website changes

[Brett Dikeman]

More changes!

-The site-wide banner has been put on a diet, and is now considerably smaller
*the defunct registry and 'help' links were removed
*the logo was moved to the center
*links to the new mechanic and parts vendor lists were inserted

-The marketplace code has been modified slightly to include the
site-wide banner.
-The site-wide banner also now appears in all of the archives.

Why the last two changes?  Well, I can tell (in an aggregate fashion,
not per-user) how much time people spend on the site, how many pages
they check out, and how many people leave the site after reading a
particular page.

The marketplace and the archives represent the overwhelming bulk of
our traffic, and they also have the lowest time/page count/bounce
rates; less than half of the rest of the site.  Putting the site
banner on top will hopefully lead people to check out more of the
site, and may benefit the lists too as more people are likely to find
them.  We'll see over the next few days how it goes.

That aside, what do people think of the look?  I vastly prefer the new
look of the marketplace; it looks like it actually belongs in the
site.  I'm less crazy about the look in the archives, and may strike
the blue border from it.

Anyone played with the new search engine?

Brett
PS:The mechanic list has joined the parts vendor list on the wiki!
It's just waiting for your recommendations and updates :) (I am slowly
converting the old format; it's being split into a phone-book style
listing and a recommendations list.  If you want to help, pick one of
the mechanics, remove the contact info from the recommendations
section, and add an entry in the phone-book-style part.  There are 2-3
listings converted already as examples.