to bring it into the 21st century.
This scares me. One of my most passionate pet hates is the appeal to novelty/modernity fallacy. I cringe whenever I see it, and unfortunately I see it far too often on Reddit.
I just had a look at Rene's site. As a former web designer myself, I will agree that it probably is looking a bit stale and could use an upgrade; but given how much I dislike contemporary design, I'm also worried about what the new site might end up looking like.
Contemporary Web design is one of the primary sources of emotional pain in my life, quite seriously. This is for lots of reasons:-
It tends to have Javascript everywhere, particularly in the form of trackers and personalised ad generators which do nothing positive for the experience of the person actually using the page, and also increase CPU load. Tell me honestly that Rene's new site won't end up covered in these. You're honestly going to refrain from at least having Google Analytics?
It is almost always centered around the top horizontal floating navigation bar, a convention borrowed from Facebook which I also dislike. Many bars are poorly implemented, which means that they can make the first several lines of text on the actual page itself hidden. Because said bars are also dynamic, they again increase CPU load.
HTML 4 was the last version which can feasibly be written and maintained by a single person, in most cases. I personally believe that HTML 5 (or more specifically, the Document Object Model) should be boycotted completely until Google are forced to retract it. Its' level of complexity is both horrible and completely unnecessary.
It refuses to allow the Web to exist as a truly unique medium, and instead tries to force most Web sites to look like something out of a magazine. The pretentious "artists," who have enforced this need to be stopped.
If whoever designs the new site can avoid falling into any of the above traps, then I have no objection; but I just know that I'm going to get the usual type of reply to this, from the usual perpetually enraged, hubristic, culturally chauvanistic, atheistic transhumanist straight out of Her, who will insist that all of the above are actually good things, and I'm just an anachronistic Luddite because I dislike them.
Prove me wrong, Reddit. I dare you. Resist the urge.