Amateurish sites? Page 2

Started by 蜃気楼 December 5th, 2008 8:04 PM
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  • 56 replies
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Amateurish sites?

Age 30
Male
New York City
Seen May 21st, 2016
Posted May 16th, 2016
3,597 posts
15.9 Years
Have you ever seen some amateurish sites? If you did, what does a typical amateurish site look like?
For me, an amateurish site has a tiled background image, and animated GIF for "Email me button", full of <font> tags, deprecated attributes, clip arts, no layout, and no CSS.
Here's a typical amateurish site:
http://members.shaw.ca/mstrott/
and
http://buizel.net/Index2.htm (no CSS and a BG image)
That site has full of font tags such as "<font face="Footlight MT Light" size="3">", the author should use CSS instead.
You have to admit that this page is amazing, though:
http://buizel.net/anything/error/error_messages.htm

Eh, at least the layout is clean. Who cares otherwise?
lurid/lucid

"I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away."

Khaled Hosseini

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whoever disabled my signature:
my signature is not even close to 300px tall.
i dont understand why it was disabled.

Serebii

Webmaster of Serebii.net

Seen August 24th, 2012
Posted September 10th, 2010
291 posts
19.7 Years
Really. Guess you didn't learn too well.
No, I know everything perfectly fine thank you very much. I just don't have the time nor the patience to go and edit over a million pages just to be compliant by some internet geek's standards.

Ooka

Cosmic

Age 30
Challenging The E4
Seen September 15th, 2022
Posted January 18th, 2020
2,621 posts
15.8 Years
No, I know everything perfectly fine thank you very much. I just don't have the time nor the patience to go and edit over a million pages just to be compliant by some internet geek's standards.
Honestly, you can't be calling members internet geeks and not be hypocritical just a bit, I mean, you do run one of the largest Pokemon web sites to date, which tends to get updated just about every day. Although I guess you never said you weren't one... :/

But all that aside, not every webmaster needs to have perfect coding, or perfect designs, what they need to have is good information that gets the point across. Admittedly, designs do attract more members, but honestly, that isn't what keeps them there, what keeps them there is efficient information that keeps them in the loop with whatever they need to know.

[/opinion]

Serebii

Webmaster of Serebii.net

Seen August 24th, 2012
Posted September 10th, 2010
291 posts
19.7 Years
You don't have the time or patience? wtf? If you make something big like Pokearth or all your other pages then you must have time on your hands to validate your pages.
Because new things are new, which attract and interest people

Altering millions of pages to be compliant? Who the hell cares. Simple as that.

I'd rather use my time on things that people care about ather than something that does not even show a visual change.

processr

Age 30
Male
Southampton
Seen November 18th, 2016
Posted April 11th, 2014
1,608 posts
18 Years
I'm not exactly a supporter of Serebii - indeed, I have criticised the site in the past - but how can anyone say that the site is amateurish? The site has masses of content, is regularly updated and is on a stable server. While I don't particularly like or dislike the layout, it's perfectly fine, but most peoples' opinions of Serebii are based on past events. It's been admitted that Serebii Joe has acquired information second-hand, shall we say, in the past, but we're assured he does it no longer. I, for one, believe him. The only incident to have really put any dent in Serebii's reputation is the fake Skymin made by PurpleKecleon that was reported as news, but even then I remember that it was explicitly stated as unconfirmed. How anyone can say Serebii is amateurish is beyond me.

Oh, and Lord Kokkei, as for not using Serebii for a day, I don't use it at all. Bulbapedia and Veekun are my main sources, but there exist far more than that.
Male
Michigan
Seen December 5th, 2019
Posted December 5th, 2019
2,004 posts
14.9 Years
Serebii is a GOOD website, and I commonly go to it.
How can you think it is a terrible site, yet it is well-organized, runs on vBulletin, and is busy with tons of members all the time?
Now, a true amateurish site is one with barely any members, one without layout, one that has no style, just a plain text box to say Hi or something such as that in, and is just an overall pain to look at.
Serebii is definitely not that.
young money cash money
Brisbane, Australia
Seen January 6th, 2016
Posted January 29th, 2012
361 posts
15.9 Years
First off, some background: I've been an administrator on a site that was similar size to this (I think I've stated this a few months back) and have experienced quite a bit of what it's like to deal with large websites and communities. I also have sufficient web design knowledge and can code fluently in XHTML, CSS and semi-fluent PHP. I am very familiar with the ins-and-outs of web standards, too.

Lord Kokkei, I have to say, you're horribly misguided. You speak of Web 2.0 and W3C standards as if they are the be-all end-all of website design. Yes, coding by standards is always preferable and yes webmasters should try to follow them, but with a site like Serebii with thousands and thousands of pages, revamping them to match these relatively new web guidelines would be a futile task. It's been already said, but the time spent doing it would be much better off being spent adding to the content - especially since Serebii is driven entirely by content.

