JAST launches new official forums

[sanahtlig]

JAST Discuss

It's 100% less sucky than the terrible JAST Connect system, which resembled blogging software hamfistedly repurposed for forums.  It has the usual features one expects like a private message system, file and image attachments, and configurable notifications.  The system is pretty similar to Fuwanovel's.  I'm also a moderator there (with highly restricted moderation powers).

If you want replies from JAST staff members (Nicholas Graham and Tim), that's where to post.  JAST and J-List owner Peter Payne is also expected to stop by occasionally.

[sanahtlig]

I have no ability to comment or act on such broad generalizations. Could you be more specific, @OutoftheBox?

[tymmur]

I will try to be a bit more constructive. The colors clash big time and look downright hostile. I don't want to look at them for extended periods of time. In fact I don't want to look at them for even a minute. After the Pokemon incident with kids in Tokyo being rushed to the hospitals, one of the universities started studying nice and hostile colors. They ended up with some software, which can analyze a picture and tell how nice/calm it is on a scale from 1 to 10. Even without that software I can tell you get max 3, likely lower than that.

 

To make matters worse, the font is kind of small, making me strain my eyes even more. I totally do not feel welcome there. The font size issue should be correctable by telling the browser to increase the font size.

 

I tried inverting the colors (as in each color channel becomes 255 - value). It actually becomes better that way, but it's still far from good. That isn't a solution either.

 

That's all I have to say for now. The colors made me leave before I studied it enough to comment on the actual contents.

[Darklord Rooke]

It's much better than JAST connect, and has the features you'd expect. And it looks incredibly modern ... which is a bad thing for me  Big blocks everywhere that remind me of Windows 10.

That being said, it's quite nice when you launch a thread and look at a discussion. It's simple to use, fast, does everything it needs to, so it works and is functional. The aesthetic needs work, I suppose, it feels like it's optimised for mobile/android/whatever. That's my ignorant 2c (not really a techy.)

The comment above about colours is pretty understandable - everything's just a different shade of blue. 

[Tyr]

People who think the color theme of the new JAST forums looks ugly are probably the same kind of people who don't think that Angelic Serenade is the best color theme ever made ... even though it is.

[Camy]

It does look really dull with so much blue dominating the screen, which can cause a sense of discomfort.  They could get a better theme or switch out some areas with less bold colors.

[tymmur]

7 minutes ago, Tyrosyn said:

People who think the color theme of the new JAST forums looks ugly are probably the same kind of people who don't think that Angelic Serenade is the best color theme ever made ... even though it is.

It's not about being ugly (only @OutoftheBox said that). It's about actually feeling physically unwell when watching it. I admit I'm more sensitive to light than the average person (particularly flashing lights), but still that page affects me negatively physically, which is fairly rare for a static homepage. I can't even remember experiencing that happening before.

 

I did some thinking about this. The key here might not be that it's different shades of the same color, but the fact that it is all blue. Blue is the shortest wavelength we can see, which mean it's highest frequency light, which affects our eyes. The high frequency in turn mean it's the kind of light with the most energy. Maybe starring into high energy light like that overloads something in the eye or the connected nerves, at least in some people. It does transfer significantly more energy into the eyes than if it were red light, which is the lowest energy light we can see. Natural occurring light is primary low energy, meaning lots of red and very little blue. Starring into blue lights isn't something we would be able to do naturally, meaning genes, which would not be able to cope with it would not be a disadvantage until modern times.

 

While the physics are facts, it's just my theory on how the eye/nerves/brain responds. It may or may not be correct, but it got me thinking: what would happen if I see the very same page, except it is in shades of red? I'm not sure I would like how it would look, but it would be interesting to know if it triggers some bad feeling or not.

 

Another thing about blue. Research has shown that blue light triggers a hormone release from the brain. This hormone is a "wake up" trigger, which makes sense since the sun is the only natural source of blue light. Reading on a screen with blue light is now a cause of insomnia and it is actually recommended to read paper books rather than ebooks before sleeping due to this issue. This mean checking for new posts on an all blue forum just before going to bed would be a bad idea.

[Kaykeiokay]

The colors used are very bright/ saturated, it was kinda like a punch in the eyes going directly from this forum to Jast's. If those blues are toned down a little more it make it much easier to look at for long periods of time, the header is perfect though (It'd probably be a bad idea to try to reinvent the company color after all.) so maybe try and find a color palette that compliments it. It might also help if there are more variations in color instead of just blue. Maybe some variations of grey or a dull orange?

The interface seems great though, very clear and user friendly. I hope Jast's staff interact with fans regularly though, so we can get a better idea about the company as a whole. It's kinda sad when staff presence is so lacking that it might as well be a fan forum. Then again, I just might be spoiled by Xseed forums. (Tom is such a fabulous company rep.)

[Tyr]

The comments here are fascinating. For me, there is no other color more harmonious and pleasant to look at than blue.
I'm also a fan of mono-color designs, so I like it if there is only one color in different shades and I can't stand it if there is a second color just for the sake of having a second.
Funny enough, I absolutely hate orange and I find it intriguing that most of the time when people try to make improvements to a design they suggest to add orange to the color scheme.

No, irony. I really find your posts very interesting.

What I give you is that the shades of blue aren't really that compatible with each other. VNDB's Angelic Serenade, which I mentioned before, looks far better than this. I guess it has to do with JAST Discuss being a more modern design which tries to be "interesting" rather than "easy to look at".

I registered at the forums and the first thing I noticed are many dead links in the profile menu. Also, I didn't get an E-Mail even though the forum keeps notifying me that I should confirm my address.
Also, it seems there are some JAST Connect topics missing, or am I overlooking something?

