# Disable the blog bar to the Left of the screen?



## frankthedm (Dec 28, 2009)

Just noticed this today. Some sort of blog bar stuck around after i signed into my account. I thought I had all the sidebars turned off already under options so I don't want this showing up. Did I miss some option to kill this? 





http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/9154/blogbannerspam.png
img64.imageshack.us/img64/9154/blogbannerspam.png


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## La Bete (Dec 28, 2009)

frankthedm said:


> Just noticed this today. Some sort of blog bar stuck around after i signed into my account. I had all the sidebars turned off already under options so I don't want this showing up. Did I miss some option to kill this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Just saw this as well - I was wondering how fast someone would grumble about it.....


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## Morrus (Dec 28, 2009)

Give me time to finish the process, please!  I can't work and discuss it simultaneously!

Well, I can - but the sidebar stays there longer if I'm busy answering threads about it while working on it.


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## Morrus (Dec 28, 2009)

Is it gone now?

vBulletin permissions can be a major PITA sometimes.  I think I've set it up right, and then someone with a slightly different usergroup configuration sees something completely different.

If you're a subscriber, you should have no left column.


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## Alzrius (Dec 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Is it gone now?




Nope, sorry. It's still there.

It has amended itself, though. Now it just displays the total gamers now online, the breakdown of members and guests online, and when the most users were ever online.


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## frankthedm (Dec 28, 2009)

Alzrius said:


> Nope, sorry. It's still there.
> 
> It has amended itself, though. Now it just displays the total gamers now online, the breakdown of members and guests online, and when the most users were ever online.



Here is a pic


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## Nifft (Dec 28, 2009)

I came here after not finding an option to disable this exact thing.

Cheers, -- N


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## Mouseferatu (Dec 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> If you're a subscriber, you should have no left column.




Sorry, but I am, and I do.


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## Nifft (Dec 28, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Sorry, but I am, and I do.



 Me, too.


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## Shemeska (Dec 28, 2009)

Likewise


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## Mark Chance (Dec 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> If you're a subscriber, you should have no left column.




Hmm. Is the goal to make the layout so unappealing that it impels people to subscribe?


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## Morrus (Dec 28, 2009)

Mark Chance said:


> Hmm. Is the goal to make the layout so unappealing that it impels people to subscribe?




Yes.

Or, more seriously - an ad over there means an extra $500 per month.


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## Mouseferatu (Dec 28, 2009)

Hey, it seems to be gone now.


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## Nebten (Dec 28, 2009)

The ad is tolerable, but the wall of text from the Blogs & reviews are annoying. Anyway we can take that off? If I wanted to read those, I would go to those appropriate links.


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## Mark Chance (Dec 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Yes.
> 
> Or, more seriously - an ad over there means an extra $500 per month.




Correction: $503 a month since your evil plan worked.


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## jaerdaph (Dec 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Yes.
> 
> Or, more seriously - an ad over there means an extra $500 per month.




That reminds me Morrus - I should have that code you asked me to write that allows paid subscribers to switch posts back into a language they actually know done for you ASAP.


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## Nifft (Dec 28, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Hey, it seems to be gone now.



 Same here.

Thanks! -- N


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## FireLance (Dec 28, 2009)

It's still here for me, but it's not a big issue. 

I only came in here to see if anyone was complaining about the Kingory ads.


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## Morrus (Dec 29, 2009)

It's a move from bottom right to top left for some blocks which were underperforming drastically; nothing new. Should now be viewed by the same people who could view them before, assuming I have the permissions correct.

If you just noticed them today, that'll explain the "underperforming drastically" bit!  And, hopefully, means that they are now "performing".


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## Umbran (Dec 29, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Hey, it seems to be gone now.




Maybe for you.  For me, it is still present.  May have to go and kill my cache and/or play with profile settings to make it disappear, I'll bet.


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## Mouseferatu (Dec 29, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Maybe for you.  For me, it is still present.  May have to go and kill my cache and/or play with profile settings to make it disappear, I'll bet.




