Purely selfish question about my website

In My Humble Opinion
1

December 12, 2005

Hello, all,

I have done wrote a Web page about the Straight Dope Web site, and I’m wondering whether this is the appropriate board of which to ask a favor about it. What I’d like is for a batch of teeming millions to see whether it needs improving. You all – most of you anyway, I assume – know a lot more about the SD Web site than I do.

The page is at http://barelybad.com/straightdope.htm.

For example, are there any outright misstatements of fact? Are any of the numerical assertions significantly high or low?

Is there anything you’d delete altogether? Is there anything you’d add?

Did you stumble upon a broken link? Did I screw up any of the grammar or the spelling, etc.?

Do you think it’s just generally poorly done? If so, got any suggestions?

If “IMHO” is not the appropriate board on which to post this request, do you know which one is?

Thanks for any of your time.

–JohnnyG

P.S. I may be reached at JOHNEGEE aattssiiggn GMAIL dott C O M or the address you’ll find on my site.

P.P.S. I can see now that in the first paragraph above I should have said, “I have wrote . . . .” If I knew how to work the delete key on this computer I’d fix it.

2

You’ll get a B+ from me sir.

You could have gotten an A if you talked about us Dopers a little more. :smiley:

3

One would never say “I have wrote” it’s “I have written.”

4

What your page says is pretty much how I came here, but if you’re looking for a kickback from the Perfect Master you’ll be waiting a long, long time.

5

I’ve added the words “about my website” to the title of this thread for clarification.

6

Actually, it should be "the web page what I have wrote’, or in other words:

Whoosh!

7

picunurse, thanks for your kind help in correcting my English.

Perhaps I can return the favor. I think I’m qualified because in my post of over 200 words I did not make a single mistake, whereas in yours, consisting of exactly eleven words, you made three.

  1. There should be a comma after say.

  2. There should be a period after wrote.

  3. The word it’s should be capitalized.

8

Umm, I’m not trying to be a butthead, Johnegee, but even if one is right about something, somettimes it is not a bad idea tojust kind of hold back a little, especially when someone is new to the realm.

I say this kindly, being very much a newbie myself, by no means am I an expert on this board…I’m still learning the ropes.

9

Heh, perfect example…screwup on my part twice: *somettimes * and tojust.

Good thing this waren’t no grammer question!

10

LiveOnAPlane,

I appreciate your advice, and I am a newbie here, to be sure.

But I didn’t start it, picunurse did. picunurse’s only response to my request about that web page was to chastise my English using poor English, and it was too ironic to pass up. I think I merely responded in kind, but I will consider your position that I was overly harsh.

Anyway, what did you think of that page?

11

Czarcasm,

As a newbie here (and a non-paying one so far), I was surprised that you corrected my Subject line. Is this a common practice on the SDMB?

Does a responsible human read every post? What other corrections are typically made?

Thanks for your time.

12

I think you did a good job overall, but isn’t a “large plethora” a bit of overkill?

13

thoughout should be throughout.
anchorlessly. You’ve got me on this word. Is it real?
Scolling should be Scrolling.

The <em> tags, while not deprecated, I believe aren’t supported in NS, so you may wish to change these in your style to <i>.

You have no <html> or </html> tags. Whether this will cause problems in some browsers or not, you should probably include them.

You have a mixture of inline styles as well as a stylesheet. I would being consistent in using either inline or the stylesheet.

Personally, I find the blue at the top too ‘strong’ considering the grey and white. The blue buttons on a blue background are difficulty to see. The blue text on a blue background is also difficult to read.

My personal preference is against the navigation style. On slow PC’s (like the one I’m using at work), it takes too long for the navigation to appear and too long to disappear when I mouse away. Of course, I have JS turned on so at least I can see it. People who browse without JS on will not see your navigation.

<p> </p> should not be used as a design tool. In your right hand section (grey background) why are you forcing the text to the middle of that column? You could probably use a style to achieve the same effect without the <p> </p>.

Your font sizes are fixed. Not a good idea if you want people who increase their font size due to bad eyesight to read your page.

The blue and yellow squares are hideous (IMHO) and flare against each other. The yellow also seems out of character with the rest of the page.

The Straight Dope Scientific Advisory Board is actually the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board. No capital on The either.

I can’t comment on grammer due to me not being very good at it :slight_smile:

Of course it is. We don’t want every doofus coming in here knowing where to find things. This is said with sarcasm, but in good jest, don’t take offence.

