4% of You Are Evil

By Shamus Posted Thursday Mar 19, 2009

Filed under: Notices 79 comments

I finally broke down and went into the webstats program. It lists how many times each and every file on my website is requested. Took something like fifteen minutes for it to finish loading all the data and display it on one massive, memory-devouring page. (There was a ton of usage data I didn’t care about mixed in there.) Firefox whined and complained and staggered under the burden, and it took me a while to sort through the mess and find the three files I actually cared about. I wanted to see how much the style.css file was used for each of the site themes. The result:

/TSEvil/style.css: 98,980
/TSGood/style.css: 1,948,447
/TSNeutral/style.css: 132,447

(I think these are requests for the month of February, although I don’t remember and I’m not loading that page again without a gun to my head.)

If I didn’t botch my calculator wrangling, this means that the usage of site themes breaks down like this:

4% Evil
89% Good
6% Neutral

Now, good is the default, and I’m sure a great majority of visitors don’t even notice that they can re-skin the site like that. (If you’re one of those people and you prefer to read white-on-black: check the sidebar.)

I’ve been wondering about this for ages. The theme switcher isn’t used nearly as frequently as the comments might suggest. Still, now we know.

 


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79 thoughts on “4% of You Are Evil

  1. Lupis42 says:

    I can’t help but notice that chaotic evil rolled a one, while lawful good rolled a twenty.

  2. Rutskarn says:

    That’s because unlike Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil isn’t smart enough to load the dice.

  3. Cuthalion says:

    Chaotic Evil hurts my eyes. Neutral annoys me with the gradient. So I just stick happily with Lawful Good.

  4. McNutcase says:

    Well, as always, the vast majority of visitors don’t leave comments.

    True Neutral for me; it’s a sweet spot of contrast, with that nice relaxing grey gradient in the background.

  5. Nathon says:

    I’m with Cuthalion on this one. Black on white is easy to read. Of course, that’s not the style on my site…oh well.

  6. Wolverine says:

    Well, the theme selector does not show when reading articles, only when on article listing. If someone missed that on his first time here and reads further posts via RSS reader, he might miss that option entirely. Still, even Maddox uses black-on-white, so it cannot be all bad. All chaotic maybe, but not all bad :)

  7. Laura says:

    I visit your site from the RSS feed, so I only ever see individual post pages (i.e. http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2617, not http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale). The individual page doesn’t have a color theme picker.

    (Also, I did play around with all three, but decided I liked good best).

    (Oops, Wolverine beat me to it.)

  8. Mad Flavius says:

    The chief reason I typically use Lawful Good (even though the white-on-black of Chaotic Evil is my favorite aesthetically speaking) is because for some reason use of the mouse wheel becomes the slightest bit choppy with Chaotic Evil. Additionally, the category images (“Notices”, “Rants”) appear somewhat less refined when still white with a solid black background. However, I still find myself switching back and forth because black is just so darn cool.

  9. Vertigo says:

    Now watch as the evil layout will change to 30% or something

  10. Zel says:

    I tested them the first time I came to the site, originally only to read DMoTR. I’m used to a dark background color when readings comics on the computer so I chose Chaotic Evil, it was very pleasant to read the whole thing in full screen navigation.

    I just stuck with it since, and now it seems odd when I try to switch to the Lawful Good scheme. Strange how of all the blogs and news site I read this is the only one I keep in white on black, but I can’t get used to black on white in TwentySided. It doesn’t feel as familiar.

  11. TehShrike says:

    The Color Scheme section (as well as the Twitter section and some others) only shows up on your home page.

    I always visit your site via RSS links (viewing individual articles), so I guess I just never see them…

  12. Stark says:

    Hah! I just switched to Evil for the sole purpose of invalidating your numbers! Evvvviiiiilllllll!

  13. Mike Oldham says:

    I like Neutral, but I haven’t gotten around to setting a cookie for every browser I use, so i find myself looking at good alot.

  14. Grant says:

    I use the True Neutral theme, easiest on the eyes. I can’t stand that sheer black on white.

  15. Magnus says:

    I’m with the True Neutral people. All six percent of us.

    I like it for readability, and also since I tend to choose neutrality in D&D cRPGs.

    “What makes a good man go neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?”

  16. vbigiani says:

    I thought this was about people using AdBlock on Firefox ;)

  17. Jabor says:

    I guess the disproportion as to comments and actual users is that people who comment are more likely to actually realize you can change skin.

