be possible to make tags look closer to the previous look.

This is the old look:

This is the new look:

I do not know much about css but after some experiments it seemed that changing to font-weight: 700;made the tags look a bit closer to the original look.

But probably only the colors can be changed for the tags...?

From Responsive Design Themes - What can sites customize and how can they get changes implemented?:

> Fonts are set network-wide with either a serif or sans-serif stack.

> Colors can be customized to a degree (and many have been adjusted through this process). This includes buttons, ... tag colors (background & text), ...

Martin Sleziak

7:04 PM

BTW the screenshot for the old look was taken from the same Wayback Machine link I've posted above.

Do you think that changing background color to something distinctive would be too disturbing? Here I tried the same color as the button "Ask Question" has.

Perhaps less bright color would be better, but I think that maybe background color for tags could help distinguish the sites.

Just for the record, the one used above was background-color: #F2871F; - and as I mentioned I've copied it from the "Ask Question" button.

I have asked about tags also on the post on Meta Stack Exchange, we'll see whether I get some response:

What can be customized for tags? Just color and backround color? Can also borders be customized to some extent? Can maybe also font-weight be customized? — Martin 17 mins ago

What about some shade of grey - that's easier on the eye:

Martin Sleziak

7:42 PM

rene and Catija left some helpful comments in Tavern on Meta: chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/7434007#7434007

Martin Sleziak

8:01 PM

0

A: How can we visually differentiate MathOverflow from MathStackExchange within the constraints of the new design themes?

According to post on Meta Stack Exchange (and the stuff I was told in chat) it seems that color of tags can be changed. (To be more specific, Catija mentioned as an example of a site which changed looks of tags from defaults Mi Yodeya. Maybe simply changing background colors for the tags would h...

Denis Nardin

9:12 PM

For what is worth doing a CSS that, when loaded by Firefox, moves MO to the old color scheme is almost trivial. I already did so this evening in an attack of nostalgia :) I'm really not sure why the people at SE did not keep the old color scheme. Hopefully we can convince them to go back, it does not look something intrusive. Otherwise, I'll keep my custom CSS :)

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