Edit: Got the E-Mail just after writing this comment, one hour after registering. Hah.

[wyldstrykr]

i cant do basic coloring so i guess is good, not as good as this forum though

[ChaosRaven]

I don't consider the color scheme offensive, it's simply black/dark blue on white. That's used by pretty much every word professor, text editor or spreadsheet program for ages. However, if you jump directly from Fuwa to the Jast forums it's a bit of a shock because the colors are almost inverted. Fuwa uses white on black and Jast uses black on white - it's just normal that the eyes go crazy for a moment when confronted with a completely inverted color scheme.

But I DO remember some not so great color schemes in Fuwa a few months ago. Wasn't it even pink for a short time?! 

[Chronopolis]

Angelic Serenade is a lot darker. There's no fat title fonts in cyan or brightly coloured blocks.

Yeah moving from fuwa, did feel like a punch in the eyes.

[tymmur]

1 minute ago, ChaosRaven said:

But I DO remember some not so great color schemes in Fuwa a few months ago. Wasn't it even pink for a short time?! 

There is a big difference. The pink Fuwa was unintended while the blue JAST is intended.

 

5 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

I don't consider the color scheme offensive, it's simply black/dark blue on white. That's used by pretty much every word professor, text editor or spreadsheet program for ages.

I just checked. It's the grayish color I remember. The only color I remember before that was back in the monochrome days where it happened to be blank and white (obviously). I don't think I have seen any text editors or spreadsheets with that harsh coloring.

[sanahtlig]

46 minutes ago, tymmur said:

I did some thinking about this. The key here might not be that it's different shades of the same color, but the fact that it is all blue. Blue is the shortest wavelength we can see, which mean it's highest frequency light, which affects our eyes. The high frequency in turn mean it's the kind of light with the most energy. Maybe starring into high energy light like that overloads something in the eye or the connected nerves, at least in some people. It does transfer significantly more energy into the eyes than if it were red light, which is the lowest energy light we can see. Natural occurring light is primary low energy, meaning lots of red and very little blue. Starring into blue lights isn't something we would be able to do naturally, meaning genes, which would not be able to cope with it would not be a disadvantage until modern times.

I have a friend with impaired vision who is very sensitive to light.  I seem to recall he was particularly sensitive to bright blue light.  He absolutely hates blue LEDs.

Some further insight on the matter:

Quote

The light from LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, comes primarily from the short-wave, high-energy blue and violet end of the visible light spectrum, said Dr. Celia Sánchez-Ramos.

And prolonged, continuous exposure to this light — from computer monitors, mobile phones and television screens or indoor and outdoor lights — may be enough to damage retinas, she said.

http://www.livescience.com/31949-led-lights-eye-damage.html

[sanahtlig]

I created a thread on the JAST forums to solicit feedback from users on the new forum layout.  I encourage everyone to comment there so JAST can view and respond to feedback.

http://discuss.jastusa.com/discussion/255107/forum-feedback

[solidbatman]

Does Jast have enough going on to warrant the need for forums? 

[sanahtlig]

The old JAST forums pre-date VNDB.  They're a treasure trove of historical discussion about VNs and the English VN industry dating back to 2001, and they're archived inside the new forum system.

http://discuss.jastusa.com/categories/archive

[ChaosRaven]

50 minutes ago, tymmur said:

I just checked. It's the grayish color I remember. The only color I remember before that was back in the monochrome days where it happened to be blank and white (obviously). I don't think I have seen any text editors or spreadsheets with that harsh coloring.

I checked several of my office programs (MS Office, Notepad++) and they all use 100% white background with black text (Though they use cleartype to get a softer font image). And most news pages like The Guardian or BBC also use white or almost white background with black text.

It's just common. Though that doesn't mean that you have to like it. I know a lot of people too that prefer white on black.

[tymmur]

Oh you meant black text on white background. Yeah that's fairly common. Sort of like paper simulation. I was talking about all the blue stuff, which is why I didn't quite get what you meant by that statement.

[sanahtlig]

37 minutes ago, OutoftheBox said:

You seem to know a lot about JAST so I'll just ask you; what ever happened to the JAST subsidiaries? I'm guessing they were shut down but I don't think it was ever announced.

The "subsidiaries" were just brands, as far as I know.  These were likely just consumer-facing entities for marketing purposes, and thus "shutting them down" probably involved no actual change in staff. 

G-Collections staff was probably absorbed into JAST/J-List or laid off, but they would've been out of a job anyway if JAST hadn't acquired them when parent company CDBros went bust.

[DarkZedge]

Wether the color is good or not or if it's ugly or not, what matters most is it's functionality and help it can provide.

As long as it works and does it's job the looks of it should be of lesser importance.

[Eclipsed]

Should rename BLUE USA, dem forums are so blue

[wraithseeker]

I have no idea why they aren't moving on to modern forums such as Discourse or Flarum

[Darklord Rooke]

26 minutes ago, wraithseeker said:

I have no idea why they aren't moving on to modern forums such as Discourse or Flarum

Flarum sounds like a hideous, flesh eating disease.

‘I’m sorry sir but there’s nothing we can do. He’s got flarum.’
‘Oh my God! I thought they only affected cows!’

Seriously though, I really don’t like modern forums like Discourse. I don’t see what the benefits are and navigating it is unpleasant. I much prefer older style forums, to the extent that I’ll avoid a lot of forums if they use modern software … like flarum (I don’t want to catch anything.)

[Dergonu]

Well the forum looks very nice, (though its too blue. Such blue.) 

It doesn't seem to be very active yet, though that is to be expected seeing as it just launched and all. 

 

I felt very special when I registered, seeing as I was the only person online