"Format Changes" Topic

Some minor changes have been made to TMP over the past few days.

Hobby News on the homepage has always been divided into three sections – what we think of as high, medium and low priority headlines – but the formatting was rather subtle. ('High' are generally new releases, 'Medium' are upcoming releases, crowdfunding, non-wargaming books, and sales/promotions, and 'Low' are local events and informational links/articles.)

The lines around the three sections are now more prominent, so it's easier to tell which section you're looking at.

Also, the company lists in the Manufacturers Directory have been improved in format.

Companies which are TMP advertisers were previously featured in larger size, but now they are larger and on white background.

Other companies are slightly larger in font size too.

Inactive companies are shown on gray backgrounds, and 'deadbeat' companies (generally those that have questionable financial dealings) are on pinkish backgrounds ('tomato' color, to be precise).

All sounds good to me Bill.
I expect some outrage though?

I registered my objections to the organization of the news feed at the time. When all new items were at the top, it was easy to find the stuff you hadn't read yet. With the change, I had to check all of the news items for new content. It's odd that this arrangement lets high-priority items get pushed off the front page if several of them come out at once, while leaving low-priority items up longer!

No one looking at the front page can tell why there are boxes around some of the items. It's also easy to see the horizontal borders running all the way down, bit miss the horizontal borders dividing the sections. Why not put in headings to explain the sections instead of borders?

New Releases
Sales, Upcoming Releases, Crowdfunding, and Books
Articles, Information, and Local Events

Normally I have my bandwidth set to 10 so I see as much as I can. Out of curiosity I logged out to see what it was like for someone that doesn't normally log in (which could be a considerable number of passing traffic)
You only see 3 hobby news photos and then underneath just a block of bullet pointed text.
Surely it would be better to have the "not logged in" default set to maximum bandwidth to show all the adverts in full, to give your advertisers maximum exposure.
If people don't want to see so many photos then it's also a reason for them to actually log in!

It's odd that this arrangement lets high-priority items get pushed off the front page if several of them come out at once, while leaving low-priority items up longer!

No, it doesn't work that way.

Why not put in headings to explain the sections instead of borders?

I experimented with that last night, but thought it looked cluttered.

Surely it would be better to have the "not logged in" default set to maximum bandwidth to show all the adverts in full, to give your advertisers maximum exposure.

It would also cost us lots of bandwidth and raise our costs. But I've been thinking of making some changes anyway…

If high-priority items come in in rapid succession, but you don't get any low-priority items, don't the high+priority items get pushed out relatively quickly?

Could you explain how it works?

Could you explain how it works?

New items push old items down, but it is done "in total," not separately by category.

Why not put in headings to explain the sections instead of borders?

I've added brief headings.

On a practical note, the white text for Hobby News does not work well with the light grey background, at least not on my phone. Not sure about other platforms, as my PC just died.

No, Mserafin, I found it hard to read too.

Additionally, I have no idea what the different sections mean. It's not really an issue because I usually skip past the Hobby News and go straight to the boards.