I don’t think there are that many paying members, but I’m willing to be wrong on that.

OK, now I’m just getting picky.

I’m not overly keen on it and I hope some of the comments I make above are taking in the spirit in which they were given.

14

We prefer that titles to threads be clear enough for people to get the general idea of what the thread might be about. If you do not care for my addition to your thread title and wish it changed, just let me know and I will (probably) gladly change it again for you.

15

Yes, it is. It was on purpose. That’s just my perhaps eccentric style sometimes.

No matter what, though, LouisB, I do appreciate your taking the time to respond.

16

Wow, Caught@Work, what at terrific response. I have copied all of your comments to a file and will be bashing away at them as time permits. I’ve already fixed the two spelling typos and the way Science Advisory Board is rendered, and anchorlessly probably isn’t a word. Nor kindlily.

I’ve added the <html> tags. I don’t know how that happens, but I suspect it’s a function of FrontPage 2003. Same with the <em> tags. I use inline and style sheets because I learned about CSS only after I had written so much of the site, which now consists of some 230 pages. Same excuse for the fixed-font sizes and using <p nbsp p> for design. Some day when I have a few weeks I’ll set everything right with CSS. And cure cancer.

With regard to the colors, I should have mentioned I’m color-blind, so I’ll take your word for it that the colors are harsh. On that subject, where do you see blue on a blue background, because even I know that’s wrong.

The navigation bars are slow, and, for what little it’s worth, I do say on the home page that you need JS enabled. I can’t tell whether, aside from those legitimate complaints, you dislike the nav bars?

You’ve inspired me to move up on my to-do list the correction of some of the problems you so kindlily pointed out. Thank you for your time. It was worth it.

17

I’m sure your correction is fine. It just surprised me. I’m new here, and I admit I don’t know the rules. I did have a reason for using the exact subject line I did, but it wasn’t a very good one.

Anyway, dd you have answers to any of the three questions I asked?

Thanks.

P.S. I am also surpised that I’m actually considering paying $15 to join this forum for a year.

18

Your description of Cecil sounds like a paid advertisement; your attempt to clarify the Straight Dope website is unhelpful; and if anyone in the world is not qualified to complain about bad web design, dear god, it’s you.

I hate to seem disrespectful here, but you really do not need to make a web page for every thought that pops into your head. Perhaps you might consider making a blog instead? If so, I recommend Livejournal.

19

rkts, thanks for responding, although I’m unclear on the specifics of your complaints.

  1. What I wrote was sincere and also in keeping with what I think you would agree is the popular fiction that Cecil Adams is a god to the teeming millions. What I wrote is also in keeping with the other pages in my Web Sites I Like series. What specific parts offend you?

  2. I agree my attempt to clarify the SD website is inadequate, but it seems to me it is at least somewhat helpful. How would you improve the explanation?

  3. According to you the design of my website is blasphemously worse than average. Can you give any specific examples?

  4. You say, “I hate to seem disrespectful here, but you really do not need to make a web page for every thought that pops into your head.” May I ask on what authority you make that assertion? If this were your web site then that would be sufficient authority, of course, but I’m almost positive it’s my web site.

How do you distinguish between a Web site and a blog? Which thoughts that popped into my head have wasted your time so far?

–JohnnyG

20

The text B A R E L Y B A D W E B S I T E appears as blue on blue. Very hard to read.
The text SITES I LIKE is also blue on blue albeit a much brighter blue.
It’s not necessarily the blue on blue, but probably the lack of contrast that would be the concern. If you are color blind then maybe you could tweak the colors up to a higher contrast while staying in the blue theme. This would make it more readable.
The yellow on white (the yellow are the boxes between the blue) is harsh. If you’re going with blue, maybe choose a subtle difference from the other blue box rather than such a glaring change.

Ahhh. You see, you didn’t send us in via the home page. We got to the page via a direct link. If I were to use a search engine and went directly to that page, then I wouldn’t know to use JS. There is a <noscript></noscript> tag pair that you should be able to incorporate when someone has JS turned off. Basically that only appears when JS is off, so the user knows that they won’t be able to use some of the functionality.

Personally, I dislike this type of navigation. When I inadvertantly move my mouse over the nagivation the dang bars falls down and get in my way. I find it (and all other similar implementations) irritating. Just an IMHO opinion and you don’t have to agree with it.

Glad to offer something constructive and hope that you’ll take something away.