2 thoughts on “The Golden Notebook Project is LIVE”

  2. bowerbird

    i know you now have a “suggestions” thread over there,
    but i didn’t want to go through the hassle of registering,
    so i’ve put this feedback here instead…
    congratulations on the lift-off!
    call me a geek, but the design of the site will probably
    be more interesting to me than the experiment itself…
    so perhaps you’ll forgive me if i criticize constructively.
    it occurs to me that a hybrid of paging and scrolling
    is the _worst_ of both worlds, and not a compromise.
    so i would’ve scratched this design right at the outset.
    and an em-based layout is pretty lousy when it reflows.
    since it doesn’t. so even though i’ve got a huge screen,
    i’m stuck with scrolling nonetheless.
    it’s unfortunate that the two versions of the book have
    differing page-numbering, but i’m not sure you helped
    the situation much by adding a _third_ page-numbering.
    i would’ve flipped a coin and gone with one, and simply
    included the “other version” pagenumber prominently…
    i might be able to suggest some other solution instead.
    (for instance, perhaps you could have a cookie keep track
    of which numbering-system each person was using, and
    had the system automatically pull up the correct pages…)
    but because the pagenumber boxes only show 2 digits
    — yet another bad side-effect of an em-based layout —
    it’s too hard to learn how the two numberings interact…
    those 2-digit boxes will make it hard to get any bearings
    once readers get to pages with 3-digit pagenumbers too.
    (luckily, you have some time to make that simple change.)
    the consider bulk of stuff at the top of each page is also
    bothersome. i’d try to streamline it as much as possible.
    i’d suggest that the forum doesn’t need a list of the pages
    that have a discussion — all pages _could_ have one —
    it simply needs a straightforward u.r.l. naming convention.
    this thing just started, and already the jumbled mess here:
    > http://thegoldennotebook.org/forum/?CategoryID=2
    is out of control, and only threatens to get _much_ worse.
    oh yeah, and inside of the discussion for a particular page
    the link that jumps to that page could be more prominent.
    (i’d say that something that important should be a button.)
    a few housekeeping matters:
    > http://thegoldennotebook.org/about = 404
    finally, i’m curious about this:
    > Please show a courteous regard for the
    > presence of other voices in the discussion.
    now, you know me, just your typical ugly internet troll,
    but could you explain that a little better for me please?
    -bowerbird

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