A note on the Green Room issue; Update: Fixed; Open Thread
posted at 7:49 am on April 30, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
We’re working to fix a few issues left over from our move to new servers and site redesign, including the Green Room problem that several readers have communicated to the Tips line — which is much appreciated. We will continue working and hope to have all of these issues resolved as soon as possible. Keep checking back with us, and thank you for your patience.
Update: Looks like the Green Room posts have been fully restored now. We’ll keep the post going as an open thread on the changes to the site.
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ok. nice update.
jbh45 on April 30, 2010 at 7:56 AM
Ed, site looks good and loads fast! An excellent job by all! Wow,looks like it took only a few hours. I’m impressed.
katy the mean old lady on April 30, 2010 at 7:56 AM
Didn’t know there was an issue – working fine for me! ;)
Midas on April 30, 2010 at 7:57 AM
no worries….looks great Ed!
cmsinaz on April 30, 2010 at 7:57 AM
Oh, never mind, I see it, lol. *rubs sleep out of eyes*
Midas on April 30, 2010 at 7:57 AM
Does that mean we don’t have to be subjected to anything from MadisonConservative? ; )
BadgerHawk on April 30, 2010 at 7:59 AM
Oh! It’s done. Very nice. Congratulations.
Wind Rider on April 30, 2010 at 7:59 AM
The USS Hot Air Political Warship of the net,
just recieved a refit,and the layout is Absolutely
Fabulous,oh,and no problems,fully operational!!
(snark).
canopfor on April 30, 2010 at 8:01 AM
I like the new website design. Lot faster as well. Good job.
therightwinger on April 30, 2010 at 8:01 AM
Love the new look. It is amazing!
Good morning to all and Happy Friday!
milwife88 on April 30, 2010 at 8:02 AM
The links in the sidebar to articles at Town Hall aren’t working for me. Anybody else have that problem?
forest on April 30, 2010 at 8:04 AM
I wonder what Michelle thinks?
Michelle? Are you out there? Ya know, you COULD leave a comment once in a while, we miss you!
Tony737 on April 30, 2010 at 8:06 AM
Nice redesign but really, 4 of the exact same AFLAC ads on one page? Someone needs to tweak the ad rotations.
Sugarbuzz on April 30, 2010 at 8:06 AM
Green Room commenting is working for me.
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 8:06 AM
Like the changes….well done. Thank you.
Engrpat on April 30, 2010 at 8:07 AM
Nice! It really looks great. It didn’t look bad before or anything, but it’s so streamlined now. And it’s good to see the return of the little yelling guy.
Tanya on April 30, 2010 at 8:07 AM
The links in the sidebar to articles at Town Hall aren’t working for me. Anybody else have that problem? – Forest
Yeah, I wanted read that article by Ollie North. The problem could be on TownHall’s end though.
Tony737 on April 30, 2010 at 8:08 AM
And it’s good to see the return of the little yelling guy. – Tanya
Hahaha I didn’t even notice him! Thanks for pointing him out, Tanya! :-)
Tony737 on April 30, 2010 at 8:10 AM
And now the front page is broken.
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 8:12 AM
Couple items:
1- The Hot Air logo in the top left hand corner should be a link to the home page.
2- Maroon menu bar with italicized selections does not fit the graphic layout or color palette.
3- The Hot Air Guy is an icon of the site, an intrinsic part of your branding. Put him back up.
MarkT on April 30, 2010 at 8:14 AM
Well, at least we can still comment. Keep hope alive.
JammieWearingFool on April 30, 2010 at 8:14 AM
Yeah, townhall seems broken all ’round. Even the homepage isn’t working atm.
Midas on April 30, 2010 at 8:17 AM
and looking at the top of this page, the ‘hot air’ logo (with flame) only peeks out above the top of the menu bar (just the top of the flame bit – can’t see the whole logo anymore.
