Global Mod Color is hard to read

[Forestidia86]

The color for Global Moderators is hardly readable with default forum style. Example is attached.

[Simon]

Admin is 0xFF0000 regardless of page color scheme (light, dark, ...). Admins can configure the value, and it will then again apply to all page color schemes. Looks like the red is fine.

Global Moderator is 0x0000FF, again regardless of color scheme, and this is now hard to read against dark background. Again, admins can configure this value. What shall we try? I'll try a green, e.g. 0x308000 and hope that it's still distinct from the regular users in all page color schemes, and that nobody is red-green color blind.

I don't see how to configure the color of normal users. Likely, the page color scheme defines normal-user color. Maybe normal-user color is constant across all page color schemes.

import rants.showingThingsOnlyWithColor;
import rants.exponentialCustomizability;

Really, the base problem is that the forum designers introduce two axes of customizability: Mod color, and page color scheme, and the two axes have to know about each other, but do not. Where even to put the necessary config to reconcile these? Most sensible is that the admin's color settings know about all installed page color schemes, but that's not how it's implemented here. Do I have to drill into the page color scheme and find mod settings there? Should I file this upstream?

-- Simon

[kaywhyn]

Woot woot, green! My favorite color!

Attached two images. The first image is of Simon's new color change for global mods from Forestidia's reported hard to read blue on the dark theme to green. Looks good to me! What do you think of the new color change for global mods, Forestidia?

The second image is of the green color for global mods against the SMF theme, which is what I use. This also looks great to me! Maybe it can be a bit darker, as it is a little somewhat difficult to read currently with the SMF theme, but it's not that big of a deal. I think it's just simply from my native resolution being 1920 x 1200, so of course things being smaller will distort the visuals a bit. So, no issue here!

Admittedly my eyebrow was raised when I first read the topic title, but after seeing Forestidia's attached image, yes, I agree with her that when my name was in blue against the dark theme it's very hard to see and read. Good find!

Thanks for reporting and the color change!

[grams88]

Hi Kaywhyn, I think Green or Red would work very well.  If I was to vote, Green looks like it would fit in well.   Is this a new role you got for the (Global Moderator)?  Good on you and I think you will make a good Global Moderator.

Green is my second favorite color. I think Lemmings might be behind the reason why I chose Green as my second favorite, the lemmings two player where player two's lemmings have a green color.

[Forestidia86]

It's better readable but still not ideal. Thanks for dealing with it though.

[Simon]

Thanks, kaywhyn, for the examples. Yeah, the green is not ideal. kaywhyn wants the green darker, Forestidia wants it lighter.

Make them both red? Idea: What is the point of the listing in the first place? The difference between admin and moderator is largely irrelevant there. Red seems to be the only readable color against both black and white bg.

Make one red and, make the other an orangey red? Same idea.

Report the problem upstream? That's where it really belongs. The groups should get icons, not colors. Or the mod colors should be configurable per color scheme. We shouldn't have this color-picking problem in the first place.

Support only the dark mode, and make the names light? I don't remember when it became the default. (I override the LF's CSS for myself.) Or support only the light mode?

-- Simon

[kaywhyn]

Hi @grams88, great to hear from you again after so long!

Hi Kaywhyn, I think Green or Red would work very well.  If I was to vote, Green looks like it would fit in well.   Is this a new role you got for the (Global Moderator)?  Good on you and I think you will make a good Global Moderator.

Yup, I was recently given the global mod role (Icho being the other), as of Friday, March 8 (my time zone of course, I'm sure both Simon and namida were already on Saturday, March 9 when I got the role). Thank you for the compliment! I will certainly do my best here

Idea: What is the point of the listing in the first place? The difference between admin and moderator is largely irrelevant there.

Very good point! No non-staff member would ever figure out the meaning of the red vs green color without going to either of our profiles and seeing the "administrator" and "global moderator" text, respectively, underneath our username. Let alone whether they can make the connection that red = adminstrator, while green = global moderator currently, since checking just one name of that color isn't sufficient without checking the other names for each of the roles listed here:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2001.0. Though this doesn't work if any have chosen for their online status to be "hidden."

Report the problem upstream? That's where it really belongs. The groups should get icons, not colors. Or the mod colors should be configurable per color scheme. We shouldn't have this color-picking problem in the first place.

Agree that both admins and global mods, not just the admins, should be able to customize the color to his/her liking. I remember after reading Forestidia's report that I was looking around the site myself to see if there was a way I could customize the color for my name. I didn't find any such setting. Even if there was, I think it would change the color for all global mods, not just my name, as I think it's a worldwide site setting, not on a per individual basis. I'm not certain, I could be wrong here.

Support only the dark mode, and make the names light? I don't remember when it became the default. (I override the LF's CSS for myself.) Or support only the light mode?

I'm going to make it clear right now that I have absolutely nothing against the dark theme. It's great, namida did a great job with it. Me going with the SMF theme is purely out of habit because I'm used to it and it's been that way for a long time. It's the same with me staying with Mozilla Firefox as my web browser of choice. I've been using it since high school and though I've heard great things about Google Chrome, like better security and faster load times, to name a few, the main reason I'm still using Firefox today is simply reluctance to switch browsers due to how I'm very used to Firefox.

If you go into the setting for the theme, you'll see that almost everyone uses the dark theme, while there's very few, including myself, who use SMF or another theme, as indicated by the numbers. This would indicate that the best approach is to allow the user to select his/her LF theme preference, despite the very small numbers for the non-dark themes. Forcing the default dark theme on all users wouldn't be the way to go, IMO.

Then again, I did switch to the dark theme for Facebook when it finally became available. Similarly, I have the setting for my phone enabled where it automatically switches to dark theme in the evening and back out to the light theme again in the morning. Also you might recall one time I've posted about how I use the mouse to browse Firefox instead of the keyboard shortcuts. Again, just purely out of habit because I'm so used to the mouse when web browsing. Yea, I know, I'm weird I'm usually very consistent with everything I do, but it seems nowadays I'm ok with not always being so

Anyway, since it's now known to some here that green is my favorite color, of course I would want my name to remain green as it currently is for global mods. However, I am in agreement that currently it's not ideal depending on the theme picked for the LF site (needs to be darker with SMF, needs to be lighter with the dark theme).

For the red color, yea, it does seem to be the best against either background. However, one piece of advice I received at some point in my teaching career: Don't use red for grading/correcting! I've taken this advice to heart ever since I was told this some years ago. This is all because red tends to have negative connotations and hence the advice long-time teachers give beginning ones is to use a different color for grading, such as black or blue.

Reason: https://www.fastcompany.com/3017553/a-lesson-from-teachers-is-red-the-color-of-a-creativity-killer

Thinking about it, I guess it can be the same for non-staff LF members when they see you, namida, and geoo online, as they won't know that the red color is a false alarm bell to them and that it's nothing to worry about. Again, they can probably figure that the fact the three of you are in a red color has a special meaning, but they won't know what the significance of the color is unless they go to your profile and can make the connection with the "adminstrator" text under the username. Other than the role, there's no other meaning to the red color.

Likewise with green for global mods. As you have stated, there isn't much difference between what each of these roles can do other than the admins can do a bit extra that the global mods can't.

Personally, I like the contrast of the green color for global mods with that of the red color for that of admins, particularly as they go well together IMO, as they are so-called "complementary" colors, a term from art. It really does seem that the best solution would be to allow individual staff members to be able to customize the color to his/her liking. In this way, other global mods who don't like my prefer color of green can pick something else. I don't know if that's possible, and if it is, how easy it is to implement.