New TNG Layout!

You may have noticed that I haven't been writing a lot of posts lately. Over the past month, I've been focusing on the business end of the site, namely coming up with a new template. This new format includes a few new things that I'll describe in more detail below the fold. The short version is that the site now includes the following

• Two-column layout
• Collapsible sidebar items
• Multiple city format
• Advertising (gulp)

Two-column layout

Many of our readers (and contributors) have been taking issue with our old three-column layout. They said that having sidebars on both sides of the posts makes the content hard to read. Others have asked for a wider main-post area, so we can feature larger images, photography and bigger slide-shows. This new layout tries to satisfy both of these issues.

Collapsible sidebar items

We try to feature a lot of different things in the sidebar. Unfortunately, we've ended up with far too much stuff cluttering up the page. The new format allows you to show and hide the sidebar items, providing a much cleaner interface. Check it out! Click one of the titles to the right and you'll see all the sidebar items over there somewhere. Click it again and it goes away. Pretty fun, huh?

Multiple city format

Many readers from other cities have asked whether TNG is only DC-based. While some of our content (mostly event listings) are specific to DC, much of our content is universal. Why should we limit ourselves to DC only? We currently have only main contributors from DC, but we get guest submissions from all over the country. This new format, including the "city chooser" on the top of the sidebar, will allow us to more easily expand the site to provide city-specific content in the future. Are you one of the many non-DC readers? Want to get more involved? Let us know!

Advertising (gulp)

It's with mixed emotions that we have added several ad slots to the new template. While we'd love to keep TNG ad-free, the simple reality is that it takes a lot of work to maintain the site. We hope to hire a full-time employee in the near future, and we'd love to be able to provide some financial benefits to our contributors and editorial staff. There is no way to do that without "monetizing" the site. We hope to feature TNG-approved sponsors in our ad slots. In the mean time, we are using Google AdSense to supply ads in the slots. Hopefully, none of these context-sensitive ads prove too offensive or out of place on the site. If you are offended by any particular ad, or the presence of ads in general, please let us know.

That's it for now, but we have lots more ideas in the works. If you have web design and HTML/CSS skills and you'd like to help out, please contact us and let us know what sort of help you could provide to the site.

TNG is still a community-based website, and we still need your help as we continue to build this resource for alternative queer culture. Thank you for being a part of it.