Midas on April 30, 2010 at 8:19 AM
me no likey new sitey.
where’s the screaming dude?
sesquipedalian on April 30, 2010 at 8:25 AM
HotAir broke Townhall?
JetBoy on April 30, 2010 at 8:26 AM
I agree with all three comments. The italicized font is matching with Townhall, not Hot Air. I know they want to link the two to increase traffic at both, but they should not turn Hot Air into Townhall II. There’s already a Townhall.
forest on April 30, 2010 at 8:28 AM
Probably vice versa.
myrenovations on April 30, 2010 at 8:29 AM
Couldn’t wait to omplain? Try looking at the site first. He’s on the top right.
katy the mean old lady on April 30, 2010 at 8:30 AM
Oh,please no! Posts are great, but the comments are ridiculous. Same people sniping back and forth at each other. Allah should take a day over there with the ban hammer. Whack a troll heaven.
katy the mean old lady on April 30, 2010 at 8:34 AM
Thank you for the Greenroom. It’s a wonderful thing.
ParisParamus on April 30, 2010 at 8:34 AM
I thought you were taking your birthday off. :-)
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 8:35 AM
No problems here so far.
The site looks nice, good job.
beachgirlusa on April 30, 2010 at 8:36 AM
The logo is there. I had to turn off my ad blocker to see it.
Slublog on April 30, 2010 at 8:39 AM
Solution: turn HotTownHallObnoxiousAir back into HotAir. TownHall.com will work perfectly then.
MadisonConservative on April 30, 2010 at 8:40 AM
‘Hot Air’ lookin’ more like plasma!
Cybergeezer on April 30, 2010 at 8:41 AM
I’m noticing on my computer that the ads are flowing outside their boundaries and seeping into whatever is beneath them.
Not all, but some.
And the box within the signup box for the HA Express is skwanch-ways -
But hey, I tend to have OCD when it comes to layout since in my former lifetime I was in MARKETING.
tru2tx on April 30, 2010 at 8:48 AM
The up-grade is nice. Happy to see I can comment.
L
letget on April 30, 2010 at 8:59 AM
Looks good!
WisRich on April 30, 2010 at 9:03 AM
+1 on the clickable logo at top left. Makes all the difference on the iPhone for navigation.
Other than that – great redesign!
greggriffith on April 30, 2010 at 9:04 AM
Just seeing if I can comment. The site loaded fast for me to begin with so I don’t really notice a difference, yet.
Sue on April 30, 2010 at 9:06 AM
test
munchnstuf on April 30, 2010 at 9:09 AM
Aw, the logo doesn’t load on my Blackberry. I just get a red block. But at least it’s clickable! The new design’s good, my only worry had been that you’d fill the page up with tons of bloat and crap and make it sluggish to load on phone browsers. Happily that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Sharke on April 30, 2010 at 9:13 AM
IS THERE A MOBILE SITE?????
PLEASE MAKE A MOBILE VERSION. IT’S EASY TO DO!
battleoflepanto1571 on April 30, 2010 at 9:14 AM
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201004290006
Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit– You may want to read this
Here is an exerpt:
Obviously, Morrissey and Allahpundit can disagree on things. (They’re bloggers, after all) But it sure seems odd that over the years Allahpundit has raised flags for his readers about the dubious nature of the Prowler’s magical ability to find “fluidly articulate quotes from anonymous Democrats.”
Yet there was Morrissey this week falling right into the Prowler’s trap by pushing a totally bogus story that was built around (surprise!) the Prowler’s uncanny ability to find anonymous sources, from within Democratic circles, who routinely deliver mini-scoops that make Democrats look bad. It’s almost like, in this instance, the Prowler’s anonymous HHS “sources” told the magazine exactly what conservatives wanted to hear about Obama.
Americannodash on April 30, 2010 at 9:14 AM
The site is rendering different in Firefox than IE. In IE, I can see the logo in the upper right hand corner. In FF I can’t. The Menu bar goes right to the top and covers it.
