Spring Site 2

[AF]

Can we please stop using attachments if we're not going to allow them please?

[SinbadEV]

Huh? shows up fine for me... always do.

[AF]

because you have permission and we don't, your a mdoerator we arent, moderators can view and upload attachments, normal users and guests just get a little red message saying we're not allowed.

[SinbadEV]

weird
corrected but since we are on a new page

[Felix the Cat]

But, is community news really necessary on the front page? The front page should draw visitors in, generate interest, and convey the general purpose of the site. Returning visitors and community members will rarely, if ever, be visiting the front page - they will have another page bookmarked as their entry point to the site, most likely. The front page shouldn't be designed to be functional per se, in the sense that it shouldn't be conveying any information that is not of immediate use or interest to someone who has just googled "free open source rts" and clicked on a link to Spring.

In other words,
Front Page Design Requirements (Proposed)

• Simple
• Attractive
• Engaging

News clutters the front page (thus making it un-simple), tends to be a wall of text (thus making it un-attractive), and is not generally of use or interest to first-time visitors (this making it un-engaging).

I feel that a corollary to the design requirements is that the front page should fit within one screen of whatever resolution the site is designed for. Making the user scroll down an inch to see a tiny bit more content is ridiculous, and having any more scrolling than that makes it un-simple and un-attractive.

A very very VERY good page to have, however, would be a Community Portal page. This page is where the real meat of the site is: engine news, site and server updates (server downtime etc.), game news, adverts for mod and engine development help, and all sorts of other stuff are possibilities. This page should be intended to be the site entry point for returning users/community members.

I get the feeling that some front page designs are attempting to combine the Front Page and the Community Portal concepts. This is bound to result in a design that is cluttered, confusing, and of limited use and attractiveness to both first-time and returning visitors.

Perhaps a compromise could be a small sidebar or box with simply the 3 or 4 most recent news (headlines ONLY) on the front page. This is assuming that the news will be updated often, as a main purpose of such a display would be to prove that the project is alive and active. If the news will not be updated often (at a bare minimum once a week) then it will most likely detract from a visitor's first impression, as it will convey the impression that the project is inactive. Keep in mind that news can include engine, site, and individual game announcements and updates, as well as various items of interest to spice things up.

[AF]

Please look at the site before you post felix and you'll see that there's already an example on the starting page of news that both isnt a wall of text and is concise using the rss feed feature fo dokuwiki and my phpbb modifcation.

Also sinbad, I think that design sort of flies in the face of what I said, that's more of a template design than a front-page design.

[SinbadEV]

Also sinbad, I think that design sort of flies in the face of what I said, that's more of a template design than a front-page design.

Sorry AF, I think you may have mis-understood me... I was suggesting changes to your template not a new frontpage...

[AF]

Those sort of changes are best done in a completely new template rather than as modifications to the current template since its a shift in the layout design, a deviation of sorts.

[Felix the Cat]

Please look at the site before you post felix and you'll see that there's already an example on the starting page of news that both isnt a wall of text and is concise using the rss feed feature fo dokuwiki and my phpbb modifcation.

Also sinbad, I think that design sort of flies in the face of what I said, that's more of a template design than a front-page design.

I was responding to Sinbad, oh lord and master of all things Spring, please forgive me for my mortal sin of not necessarily making all things concern you, oh mighty overlord.



the sardonic insults stop when you want them to stop - just speak when you're spoken to and stop acting like you are the commander in chief of the Spring website.

[AF]

But it isnt the spring website yet is it?

As for the 'sardonic insults' I consider them trolling, please leave my thread if your not willing to co-operate in any meaningful manner towards the site.

[Felix the Cat]

But it isnt the spring website yet is it?

As for the 'sardonic insults' I consider them trolling, please leave my thread if your not willing to co-operate in any meaningful manner towards the site.

And as for your pompous attitude and narcissism, I consider it insulting, please leave the forums if you're not willing to cooperate and assume good faith on the part of contributors to discussions of interest to the entire community. You're free to be however you'd like on your own website.

Two can play this game. You have the power to stop it at any time, as I pointed out in my previous post.

[AF]

Hypocrisy doesn't make you right.

Can a moderator make sure no further derailment occurs?

[Felix the Cat]

Hypocrisy doesn't make you right.

Can a moderator make sure no further derailment occurs?

Of course, hypocrisy doesn't make you right either.

You had the power to stop derailing the thread several posts ago by carefully reading my legitimate response, but instead you chose to not read it and instead make some asshole comment assuming stupidity on my part. Instead, you put the stupid little vendetta that you've been holding against me for several years now ahead of actually making progress and discussing important things relating to the content of the thread. I don't know why you picked me to troll both subtly and not-so-subtly - all I know is that I was sitting there minding my business one day when suddenly nearly all of the threads I had posted that day had trollish comments directed toward me from you. This was quite some time ago. You may remember that I PMed you and tried to resolve the issue. You refused and instead continued with your trolling of most threads I posted in. All of this happened quite some time ago, before you would have had any reason for animosity against me. I have no idea why you continue to insist on reacting negatively to many things I post that are actually constructive and contributory, but as you were the one who started the entire damned thing, you can stop it.

