Timeline for Reducing the weight of our footer
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 13, 2021 at 10:17 | comment | added | Neerkoli | I think the Hot Network Questions are rightly a bigger driver than the footer. I've discovered lots of sites through that. In fact I've never even noticed the contents of the footer in these 8 years. As @animuson mentioned, earlier there was something catchy on the footer to get some attraction, now it's just boring minimalistic plain text. Better remove it. | |
| Dec 8, 2021 at 5:31 | comment | added | bta | I also have discovered new sites via the footer, so I see some value in retaining those in some more-concise form. All the other links, though, would be better if moved to a different page (the sub-links under "company", the site-specific left hand column, etc). Essentially, keep the headers but axe the link tree below them. | |
| Nov 28, 2021 at 14:50 | comment | added | Eric Duminil | That's really interesting. I've never paid any attention to the footer, I've never read it or never clicked on it. Yet I have reputation greater than 101 on 51 networks. I mostly switch to other networks via HNQ or Google. | |
| Nov 28, 2021 at 4:28 | comment | added | Mike Ciffone | Nostalgia? I got active on the site this year and idk what the footer even looks like I had to check. | |
| Nov 19, 2021 at 9:58 | comment | added | Emil Jeřábek | No matter how you implement it, there is no way around the fact that discoverability of individual sites in the network is inversely proportional to the number of said sites, which grew by almost an order of magnitude since 2012. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 21:56 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor | @V2Blast Your wish is my command :-) | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 21:43 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor | @V2Blast Really this is just the final nail in the coffin on a long-ongoing process of reducing discoverability of network sites via the footer. As animuson's screenshot shows, back in 2012 (before HNQ), the site links in the footer were much clearer and prettier, as well as there being fewer of them. Reducing the list of sites to a list of topics has already greatly reduced discoverability: I don't even remember whether SFF is in "Life & arts" or "Culture & recreation", and neither of those are topics I'd describe myself as interested in, whereas "Sci-fi & fantasy" is. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 21:21 | comment | added | V2Blast Staff | "For example, maybe the "Featured Site" thingy here could actually become a more visible feature rather than something hidden on a page that hardly anyone goes to check?" - This also seems like a great idea, though I think it should probably be fleshed out and proposed as a separate post (if you or anyone else has ideas on where/how it could be promoted). :) | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 21:13 | comment | added | animuson StaffMod | While that is certainly a unique experience, what you say is diminished greatly by all the other design changes that have occurred since then. Back in 2012, the footer was a much slimmer list of a few dozen sites with brightly colored squares next to each one that made them stand out much more. There were no hot network questions in the sidebar yet, and the list of all sites in the menu was hidden behind a sub-option of the HNQ drop-down. At the time, the footer was the only good method of discoverability. | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 21:07 | comment | added | V2Blast Staff | The changed footer still includes links to the categories on stackexchange.com corresponding to the categories under which those sites are listed in the current version of the footer; it just doesn't list all the sites within the footer itself. Could you clarify how/why this aspect of the change would make it harder to find sites you're interested in? (Also, thank you for the feedback!) | |
| Nov 18, 2021 at 20:52 | history | answered | Rand al'Thor | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