Well, it's still there on the ENWorld main page. In fact, it's _all_ on the left, rather than the right, now.

But it's gone on the _forum_ pages, and that's where it matters, at least to me.


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## Vorput (Dec 29, 2009)

n/m, figured it out.


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## Umbran (Dec 29, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> But it's gone on the _forum_ pages, and that's where it matters, at least to me.




I repeat... for you it is gone...

Edit: Okay, here's part of the deal which doesn't seem to have been explicitly said...

There are a few things a Community Supporter can turn off in the User Control Panel (under Edit Options)  One is "Column Ad", another is "Sidebar".  At this time, there are column ads on *both* sides, and "Sidebar" on both sides.  The only way to turn off "the stuff on the left" it to disable all the sidebar and column ads.

For people who don't have wide screens (like me, working on a 14" laptop screen) the left/right issue is an important one.  I had sidebar and column ads on, because they didn't impact usability much.  They were off the right hand side of the screen, and I didn't need to look at them if I didn't want to most of the time.  But I could glance at them when I wanted to.

Having things on the left, however, pushes the rest of the stuff off to the right - meaning I have to scroll sideways to see an entire forum post.  This is now a nuisance, and means I cannot enable the sidebar at all if I want to easily read the forums.

So, for future reference, we might want to look into having controls for Left/Right as well as for Ads/Sidebar.


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## pawsplay (Dec 29, 2009)

I can understand the financial angle, but I cannot fathom how making the side too wide for the screen for non-supporters is going to help things in the long run.


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## MarkB (Dec 29, 2009)

Given the way the site now looks to non-subscribers, I can't imagine new users bothering to stick around long enough to decide to subscribe.


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## Nifft (Dec 29, 2009)

MarkB said:


> Given the way the site now looks to non-subscribers, I can't imagine new users bothering to stick around long enough to decide to subscribe.



 This actually does happen. For example, the Wizards forums lost me about three months ago. Their new forums were too annoying, so I stopped going.

Cheers, -- N


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## Mouseferatu (Dec 29, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I repeat... for you it is gone...




Well, yeah. I'd hardly be expected to report on whether it was there on someone else's computer or not, would I?


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## Morrus (Dec 29, 2009)

MarkB said:


> Given the way the site now looks to non-subscribers, I can't imagine new users bothering to stick around long enough to decide to subscribe.




Well, I'm obviously going to be measuring traffic rather than making wild guesses and predictions.  Fortunately, we can measure these things very precisely.


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## Thanee (Dec 29, 2009)

Yep, most people do not block google analytics, so it is fairly accurate.

Bye
Thanee


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## Xris Robin (Dec 29, 2009)

I'm on a widescreen, and the huge sidebars on both sides still really make browsing the forums uncomfortable now.

As a free user, my opinion may not mean much, but I'm certainly not going to start paying money to fix things.  When people jerk me around, I just leave.  Guess it's WotC for me.


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## Morrus (Dec 29, 2009)

Christopher Robin said:


> When people jerk me around, I just leave. Guess it's WotC for me.




A perfectly valid decision; you should never feel obligated to remain somewhere where people are jerking you around.  I hope you feel more comfortable at WotC.


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## frankthedm (Dec 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I can understand the financial angle, but I cannot fathom how making the side too wide for the screen for non-supporters is going to help things in the long run.





MarkB said:


> Given the way the site now looks to non-subscribers, I can't imagine new users bothering to stick around long enough to decide to subscribe.





Nifft said:


> This actually does happen. For example, the Wizards forums lost me about three months ago. Their new forums were too annoying, so I stopped going.





Christopher Robin said:


> I'm on a widescreen, and the huge sidebars on both sides still really make browsing the forums uncomfortable now.



I'll echo these concerns


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## Thanee (Dec 29, 2009)

Yep, sidebars like those are really pretty high on the annoyance scale. Two of them at the same time are a bit much. I can see how this might scare away some folks. For me it doesn't really matter, since I know how to remove them to see the forum at full width, but without that, the forum would hardly be usable in a reasonable manner.

