You may have noticed a slight layout change here at LQ. We are working to make the site easier to use and navigate. I am also considering removing the buttons in the upper right and moving all of the nav to the "Main Menu" box as text links. Before I do that I'd like to get some feedback on what people think. Thanks.

--jeremy

BTW, thanks again to david_ross, who has been helping quite a bit with this!

I was going to post just now, but I figured you were still working on it. The blue title bars for Main Menu and Thread are not aligned. I also think that once I get below the banner add, the empty white space on the right looks ugly. I'm not quite sure what could be done with it. I don't particularly like the vBulletin buttons on the upper right, so you get thumbs up from me on that change.

You can get a sneak peak at what it would look like here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/

--jeremy

Jeremy,

I logged in to answer a 0 reply and noticed there was a penguin and a menu on my page, making the vertical space even smaller. I don't like that at all, and when I posted some coded text it has a scroll bar in it. Don't like vertical scrolling at all. The site is beginning to look very commercial to me. I don't like those 2 new things you've added to the Home page, either, and wasn't going to complain. But since you're asking...
I became a Contributing Member for 2 reasons:
(1) to help support a great Linux help site,
(2) to rid myself of ads.
I'm not interested in either LXer or OSDir.com, and would prefer that I could go to them through a bookmark of something if I wanted to do so. Because it's on the LQ Home page, which has been my Home page for months now, I have checked some of the articles. Very rarely is it something of interest to me (just my opinion). If they're going to remain there, why not at least put them below the Threads With 0 Replies. That's one of my favorite features of the LQ Home page, and I don't like scrolling through ads to read them.

Web sites are hard enough to navigate with all the ads these days, and the more junk that's on them, the less I visit.

I really like the buttons in the top left - they help me to navigate to those areas easily. If you're going to go with menus, why not leave them on the main page, and not take any more vertical space from the threads? No one likes vertical scrolling - this has been proven since the 80's.

Something else I really like is the (Contributing Members can also use the Google Search) on the Search page. If I enter a search string in the Basic search section, all manner of threads come up and most of them are not related to the problem. However, when I use the Google Search feature, I get only threads with those particular words. I never use the Basic search anymore at all...

Chinaman,

Thanks for the feedback. As always I am interested to hear what everyone thinks. The scrollbars were added to the code blocks a little while ago to avoid having to scroll the entire page.
While I do agree that the right column does take up precious real estate, it will allow use to simplify the navigation of the site and get rid of the buttons in the upper right. We can then shrink the leaderboard to a standard 468x60 ad and move it to where the buttons are now, which will shift the content up a bit. If anyone else has any feedback, please let me know. The site is here for you, the LQ member - your feedback does make a difference.

--jeremy

I only noticed the scroll bar in the code block today. It makes it even harder to read
the code block, IMO, but then, I haven't used it much... ;-)

What is "the leaderboard?" I thought this displayed the stats of a competition.

Perhaps you could consider putting this new ad and menu at the bottom of the page,
where it would not take up thread space? Just a thought.

Anyway, it looks like it's alread a done deal.

I'd be interested in what others think of the code block. While it seemed odd (as change usually does) at first, I have grown to like it. The leaderboard is the large ad at the top of the page. This will be shrunk down to a standard size banner.

--jeremy

There is no large ad at the top of this page. I must be missing something...

Well, you can turn it off, but the vast majority of members cannot.

--jeremy

Turning off the banner ads is an incentive for becoming a Contributing Member. So how about
giving CM's the ability to turn off the other extras coming along - like LXer, OSDir.com, an
extra menu and ad inhibiting vertical scrolling? Since ads aren't what anyone comes to LQ
for, perhaps you could add the extra stuff at the bottom of the page. That way, if someone
wants to just post and help, they don't have to wade through the sponsors, etc.. ;-) LQ is a good
site, and one thing that's set it apart from others in the past has been this lack of clutter. Don't
mess up a good thing, mate.

Leaderboard is not an ad...

Leaderboard.
n. A board that displays the leaders in a competition.

A 728 x 90 IMU ad is called a leaderboard by the IAB. As things settle down I will give contributing members the abilities to turn off more ads, but the reality is that less then .01% of members are contributing members and we need funds to pay for bandwidth, servers, expansion, etc.

Keep the feedback coming.

--jeremy

Your site is awesome - I hope commercialization doesn't change that...
Not that you're asking, but there is no free lunch, and if we were polled,
I'd prefer a small fee for all members rather than commercialization.

Chinaman,

regardless of what ads we serve we will remain committed to listening to our members and maintaining one of the best Linux communities on the web. I promise that to each and every LQ member. As always, if you see something you don't like please do post. I can't guarantee that it will get changed, but I can guarantee that I will listen and keep all feedback in mind.

--jeremy

Perhaps posting this thread on the Home page or somewhere would get more feedback.
I only found it because I noticed the new layout and the vertical thread area so much smaller, and went to Website Questions & Suggestions to post, and by reading some first
I found this thread.

The homepage has been updated.

--jeremy