Automated Style Change

[csad21]

Title
Automated Style Change

Short, concise description of the idea
Automatic livejournal style change at certain intervals.

Full description of the ideaAt certain intervals, that either the user could define, or livejournal itself, livejournal's journal styles could be changed randomly or, if at all possible, according to a ranking list of user

Comments

[charliemc]

-1

Personally, I like the 'dull' and 'boring' SAMENESS of LiveJournal. Actually, I'd prefer we go back to the old blue header, while on the subject.

As someone who has repeatedly tried to teach people HOW to use LiveJournal, it's much easier when things don't change constantly (and drastically). It's difficult enough for Newbies to learn things without random change.

Perhaps this could be an option for those who really do want it, though.

As for the coding involved (etc.), this wouldn't be high on my personal list of improvements...

[lied_ohne_worte]

Do you mean that journal styles would change without people actually agreeing to it, say, by checking a "Allow my style to change randomly", but rather that LJ would enable this feature and the next morning all journals show another style? Because that would be a nightmare. Those people who do put thought into their journal style would be rightfully annoyed if it was changed on them, and those who don't would be confused, as they are about just about any change, and the rest would just be annoyed. Then you'd have accessibility issues, say people who are colourblind getting a layout in colours that don't work, or people who need large contrasts and fonts losing those, or people with a screenreader having all the links in different places... I'd not want to see the comments on the News post announcing such a change, or the Support board every time the styles change

[csad21]

No, you're right, it would be a nightmare to have something like that as a standard setting, I'm all for leaving standards as they are, but as an optional one, a simple addition where people could check a box as you said, if they wanted, why not? I'm not seeing anyone being annoyed by Firefox Personas, in fact it helped increase popularity for Firefox.

Now, as to the effort involved, yes, that's the most important thing to consider. But that's in the purview of the coders, to decide if it's worth the effort or not. Perhaps a poll could resolve the question of, "Is it worth it?"

Considering some of the changes livejournal made that were far more annoying, like the sudden - or perhaps not? I don't know, I wasn't paying attention at the time - change of the links to do away with the "+" and inserting spaces instead, which then necessitated everyone scrambling to change their links, this should be not even anywhere on the "list of annoyances".

Like I said, it's just a suggestion, its viability is naturally all up to the coders, since

[snakeling]

You know, a much easier way to implement this would be to add a "random" button on the customise journal page, and then you just accept whichever theme LJ selected for you.

[ursamajor]

+1. I'm mongoose about whether or not any form of this gets implemented, but a randomizer button on the Customize Journal page seems like the most sensible place to put it, and likely the easiest to code.