Dear Imps,

For those of you I haven’t had the chance to meet and interact with, I’m Matthias Bundai. I started II to improve writing through criticism. Now that a few years have passed I wish to, with your permission, reshape the site.

I have concerns I will raise in order of importance. Then I will explain my proposal and how it addresses my concerns.

Sustainability

As you may know II has been advertisement free. One incarnation of the forum briefly showed ads. Philosophically I am opposed to advertisements, so I view them as entirely out of the question as way of sustaining II. That said, I don’t want to finance II. Nor do I want member contributions to finance II. II is here for you to enjoy, free of charge.

I don’t want to continue financing II myself because I want II to have room to grow in size independent of my budget. Right now II runs on servers I can afford, not necessarily servers that meet its current or future demands.

Accessibility, Complexity, and Speed

I’ve come to strongly believe that a website should be human readable in any form. This includes just reading the source code without a browser. There are currently some website that meet that standard. II is not one of them. The great thing about readable HTML markup is that it doesn’t take much styling (CSS) to make it readable in a browser.

I want to avoid a trend I’ve noticed in many websites of increased complexity (which results in less readable source code) and slower loading times. Most websites these days load many JavaScript files that make small cosmetic enhancements. In my opinion, those cosmetics are not worth it. The more complicated a website is, the slower it will load. I’ve been very proud of how fast II loads, but I want to make it even faster.

Cosmetic enhancements also cost bandwidth. I’ve lived in the US where internet access is relatively cheap and easy to come by, but for someone living in a country with limited internet access loading a 14 kilobyte website (II main page currently) is much better than loading a 143 kilobyte website.

If you ever want to have your mind blown, compare the source code of II’s homepage to that of HuffingtonPost.

Community Involvement

I would like II to be run by the community. Currently its internal workings are complicated, so there is a barrier to contribution. I would like to simplify the operation of II enough (and write great explanations of the process) so that new and old members alike can contribute.

Proposal

I plan to strip II down to the bare-bones and use Readability for cosmetics. This offloads the complexity of presentation to Readability, allowing II to be fast. And Readability generates some amount of income.

Monetary operation of II

If II makes money I promise that it will reinvested into II. This is how I believe a non-profit should be run, and I intend to run II as a non-profit. I don’t think it would be fair if any single person profited from the work done by the community. Certainly I should not seek monetary gain from the articles that you have written.

This site has done a great deal for me and I’d be honored to assist (chiefly looking at the Community Involvement section). If you have anything more concrete than that goal I’d love to hear it. What, precisely, will II members be doing? Coding, drafting, proofing, updating? Server-side stuff? I confess that I don’t know too much about it but I’d be willing to learn.

I like the clean, simple theme of the website, and I really do appreciate and have noticed the fast loading times, so props for your decision and accomplishment there.

Frankly, I am also slightly confused by your post, SlyShy. Would you be able to give me a pointed summary? I gathered about as much as SoupNazi did. Also, I am confused by the lack of eating Irish babies in this thread.

I’d also like to second Inkblot- this website IS incredibly clean, readable, and altogether gorgeous.

I don’t really get what you mean to do either, but I’m sure whatever you do will be fine since you already created a really clean and nicely formatted site (this is by far the best-looking forum layout I have ever seen). It also really does load incredibly fast. I don’t get how you can make money without ads of contributions either, but if there’s a way, go for it.

Basically, I’m changing the site layout. The site will look a little more low-fi and retro, but will be easier to read and faster loading, and simpler to use.

I’m proposing that I make everything better. lol

Readability users appropriate a portion of their membership fee to websites they visit, so ImpishIdea would get a share of that.

I do like simplicity and speed as well as long as it comes with functionality. Some forums can get WAY too cluttered. And I really hate black- IF is always a real headache to read.

I really recommend everyone read Readability’s Website. They can answer your questions better than I can.

The simplicity and community involvement won’t stem from Readability directly. Just the sustainability will.

I’m going to working on improvements to the site that make community involvement easier.

Hmm, personally, I’m…. not fond of ads, but if there is absolutely no other way, then I say, go for it, as long as they’re inconspicuous like what Mnemone said.

II is already quite fast; in fact, the only website that I know of that loads faster than II is the Google browser searchy thing. I like how II is simple and accessible anywhere, by anyone. However, like Falling said, don’t over-strip II. I mean, bones are fine, but they can’t work without tendons, muscles, nerves and the brain (actually, I’m not sure what I just said was relevant. I’m kinda wiped out at the moment). I will be very happy if II loads a lot faster though. :)

Regarding community involvement, that sounds like a pretty good idea.

Sly, if there’s one thing I’ve always loved about II’s design, it’s how simple it is. The homepage uses, what, three colors? That sort of light cream for the background, black for text, and red for accents and titles. The forum doesn’t use much more, other than the occasional gray or brown. And I love how simple the forums are. We’re not all that huge of a forum, so separate boards isn’t really necessary, and the idea of “tagging” threads works better. And I know I (and others) have mentioned this before, but even now, the site and forums are surprisingly easy to read on even something as small as an iPod, even without having a separate mobile version or any simplification whatsoever. So I’m certainly not going to complain much if you’re saying you’d like to keep that simplicity rather than make things more complicated, as every other site seems to do inevitably!

I do hope you can keep the overall color scheme and “look” of the site, at least. And I do have a question about the forums, will they be changed?

Also, Textile’s fun. :) I really don’t know why more sites haven’t adopted it. Personally, I loathe WYSIWYG-only interfaces with the burning fiery passion of a thousand suns, simply because they’re so buggy. An HTML option (especially for submitting articles) wouldn’t be bad so long as Textile’s still around, though. Textile’s much simpler and faster to use than HTML, but HTML is more familiar to many people and more powerful (or at least I assume it is, I haven’t really played around with some of Textile’s more complicated markup).

On ads, like others say, I’m fine with topical ads or text ads. Sound, things that dance around my screen so you have to play a complicated game to try to get rid of the thing, pop-ups, etc., those I might be a little more annoyed at! I know some webcomics have ads where they link to other webcomics and I’m assuming they get money for it, is there some sort of advertising system you could get into like that, where it’s actual other people on the internet, not just all Progressive insurance and LEARN ONE TIP FOR I DUNNO, PREVENTING KNEE INJURY OR WHATEVER FROM THIS MOM FROM KALAMAZOO. If you can get by without ads, of course that would be awesome, but I can be reasonable. Sometimes. :)

I think you might be right, that sounds like what I was thinking about.

An II mug would be awesome! How much are mugs, anyway?

I’m wary of merchandising because it is a relatively inefficient way to make money. That is, the merchandise company will take the vast majority of the money. If I can find a local shop that has a good deal, maybe.

It is a work in progress. To protest SOPA :D

Sly’s getting there.

Oh yes, I like it :) One thing that might also help: just a little line or two about what II is/does for new viewers? Actually, that might make the whole format make more sense and also more inviting. But I’m glad to see the logo again.

Now that’s a good idea.

It is a work in progress.

Ok, cool. I was wondering if this would be the new format because it seems a bit impersonal and a bit bland. I did like the setup of the old site – simple but inviting. But I’m sure that when you guys are down, it’ll be pretty cool.

I’m going to go ahead and unsticky this. Comments related to the site changes can be posted in the Feedback Thread.