MathOverflow

Tim Campion

1:08 AM

@Catija Thanks, that's good to know. It's a disappointing, but important message to communicate.

So I guess the message now is that SE is going to resist implementing new customizations also on the grounds that they want the sites to all look the same.

So part of the answer when we protest "But the sites all look the same now!" is "Yes, that's the point."

Catija

1:24 AM

@TimCampion I need to find a good way to analogize it... we don't want all of the sites to be the same... they'll be more similar than they were before but not really the same. In fact, part of the goal is to finally give designs to the ~100 beta sites that are currently identical other than their site name. I know it probably comes off as being a distinction without a difference...

We want sites to have connective elements but still have their own personality. And how that's expressed may change as we get deeper into this. Once everyone is in the same place, we can start looking for ways to make sites special - like the robot in the sidebar on Worldbuilding.

Denis Nardin

So, jumping in on this discussion, how upset would SE be if I put on meta the CSS I wrote to get the old answer indicators colors?

Without any guarantee that it won't make your computer explode of course

Catija

Not at all. We love users customizing their experience with userscripts. I've got a dozen or so of them.

Denis Nardin

I might polish it a little bit in the weekend and do so then

Tim Campion

@Denis Please do! I for one would love to see it. The thing is just kind of soulless now...

Catija

I even have a silly one that makes mod usernames in chat appear in green instead of blue. ;)

Denis Nardin

1:32 AM

This is the current front page for me

I also readded the background color for the accepted answers

Catija

And many of the scripts I use were written in whole or part by staff. We design the site for that.

Tim Campion

nice!

Denis Nardin

It's not identical to the old one, but it does not need to be

Tim Campion

absolutely

Denis Nardin

Anyway sorry, carry on your discussion

Tim Campion

1:33 AM

i just noticed that martin sleziak has a question on meta soliciting exactly this kind of thing

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Q: How can I customize site in my browser to get "old feel" look of MathOverflow?

It seems that some of the users are not too happy with the new design and prefer the old look. I will admit that I have not much experience with this stuff, but from I've read on various meta sites in this network, it seems that it is possible to make modifications to a site (or even add new el...

i think my overall negative reaction to the way the site looks now is partly just that there's not enough color on the screen, plus the fact that the background looks like such a placeholder.

there's another dimension too where I think many MO users are not interested in sharing a network-wide identity.

Denis Nardin

I have no probems with a network-wide identity. But to me the sites felt very similar even before. I understand there's a need to simplify the backend but I feel this is going way too far

If I'm going to be expected to distinguish the sites by the shade of blue of the text in the question list... just tell us they're going to be the same

Tim Campion

I mean, when you get down to it, almost all of the things that are allowed to be different between MSE and MO are already different -- from the serif / sans serif font to the text color to the tag color to the background -- and yet it's still hard to tell which one you're on

Denis Nardin

I'm very sympathetic to the constraints of using a small number of font variants, because fonts create all sort of hell with the spacing. Similarly for the border decorations. I'm more puzzled by the insistence that the colors of many things are impossible to change

Tim Campion

you mentioned you're colorblind, right Denis? But it still makes a difference to you?

Denis Nardin

Colorblind is an unfortunate name in English. I'm not literally blind to colors

Tim Campion

1:45 AM

sure

Denis Nardin

I cannot distinguish red from green (really: some shades of red from some shades of green) and blue from purple (ditto)

I can easily see when a box is colored and when it's white :)

If anything the low contrast aesthetics that they seem to have adopted makes things much worse for me

Tim Campion

interesting

Denis Nardin

(just to check: the aesthetics is low contrast, right?)

Tim Campion

i think so! The screen comes across as mostly white and grey to me!

Denis Nardin

Ok great, so it's not just me :)

Tim Campion

1:50 AM

The most colorful thing is the box around accepted answers, and even that is much lower contrast than in our old look

Denis Nardin

Wait is there a box around accepted answers?

Tim Campion

i mean on the front page

where it used to be brown / light green / green and now it's white / empty box / filled-in box

the filled-in box is the most colorful thing, but it's not very colorful

Denis Nardin

Yeah, for me it's barely a step up from gray

I see it's not gray, but I sort of have to pay attention to notice it

Anyway, it's very late in this corner of the world and I better get some sleep

G'night

Tim Campion

alright, nice chatting, night!

David Roberts

3:13 AM

For what it's worth, when I'm on my (7") tablet and scrolled down from the top of the page, M.SE and MO are indistinguishable (perhaps there's some font different that I never noticed before....), and the logo in the sticky bar at the top is the SE logo, not the MO logo, so it's not clear I'm on mathoverflow.net or on generic.site.stackexchange.com

Martin Sleziak

3:49 AM

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Q: In the new site design, what should the background look like on MO?

SE is giving us pretty limited options for how the site is going to look going forward. Our most popular customization request, judging either from Carlo Beenakker's original suggestion or the discussion here, doesn't look likely to happen at least any time soon, because (according to Catija's co...

discussion design

This is from Responsive Design Themes - What can sites customize and how can they get changes implemented?

> Sidebars/backgrounds can have a light-colored solid, pattern/texture, or fade or even a combination.