TheBigOldDog on April 30, 2010 at 9:19 AM
Just checking to see if I can still comment. Site looks good too.
Torch on April 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM
The site is rendering different in Firefox than IE. In IE, I can see the logo in the upper
rightLeft hand corner. In FF I can’t. The Menu bar goes right to the top and covers it.TheBigOldDog on April 30, 2010 at 9:19 AM
TheBigOldDog on April 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Bring back the guy with the megaphone!!!!!!!
Abby Adams on April 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Yeah… Wish the green room posts were up correctly. Only seeing a few lines of text in each – and the promotion link is / was busted on DocZero’s latest…
SnowSun on April 30, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Ed:
Not to denigrate any of the other posters in the Green room, but is there any way you could indicate in the title who the author is?
Specifically if it’s Dr. Zero – those are a “Can’t miss” posting.
Chip on April 30, 2010 at 9:21 AM
There are too many ads IMO.
Lance Murdock on April 30, 2010 at 9:21 AM
Abby – check the HotAir Express (top right)… ofcourse it looks like he’s got a video camera pointed at himself now.
SnowSun on April 30, 2010 at 9:22 AM
Could someone with a Green Room key try posting a couple-paragraph test post?
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 9:24 AM
The backend upgrades to the site are great, especially how quickly everything loads now.
But the graphic redesign of the site is horrible. The top nav bar is both boring and difficult to read. Narrow, tightly-spaced text is hard enough to read when italicized, but using a low-contrast scheme like gray text on maroon makes it near unreadable (and thus, distracting) at a glance. It would be better to set the type without italics and open up the character spacing — or pick a font that actually looks good on a screen at that size.
The new layout is amateurish, particularly on the right sidebar, where large flash ads chop up the content sections, pushing useful sections (like the Green Room feed) so far down that they’re not accessible without scrolling.
Content is the primary mission of any site, and making content less accessible will result in less traffic. The Green Room feed, as HA original content, should be visible from the top of the page. The Townhall feed is secondary to the content of Hot Air, and should be positioned accordingly. After you’ve accomplished that you can go nuts with the ads.
Just my 2 pennies.
Harpazo on April 30, 2010 at 9:26 AM
Appending the author name directly to the post title would take a rather-ugly hacking of the WordPress code. However, the author (as its own value) is available, both on the Green Room main page and as part of its RSS feed.
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 9:27 AM
This isn’t working.
I’m still only 5’6. I’ll never play in the NBA.
Thought everything was supposed to be fixed.
Scoreboard44 on April 30, 2010 at 9:30 AM
Why are the ads bigger than the blog stories? (dislike)
I understand forward motion and all, but it’s out of balance and less professional in my on-so-humble opinion.
Green Muse on April 30, 2010 at 9:35 AM
Oh yeah… maybe it was a camera the whole time. See, that’s what happens when you take things away… people forget.
Small, but I guess it’ll have to do for now.
:-(
Abby Adams on April 30, 2010 at 9:35 AM
Yeah! Doc’s post is UP!
SnowSun on April 30, 2010 at 9:38 AM
Oh, okay – it was just a suggestion.
Chip on April 30, 2010 at 9:38 AM
WOW….everything’s so BIG now! Good job!
sicoit on April 30, 2010 at 9:48 AM
Upon further reflection, the new site design Charles Blows.
ElectricPhase on April 30, 2010 at 9:57 AM
Greenroom posts are definitely hit-or-miss, with no common thread on what’s causing The Loop to stop output. About the only thing I can suggest is changing the “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically” setting (found in Settings > Writing).
steveegg on April 30, 2010 at 10:07 AM
Well, it looks like they’re turning Hot Air into Townhall, with all of its crap. How many pop-ups will we be subject to now just to access the site? 20? 30?
Townhall is crap and is run by morons. It’s no surprise they think that their stupid ideas should be transplanted here. Look for traffic here to decline and pick up at better blogs like Ace of Spades.
