Lew Rockwell Beta Site – Thoughts, Notes, and a Request

by John Keller

Recently by John Keller: Ron Paul's Support Is Much More Widespread Than Reported

As announced on the blog several times in recent days, Lewrockwell is moving the website and all its content to a new WordPress based format. Thanks to all those who looked at the beta site and provided feedback. Here are some of the main changes we're looking at thanks to your comments:

  • Overall the site looks clean, loads quickly, and is easy to use (not a change, I know)
  • Keeping a serif font, instead of the sans-serif font on the beta site articles
  • Tweaking the spacing and font sizing of article titles and the masthead
  • Continuing with Google search for now, instead of the current WordPress search
  • Tuning the background color and font colors slightly to reduce eye-strain while reading
  • Final updates to Articles, Podcasts, and Blog posts – all will be updated before the move
  • Other minor bug fixes

This is by no means an exhaustive list of version 1 tweaks or the features we're looking at adding once we move to WordPress. Please hold your comments and requests for now if you haven't already sent them in. We'll have another open comment session once we launch the new site. Suggestions for version 2 include:

  • Categories – the overall area of focus for an atricle (e.g. Economics, Foreign Policy, Domestic Policy, Anarcho-Capitalism, etc.)
  • Tags – these are more specific than Categories and an article can have more than one (e.g. Drones, Gold, Ron Paul)
  • Comments – no Facebook required, likely Disquus
  • Ratings – 1 to 5 stars for an article, ala Amazon
  • Search – incorporating the above metrics and keywords
  • Potentially more items

Here's how we need your help now. The site seems to load quickly, but we've only had about 2% of the overall readership go there. Today, Monday April 1st (hold comments please!) please go and read the entire site over at Beta.LewRockwell.com. This will give us the opportunity to see how the entire site functions under the real load that we'll see when we go live in a 2-3 weeks, and make adjustments so your load times stay as fast as possible. Click This Link to Go to Beta.Lewrockwell.com.