Tailsection Going Green!
Let’s get upbeat again, shall we? While controversies have raged, and the latest news seems to be one big can of rumor minestrone, some interesting things have been happening behind the scenes at The Tailsection that will soon be turning everybody’s frowns upside down. So I’ll tick down through the developments then try to get back to work on making them happen. Here we go.
- Tailsection Going Green! Yes, yet another redesign, however this time usability, readability, and organization are the keys. The plus for you guys is that some key complaint areas are being addressed. No more ads inside of the top article. The page I can share with you now is the main index. You can see that the summaries are all uniform, as are the article thumbnails. In an article, the text will actually take up the entire width of the big box, so article space is getting larger and we’ll be upping the font size slightly to make it easier on the eyes.
- As you know I trolled for contributors a while back. The response was humbling. At the end of the day, it boiled down to a hardened core of extremely talented Lost fans who have been working with me on a top secret project that will really increase the scope of the site as an information resource. Many of these folks will be contributing to the news areas as well. Be watching for the "Team Tailsection" roll-out very soon.
- The cryptic occasional postings regarding "The Dharma Sutra" will become a lot more clear this week when we unleash the LOST: Dharma Sutra trailer. The story and artwork by Roc Bottom is fantastic. A lot of folks are asking if this is fan fic. I have to say it is much more elaborate than any piece of Lost fan-fic in existence today. I prefer to call it fan-fricken-tastic fic.
The idea is to make TheTailsection into more of an online fanzine than the mostly single author blog it has been. I’ve enjoyed having this soap box to pontificate from, and will definitely continue to do that - much to many of you guys’s chagrin - even though over the weeks and months to come the restructuring will be aimed at making TTS more of a mainstream resource/news source.
In case anyone is itching to contribute, there is still space within Team Tailsection for contributors, particular artists and graphics guys. So if you think you have something to offer, send me a note at doctorarzt@gmail.com.
(MANY more features coming)
The news column is terrible.
Comment by Damon L. — August 11, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
Great work Doc, very evocative. I can’t stop trying to click that EXECUTE button dammit - maybe you can link it back to the main page just for a fun.
Comment by Dusk — August 11, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
This sounds excellent Doc. Can’t wait to see what you have in store.
Comment by Jimmy Zer00 — August 11, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
I think it looks great. I’ll have to see if Ad-Block plus for firefox works on the new version of your page, since I get serious problems with it on your current one, so I have turn it off to read your website, and its definitely annoying getting pop-ups, but I do like reading your site so I endure them.
Comment by james — August 11, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
Wait…there are ads on this site? Oh wait, I forgot…I have AdBlocker Plus + Filterset.G for Firefox.
Anyway, the Preview looks great - keep up the great work!
Comment by sk8rpro — August 11, 2007 @ 7:31 pm
Disregard Damon L’s comment. He’s a douch bag. New site looks great. Keep it coming.
Comment by steeeeeve — August 11, 2007 @ 10:29 pm
No?
Comment by Steve — August 11, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
Looks great! I kept on trying to push the Execute button, but nothing. Anyways, keep up the great work!
Comment by Rachel — August 12, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
Hi DocArzt,
Overall I like the new redesign but I have a few issues with it, all of which you’ve probably thought of:
1. The AdSpace- with that bar of ads on the top, it is very distracting to the eye to have that next block of ads right above the interviews section. To be honest, it doesn’t look good. In my opinion it would look better to have it below the interview section, thus giving you a block of information that says “ok, here’s the main content.” I know you might be thinking about visibility for those adds, but as people would scroll down the page to see what the articles are, they would then be able to easily view those adverts. (Out of curiosity do you have three blocks of ads there simply as place holders?) I know that the site isn’t finished, but you should probably reconsider the ad placement in general.
2. Readability-Please tell me that the text boxes will will expand with the text if a person resizes, and that the words will wrap and not run into each other. I’m young, but with the eyes of a mole. It has been one of my peeves with a lot of sites that only take their default font size into consideration in the page design.
Anyhow, other than those issues, it looks good.
Best,
K
Comment by Kaenna1 — August 12, 2007 @ 11:55 pm