    Oh, and I’m a big fan of white-on-black. Black-on-white is painful, and while black-on-grey is less so, it still clashes when the rest of my desktop is white-on-black.

  18. Blake says:

    As Cuthalion said,
    the evil theme is hard to look at and the neutral themes gradient is pretty ugly.

    It surprised me that chaotic evil was hard to look at considering Maddox’s website is easy to read.

    I think this site has too many colours and a font that is too small for black background.

  19. HeadHunter says:

    Oh, I’m quite evil… I simply find the “good” skin to be easiest for me to read.

  20. Greg says:

    Been using the Evil theme since you first offered it, much prefer it to the others. Too many sites have white backgrounds, I’d be much happier if more were darker.

  21. chabuhi says:

    Allow me to screw up the numbers further – I use one style at work because it’s less likely to get noticed, while I use the other at home because my wife can’t fire me.

  22. ydant says:

    The most vocal are also the minority. I think that’s pretty common in most things. I don’t really care about the other themes enough to change. The default is perfectly acceptable, so I’ve never bothered to try to change. I’m really not here for the colors.

  23. MuonDecay says:

    I like the look of the evil skin, but the lower contrast of neutral is less of a strain on my eyes.

    Stark white/black contrast is nice to avoid if possible.

  24. Iudex Fatarum says:

    I personally use Chaotic Evil. I prefer the white on black but can’t use it on my computer (not easy to mod mac)

  25. SiliconScout says:

    Evil was the best thing you ever added to the site IMHO. I by far prefer reading white on black.

    That said the die should not be a 1. It should be a 21 because evil is just that underhanded.

    Actually having it be a 21 would be hilarious!

  26. Gabriel Mobius says:

    True Neutral for me. I need that grey gradient, it makes things so much easier to read.

  27. K says:

    I come from the RSS, therefore Good is the default and cannot be changed without clicking a lot. Also, I find changing backgrounds harder to read on and certainly white on black will make me go blind.

  28. Trianglehead says:

    I mostly click ‘view article’ in my RSS reader. So the option isn’t on the sidebar for individual posts. Although I do greatly prefer the white on black of evil. So whenever my browser forgets about my preference, I’m usually just too lazy to go through to the main page and fix it back.

    Also, the picture of you on an add above your logo is annoying. I clicked it assuming I’d get back to the main page. Alas. It is not so! Oh well. Your trickery shall only get the better of me once!

  29. I find that Chaotic Evil is actually the easiest on my eyes.
    I am one of the minority.
    Viva la Difference!

  30. kdorian says:

    chaotic Evil is MUCH easier on my eyes. I get light-triggered migraines, so that option is a godsend – I check out your site in the middle of the various blogs I visit, so I can give my eyes a rest. I wish every site had the option!

  31. McNutcase says:

    kdorian: it’s perfectly possible to get most worthwhile browsers to ignore site CSS and use your specified ones. A friend of mine has to do that because his colour vision is wonky.

  32. Nentuaby says:

    I used to use Neutral, but have since become too lazy to keep resetting it when my settings get wiped out, and have thus had it on Good for a while.

  33. Will says:

    Hah! I am one of the evil…

  34. Wil K. says:

    True Neutral. Sometimes end up reading the site on LG, but I don’t enjoy it. CE hurts my poor reading-strained eyes. (Sorry, they’re not poor – they’re unfortunate.)

  35. Lebkin says:

    I always stick with Lawful Good, because the majority of my website sites are primarily white. Switching between other sites and this when its in Chaotic Evil mode is really jarring. If the majority of the web was black on white, I’d probably switch Twenty Sided as well. But its great to have that option. Any site modifications should definitely keep that option. I would not be surprised if the 4% evil is full of regular visitors who comment.

  36. David says:

    I’ve been one of those 4% for a while now. White backgrounds hurt my eyes and make it hard to focus. (As does the sunlight. Being a ginger, I’m also incredibly pale and burn after about 10 minutes. I think I was meant to be a troglodyte.) The fading on neutral confuses me, so I’m evil and proud of it.

  37. Kaeltik says:

    Neutral is easy on the eyes, aesthetically pleasing, and satisfies my irrational need for unnecessary complexity.

    Besides which, in my old gaming days I was always Neutral, given my druthers (preferably chaotic).

  38. Bret says:

    Neutral makes me sick.

    Pick a side, hippies!

  39. Rason says:

    I always play a Lawful Good character in DnD so the realization that Chaotic Evil was my favorite skin was somewhat painful, but it is definetly the easiest to read for me.