Bye
Thanee


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## pawsplay (Dec 30, 2009)

I was kind of hoping that once we reached the fundraising goal that we would be spared some of the bell-ringing and navigation changes. Definitely not digging the "skinny sidebar" that appears on some pages, even with sidebars disabled.


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## jaerdaph (Dec 30, 2009)

Christopher Robin said:


> Guess it's WotC for me.




You'll only be punishing yourself that way....


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## LightPhoenix (Dec 30, 2009)

Add me to the group of people that can't stand it.  I would subscribe, but I don't feel comfortable with _any_ company, let alone PayPal, automatically charging my account monthly.  If there were still a year-long subscription, I may have gotten off my lazy butt to subscribe.


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## Sammael (Dec 30, 2009)

I'm a subscriber, but I just logged out to check how the site looks for non-subscribers.

Seriously, Russ, I think you may want to switch to a full pay-site model here and drop the sidebar ads, because I don't see how any non-subscriber could stand to browse ENW without some serious ad-blocking software. If it looks this bad on my 22" widescreen, I can only imagine how horrible it is on 19" or smaller screens (and I know many people who still use 17" screens, particularly at work).


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## pawsplay (Dec 30, 2009)

Sammael said:


> I'm a subscriber, but I just logged out to check how the site looks for non-subscribers.
> 
> Seriously, Russ, I think you may want to switch to a full pay-site model here and drop the sidebar ads, because I don't see how any non-subscriber could stand to browse ENW without some serious ad-blocking software. If it looks this bad on my 22" widescreen, I can only imagine how horrible it is on 19" or smaller screens (and I know many people who still use 17" screens, particularly at work).




I have a 17" screen and I already had to modify IE's settings to keep ENWorld's icons from being too huge after the last upgrade in certain rare viewing situations (if the banner became wider than my screen, the icons would cheerfully inflate themselves to a more "optimal" resolution).

I know it's a false comparison in a number of ways, but I always find myself comparing the experience to:

http://bluedevilgames.yuku.com/


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## Morrus (Dec 30, 2009)

Some screenshots might be useful; I have a 22" screen, admittidly, but with both sidebars running I have_ acres_ of space.  The sidebars between them take up maybe 15% of the screen at most.


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## Thanee (Dec 30, 2009)

Yeah, on a bigger screen it's remotely bearable. 

The first time I have been looking at the site after the change, I was using my 10" Netbook. 

Bye
Thanee


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## La Bete (Dec 30, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Some screenshots might be useful; I have a 22" screen, admittidly, but with both sidebars running I have_ acres_ of space.  The sidebars between them take up maybe 15% of the screen at most.




As requested, this is on a 13 inch screen on a laptop.

It's a bit cramped, but I wouldn't go so far as say unusable.

On a possibly related note, I've found the forums a bit more sluggish sicne you've put in this change.

Regards


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## pawsplay (Dec 30, 2009)

Here's what I see logged in as a CS. As you can see, on my 17" ViewSonic 1024 x 768 flatscreen, the rightmost navigation icons trail off the screen. The left sidebar remnant is not terrible, but it makes the screen that much fatter to scroll over.


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## jaerdaph (Dec 31, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Here's what I see logged in as a CS. As you can see, on my 17" ViewSonic 1024 x 768 flatscreen, the rightmost navigation icons trail off the screen. The left sidebar remnant is not terrible, but it makes the screen that much fatter to scroll over.




I could see that being a problem - if I needed to click on that obscured RPGNow store button every five minutes!


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## LightPhoenix (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Some screenshots might be useful; I have a 22" screen, admittidly, but with both sidebars running I have_ acres_ of space.  The sidebars between them take up maybe 15% of the screen at most.




I'm on a 19" screen and it's not terrible so long as I don't have any sidebars open (I usually browse with my bookmarks bar open).  I'd estimate the bars take up roughly 30% of the horizontal space space.  

