Tweaks noted, and approved. :)

Just one thing - the banner pushes out past the right-hand margin of my (15in) screen, and some of the rest follows it. Do I need to buy a 19 inch, to fit it all in?

And - who are all the "guests"? Are they ghosts, or are you trying to boost your stats? Wait till the neo-Stalinists set the spammers onto the site, then the figures will spark up. :)

Happy to adjust for smaller screens - thanks for the reminder, it's very easy to forget that one.

The guests are actual guests - people who haven't logged in for whatever reason. There is a bit of a lag but otherwise it's relatively accurate.

"Tweats are noted!!" Don't we get better service than that?
What about an apology that interference is happening and changes are being made without a vote on it.
Is that democracy?
This site is about the myth of the democratic process and that we Australians do not have the democratic process in reality.
What about changing the website back to the way it was. It is like the Federal Government interferring with the ABC. The ABC is under control with no democratic process.
We have two Tweats here making this great site a bad sight.
Who cares about a logo of the Aussie flag when the Aussie flag needs to be redesigned.
Can we get rid of those two Tweaks that are making this site commercial. This is NOT a commercialised site, or is it, or will it be by the end of the week.
This site is for open-minded people to debate with honesty. It is not about the flag unless we debate the flag.
Some people here are anarchists. No flag! No government! would be an improvement. It could even be democratic.
The Eureka flag and the Aboriginal flag is what we need, not that Advance . . . stuff that is a symbolic lie. We Advance towards America with their starry flag.

Just one comment about this new scheme (cos you already know that I find it difficult to navigate the site) Tone down the white a bit! It really hurts the eyes :).

Try RGB 254/255/244, and don't just change the color to that, but use it as a background picture, so it will show the same on all computers.

This site is a privately owned site - which means that the owners are free to tweat, tweak & improve it as they see fit. This is not a publicly owned site. As it is, the management here have been kind enough to ask people for suggestions to improve it. A lot of what they have done has improved it significantly for those with visual impairments or other physical limitations - making it much easier to navigate. Do you think the site would be more democratic if it remained in a state that effectively precluded some people from even being able to read comments here, or navigate?

Bottom line Len, and I have some anarchistic leanings myself, this site is privately owned & run. We have as much say as the owners allow; and if we as users can't live with how they run it, or feel our good suggestions aren't being taken up, we are always free to leave, and/or start our own sites that better reflect what we think should be.

Myself, I am grateful for the changes (my partner who has dyslexia is also really grateful) and am looking forward to seeing what sort of a community we can build here.

Len, where is the Aussie flag that you make the demand to be rid of?

Looking at the graphics I see the Southern Cross - a symbol representative of Australia globally - then the black red and yellow - could have sworn these colours represent Indigeginous Australians all on a blue background which is the colour of the miners shirts at Eureka. Personaly I think it looks bloody good and is really clever.

Why is it when flair, innovation and talent is displayed it is immediatley presumed to be commercialism?

Greetings Hamish,

The site is looking cooler and cooler each time I come to drink some words.

I thought I'd share this story:

Joe Stiglitz questions whether Bush can spread democracy abroad when he undermines it at home. When all is said and done, George Kennan was right: America’s most powerful tool in international affairs is our example

Democracy Starts At Home

Jozef
Virtual Reference

Thanks for all the helpful comments.

Site design is something which requires constant care and feeding by all concerned. I'm not sure there is an easy way to make design a 'democratic' process - designs in this particular area tend to spring from one or two people who have a bit of an insight into what's possible and into the general direction of the site. The designers have a duty, I believe, to listen to what the other viewers of the site are telling them, and respond accordingly. Obviously not everyone can be satisfied all the time.

So on to some specific issues:

• Screen width
  At the moment the screen width is in effect determined by the logo at the top. It is too big for smaller screens. We will work out a way of addressing this, but it will take a little time. Please bear with us.
• Background brightness
  Again, because of the way the logo is done, we're stuck with a white background. For those people who find this too bright, I know it is a pain, but could you please adjust the contrast on your monitor as a short-term workaround. We will be able to experiment with less contrasty backgrounds once we resolve the logo issue.
• Site theme changes
  We have not settled on a theme yet. And the theme (the overall look of the site) is something that will probably evolve over time, prompted mainly by member's comments. It might be possible in future to give members the option to choose from a number of themes, but this is not currently available. If anyone is a PHP/CSS expert, get stuck in and come up with alternative themes; contact James Woodcock to submit themes.

  Sorry, but this process is unlikely to ever be fully 'democratised' - I'm not even sure what democracy means in this context, beyond an offer to look at any themes members would like to submit.

David, email me the logo and I change it to the colour I suggested cos I prolly can change it to 600 pixels width as well, cos that's for me the way I work - 600 pixels width - to cater for small screens.

Hi Wolf, thanks for the offer. Unfortunately it's not quite as straight-forward as just changing the logo width - we actually need to do the logo in a different way to make it work sensibly for a range of screen resolutions. We will get round to doing this in the next few days, but many thanks anyway.

If you have technical skills please contact James Woodcock and offer them - he's coordinating that side of things, and it would be great to have more expertise on board.

The Carr Labor government has just sacked the National Party-led Tweed Shire Council.

Professor Daly who has just held an Inquiry into the pro-development Tweed Shire Council has handed down his verdict to Minister Kelly. The news is that the 11 Tweed Councillors are to be sacked and the NSW Labor Government will appoint three administrators.

Tweed Shire Council was elected last year after collecting up to $400,000 in election funds from developers outside the shire, mainly in Sydney.

The Pro-development side won by 13 votes. Tweed Shire is balanced dead even on a knife-edge in pro-development versus Labor/Green votes.
At the last Federal election in Richmond, the seat of Richmond went against the national trend and the Government's Children's Minister Larry Anthony was voted out of office by about 300 votes. The Green vote lifted to near 13 percent and it was that Green vote that tipped Larry Anthony of the National Party out of office. The Federal Labor Party vote stayed static. More to come.

Hey Len, I read today or yesterday that the Gold Coast Council is also now being looked at by the relevant QLD Minister (Desley Boyle I think) for the same reasons.

Heaven forbid that developers should stack councils with pro development members. What's wrong with the good old brown paper bag? Getting too smart maybe and tripping themselves up?

Keep us up on the Tweed issue please.

Best.

Pegasus, last week some Qld bulldozers come over the NSW border just south of the Coolangatta Airport runway and dug up some NSW ground and knocked down some trees on NSW Crown land for the Tugun Bypass. They surveyed the land for the Bypass. That and the sacking of Tweed Council may be connected because a couple of days after that happened the NSW government sacked Tweed Council. The Qld government in the shape of the Qld Main Roads Dept contacted Tweed Council to come over the border. Tweed Council gave permission. They also contacted the NSW government, but the Government did not give permission. They kept quiet. Something or someone gave an order for the bulldozers to start work. Well now I see in the newspaper that the NSW Lands Department are considering taking legal action against the Qld Main Roads department. Do you think that will happen? NO. But things are HOT down here with Tweed Council sacked, bulldozers digging up ground in another state without permission and now with Schapelle Corby getting 20 years.