You say Serebii is ineffecient. How so? If I wanted to, say, visit a page about the D/P Elite Four, it takes me TWO logical clicks: Diamond/Pearl --- > Elite Four. Exactly the way it should be, and that's just one example. You say Serebii is old. This is ridiculous and irrelevant. My grandma's old, does that mean we get rid of her and replace her? You say Serebii is clunky. Albeit, while this is true, it is also inevitable considering the sheer amount of pages that need to be constantly referenced. For the most part, the server speed also makes up for this fact.

By spending dozens of hours validating the entire site, it would do what, exactly? Cut load times by 0.2 seconds? Hardly worth it, at all. Contrary to what your little webinars and keynotes have told you, Web 2.0 and web standards aren't always necessary, and often by following these standards the users won't see any benefit.

Also, calling Serebii arrogant is also a bit rich. You seem blissfully ignorant as to what running a site of that caliber takes, and considering you've got no experience yourself, I'd stop telling him how to do things. Your know-it-all attitude really is driving me up the wall.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Age 14
Seen June 21st, 2011
Posted June 21st, 2011
2,899 posts
19.1 Years
You can't really say the largest unofficial Pokemon related site is amaterish.

It's getting the job done and thats all that matters.

As for the black and white site, I don't view it as amaturish. Personally I believe your content attributes far greater value than your layout.
Age 31
Male
Minnesota
Seen March 31st, 2015
Posted April 26th, 2012
619 posts
17.5 Years
First off, some background: I've been an administrator on a site that was similar size to this (I think I've stated this a few months back) and have experienced quite a bit of what it's like to deal with large websites and communities. I also have sufficient web design knowledge and can code fluently in XHTML, CSS and semi-fluent PHP. I am very familiar with the ins-and-outs of web standards, too.

Lord Kokkei, I have to say, you're horribly misguided. You speak of Web 2.0 and W3C standards as if they are the be-all end-all of website design. Yes, coding by standards is always preferable and yes webmasters should try to follow them, but with a site like Serebii with thousands and thousands of pages, revamping them to match these relatively new web guidelines would be a futile task. It's been already said, but the time spent doing it would be much better off being spent adding to the content - especially since Serebii is driven entirely by content.

You say Serebii is ineffecient. How so? If I wanted to, say, visit a page about the D/P Elite Four, it takes me TWO logical clicks: Diamond/Pearl --- > Elite Four. Exactly the way it should be, and that's just one example. You say Serebii is old. This is ridiculous and irrelevant. My grandma's old, does that mean we get rid of her and replace her? You say Serebii is clunky. Albeit, while this is true, it is also inevitable considering the sheer amount of pages that need to be constantly referenced. For the most part, the server speed also makes up for this fact.

By spending dozens of hours validating the entire site, it would do what, exactly? Cut load times by 0.2 seconds? Hardly worth it, at all. Contrary to what your little webinars and keynotes have told you, Web 2.0 and web standards aren't always necessary, and often by following these standards the users won't see any benefit.

Also, calling Serebii arrogant is also a bit rich. You seem blissfully ignorant as to what running a site of that caliber takes, and considering you've got no experience yourself, I'd stop telling him how to do things. Your know-it-all attitude really is driving me up the wall.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.
I'm fluent in XHTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, and somewhat Ruby & C++.

lol. calling Lord Kokkei inexperienced is pretty sad. He know's what he's doing. His coding is perfect, and his layout/style making is beyond great. He may not have a site now but when he ran a Pokemon site it was a great site. If you would see his sites he had you would take calling him inexperienced back faster than anything else.

I find it completely dumb for people to make there own Pokemon sites, there are plenty of good sites these days and people just keep making sites and then letting them die. I owned a great Pokemon Site a couple years ago where i was getting 1000 unique hits a day. Tell me I'm inexperienced.

Me and Lord Kokkei go way back, so there for we helped each other out a lot.

Still, Serebii is a great site for news and content. There are plenty of ways of making it better. And yes it may not be coded perfectly, you can also code new pages and the more important pages up-to-date with XHTML compliant or whatever you plan on using or would use. A new style would be so much better, the layout is so ugly. I get headaches from just going there.
Brisbane, Australia
Seen January 6th, 2016
Posted January 29th, 2012
361 posts
15.9 Years
I'm fluent in XHTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, and somewhat Ruby & C++.

lol. calling Lord Kokkei inexperienced is pretty sad. He know's what he's doing. His coding is perfect, and his layout/style making is beyond great. He may not have a site now but when he ran a Pokemon site it was a great site. If you would see his sites he had you would take calling him inexperienced back faster than anything else.

I find it completely dumb for people to make there own Pokemon sites, there are plenty of good sites these days and people just keep making sites and then letting them die. I owned a great Pokemon Site a couple years ago where i was getting 1000 unique hits a day. Tell me I'm inexperienced.