Now that I've gotten used to it, I'm going to say my reaction is that it's a little annoying, but perhaps I over-reacted when I first saw them.  If I were on a smaller screen I'd be more upset.  Also, if it's netting the site an extra $500 per month, that's something I can support.

My complaints about subscription models still stand though.  I'm guessing it's old hat by now.


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## Thanee (Dec 31, 2009)

LightPhoenix said:


> Also, if it's netting the site an extra $500 per month, that's something I can support.




$500/month is quite a bit, yep. 



This is how I prefer the site, though:

[SBLOCK]
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




[/SBLOCK]

Bye
Thanee


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2009)

Thanee said:


> This is how I prefer the site, though:




Well, yes.  _Everyone_ prefers sites to have no advertising and hand out free candy with every click!  It's about getting a realistic balance.


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## Umbran (Dec 31, 2009)

Here's mine.  14" laptop screen, but I'm jumping between applications a lot, so I am not running my browser maximized.  You'll note that I cannot see all the links to jump to later pages in the thread? I didn't picture them here, but the moderation quick tools down at the bottom of the page are likewise obscured.

The situation is improved if I am running my browser maximized, but my UXD friends tell me that's a bad assumption to make.


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## Thanee (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Well, yes.  _Everyone_ prefers sites to have no advertising and hand out free candy with every click!  It's about getting a realistic balance.




Of course, no objections there.

As I said, I can fully understand where you are coming from. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Nifft (Dec 31, 2009)

Thanee said:


> This is how I prefer the site, though:



 Heh, still too much wasted space for me. Here's my full browser window:





Cheers, -- N


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## Nebten (Dec 31, 2009)

I am still requesting a way to remove or minimize the blog/review bar on the side. Keep the ad if you must, but those other side bars are annoying.


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Heh, still too much wasted space for me. Here's my full browser window:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I can't see any ads or sidebars *at all* in that screenshot?


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## Holy Bovine (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Well, yes.  _Everyone_ prefers sites to have no advertising and hand out free candy with every click!  It's about getting a realistic balance.




This begs the question - how many subscribers & advertisers would ENWorld need to give out free candy with every click?


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## Thanee (Dec 31, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Heh, still too much wasted space for me. Here's my full browser window: ...




Heh. I also had the icon bar removed at some point, but kinda like them now. 

Bye
Thanee


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## Nifft (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> I can't see any ads or sidebars *at all* in that screenshot?



 - Neither screenshot has ads or sidebars (so WTF are you talking about).
- One of the screenshots still too much pointlessly wasted space for my tastes.

Hope that helps, -- N


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## Nifft (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Well, yes.  _Everyone_ prefers sites to have no advertising and hand out free candy with every click!  It's about getting a realistic balance.



 I would actually like some unobtrusive way of learning about the existence of new products, but my only options are:
- no ads; or
- *LOUD FLASHING CRAP IN YOUR FACE* (plus Evony).

Unlike your "free candy" thing, this is a genuine dichotomy.



Thanee said:


> Heh. I also had the icon bar removed at some point, but kinda like them now.



 Humans can acclimate to almost anything, can't we.

I also took out some of the pointless margins. That's actually what gives me the best return in terms of my pixel-to-content ratio.

Cheers, -- N


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2009)

Nifft said:


> - Neither screenshot has ads or sidebars (so WTF are you talking about).
> - One of the screenshots still too much pointlessly wasted space for my tastes.
> 
> Hope that helps, -- N




You've_ completely_ confused me, I'm afraid. I asked for screenshots of the amount of space ads were taking up in the margins of people with smaller screens than mine, since people were saying the forums were now unusable. Your screenshots have no sidebars, so I'm unclear what you mean?


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## Nifft (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> You've_ completely_ confused me, I'm afraid. I asked for screenshots of the amount of space ads were taking up in the margins of people with smaller screens than mine, since people were saying the forums were now unusable. Your screenshots have no sidebars, so I'm unclear what you mean?