  40. Zaghadka says:

    I’d probably be using neutral if it didn’t have a gradient background. Evil looks like crap on my new LCD, though. Thanks for reminding me to check.

    I <3 this new LCD!

  41. Allen says:

    I’m true neutral, and have been since I got the option!

    Once, I lost all my cookies, and had to change it, and was really confused by the colour of the site, because I’d forgotten that my setting WASN’T the default.

  42. SatansBestBuddy says:

    You know, I’ve been wondering for a while now, why does your home page have (in copy/pasted order) Search, Color Scheme, Sponsor, Categories, Twitter, Archives, Blogroll, Syndicate, and Meta, while posts only have Search, Sponsor, Categories, and Archives? (and Comments, too, but that’s a given)

    Why should your posts have less sidebar stuff than your homepage?

    Would it really be all that server intensive to have all of them on every page?

    Edit: Oh, right, and I’m True Neutral.

    1. Shamus says:

      SatansBestBuddy: It’s actually a little EXTRA code to leave those things out of the sidebar. I did it under the assumption that people get to a post from the front page, and so only intra-site navigation stuff should be in the sidebar.

      Of course, RSS visitors render this thinking obsolete. Perhaps I’ll change it.

  43. Phoenix says:

    Proud neutral, too! ;)

  44. Eltanin says:

    I prefer Chaotic Evil (white on black is easiest on my eyes according to my observations thus far), but I don’t use it for three reasons:

    1)My browser is set to clean all cookies every time I leave, so it always resets to boring Good (and I haven’t bothered to change that for Twenty Sided)

    2)I often visit the site from RSS as mentioned a lot

    3)I hate seeing that damned natural one on the red dice. It makes me superstitious. Could you please please please change it?

  45. Danath says:

    Neutral is terrible, the gradiant is distracting, white hurts my eyes when I alt tab onto this page when doing something else… evil works great (just switched).

  46. Joel D says:

    I enjoy True Neutral – it’s softer on the eyes than the other two, and the gradient makes my retinas happy.

  47. Coffee says:

    My barbarian class forces me into Chaotic Evil, but I’d rather be Chaotic Good.

  48. Sam says:

    Black text on white background hurts my eyes, thanks to my monitor and its one brightness setting of “staring-at-the-sun.” So I much prefer white text on black background. I’m EVIL!

  49. freykin says:

    I use the evil one, because I much prefer white text on a black background than black text on a white background. I set pretty much every site I can to be this way.

  50. Varil says:

    I less-than-three true neutral. I just like gray, and the straight white just seems overly bright to me.

  51. Cuthalion says:

    I just want to add that I really do think the Chaotic Evil theme looks awesome. (Though the icons staying white is a problem.)

    However, I find it too distracting. Maybe it’s because I’m used to white backgrounds.

    I should also note that I tend to max out my monitors’ contrast, but leave the brightness on “off-white”. (My 19″ LCD non-widescreen is at 100 contrast, only 71 brightness.) I never have to worry about eye-searing bright white.

  52. hevis says:

    I prefer Evil theme just because it looks good. I think the text color isn’t pure white, but gray, am I right? It really helps to not scorch my eyes while reading.

  53. acronix says:

    I use chaotic evil out of sight comodity: sometimes I find myself reading websites until night, and I´m too lazy to get up and turn on the light. Looking directly to a bright white screen while being in complete darkness is annoying.
    Besides, black is the best of the no-colors!

  54. Noble Bear says:

    I’m grateful for the option, thank you.

    I find “chaotic evil” easier on the eyes and generally easier to focus on the text.

  55. Maiven7 says:

    Another for the sinister scene. Sometimes, I wonder if my eyes aren’t wired backwards.

    My entire desktop theme is bright on black, unless I need to have it something else for an application. It gets wonky sometimes, but bright backgrounds screw with my sight pretty fiercely.

  56. Hotsauce says:

    The theme switcher isn't used nearly as frequently as the comments might suggest
    There’s a lesson in here somewhere about the disconnect between what the majority of people want versus the noise that’s made about it on the internet, but I’m not sure just how to put it.

  57. Von Krieger says:

    I have essentially no retinal pigmentation, so I’m incredibly light sensative. I find pure white typically overwhelming on my screen, and thus prefer a black background, and thus go with Chaotic Evil.

  58. LintMan says:

    Neutral here for me. I like the gray gradient, which somehow comes across to me as “platinum”.

