Welcome to the new Sox Machine (updated)

Update (8-18-2010): If the changes I made are correct, this should now be the front page of SoxMachine.com, and all previous links should redirect here without a problem.
Please let me know if you encounter any issues, whether commenting, viewing old links or seeing stories in your RSS feed. Thanks to Alan for the major assistance.
I, and you by natural extension, have reached the intermediate stage of the much-needed redesign of Sox Machine.
What you see here will eventually become main page of Sox Machine (https://soxmachine.com, not https://soxmachine.com/soxmachine), hopefully by next week, once I figure out the smoothest, most effective way to redirect it.
If you weren’t around last year, I threw this site up in a hurry after my old one spit the bit. So it’s been a mishmash of ideas that I’ve been tweaking, and I finally committed to using a couple of weeks to redraw the whole thing.
The main goal is to put the most popular stuff in front and make the whole site less daunting to navigate. I believe by the end, I will have accomplished that. Some goals I have in mind:
No. 1: A genuine mainland.

I’m pretty sure everybody here considers the Sox Machine blog the big attraction, and State of the Sox more of an academic offshoot. The numbers say that anyway, so instead of giving them equal weight on the home page, I’m placing a much greater emphasis on what people pay attention to the most.
State of the Sox will still exist (and I’ll write those first), but those will feed onto the main page on an RSS feed in the middle column. This reduces the number of looks from three to two, which I think has been necessary for a while.
No. 2: A cleaner look.
The discussions below each post are easier to follow with increased width and less obtrusive divisions.
No. 3: Breaking off the minor league roundups.
I feel the individual posts can be daunting by themselves. I write long enough as it is, and then there’s a big chunk of numbers and bullet points at the bottom.
So instead of weighing down the bottom of every post, I’m turning the minor league roundup into separate posts. Don’t worry — they’ll still be written daily, but I think devoting an entire category to roundups will make it easier to browse past performances. I’m also going to write a brief paragraph highlighting the day’s best to make it easier to find box scores.
The same thing may also happen to the Christian Marrero Reading Room as a midday feature, though I’m not decided on that yet.
No. 4: More flexibility to give posts proper weight.
The new front page will allow me to use the biggest real estate for the most active discussions, while getting less important notes out there in various ways.
Give it a spin and let me know of any ways I could improve it. I’m hoping “go back to the old look” isn’t a popular one.

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Carl Skanberg

I also like what you’ve done with the new look Mark Teahen, aside from that can’t-see-the-ball-in-the-outfield thing.

fustercluck

Boss redesign. Real game changer.
Back to the news at hand, all Marks were on point last night! Friday 13, baby; bark at the moon

fustercluck

You gonna put pics, pshops & captions in the posts? Get my updates via RSS, but those were my incentive to hit up the home page

soxfan1

Jim, this site keeps getting better & better. Massive Kudos!!

lorenzobandini

>>I’m pretty sure everybody here considers the Sox Machine blog the big attraction, and State of the Sox more of an academic offshoot<<
I didn't even know SOTS existed until today.

newcomer

Yeah, Jim, I’d been reading your blog for quite a while before I realized that SOTS existed (probably because people find the site through links to the blog). Lately I’ve noticed that you’re linking to the game recaps in your blog entries, and I think that combined with their place on the main page will work nicely.

marshlands

This new redesign shows a lot of guts and gumption, Jim. You’re a real gamer.

bigfun

Looks great, but is there a way to go from one post to the previous or next post?

fustercluck

My Entries & Comments RSS feeds went dead. And the above links still point to old & busted, apparently.

fustercluck

The feeds are gold, Jim! Gold!

scottypodsver2

I think it would be benificial if all pages had a link to “Der Twain urn Heaven” on SSS, for spiritual uplifting.

arrow

Sorry, Jim, but the redesign is inconvenient for readers, especially if we’ve been away for a few days — what’s wrong with conventional blog format of scrolling down for previous entries?

fustercluck

Have you tried the Archives dropdownlist on the right rail?