Me and Lord Kokkei go way back, so there for we helped each other out a lot.

Still, Serebii is a great site for news and content. There are plenty of ways of making it better. And yes it may not be coded perfectly, you can also code new pages and the more important pages up-to-date with XHTML compliant or whatever you plan on using or would use. A new style would be so much better, the layout is so ugly. I get headaches from just going there.
I never questioned his coding experience, just his experience at running a site of that size, and since you never mentioned this site you owned, I was forced to make presumptions. My bad if I was wrong (which I was).

It's very important to remember that it takes much more to run a great site then just coding and scripting. While Serebii might fall back a little on the coding, it's miles ahead in terms of content, and really, that's the most important thing. Really, how it looks is up to the eye of the beholder; I'm sure if there was enough demand, he would change the layout but when the overwhelming majority of his visitors are happy with it, there's very little point. On the other hand, he could try and validate all his new pages, and I think she should. Essentially, the point I'm trying to convey here is that you shouldn't update things for the sake of updating. If problems arise with the site, then yes, the code really should be looked at, but when it's in the state it is right now, it's probably better to leave it be.

saul

"My goodness, that's odd."

Age 31
LOL, at my House
Seen March 21st, 2015
Posted August 23rd, 2013
742 posts
19.2 Years
Yeh wanna know what I think?

Layouts SHOULDN'T be what matters to people. When it comes down to it, people mainly visit sites to get information - the content.

But the sad tragedy is....

Layouts are what are important to a people.

I don't like that, but that's the reality of it. A site can be a good site without a well designed layout (yes, it can!). But most people won't spend hardly a second on a website if it's poorly designed. Does that make it amateurish? No. When you say 'it' that means the website. The core of the website is its content. The correct thing to say would be: That makes the design amateurish.

I honestly think that it's really sad that people judge websites based on its look. But hey - that's the reality of it. That's the way our minds work. We go to things that look good, not sloppy or bad - it's human nature. But, seriously, why don't you guys get in the mindset of judging a site for its content rather than its design?

Some of you do, and I commend you for that. :)

And of course, a design is important for a website if the website wants to gain massive popularity or bring in reoccurring visitors.

Ooka

Cosmic

Age 30
Challenging The E4
Seen September 15th, 2022
Posted January 18th, 2020
2,621 posts
15.8 Years
Finally, a good comment. Nice job, and reputation for you Saul. ;)
Age 62
Male
Melbourne, Australia
Seen April 26th, 2018
Posted June 9th, 2014
11,439 posts
19.7 Years
There's a difference between "functional" and "amateurish". My academic homepage takes all font/colour defaults from the browser, because it only exists to provide information quickly and simply.

You can't say something is a "sign" of an amateurish site. Some sites have stylish layouts lifted from free layout communities, but no information at all. Some sites have tiled backgrounds or flashy images that looked tacky five years ago, but provide a wealth of knowledge.


"One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts."
Albert Einstein

"What science can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative than mathematics."
Benjamin Franklin

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of paintings or music, yet sublimely pure and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show."
Bertrand Russell

avatar and signature by FoxHound

ANNOY ME AT YOUR PERIL. I am becoming increasingly tired of the unmanly elitism and closed-mindedness of certain members who shall remain unnamed.
Age 62
Male
Melbourne, Australia
Seen April 26th, 2018
Posted June 9th, 2014
11,439 posts
19.7 Years
Turn off images, override styles.


"One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts."
Albert Einstein

"What science can there be more noble, more excellent, more useful for men, more admirably high and demonstrative than mathematics."
Benjamin Franklin

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of paintings or music, yet sublimely pure and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show."
Bertrand Russell

avatar and signature by FoxHound

ANNOY ME AT YOUR PERIL. I am becoming increasingly tired of the unmanly elitism and closed-mindedness of certain members who shall remain unnamed.
Age 33
Philippines.
Seen April 8th, 2012
Posted April 9th, 2010
1,331 posts
18.3 Years
I'm sure if there was enough demand, he would change the layout but when the overwhelming majority of his visitors are happy with it, there's very little point. On the other hand, he could try and validate all his new pages, and I think she should.
Wow, gender change. Poor Serebii. XD

Whatever, back on to topic.

For me, a website should have decent content and doesn't have these "coming soon" pages on their link list.

It's actually more annoying to see a bunch of links on the sidebar which actually interest you but doesn't work at all. D:

Layout's only a secondary thing. (because I voted for it on the poll, since the content is not part of the choices).

You really can't say a site is considering amateurish cause of the lack of layout. I actually prefer a simple not-so-focused on the layout website which HAS ACTUAL readable content.

*le flee*

Spriting done by me. Don't be stealing. ;x
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