I've noticed that for all the time I've read OP and sub-journals that we lack a uniform theme, color scheme, and logo. I've designed a quick logo here for OpenPsych in general, with plans to design some for the ODP and OBG journals. I would like some feedback and suggestions on it for I believe proper branding and and a streamlined, professional look will make OP much better.

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This is only a suggestion for what our color scheme could look like, here I experiment with teal and white, but there are many other possibilities, as well as separate color schemes for the different journals.

I think this is a good idea. I'm not sure what it'll take to get papers published in other journals to start citing ODP and OBG, but making them more professional-looking would probably help. The WordPress theme that's currently used for the listing of papers, and the bare-bones formatting of the PDFs, tend to make these look more like blogs than journals.

I agree entirely. Compare the current look of OP to other open-access journals like PLOS, the latter has an attractive, streamlined, cohesive, and altogether professional look. OP just resembles a wordpress blog. I think reformatting and branding OP is a crucial step that hasn't yet been taken.

On that note, do we have webmasters available who can reformat our sites to make them look more professional?

Guglielmo Da Venezia :

Personally, I like the logo. It reminds me of some papers I find at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/. Most of the time, the padlock is close, and my reaction is : "dammit ! Again, I have to email the authors and ask them the paper and hope they answer me". Rarely the padlock is open, but when it's open, I like that. I mean, the open padlock, for me, reminds me lot of good moments, where I can take the paper without bothering looking around some more. I think this logo is perfect for OP.

Tetrapteryx :

One thing I can do is publish at other journals. I have read in a stats book, quite recently, that multilevel regression is so complicated and so popular that when you use this kind of analysis in your article, you're certain to be taken very seriously by professionals. I guess same thing is true for MGCFA, SEM, and IRT methods. What I mean, is that I can carry out these analysis (in R notably...) and I have some good, important articles I can publish here (ODP/OBG) and there (Intelligence). It's not that I want to be recognized by these professionals, but if that is what it needs for OP to be taken seriously, I guess I will have to do it. For instance, John Fuerst wanted me to co-work on his project of skin color-IQ correlation, and he plans to publish that at the journal Intelligence. If there are unusually complex stats to do, I can carry them out, or learn it.

I don't know much about the reputability of each journals. I guess I will need to ask John Fuerst what he thinks about that.

We (Bo and me) are working on a new front page (i.e. at openpsych.net). We have some skills, however we are kinda busy with real life exams. I am finishing my bachelor (in linguistics), he is finishing his master's (in physics).

Hey Emil, would you consider taking my designs into consideration when redesigning the websites for the journal? I had some ideas for the improvement of our web presence of OpenPsych, but they're kind of grand. Would be willing to consider them?

We (Bo and me) are working on a new front page (i.e. at openpsych.net). We have some skills, however we are kinda busy with real life exams. I am finishing my bachelor (in linguistics), he is finishing his master's (in physics).

Hey Emil, would you consider taking my designs into consideration when redesigning the websites for the journal? I had some ideas for the improvement of our web presence of OpenPsych, but they're kind of grand. Would be willing to consider them?

Just write your ideas here and we will see what we can do.

This is intended to be a sort of long term plan for OpenPsych. I've thought of turning OpenPsych into more than a collection of journals but also a collection of blogs. If the HBD sphere has something in abundance; it's blogs. Now think of Unz.com, it's a predominantly political blog network, but hosts a few scientific blogs. Imagine if we could attract the likes of Razib Khan, Peter Frost, maybe even Steve Sailer (although he straddles the line between political and scientific) at some point. But that may require offering some economic incentives, so leave that for later. We can start from the basics to build up OP blogs. We can host John Fuerst's blog posts, of which there are many, then Emil's, and so on. I don't personally blog but I am more than sure that many good HBD bloggers will appreciate the opportunity to blog under the OP brand (if we build it up first, that is) or be part of a network with many other prominent bloggers. What do you say? Is this a viable project for within the next few years? I am taking inspiration from PLOS blogs for this, but can we build up the infrastructure to host blogs as well as transfer over posts from blogs from all over web?

This is intended to be a sort of long term plan for OpenPsych. I've thought of turning OpenPsych into more than a collection of journals but also a collection of blogs. If the HBD sphere has something in abundance; it's blogs. Now think of Unz.com, it's a predominantly political blog network, but hosts a few scientific blogs. Imagine if we could attract the likes of Razib Khan, Peter Frost, maybe even Steve Sailer (although he straddles the line between political and scientific) at some point. But that may require offering some economic incentives, so leave that for later. We can start from the basics to build up OP blogs. We can host John Fuerst's blog posts, of which there are many, then Emil's, and so on. I don't personally blog but I am more than sure that many good HBD bloggers will appreciate the opportunity to blog under the OP brand (if we build it up first, that is) or be part of a network with many other prominent bloggers. What do you say? Is this a viable project for within the next few years? I am taking inspiration from PLOS blogs for this, but can we build up the infrastructure to host blogs as well as transfer over posts from blogs from all over web?

Your ideas are good. However, I do not want to turn OP into a hub for HDB researchers. That'll dissuade authors of different persuasions to join. Also OP is primarily a journal, and the forum's chief function is that of ensuring a bottom-up kind of peer review, where editors have no or minimal power. Turning OP into a collection of blogs would place bias on the editor's part, making this a top-down process where editors pick blogs and so on, and this is contrary to our philosophy.
I like your idea of improving OP's looks and the way the papers are presented. I think it'll have a not too unremarkable impact on its perception.

