After a poll by @karan, I started thinking about where I get my news and decided to subscribe to LWN. Their content is really good, they’ve been running for a long time, and I want to support their work. However, I think the default theme is quite terrible. I spent about an hour last night messing with it and I think I improved it significantly; it’s based on the theme of this site. [The theme has a dark background, vibrant pink links, and light text] Screenshot of my LWN theme After subscribing, navigate to your account page then click the link under Customization. The following tables are the options and values I’ve set for my theme but note that I have not changed the Old (seen) comment background color as I haven’t had an opportunity to experience what that looks like yet. Once I do, I’ll update my theme and this post accordingly. Display preferences --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option Value ---------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Page background colour #292a2d Left column background #292a2d Middle column background #292a2d Headline background #3b3d42 Form/byline background #292a2d Sidebar background #292a2d Text colour #f5f4f7 Link colour #fe5186 Visited link colour #d0738f Quoted text (in email) colour #7ec699 Old (seen) comment background colour #cccccc Navigation box on printable page :white_check_mark: Minimum width of main text column (em) 40 Maximum width of main text column (em) 50 Display old parent in unread comments screen :large-green-square: (unchecked) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- New page engine preferences ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Option Value --------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Use the new page engine :white_check_mark: Left column color #292a2d Maximum width for handset presentation (em) 48 Fixed navigation menu on small screens :white_check_mark: Font family to use :white_check_mark: sans-serif ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quoted text preferences Option Value ------------------------ --------------------------- Quoted text style :white_check_mark: normal Quoted text weight :white_check_mark: bolder Quoted text colour #a9a9b3 Quoted text background #292a2d After applying the changes, this is what comments look like: [The theme is basically the same as above with slightly lighter headers and a soft green for the quotes] Screenshot of LWN comments Conclusion I’m already happy with my LWN subscription and plan to remain subscribed for a long time. The recent post about Tools to improve English text looks especially interesting and something I’m already looking into for Arbor’s documentation (big blog post about the project coming soon™). If you have an extra $3.50/mo, I really encourage you to subscribe to LWN. News is important and high-quality news especially so. Blinding though the default theme may be, LWN is, bar none, the best news site I’ve ever seen and I want to ensure they stick around. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This was day 12 of #100DaysToOffload, an awesome idea from Kev Quirk. If you want to participate, just write something every day for 100 days and post a link on social media with the hashtag!