No Malle Post today. 
I’m doing some, um, site redesign. On . my . own. Yeah, scares me too. I’ve been installing widgets all over the place, and you’ll notice on the left there is a little link to a forum. Because you guys like to chat and swap and all of that, I’m thinking we should try this out. We did it once before, but it was a clunky format. I’m hoping this one will be nice and lean and easy. So to start I just put up two topics – what you’re wearing/loving and what you’ve been buying, which usually aren’t exactly the same.
If that goes well, I will add a swapping section, but it will have a whole host of rules, the foremost of which is that we aren’t responsible for anything. If anyone gets swaplifted, we would ban the user, but it doesn’t prevent them from coming back in some other form/name. So it would be caveat emptor, and none of us want to be involved in administering/referring swapping stuff. If we got to that point, I’d just delete that forum. I’d have to think of something or some rating system so y’all can know if someone is a good swapper, but I think just referring to your MUA or Basenotes user name and using that feedback is probably the best way in the short term and possibly the long term, and I’d advise anyone not to swap with someone new and send first or simultaneously. In all cases, new swappers with no feedback should send first to experienced swappers with lots of feedback. Swapping only, no sales of any kind, that puts a whole other level of responsibility on it I don’t even want to think about, much less run by my attorney.
Okay, so thoughts on that? Something you want to see or no? I don’t want it to get big, I just want it to be for you guys that read here and comment an know each other.
Other things I’m playing with, updating the design to something simple that isn’t such a narrow column. I love this design, but I think it’s time we ditched the cuteness and went with something else. Waaaahhh!!! I’ll try and put some cute back in, but I think simple design is the way to go for now.
So, since I’m not really super-smart about WordPress, but know enough to be super-dangerous, just be prepared to have the site look funny at different times. I have to load the new theme to do some editing on it and get all the links back working, but I also have to play around with it since they do things differently in newer themes than they used to, when things were more hard-coded. Ack. Change is good, changeis good, changeisgood.
Now, what would you guys like to see in (a) a forum, beyond the topics I mentioned, just light chatter things so you guys can take conversations there for more talk or you can exchange private messages and (b) design of the blog? Clean, frilly? Nobody will have a meltdown if it is simple for a while as I work through figuring out a Perfume Posse logo and banner to use?
Patty – you should never have told me about the post emoticons. 
— March
Ohmygosh!theyareSOcoool!
(we have been instructed to Choose Wisely) – Musette
Hooray! It worked! And I haven’t lost my handsome Leo gravatar! xxxx
I’m just testing …… testing ……. testing – to see if I have managed to get it to work!
Okay, redesign has begun!!! Hold on while we work it all out, it may be plain vanilla for a day or four or ten.
Fun!
I had a great time with Swapmania, and have been looking for a small(er) community with which (whom?) to do swaps and bottle splits. I am not on MUA or Basenotes, because they seem just too darned overwhelming.
Thanks for all your work and hosting, Patty!
I just had to create an account to log in. It is quite simple. When it tells you you need a n account, click on “Register”. You type in the user name you want to use (in my case, 50_Roses), then the email account you want associated with that account. You are then sent an email containing your password. It is one of those ultra-cryptic, impossible to remember password containing random numbers and upper and lower case letters, like yXq12bcG5Z37. If you want to use something else (say, a password you can actually remember), you have to log in with the cryptic, convoluted password, then go to the upper right corner of the screen, where there is a greeting and your gravatar. Move your cursor over that area, and select “Edit My Profile” from the pop-up menu. Scroll down to the password area, and enter the new password in both boxes (the usual drill).
thanks!!!
xoxo >-)
Oooops, sorry 50_Roses, I didn’t see that you had already answered Musette’s question.
I figured out how to log on….weeeee!:):)
can you please share? As admin, I’m automatically logged in so I can’t take anybody through the process. A number of folks here have questions.
Thanks!
xo >-)
Ok…at the end of the comments it says “Must be logged on to Comment” the words “logged on” are a link to workpress. Once there you can either logon as an existing user or register. I simply registered and that allowed me to logon here.
I hope that helps.
Yay, I’m registered now…great ideas Patty! Now all I have to figure out is how to get my av back. :)
it is back, right? I remember this as yours
xo >-)
It is, and it was my mix-up…serves me right for opening my mouth before engaging my brain, lol.
Oh, one more design issue: can you increase the leading on the type? Do you know that term? it’s the space from the base of one line to the base of the next. See how dense the type looks? with a wide measure, the closeness of the lines makes it a little hard to read.
Okay, I turned on must be registered to comment, which SHOULD make you do a registration that will then get you into the forum.
BTW, the forum formatting is weird right now until I make the design changes, which will probably be tomorrow.
Looking forward to further adventures when Musette also discovers the post emoticons. :d Hope fully, we will see more >-)
Okay, emo fail!
You know I like a little illustration! ;)) Keeps it colorful!
xo >-)
um, I have no idea how you log in! It just automatically does it for me since I’m logged in to wordpress. Let me investigate and figure it out. I’m sure it’s just a link I haven’t put up yet.
I was somehow enabled to log in via WordPress, so you must have done some prestidigitation.:-?
I’m confused. Logging in?
Thumbs up on the forum. And I’m not sure we need to multiply the topics right at first – the two mentioned ought to be enough to get everybody chatting away. If you need to add more, that will probably become apparent through usage over a couple of weeks/months.
What Suzy Q says! Thanks for all you do and you rock!!
Technically inept as I am, I haven’t yet figured out how to log in to the Forum. Can’t wait to see if I’ll get a new avatar…lol.