  59. Neil says:

    Im happy with my fading grey of pleasantly boring neutrality.

  60. Julian says:

    I’ll stick with the lovely white-to-50%-gray gradient (thanks for not making it all grey, or a white-to-black gradient)

  61. stringycustard says:

    I never saw that theme selector before since I jump to your posts via rss. When do we get a chaotic neutral option (bright flashing pink with yellow dots)?

  62. Oleyo says:

    I really like the neutral gradient. Also, I was under the impression until just now that neutral WAS the default, since I guess I have always used it :P

    I feel like Good is too blinding. But I guess these comments just confirm what a good idea it is to have at least a small selection of styles. People seem very set on what they are comfortable reading.

  63. Ben N. says:

    I really don’t like Chaotic Evil, as it tends to hurt my eyes, and Neutral just looks silly to me. I’ve always used Lawful Good here.

  64. Namfoodle says:

    In Evil mode, I noticed it’s easier to read the numbers on the dice. However, on my browser, I can’t read half the comments because they are pale yellow text on a blue-grey background. There’s no contrast unless I highlight the text.

    And if Lawful Good rolls a 20, and Chaotic Evil rolls a 1, True Neutral should roll a 10.

  65. Chris says:

    Lawful Good hurts my eyes. I’m a drafter by trade, and the defaults in the programs I use are white lines on a black background, so Chaotic Evil works real well for me, as it’s what I look at all day anyway.

  66. David says:

    Huh. Just noticed that True Neutral switches the order of Categories and Sponsor on the sidebar.

    P.S. Still sticking with Chaotic Evil, by the way.

    Edit: Wait, is that randomized?

    1. Shamus says:

      David: Partly randomized. There are a few slots where the ads would appear. Experiments suggested that this increased their usage, probably because people tuned them out less. However, the search feature stays on top, and there are a couple of other limits / rules on ad placement that escape me at the moment.

  67. Sharon says:

    Here is an experiment for you. Make evil the default for a month and check the stats. Then Neutral for a month. That will sort of remove the “default” element. I’m sure the vital nature of the information gleaned will more than make up for any (so-called) effort on your part.

  68. vdeogmer says:

    Am I just stupid, or is there no way to switch the theme from inside an article? I find myself needing to go back to the main page to switch it to Chaotic Evil if I’m on the site from a computer that isn’t my home machine. I’m sure that accounts for a fair amount of the Lawful Good hits.

  69. Sylvia says:

    I always come straight into an article so count me as yet-another-one who didn’t realise you had themes. I’m now true neutral – nice!

  70. Matt` says:

    The theme switcher isn't used nearly as frequently as the comments might suggest.

    Not surprising – consider the groups “people who are here often enough to comment” and “people who are here often enough to care about the site design and/or be interested in changing it”, and how they’re likely to overlap a fair amount.

    People you hear from in the comments are, on average, going to be more engaged in the site, so also more likely to be aware of the option to change the colours.

  71. chuckp says:

    Since I normally just check the RSS feed, I hadn’t even noticed the theme option until you mentioned it. CE is definitely the best looking/easiest to read. The gradient background on TN hurts my eyes.

  72. rose glace says:

    i refuse cookies, so i take what i get.

  73. ClearWater says:

    I use the RSS feed so I never get to the home page to see the colour scheme choices. I tried them out just now and I prefer Lawful Good. I might prefer True Neutral if the grey shading were the other way around.

  74. Mephane says:

    I wouldn’t read much into these figures.

    First and foremost, lawful good is the default theme. Then, if you are likely to read the blog from different places, you’re better off staying with the default theme than switching it every time you’re on a different computer (or one that regularly deletes all data like cookies, cache etc.). Then, iirc lawful good has been the only theme for some time, and when you’re used to a specific theme to *anything*, you’re likely to stay with it anyway.

    I actually like reading white on black much more than the other way round, but some of the reasons above apply to me, for example, so I decided to stick to the black-text-on-white-background theme in the end.

  75. Terrible says:

    I change the theme every month or so.

  76. edcalaban says:

    To be honest, somehow I got started on Chaotic Evil and now whenever I switch to anything else it burns my eyes. Probably means I don’t go outside enough…

  77. Dierin says:

    I also come to your pages through RSS feed and it always leads me to good aligned color theme. At that point I am not about to wait for reload merely to see it in neutral, even though I prefer it to good.
    And from other comments I can see I’m not alone.

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