For once I agree with the irascible Mr. Steen - it wasn't broke, but you went and "fixed" it anyway. And yet you STILL haven't dealt with the ONE issue SLOG commenters have literally been BEGGING your for years to address, namely, comment moderation and blocking. Nope, gotta keep the Trolly McTrollersons around to generate those precious hit-counts, because that's all that matters these days, amiright?

The leading and vertical spacing is a mess. And I don't understand why there are three year old or older "feature stories" on the main page. But It looks pretty good. It will take time to see how usable it all is.

But most disappointing is, of course yet again, The Stranger doesn't do any improvements to the comment moderations system. Just nuke ALL accounts already and force people to pay to register so we can kill all the sock puppets once and for all. But no. A hand full more clicks is far too important.

Y'all just decided that raw page loads and clicks is more important than dealing with the trolls who camp on the comment section 24/7 making an insufferable showcase of racists, cranks, MAGA nuts, and Seattle is Dying lunatics.

So this was your last chance from me. Looks like it's the Capitol Hill Blog from here on out.

As Mr Steen's former Confidential Secretary, I can assure you that he'd never refer to something as sucking, unless it were some sort of vacuum device.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MR STEEN?????

Seriously though, thanks to the new format, old articles are no longer loading...

like Mudede's "Our Wars": https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/our-wars/Content?oid=4735071

This is a terrible change if only for that one reason, because the Stranger is part of Seattle's historical archive. The change isn't a visual improvement either. Fix it, like Steen said this isn't fucking Tiktok.

link to Mudede's post is broken https://www.thestranger.com/slog-pm/2022/05/31/74495029/slog-pm-uvalde-should-demand-a-refund-from-the-police-guns-kill-teens-more-than-cars-seattle-city-council-gives-a-big-thumbs-up-to-pro-gig

Typeface choices were perhaps made by a blind designer (or someone who is unaware of faces designed for screen reading) and font spacing/readability is now fully sadistic. Reduce the leading on the headlines to solid or negative, and choose a serif face for the body text (also with less leading; you only need +leading when reading very long lines of text, or on a wedding invitation).

new design lands with a resounding "OOF"
story in slog pm

I'm going with you can't have an edit function because editing a post requires an api call and that costs the stranger like 3 cents and they are out here begging for money in the form of donations. yeah...

I agree with some of these, such as the spacing, comment editing, and getting rid of trolls. It doesn't seem any more functional, rather it seems less so but maybe I will get used to it. It seems as though the Stranger could have achieved some of its stated goals without such a radical shift, such as including featured art. I'm guessing some of the bugs will get worked out, but I am wondering if anyone was actually complaining about the old site's look or if it was just change for change's sake.

Glad to see that some archived/old articles are working again, but still think the new format is unnecessary and less professional looking.

Mixing serif and san-serif typefaces on the same screen? Blech. I'm no graphic designer, but I thought that was a cardinal sin.

In Slog - where I spend most of my time - half the page is unused on desktop to presumably translate well on mobile, but text is too large to display much on mobile (or desktop for that matter) and the other elements don't load anyway. So it's a poor solution in both spaces, simultaneously! This is literally the only site I've seen where scaling down to 75% or less seems to be necessary, though that does nothing for the ton of unused white space, which is hard on the eyes.

A link to the headline art of the week is a very positive change, though this doesn't seem to address my repeated requests for a cover archive. (I recall originally asking this on Questionland - how many users are even veteran enough to remember that failed venture?)

I echo the other comments about the poor commenting system. Moderation is faceless (and largely absent), with no confirmation of who removes comments that really need removal, or any measures to confirm the poster is a real user and not some spammer. (Witch doctor Nelson Salim is practically a member of the Stranger with how many posts "he" has made here; I grew tired of reporting them months ago.) There's also still no ability to edit comments or even easily link to/reference a previous one, so we're still left with "@X" as a system for this.

I've been debating leaving the Stranger website for a while. Maybe this usability-negative update is a good sign the time has come.

It appears to work better on an actual screen than on a phone. Does the design attempt to conform to the reader device? It might better have a separate design for users identified as being on a phone. The only navigation is the menu icon under the cover picture. This doesn't have enough choices to easily locate desired content, as for example, the items for the writers.

@13 - is this the cover archive you're looking for? --> https://www.thestranger.com/issues

And hey, RSS feeds are a real thing that help people read your site. The old ones just seem to have disappeared.

@16 what feed address were you using? happy to get it restored for you.

@15 - Sort of, yes! Thank you Anthony, I hadn't been able to find this in the past! I did some random spot-checks and found not all are sized for printing at their original scale, but some are. I have a few of the physical fish-wrappers framed because they're particularly pleasant as art or because the date is meaningful for me, and I've wanted to print and frame a few more, which is why I've been so persistent on this topic.

Capitalism will judge your efforts. All hail the market.

yes, it does suck. bring back the print edition. i miss having it to start my evening fire.

also, the best thing ANY website can do is eliminate comment sections.

Now I'm getting a ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS error when clicking on the newest slog post.

This new version isn't fun at all.

Ok, now the post loads.

But the "faded bold" is still distracting. Bring back classic bold.

I kind of hate it. Don't know if it's because it seems inconvenient or because it's new and involves a learning curve - like when Microsoft decides to add or remove something from Windows that I'll never use or have used all the time. I don't like anyone moving things around - things that I have to go hunting for later. So, ask me in a month.

Lemme get this straight. You couldn’t bring enough revenue to run the old site, and had to panhandle to keep it alive, but you decided you needed to spend money on a new one anyway. And now you want people to donate just for the privilege of reading this new piece of shit.

Tenso Bold is an ugly header font. Clashes with the body text.

at least we now have a big, scary picture of will casey to haunt our nightmares.

I still have no idea why I'm reading a sans serif font on the main slog page but then have to read a serif font of the exact same text on actual page for the post. It's jarring to my eyes.

And I don't want to have to use an extension to alter things like the font.

So now you changed it to a sans serif "funky" header font, a serif sub head and sans serif body text? C'mon people. No bueno.

Ooofff... The old SLOG was a simple, neat blog in a blog like format. This new format looks like Wordpress got hammered on Jagerbombs and puked HTML all over the screen. Thumbs down.

I didn't want to click the, "This new website sucks", option. I was looking for an in between option. I don't hate it. It just feels about the furthest thing from Strange. There's no color, no life in this new one. We already don't get the physical anymore (yay for trees, boo for us) which was a tough blow. But this new website looks as sterile as most of the mxn in, "The Handmaid's Tale".

Where did the Savage Love RSS feed go? The old URL is now showing ALL the articles on The Stranger, which means the Savage Love ones get lost in the clutter. I want my old feed back!

Drown this site in the bathtub before you waste more $$ on it.

I used to check in with my phone to read SLOG, but this new design has convinced me to abandon the Stranger altogether. Did nobody try this out before approving it?