As far as my original post in the thread, you had it coming. Go read through your past posts with a neutral eye. You're either lying or insane if you don't detect at least some narcissism and unjustified, unfounded assertions of command over the process of creating a new Spring site.

That is it. My derail is over. If you have further issues to discuss, please take them to PM. Let's move forward and actually do something productive and constructive, eh?

[AF]

An agreement to generaly keep out of each others way and not post in the same thread was made. That agreement was broken by you countless times almost immediately after it occurred, and animosity from you has been increasing steadily. There were no need for sardonic posts from you, in fact no need for any comment of any kind especially considering the past agreement.

You are doing no good here and if you feel I have a personal vendetta against you then a private message would be far more appropriate than posting inflammatory comments in a forum thread, but right now I'm just disappointed you choose to express your opinions about things on these forums in such a hostile and critical manner.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Now, now, ladies...

[Vadi]

I'm so lost as to who is doing what website now...

[SwiftSpear]

I'm so lost as to who is doing what website now...

AF basically made the backend of the site, and since it's dokuwiki with access to HTML and PHP, pretty much anyone can modify it nearly however they want. So sinbad applied rofl's design to AF's site, and it worked pretty well, so meh...

[SwiftSpear]

But, is community news really necessary on the front page? The front page should draw visitors in, generate interest, and convey the general purpose of the site. Returning visitors and community members will rarely, if ever, be visiting the front page - they will have another page bookmarked as their entry point to the site, most likely. The front page shouldn't be designed to be functional per se, in the sense that it shouldn't be conveying any information that is not of immediate use or interest to someone who has just googled "free open source rts" and clicked on a link to Spring.

In other words,
Front Page Design Requirements (Proposed)

• Simple
• Attractive
• Engaging

News clutters the front page (thus making it un-simple), tends to be a wall of text (thus making it un-attractive), and is not generally of use or interest to first-time visitors (this making it un-engaging).

I feel that a corollary to the design requirements is that the front page should fit within one screen of whatever resolution the site is designed for. Making the user scroll down an inch to see a tiny bit more content is ridiculous, and having any more scrolling than that makes it un-simple and un-attractive.

A very very VERY good page to have, however, would be a Community Portal page. This page is where the real meat of the site is: engine news, site and server updates (server downtime etc.), game news, adverts for mod and engine development help, and all sorts of other stuff are possibilities. This page should be intended to be the site entry point for returning users/community members.

I get the feeling that some front page designs are attempting to combine the Front Page and the Community Portal concepts. This is bound to result in a design that is cluttered, confusing, and of limited use and attractiveness to both first-time and returning visitors.

Perhaps a compromise could be a small sidebar or box with simply the 3 or 4 most recent news (headlines ONLY) on the front page. This is assuming that the news will be updated often, as a main purpose of such a display would be to prove that the project is alive and active. If the news will not be updated often (at a bare minimum once a week) then it will most likely detract from a visitor's first impression, as it will convey the impression that the project is inactive. Keep in mind that news can include engine, site, and individual game announcements and updates, as well as various items of interest to spice things up.

A frontpage without news is called a spashpage. Basically it's just a graphical page that makes you look at something useless before you get to any real site content. I've already stated. I don't want a splash page.

These are some examples of what I consider good frontpages for a project like this.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

Every one of those pages has news. Not necessarily ALOT of news, but at very least links to the newest news items.

A frontpage is NOT just for first time users. Everyone has to use it.

[SinbadEV]

http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/

What is it? A game? Where do I download it? is it released yet?

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Awesome... News is in it's place hidden off to the side

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

There is no news on this page, there are links to feature articles... the equivalent in our context is Mod pages

A frontpage is NOT just for first time users. Everyone has to use it.

I just have

spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/search.php?search_id=newposts

bookmarked...

I see what your getting at... the ubuntu example has exactly the type of information I'd like to see on our site...

[SwiftSpear]

Ya, I like ubuntu's system the best. It's just a little box with the title of the news article. Some other sites I looked at had the first sentence or so as well... that's ok too. I don't want a full news column, but I do want news on the frontpage.

Um, natural selection is a mod for the halflife engine. If you've got halflife on steam you can download and play it for free. It's probably the best thing ever produced by the entire modding community of everything ever. It's a bit hard to learn at first, but frankly, in the beginning you're too busy getting your freaked out of your ass by horrific alien attacks to care to much.

Just don't tell the comm to build more turrets. He'll yell at you, and trust me, they are unnecessary.