OK, everybody, let's all just take some deep breaths. I've been looking at commentaires within the last half heure about the new fanpop layout that has thrown all of us for a loop.

There was a similar outcry of disbelief over, what I am choosing to call, the link. I am here écriture this to gather everyone's collective panic and misgivings into one place, as well as to try and look at the positives of these récent changes, in an attempt to placate some of your fears.

First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way. AH! OMIGAWD! fanpop LOOKS WEIRD AND IS ALL DIFFERENT! It's like Facebook and YouTube had a baby and named it Fanpop! It's FaceFanpopTube! Danger Will Robinson Danger! FREAKING OUT! PANIC ATTACK! TROWING MOLOTOV COCKTAILS INTO fanpop HEADQUARTERS!

*Hyperventilates.*

*Calms down.*

OK. There. Some of toi may still need a paper bag to breathe into, so go get one and then finish lire this article because now I'm going to try and address these new changes in a rational way, and try to be as impartial as possible.

First of all, yes, the above was (somewhat) close to my first reaction to the changes. DarkSarcasm can attest to that. Not that I would ever consider throwing Molotov cocktails into the fanpop office, because that's blasphemous... But still, it captured my sentiments. So I do empathize with everyone who is freaking out and has automatically decided to hate all the changes. I want to hate all the changes. I fear change. Change is scary. I was afraid of the new ratings system four months ago, but I've swallowed my pride and, for the most part accepted it. From past experiences, I have a feeling that four months from now, people will be used to these changes, as drastic as they are.

seconde of all, let's just remind ourselves that fanpop is a labor of love. It was made for the fans and for the community. And running any sort of society, even a simple online community, can be tough and decisions will be made that will not be populaire with every member of that community. So my hat off to the great fanpop Four, who do their best to make fanpop as awesome as possible for the rest of us. They did not change fanpop to ruin your online life. They did it to try and make it better.

Let's look at some of the new features, OK? Like the new walls that exist on spots and profiles. A commentaire wall, such as those on Facebook and MySpace, has been suggested par users in the past (link). And, based on that example, plus people a dit they would LIKE a commentaire mur than WOULDN'T like it. So toi can't say that this wasn't in demand.

Also, let's think about the benefits of the commentaire mur for a minute. Several of us, mostly the grumpy old fogey users, complain about how réponses is used to make link. I can only hope that this mur feature will eliminate the need to abuse the réponses feature as much. Secondly, it may stop aléatoire and/or pointless props, and perhaps get rid of that dreaded holiday "props day!". So those are two things the mur could be good for.

So the commentaire mur seems like not a bad idea, right? ou at least not as bad as toi first presumed. Hopefully.

One qualm I do have is all this clutter. I kind of wish the boxes were organized in a different order, so that I could put my own commentaire mur on the bottom of my page, ou maybe disable it alltogether. The option to enable ou disable your personal commentaire mur should be provided. That's my first critical suggestion about the new lay out. Keep in mind that for a commentaire to be "critical" it should mention something that could be improved, and suggestions for how that could be done. "This sucks" ou "Fanpop is Fail" are not examples of critical comments. They're just complaints. But complaints have their place in a public forum as well.

Thinking critically about these changes, I'm wondering why certain categories (like images and videos) were grouped together. If toi want to group things together under tabs like that, why not put them all (images, videos, answers, forums, picks and questions) all in ONE box with several tabs? Also, where are the links? They seem difficult to find. Should they be paired with the articles section? Perhaps if these things took up less space, it would feel less cluttered. Somehow, it feels plus cluttered than the layout before it. These are just some critical notes I've made.

Back to the positive! (Compliment sandwich, "sandwich" yay!) This new layout provides opportunities for l’espace saving. And yes, I know I JUST a dit it feels cluttered, but hear me out. The tabs are actually kind of helpful. I think they categorize content fairly well.

Also, not everyone is upset about the new change. Some people are excited about it:

"I really like how the spots look. The mises à jour section took up too much unneeded l’espace at the haut, retour au début of the page, so i like that they moved it to the right and made it smaller. I like that images are on haut, retour au début because that's the first place I always look and i like the condensed picks/links/articles." - link

Others accept the change with a grain of salt, realizing it's not the end of the world:

"I guess we'll get used to it. Just hope people will use this mur function for decent things, not spamming and bashing." - link

"Actually, it might not be that bad. At first glance, it seemed aweful, but maybe it's the type of thing that just takes a bit to get used to, then toi l’amour it." - link

Still others have jumped right into the new features with reckless abandon (and I do mean RECKLESS):

"Team Rosalie For Life! =D" - link

My best conseil to those of toi with less-than positive attitudes about the change is this: Try and be flexible. toi may not like it immediately, but give it a chance to grow on you. In a month, toi might not even remember what toi were so upset about.

A few other suggestions I've heard/seen.

"[The fanpop 4] could have doubled [links] up with the articles like [they] did with images /videos and réponses /forums and picks/quizzes." - link

"Wall posts should have a rapporter button..." - link

"I don't exactly like the new profil layout... with the mur & everything because it's totally uneven, the right side is way longer...they need another section on the left. My only other problem with the mur is that the text is too big... but other than that i really like the new additions/style" - link

A personal suggestion from Yours Truly would be to allow users to use the "old version" of Fanpop, at least until they are ready to accept the new version. I am not an HTML wizard, ou adept at running a website, so if this is too difficult to do, then apologies. I only know that this is what some websites and programs do to help sooth the savage fan beast - I mean, base. I know when Facebook transitions, it does that. Then again, a lot of people are complaining that it's too much like Facebook, so maybe that would be kind of paradoxical. But whatever.

Actually, just écriture this article has helped me, personally, calm down a lot about the changes. I no longer need my paper bag. I'm coping. I'm moving on. I hope a lot of toi are calmer now, too, and maybe even looking at these changes plus positively. Have a great rest of the week everybody and link because I hear that only TWO PEOPLE have voted. So get your butts in gear! </FGT plug>.