 Well, I was responding to Thanee, so I have no idea why you would think my response had anything to do with you.

However, you seem to be asking (in a very roundabout way) for a screenshot, so here you go:





 -- N


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Well, I was responding to Thanee, so I have no idea why you would think my response had anything to do with you.
> --




The reason I thought, perfectly reasonably, that it might have something to do with me is because (a) it's in a thread directed at me regarding EN World's layout; and (b) it's a post of a screenshot and follows my request for screenshots.  There's no need for snarky comments.

Let's stop the smug comments_ immediately_, please. If you can't be polite, don't post. EN World's rules apply even when you're talking to me; especially so, since the likelihood of them going unnoticed is slim indeed in this particular scenario.


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## Nifft (Dec 31, 2009)

Morrus said:


> Thanks for the screenshot.



 You're quite welcome.

Ciao, -- N


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## Morrus (Dec 31, 2009)

I warned you about the snideness.  It is unacceptable.  Do not post again in this thread.


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## Thanee (Jan 1, 2010)

Lighten up, guys!

Happy New Year! 

Bye
Thanee


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## RangerWickett (Jan 1, 2010)

I have a tiny (very very small) problem when I try to edit my blog posts. You have the left sidebar, blog sidebar, main column, then right sidebar, which makes it impossible to click the button to toggle between editor modes, since it's located under an ad.

But like I said, it's a tiny problem, surmountable several ways.


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## MarkB (Jan 1, 2010)

I use Google Chrome on a 19" widescreen monitor. I routinely view forums at +1 zoom for easier text reading. Here's how EN World currently looks:





The problem is, zooming used to just bump the right-hand ad bar further across, but it now squeezes the main pane between the two sidebars. The result, after subtracting the sidebars and the author details to the side of each post, is that I now have less than 50% of my screen width dedicated to the text I am actually reading.


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## IronWolf (Jan 1, 2010)

Morrus said:


> Some screenshots might be useful; I have a 22" screen, admittidly, but with both sidebars running I have_ acres_ of space.  The sidebars between them take up maybe 15% of the screen at most.




This is why you have plenty of usable space since your monitor is a widescreen and likely running a pretty nice wide resolution.  The wide resolution gives you more pixels so the sidebars are taking up much less space from the percentage standpoint leaving you with more usable space.

Likely those of us finding the multiple sidebars more of a problem are not running 22" widescreens.  I find I am losing a lot of usable, content providing space on my dual 17" setup and on  my 19" monitor setup (neither widescreen).  

It looks like each sidebar is set to 230 pixels, so 460 pixels (not counting padding) of screen real estate is being used by the sidebars.  This has more of an impact on a person running 1024x768 for a display resolution than someone running a 1680x1050 resolution.


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## Deset Gled (Jan 1, 2010)

I would also like to point out that the left sidebar has screwed with the White/Stealth theme quite a bit.  I'm attaching a screenshot to show the effects.  As you can see, the ads on the right side now block part of the thread.  I actually had to change the theme to be able to post this, since the "upload" button for attachments was covered up.

_screenshot deleted_


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## pawsplay (Jan 2, 2010)

jaerdaph said:


> I could see that being a problem - if I needed to click on that obscured RPGNow store button every five minutes!




It's only a little annoying, usually. But I had to change my IE settings to get it to work even that well, and I still get tired of my screen doing a little wiggle when I switch between screens that have the minibar and ones that don't. None of that I would consider a deal-breaker.

What does concern me is the question as to where new site members are going to come from. As pointed out, viewing the site as a free visitor is pretty gross, and brand new visitors to sites don't usually plop down subscription fees on a whim.

To be frank, I'm here for the community, not lots of site extra, and I'm a supporter because I didn't want the site to go away.


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## pawsplay (Jan 12, 2010)

It would be nice if, in the next iteration of the site, I didn't have to scroll over in order to log out.


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