The Future of YoungCoders

[Mau]

Hi everyone,
The staff has been busy lately drafting up plans for the 2007 year. We've taken your feedback and tried to tie it all into a comprehensive plan. So, here's a little of taste of what's coming.

The first thing to note that there will be two new teams, the "Fundraising Team" and the "Promotion and Outreach Team." These two teams will be responsible for two critical parts of network: raising funds and promotion. There will be a later announcement about these in a couple of weeks, but each team will require imagination and creativity -- unusual problems require unusual solutions! :) Like everything at YoungCoders, this is a volunteer position, so there's no pressure and it can be quite fun. But, more on that later.

YoungCoders is also going to start to polish off our branding, which many of you have often wondered about. For instance, we're going to adopt a mission statement: "YoungCoders is the premier online community for young programmers, graphic designers, and entrepeneurs by providing free and high-quality articles, enabling intelligent and friendly forum discussion, and empowering members through network projects."

We're also going try to step up the amount of content that we generate. Ideally, we're going to try to get about a new unique article once a month, however more would always be great! We might need some help with keeping up with this pace, so if you have any content that you want to submit, that would always be appreciated.

And finally, what I think most of you are most interested in: the YoungCoders theme. We realize that the current theme has been a topic of much debate recently. And we want to change it. So, I've attached an early screenshot of what we are currently throwing around. The attached screenshot is, of course, not polished off completely and may change--that is, we haven't tested it across CRTs, LCDs, and so forth.

The new site is going to be all about content and user activity. The first thing that you should notice is that we've moved away from a forum index homepage and instead went to a more traditional page. This is to reflect our emphasis on content and information. YoungCoders is a place full of unique and innovative techniques, so we want to put the spotlight on that instead of some boring forum index! :) The forums and everything else will still be here, of course.

You will also notice a new logo. We tried to come up with a more neutral logo, as we felt the current logo portrays a stereotype. We are an open community available to everyone of all ages, race, gender, and orientation and we want to reflect that.

So, there's what we are currently tossing around. Everything is mostly still up in the air at this point, but I wanted to give you an update on what we're working on. Many of this may change. All of this won't happen at the snap of my fingers, but we're going to try it get it done before 2008 for sure! ;) It's going to be an exciting year for YoungCoders!

As always, we're interested in your comments, feedback, criticism, suggestions, and thoughts.

On behalf of the entire staff,
Mau

[Vista06]

That screen shot looks very "Vista-ish" if I do say so myself! By that I mean, Everything is in one place, easily accessible, and just looking down right good. I just want to say good job to the entire staff for putting their all into the new YC. Good job team.

Vista06

EDIT: "What's happening to YC?" Good things. Really good things.

[LoneStar]

wow that sounds really exciting! I can't wait! Good job on the skin, i like it a lot... but what i disagree with is the logo... i think it's just.. too simple

[callumjones]

That screen shot looks very "Vista-ish"

It does? Sorry I must be missing something here then.

[Vista06]

I meant Vista-ish in the best way allowed by the EULA. :) I just meant it is very organized. Very 2007.
I didn't mean "Areo style graphics, black w/ grey highlights," or anything like that.

[Umang]

wow that sounds really exciting! I can't wait! Good job on the skin, i like it a lot... but what i disagree with is the logo... i think it's just.. too simple

I agree. I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun, but I don't like the logo. Of course you can't get one logo that everyone will like, but anyway, I'm really looking forward to 2007!

[Calamitie]

Nice to see a lot is going on!

I hate to say it, but i'm not too keen on the planned design - I think it is how big it is that puts me off...

I also think the YoungCoders logo is too basic :(

I know I sound really 'picky' about everything YC :p

[sirjavabean]

I hate to say it, but i'm not too keen on the planned design - I think it is how big it is that puts me off...

I think the only reason it's so long is that Mau has tried to include an example of lots of different stuff in one screenshot. Would it be possible to publish the other ones Mau? :)

I really like the new skin, although I can see that the colour scheme might potentially annoy some people (there's always a few that don't like pastel colours :p). Hopefully we'll still be able to do custom stylesheets on the new site :D.

[Calamitie]

I really like the new skin, although I can see that the colour scheme might potentially annoy some people (there's always a few that don't like pastel colours :p). Hopefully we'll still be able to do custom stylesheets on the new site :D.

I like pastel colours a lot, I just don't like the colours used in the proposed skin.

Also; it would be amazing to be able to upload a stylesheet via your YC user control panel to be applied to all pages! I would really, really, really love that - Words cannot describe how good that would be for me to be able to skin YC myself :p

Also; I didn't mean the height of the skin, I meant the width - It displays 'ok' on my widescreen laptop, but looks awful for me on a 4:3 monitor because it looks so bloated and un-user friendly.

[gorda001]

That screen shot looks very "Vista-ish"

Are you sure we are talking about the same OS? ^_^