Sydney Carton on April 30, 2010 at 10:13 AM
Was it just me or was Hotair down for about 5 minutes?
WisRich on April 30, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Worth reposting.
I agree. The design adds some information (send tips to…., Ed’s show, the Green Room is more noticeable), but the ads! Oh my the ads. They’re everywhere. I can barely see the Headlines because of the gigantic blinking ads on the right. Really distracting.
The fonts above the headlines section are all different. It looks like 4-5 different fonts. Italicizing the font is lazy. The font (I can’t look right now because the site won’t open for me in another tab) for the send tips to tips@hotair.com is visually pleasing and sticks out. Why can’t that be used for all of the tab headers?
The redesign is ok, nothing spectacular.
conservative pilgrim on April 30, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Me too.
forest on April 30, 2010 at 10:30 AM
I couldn’t get onto Hot Air for a few minutes there either – I went to refresh the page, and it was gone.
Also, I swear I used to be able to click the Green Room link, and it did not pop up in a new window. I can manually make it open into another tab, but I have no need for that. And I’d like to reiterate how nice it was to have the Hot Air logo at the top hyperlinked.
Anna on April 30, 2010 at 10:31 AM
Headline comments are blanks for me now.
forest on April 30, 2010 at 10:33 AM
Me too.
Anna on April 30, 2010 at 10:33 AM
New Glitch:
At 10:20 EDT, just a few minutes ago, I got this error message instead of the home page:
I had to go to Google, then find the Hot Air Green Room, click on an archive page, then click on Home Page. Got the error message again. After logging in via a Green Room post, I was able to click over to the Home Page, and this post.
I blame Obama.
Emperor Norton on April 30, 2010 at 10:34 AM
Just now, while trying to refresh this page, I got another error message:
I blame Obama.
Emperor Norton on April 30, 2010 at 10:37 AM
Me too.
I blame all the stinkin’ ads.
conservative pilgrim on April 30, 2010 at 10:41 AM
So does Obama. Doggone greedy bloggers making profit.
Seriously though, I guess it will take a little while to work out some bugs.
forest on April 30, 2010 at 10:50 AM
Yes, I’m sure he does. Once they reach their cap earnings, the site shuts down. Oh noes!
Is there a reason the ads need to blink and move continuously? It’s annoying and distracting. Maybe that works for others, not for me. I’m here to read content, not look at some ads blocking my view and annoyingly flicker non-stop. It’s like the Las Vegas Strip. If the goal is to make Hot Air like Townhall, then the “bugs” are a permanent feature. /end of rant
conservative pilgrim on April 30, 2010 at 10:57 AM
I had to click in thru the green room in order to log in to comment. Weird.
I like how it takes two full attempts to click into an article to see it. Quite the improvement…
Inanemergencydial on April 30, 2010 at 11:21 AM
Knowing my lack of computer savvy, I really expected to have issues, but I didn’t. I clicked on my saved link, and voila. It loaded just fine, and I was STILL logged in. :D Now THAT’S service. ;) I like the new look, and as always, really enjoy coming here. It’s been a tad busy the past few weeks, so my time here has been limited…but I’m trying to make more frequent visits. I feel out of the loop, and reading fast, and furiously, to catch up. lol
capejasmine on April 30, 2010 at 11:27 AM
Hotair works so much better with Firefox and AdBlock!
Inanemergencydial on April 30, 2010 at 11:48 AM
Need Hot Air guy. Branding loss.
Mason on April 30, 2010 at 11:52 AM
Fatal error: Cannot unset string offsets in /var/www/hotair.com/wp/wp-includes/widgets.php on line 1073
I am getting this error when I refresh or hit main page if this posts.
Brat4life on April 30, 2010 at 12:01 PM
If you squint really hard, you’ll see him in the top RH corner under the Hot Air Express box. Glad he’s here, even if in miniature form.
conservative pilgrim on April 30, 2010 at 12:01 PM
Same here.