> The left navigation text is black everywhere on the network and the navigation column does not have a separate color background, so the background must be light enough and without overly-distracting artwork so that it is of sufficient contrast and legible.

The linked examples are: Travel, RPG, Code Review, Puzzling.

@TimCampion Perhaps the above text (or at least the first part) could be copied also to your most recent question: In the new site design, what should the background look like on MO? Mainly to give users who decide to participate in this discussion opportunity to see some of the possible options.

Martin Sleziak

4:08 AM

@DavidRoberts It's a very minor distinction, but isn't the topbar always displayed - and in there the words "Search on MathOverflow"? (I have to admit that I have never used the site on any kind of mobile device, so I don't really know.)

Since you listed the differences, perhaps this is worth adding to the list. (It's easy to miss, but OTOH it remains even when I scroll.) On most pages - and when I haven't recently done some search on the site - I see in the top bar "Search on MathOverflow" vs. "Search on Mathematics". — Martin Sleziak Dec 11 at 18:53

In any case, the discussion on meta seems be quite active (mostly thanks to Tim Campion), probably after some time the MO site gets more distinctive look.

@TimCampion I have posted the quote with links to the examples at least as a comment under your question. If you add this to the question, feel free to ping me here to let me know that I can deleted the comments. (The other option is to flag the comments as "no longer needed" - in which case a moderator would deleted them if they get to your flag before I notice your ping.)

Tim Campion

4:25 AM

@MartinSleziak Please feel free to edit!

Martin Sleziak

4:39 AM

I see.

@TimCampion I have added the part I've suggested. I count on you that you edit the post further to the format you're satisfied with.

My comments are no longer needed, so I'll delete them.

Let me just say thank you for your activity in connection with the new design. If I may say so, you are clearly most active and also you try to direct the discussion towards constructive things - as opposed to some posts and comments which seems mostly consist of complaining about things.

I think that many MO users feel the same about your activity - at least the upvotes on your post suggest so. (So that you don't get praise only from an outsider who actually does not belong here.)

BTW one positive thing about the new design is that it brought a bit more people to meta and chat. (Usually the activity in both places - but mainly in this chatroom - is virtually non-existent.)

Martin Sleziak

4:58 AM

The fact that you've been rather active recently also shows in the participation tab on meta. I would not be surprised if you were at the top of this list in a month or so. (I will mention a "hidden" feature - that there is also participation tab on the main site.)

David Roberts

5:39 AM

@MartinSleziak below a certain pixel threshold for window width the search bar (with the site name) disappears, replaced by a magnifying glass icon. I can reproduce this on my computer, why not try resizing your window to be super narrow? Given how many people access the web on mobile devices I think this loss of branding is a crucial error.

The number of students I have who interact with assignments, online computer exercises, the official course website, Wolfram|Alpha, ... on their phones is astounding. None of these people will be able to see the (subtle) hint that they are on a different site to what they are looking for.

Martin Sleziak

I guess I am the old generation that still uses desktop rather than mobile. (In fact, recently I was thinking about getting rid of my cell phone entirely.)

I agree that the thing I have mentioned is very subtle - and as you say, it's completely missing on some devices. Let's hope that at some point there will be a better indication.

Tim Campion

5:59 AM

@MartinSleziak Thanks! I really appreciate the work you've put in on this too!

Martin Sleziak

Well, I haven't really done too much. (And considering the duties I'll have the next week and during this weekend, my further contribution to those discussion will be only very minor.)

Tim Campion

6:52 AM

@Catija by the way, why is it so important that the left nav text be black? Is this another uniformity thing?

Apparently it's important enough that Science Fiction SE is being forced to completely redesign their look, but I don't understand why it's important.

Federico Poloni

8:59 AM

Guys, we can change what we want:

> Stack Exchange acknowledges that moderators may wish to make reasonable
adjustments to the operation of MathOverflow 2.0 by means of extra clientside
JavaScript. Thus, moderators shall be permitted to submit additional JavaScript to Stack Exchange which, if it does not compromise the technical integrity of the network, will be inserted into the footer, allowing some reasonable modification of the site that is specific to MathOverflow 2.0. MathOverflow and you acknowledge and agree that the Stack Exchange 2.0 HTML is changing all the time, and accordingly, such JavaScript will need to be a…

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From the MO-SE agreement that defined hosting

48

A: Who owns MathOverflow?

While the MathOverflow site is operated by Stack Exchange, Inc., the domain and the MathOverflow name are owned by the MathOverflow corporation. The MathOverflow corporation is completely independent from Stack Exchange and its mission is to ensure the continued operation of the site in a manner ...

So for instance we can incorporate @DenisNardin's userscript into the main site

Federico Poloni

9:17 AM

(Well, at least the moderators can)

Dattier

1:57 PM

@TimCampion : because the humans are curious, that's why the mathematics exist

Tim Campion

4:55 PM

@FedericoPoloni That's great, we should probably consider something like that.

David Roberts

9:38 PM

Fwiw, this is MO on a narrow screen:

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David Roberts

9:53 PM

And this is math.SE on the same screen

I didn't scroll down enough on the second one, but once I do, the URL bar hides.

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