I think this is a good idea. I'm not sure what it'll take to get papers published in other journals to start citing ODP and OBG, but making them more professional-looking would probably help. The WordPress theme that's currently used for the listing of papers, and the bare-bones formatting of the PDFs, tend to make these look more like blogs than journals.

I agree entirely. Compare the current look of OP to other open-access journals like PLOS, the latter has an attractive, streamlined, cohesive, and altogether professional look. OP just resembles a wordpress blog. I think reformatting and branding OP is a crucial step that hasn't yet been taken.

On that note, do we have webmasters available who can reformat our sites to make them look more professional?

As Emil mentioned we are thinking about making a new front page for openpsych.net and I am looking at PLOS for inspiration. I have not started coding it yet so it will take some time before it's finished. Hopefully it will be done before the end of this year.

We recently implemented a new look on ODP. OBG still has the old look for comparison. Do you like the new look better or is is still looking too much like a Wordpress blog? It is running on Wordpress.

I would appreciate to have a logo and a color scheme to be used on all the sites. I'm not a designer myself, I just implement the desired design.

I am not a huge fan of the lock in your logo. If someone were to donate some money we could have a design competition for a logo at 48hourslogo or something similar.

I think this is a good idea. I'm not sure what it'll take to get papers published in other journals to start citing ODP and OBG, but making them more professional-looking would probably help. The WordPress theme that's currently used for the listing of papers, and the bare-bones formatting of the PDFs, tend to make these look more like blogs than journals.

I agree entirely. Compare the current look of OP to other open-access journals like PLOS, the latter has an attractive, streamlined, cohesive, and altogether professional look. OP just resembles a wordpress blog. I think reformatting and branding OP is a crucial step that hasn't yet been taken.

On that note, do we have webmasters available who can reformat our sites to make them look more professional?

As Emil mentioned we are thinking about making a new front page for openpsych.net and I am looking at PLOS for inspiration. I have not started coding it yet so it will take some time before it's finished. Hopefully it will be done before the end of this year.

We recently implemented a new look on ODP. OBG still has the old look for comparison. Do you like the new look better or is is still looking too much like a Wordpress blog? It is running on Wordpress.

I would appreciate to have a logo and a color scheme to be used on all the sites. I'm not a designer myself, I just implement the desired design.

I am not a huge fan of the lock in your logo. If someone were to donate some money we could have a design competition for a logo at 48hourslogo or something similar.

Why pay for someone to design the logo while I can make whichever type of design you want for free? I may also be able to design graphical elements like headers and such for the new webpages.

I chose the open lock because of its obvious relation with open-source.

This is intended to be a sort of long term plan for OpenPsych. I've thought of turning OpenPsych into more than a collection of journals but also a collection of blogs. If the HBD sphere has something in abundance; it's blogs. Now think of Unz.com, it's a predominantly political blog network, but hosts a few scientific blogs. Imagine if we could attract the likes of Razib Khan, Peter Frost, maybe even Steve Sailer (although he straddles the line between political and scientific) at some point. But that may require offering some economic incentives, so leave that for later. We can start from the basics to build up OP blogs. We can host John Fuerst's blog posts, of which there are many, then Emil's, and so on. I don't personally blog but I am more than sure that many good HBD bloggers will appreciate the opportunity to blog under the OP brand (if we build it up first, that is) or be part of a network with many other prominent bloggers. What do you say? Is this a viable project for within the next few years? I am taking inspiration from PLOS blogs for this, but can we build up the infrastructure to host blogs as well as transfer over posts from blogs from all over web?

Your ideas are good. However, I do not want to turn OP into a hub for HDB researchers. That'll dissuade authors of different persuasions to join. Also OP is primarily a journal, and the forum's chief function is that of ensuring a bottom-up kind of peer review, where editors have no or minimal power. Turning OP into a collection of blogs would place bias on the editor's part, making this a top-down process where editors pick blogs and so on, and this is contrary to our philosophy.
I like your idea of improving OP's looks and the way the papers are presented. I think it'll have a not too unremarkable impact on its perception.

HBD blogs should not interfere with the journal side of OP just like the PLOS blogs do not interfere with the operations of the journals. The blogs would have a secondary purpose as well, in case readers find the published papers on OP too technical, bloggers could simplify it for laypeople. The peer review process could be limited to the forums itself, but that should be separate from the blogs, but bloggers can contribute to the open peer review process.

HBD blogs should not interfere with the journal side of OP just like the PLOS blogs do not interfere with the operations of the journals. The blogs would have a secondary purpose as well, in case readers find the published papers on OP too technical, bloggers could simplify it for laypeople. The peer review process could be limited to the forums itself, but that should be separate from the blogs, but bloggers can contribute to the open peer review process.

The issue is that we'd risk turning OP into a hub for the HBD community, whereas we want it to be as unbiased as possible.

HBD blogs should not interfere with the journal side of OP just like the PLOS blogs do not interfere with the operations of the journals. The blogs would have a secondary purpose as well, in case readers find the published papers on OP too technical, bloggers could simplify it for laypeople. The peer review process could be limited to the forums itself, but that should be separate from the blogs, but bloggers can contribute to the open peer review process.

The issue is that we'd risk turning OP into a hub for the HBD community, whereas we want it to be as unbiased as possible.

True, but that's not my plan. What I meant was that when we host blogs, our first bloggers will probably be HBD bloggers, but we will be open to hosting all who can contribute, hereditarian or otherwise.