Or not … as the case may be. It’s time for a little bit of a rant.
So here is my condescending little tuppence-worth about websites. Notably fan websites. Specifically fan websites “written” by fans about celebrities, actors, actresses or whathaveyou. I know a thing or two about fan websites. I’ve written one or two of them in the past. I’ve been writing, designing (creating, or whatever you want to call it) websites since 2005 and I’ve picked up a few things along the way.
And this doesn’t apply to all fansites, there are many good ones out there that are quite lovely, well written and very presented. This rant is about the ones that aren’t!
So are you a professional web designer?
I worked in the I.T. industry and held quite a responsible position in charge of a lot of expensive tax-payers computer equipment. However I didn’t actually have anything (much) to do with websites for work. I had quite a lot to do with the services that support and surround them, but I didn’t actually write them for a living. Someone else did that. But I did run and maintained some fan websites as a hobby, at home and on my own equipment. I paid for the webspace, the domain names and the software out of my own pocket, never ever ask for donations or used advertisements. I had to learn all those things associated with running a website, through research and trial and error.
So why am I going to have a rant, I hear you ask. I’m going to rant because I know what I like. I know what makes up a good website. And what, pray, is that secret? I’ll tell you. The secret of a good website is that it looks good and it works. With most browsers on most operating systems. There. Now that wasn’t hard, was it?
Clearly, for some people it is. Very.
In my opinion, fan websites generally follow the same sort of layout. You’re creating a website about a person (or thing) that you’re a fan of, so you need to write about him, it or her in news posts, articles, features – and you might want to include pictures, video clips or scans of your favourite actor\ress\thing as well. So basically, text, pictures and links. You’ll want the latest thing\news\appearance of your actor\ress\thing on the front page and articles, scans, pictures etc. on separate pages with a menu to select them all. All encased in a reasonably attractive layout, that will display properly on most popular web browsers. Yes?
No. The amount of fan websites that I’ve come across that just don’t (or won’t) display properly in any browser other than the one they’ve designed it in, is bordering on the criminal. There are quite a few, I can tell you. Not only do they not work in any other browser, some of then don’t work in ANY browser! I can quite understand the need for a nice pink and swirly layout if that’s what the subject of the website (or the owner) likes and it’s appropriate for the subject. What I find very hard to tolerate is when the pink and swirly layout either doesn’t render properly in another browser – or worse still – it displaces the other articles on the page so that it all looks……wrong! They overlap, they extend over the limit of the page or they only display half of their content (and in the wrong place).
Adverts!!!
And then there’s adverts. Adverts on webpages have now become commonplace – some say a necessary evil – in order to fund their website, by providing revenue to pay for the web hosting or the domain registration fees etc. However, there’s advertising and there’s over-advertising. A fan website is meant to be about your favourite artist\thing, so THAT’s supposed to be the primary subject of the front page – not the huge banner that takes up half of the web page, advertising how “an ordinary mother found a domestic solution to teeth whitening (click here for details)”. Presumably, you’ve visited the page to read about so-and-so’s latest film\telly programme, not get advice on how to lose 5lbs in two days.
A similar situation can be found with pop-ups. You’ve visited the website because you want to read an article on the site. The first thing you do not want to see is a pop-up that covers most of the page. These pop-up boxes can contain advertising, encouragement for you to sign up for newsletters or any other number of non-related things. So why? WHY? One assumes (if you can actually get to the content) that if you’re interested and – probably more importantly – the information you are after is readily available there in front of your eyes, you’ll stay anyway. And quite possibly follow you on Twitter\Facebook\sign up for your newsletter.
I read somewhere recently that placing adverts on your website makes it a commercial site. If that’s the case, then some software providers (as well as ISP’s) will charge you for their software, whereas if you didn’t have any adverts (and were therefore deemed as a personal or private site) you could use the software free of charge. Incidentally, I’ve always been quite happy to fund my own sites\webspace\domain registration etc. It’s my hobby, so I’m happy to fund it. It also means my sites are advert and pop-up free.
It’s a poor show!
So why don’t people check these things and correct them? It isn’t that difficult to load up a few different browsers on your pc or workstation and just open the website in them. It really isn’t. And if it doesn’t display properly, then fix it!! OK, so some display problems can take a bit of coding manipulation to fix, but you’ve written the website right? Ah.
This is where I blame the availability of ready-made websites. These are the ones that you sign up for (possibly with a fee, sometimes not), you have a choice of templates to use and all you have to do is type in or post your content. Lovely. Yes and no. Some of these ready made ones are really dire!! You get what you pay for and if you’re not paying anything, then don’t expect to get much – a proper rendering of your website in a different browser being one of them – a proper domain name being the other.
It’s a lovely concept for somebody who does not have a great deal of website experience to be able to create a website with a template and start to use it as either a blog or a diary site etc. If you’re going to write a blog, or create a charity website for instance, there’s absolutely no need to have fancy plug-ins or fancy backgrounds, the main point of the website is the words, so these ready-made sites are perfect for that and indeed several quite famous people use this method to write their very popular blogs. However, if you’re wanting to do a content-rich definitive site about a subject, then these ready-made sites are probably not the way to go.
The downside to these sites are two-fold. You are very limited in what you can do with them, in terms of plug-ins widgets etc and you are generally stuck with a generic URL. On a design front, you are limited to a select amount of templates that you can use and you are restricted to where you can place content. Sometimes this isn’t an issue, but there are times when you want a plug-in to be on the left hand side and you are restricted from doing so, or you want to indent a blockquote and can’t.
The URL’s that you get with the ready-made site are generally a derivative of the main site URL. For instance a (Google) blogger site for WoodysNet would be https://woodysnet.blogger.com. If you registered your own, you could just have https://www.woodysnet.com. Given that URL’s aren’t terribly important nowadays, as nobody really remember them, they generally Google things and click on links, this is probably not an issue (just me being picky!!).
Galleries.
Most fan-related websites have galleries. Mine of course did, and they consisted of pictures and (in my case) video and sometimes audio clips. The purpose of which is to showcase the talent of the person about which you have the website about. It is, after all, the reason why you like them, as they are good at what they do… e.g.. acting. So why do people insist on running these third party gallery site\programs (Coppermine, I’m looking at you!)? The ones where you can display a thumbnail in your post, but then have to click through several layers of subsequent thumbnails until you finally, finally get the the picture you want to see… and then it either won’t load, or doesn’t display correctly! :/ It’s easy enough to learn how to insert pictures as thumbnails into a post, and render the entire picture with just one click (as I used to do). Honestly – it is! So do it!!
Templates.
I have nothing against ready-made templates, as long as you have the ability to change, or change some aspect of them. Most websites are now built on some sort of content management system, which employs a GUI front and back ends and runs from a MYSQL database. All relatively seamless and almost infinitely customisable – as long as you know what you’re doing. In my case, I used templates for my designs and then customised them to suit my needs. There’s not a great deal of coding involved with this – nothing that can’t be looked up on Google, for instance!
The rant ends (at last!).
As I’ve mentioned before, I have no formal website writing experience. All of the CSS and PHP coding I’ve picked up by doing research and with a bit of common sense thrown in, I have no trouble in presenting websites that work across all browsers and platforms.
So why can’t other people?!