/wears techie hat
I don’t think that’s supposed to happen on a production site.
/hat off
ElectricPhase on April 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM
FWIW, in IE, pressing the home button just gave me this:
But it works just dandy in FF.
leilani on April 30, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Please make the HotAir logo in the upper left of the page a link, so we can just click it to get back to see new articles. We can click Home but that’s just too much effort.
pedestrian on April 30, 2010 at 12:05 PM
I’m not a fan of the redesign, but I’ll get used to it. The Hot Air graphic at the top should link to the home page…I hate having to search for the smaller “home” link. (Yeah, it’s petty, but still…)
Site does load fast, though.
changer1701 on April 30, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Yea, my account lives!
DailyTrackingPoll on April 30, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Yeah I complained about losing him too. He needs a wider dissemination.
Abby Adams on April 30, 2010 at 12:09 PM
FYI, if you’re running FireFox with adblock the top HotAir logo doesn’t appear and the top link bar is the first thing you see on the screen (except for a little tuft of the torch in the HotAir logo at the top.) It looks like the banner ad bar isn’t being calculated into the layout because adblock isn’t allowing it.
You don’t have to fix that on my account though. ;)
Skywise on April 30, 2010 at 12:10 PM
testing…. is this thing on?
JamesLee on April 30, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Also having sporadic trouble loading site in Safari.
Thanks. I use FF, but will add the AdBlock and see what that does to the pesky blinking ads.
conservative pilgrim on April 30, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Like the content. The design needs to go back to basics (too many visuals/ads on the page).
txag92 on April 30, 2010 at 12:11 PM
Ad column on the right takes up 1/3rd of the page in Safari. Is that intended? It’s pretty annoying.
Y-not on April 30, 2010 at 12:12 PM
Oh, and the words along the top frame (Home, etc) look like, well they look bad. Looks like a low-resolution screen shot of text. Muddy images.
Y-not on April 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM
I have just the flame for the HotAir logo poking up behind the maroon bar between “Vault” and “Green Room”. About 1/4 inch of it.
FF 3.6.3, Win Vista, ABP on.
cthulhu on April 30, 2010 at 12:16 PM
ACK, what happened to the site!?!
upinak on April 30, 2010 at 12:16 PM
Ah, Skywise is all over it.
In previous incarnations of HotAir, when ABP blocked an ad, things moved up to take its place. Now it does that for the HotAir logo (which is bad), but not in the right-hand column where it would be useful. Instead, there are empty grey boxes, for a Mondrian effect.
cthulhu on April 30, 2010 at 12:20 PM
The new design sucks. The old design rocked. I loved the plastic tape headers. So awesome. Now the site looks like every other lame site.
You think that because you have a color gradient on your tool bar that you have done something cool? Lame.
Why do conservatives always have to suck so hard at graphic design?
dKap on April 30, 2010 at 12:20 PM
He deserves a better position and a larger size. I think he’s a helpful reminder not to take things too seriously even though Ed and Allah keep us informed of serious matters.
That said, maybe Salem decided to diminish him so that Liberals don’t accuse the site of being a gathering place for angry, ignorant, and contemptible racists. But they’ll do that anyway.
BuckeyeSam on April 30, 2010 at 12:20 PM
Wait, where am I? The logo and side bar x2 keeps moving and telling me I’m in Disney World and my little girl would love to be a princess so click here. I thought this was HA…wait. I see it…way up there, so small, unclickable….
It’s bad.
Diane on April 30, 2010 at 12:23 PM
U.S. Navy to name ship after …
… JACK MURTHA???!!
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/04/john-murtha-navy-ship-in-cold-blood.html#more
How ’bout naming it after Micheal Murphy? Micheal Monsoor? Jason Dunham? Rapheal Peralta?
Tony737 on April 30, 2010 at 12:27 PM
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