PS – how do we log onto the forum? :)
I love the idea of PP adding a forum! I also like the idea of it having a swap section (or could we post about swaps/wishlists/etc in the forum at our own risk?).
During swapmania I “met” a fantastic gal who wasn’t a swapper on MUA. Blasphemy! I know! And I was a tiny bit worried, because it was my biggest swap ever and she wasn’t on MUA, but she turned out to be a doll. Someone else that I knew from the perfume community vouched for her, so I did it, and it turned out to be one of my favorite swaps. I feel very lucky to have participated… My point was this: many perfumistas aren’t on MUA for swaps. So I love the idea of having more places to swap.
I love the idea of another perfume forum. I check MUA several times per day and that’s my favorite current forum. I swap on there, too, with great success. I agree that we could check feedback there and elsewhere before swapping (and give tokens there, for swaps here).
If you do a swap list or swap forum, etc… maybe you could add a search function that ONLY searches that section of the site? On Basenotes, I have a really hard time finding things that I want, because when I search, things from the forums, reviews, swaps, etc all come up in the search results. I must be doing something wrong on there.
It’s always fun/frustrating to play with the theme on a blog, isn’t it? I wish you luck. Are you loading a specialized font? Like Francesa, I’m seeing something that looks a little bit like Comic Sans, but it could be that it’s trying to load a font that I am missing.
:) Great ideas, guys!
Everything you propose sounds great with me, but I have to say, I don’t like the font. If it’s not Comic Sans, it looks enough like it to be GAH. I should know what it is, but when I started out in book design there were about 200 fonts, and now there are 2,000,000.
I agree on the font. Clean and simple is good, yes, but what that font says to me is, “Don’t take me seriously.” And Lord knows we need a serious font for all the serious stuff that comes up here on a regular basis… (Lice, horse manure, skank. You know whuttimean.)
Totally agreed with both of you about the font. And will add that for me at least, clean is good. To be honest, and I have thought this for a while, PP looks a little “busy.” Anyway to clean it up would be good in my book.
You publisher people! Okay, I changed it from Comic Sans (good eye!) to helvetica. Better? I’d like us to pick one for posts that we all use, unless it’s some special day and we want to do something weird. We just have the standard helvetica, arial, andale mono, book antiqua, courier, georgia, tahoma, verdana, trebuchet. any faves there that look best in all browsers?
Oh, I’m glad I took the time to read through the comment thread. I saw Helvetica and wondered if Francesca was losing her eyesight – or her mind! 8-}
xo >-)
ps. I’m with you, Francesca. Comic Sans drives me crazy – and not in a good way. b-(
I think all of what you are doing is good!!! I like, I like, I like, but how to I login? ( technical peabrain here!)
Good luck with the redesign. I like clean. I like perfume bottle banners, too :)
Regarding the swap section: How would it differ from the other swap sites? And can we please keep Swapmania going a couple of times a year? I’ve never swapped on MUA or Basenotes because it looks like a hassle–lots of rules and record keeping. But I’ve had great experiences participating in the last two Swapmanias. Swapmania is low stress but also exciting. It’s special because it’s only periodic and maybe that’s why it generates good energy. I’ve met some nice people doing those swaps.
Thanks for the Posse. You rock. xox
I think Swapmania is here to stay!
(*)
xo >-)
I kind of like the idea of a forum. But do I really need to belong to another forum? I say yes.
You know, as long as it’s not time consuming, you can just go see what people who read here are buying, it could be good! Or a very small swap page that’s not overwhelming! small is good, it only takes a couple of minutes then just as you have time.
that was the one thing I liked about MUA, reading what people went out and bought and added to their collection and how they liked it. I miss that. I’d love to eventually have reader reviews of scents here too, but – well, maybe! I’m sure there’s widget for it, just have no idea how to get enough time to set up a database.
Oh, I love the font! Let’s make it CLEAN. The design, I mean. You and I will never be clean, let’s face it. Also, emoticons. Veeery important.
OTOH I’m not even logged in and so my gravatar is an eight-legged fly. Serves me right.
If you like the font, you can pick it now in the editor, which I sooped up for y’all in the do posts part. We don’t have a LOT of fonts, but we have more than one! I’m way excited. I like the eight-legged fly. 🙂
i know there’s some widget I can use some people can use their facebook log-in here and not come up with another log-in, if they want, and then they would have their facebook picture for their gravatar, which would be super-nifty!
emoticons, you’ve got real ones in the post editor now, check it out, woman, it will make you squeee!!!
I … I think I’m in love. I just added a drooling, bug-eyed emoticon to your post. You’re welcome.
/:)
OMG! I knew, as soon as I saw those that you would be cavorting in glee. Thank you. I showed great restraint in just putting the one up in this post. 🙂
I grabbed Cigar Guy! He’s a cutie! 😡
xo >-)
So much fun! I like the fact – well, hopefully – that since I logged in with Facebook, my little avatar won’t be a bug. I can’t pull off an 8-legged fly like some of you can!
Think us mere mortals will be able to make emoticons work now? *crosses fingers and hopes really, really hard*
Love the idea of a forum on many levels!
I noticed something floating around the top of the page yesterday that was asking me to sign in; now I know why!
Thanks so much for all your hard work.
You should be able to click on it and go in there, I think! As long as you have registered.
Hard work? I dunno, more like blind work. I know enough to be really dangerous, but not enough to be really proficient, so I spend a lot of time breaking things and fixing them. It’s a weird learning curve. 🙂