Site Updates: Comments and More Comments (Oh, and a Better Font, Too!)

We made a couple of changes to the site over the weekend that I’d like to draw your attention to. First, a much-requested and long-overdue feature we’ve implemented is in-article comments. For as long as the site has existed, we’ve relied on our forums for discussion of both our news and content, but for obvious reasons, that’s not the most convenient solution in today’s Web. Comment sections, on the other hand, are pretty much the epitome of convenience.

Going forward, our forums will be used for everything aside from content discussion (although you’re still free to create threads related to any of it yourself). Now, each article you view on the website will have comments at the bottom of each page. You can comment using either a Disqus, Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account (our forum accounts are being kept completely separate to avoid an overly-complex setup).

In addition to the comments, we’ve also tweaked the font used for the main portion of the website. It’s a bit larger than it was before, resulting in greater readability, either on a mobile device or the desktop. So far, I think the result looks great. We’ve also changed the color of our hyperlinks, as our original (matching the deeper blue of the site) were a little too difficult to read (made worse by the original smaller font size). We’re still tweaking the final color.

While some of these changes seem minor, they’re effectively building the base for more major changes to come. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be working on giving the site a facelift. In the end, we want to deliver a site that’s more enjoyable to use, and offers more functionality than it’s ever been able to. The first fruits of this labor should be seen in very early 2013. We’re still in the planning stages of what the site should offer, and as always, we welcome your ideas as well.

Until then, happy reading and commenting!