PSGR is a solo effort by me, Rhiannon, a 23 year old from New Zealand. There's a lot to explore here, so take a look around and have fun!
Online criticism and unrequested reviews
I honestly don't get why some consider it's rude when people give an unrequested commentary on another website. When a movie comes out does a reviewer request permission from the director to write about it, whether it be in a positive or negative light? When a book comes out do critics feel the need to seek permission from its author? Seems unnecessary to me, and admittedly a tad absurd.
Why should reviewing a website be any different? Why do certain people act so affected and hurt over the fact that someone's criticised their site without permission from the site owner? There's a high and mighty phrase that I tend to overuse when it comes to e-drama, and it goes something like this:
As a paying user of the internet I have the right to comment on whatever I please, whether these comments are warranted or otherwise.
The stick I have rammed up my ass is so precious and sacred to me. It's true though - I have a right to comment on whatever I see online. So do you!
Obviously through having PSGR I've received my fair share of criticism in the past and although I haven't agreed with some of it, I've certainly accepted it, however this fact itself hasn't been realised for some. Take the infamous Internet Police commentary for example. The original article mainly discussed my use of colours and their view that the use was inappropriate, and also a few snippets about my lack of CMS and use of page anchors. I was the first person to comment on this and I thought I handled it maturely (!!!!) but unfortunately everything went to pot and I was labeled a hypocrite. This was based on the fact that Nellie created a thread about the article and it was readily believed by some that I was telling her what to say and that she was posting on behalf of me, so that in fact meant that I did have a problem with the criticism. Allegedly. As some of you already know I was currently offline at the time and had no idea that the thread had been created until I returned, but regardless I earned not one but two follow up articles to the original and a 'web award' for being hypocritical. This is sometimes true...I think everyone has at least a little bit of hypocrisy in them, but in the case of the Snark thread and Nellie's contribution then I wasn't being hypocritical because I had no problem with the criticism and I had not been telling Nellie what to say. I'm not that low. At the end of the day everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if people want to so readily believe something then there's not a lot I can do about it short of defending myself and then giving up after awhile when things become stale or when I realise there's no use. However, some things are easier to get over than others, I guess depending on the extent of the situation...and for me there's one sole example that I keep coming back to again and again, that I'd gladly keep bringing up because the whole damn thing got my blood boiling. Yeah, the "ghost war" with the middle aged ghost fucks at the NZ Ghosts Forum.
This hullabaloo with the geriatric 'psychics' earlier this year would be the most major drama I was involved in, closely followed by the Weborexia debate. You can read about what happened in the "Scribbles" section under "Online Matters"...I'm too lazy to give the link right now :P
These 'ghost' people happened upon PSGR and after going through some of the content it was decided I was a messed up drug user with an ignorance and lack of respect towards the 'paranormal', a subject that I've always taken with a pinch of salt and have never fully believed in. The bizarre accusations from these narrow-minded pensioners generated many lulz and since they were making up shit about me I naturally decided to defend myself, like everyone should when they're faced with that situation. Unfortunately some people cannot handle the fact that someone has the balls to stand up for themselves so they decided to drag it out ad nauseam and take advantage of the fact that I could only defend myself via PSGR and not their forum, because they'd banned me from it. Luckily Nellie sent me a file containing their flames and I was able to work with those. When someone gives you criticism you don't have to accept it, but at least realise that by putting your website out there that you're asking for it. With the ghost losers though, the fighting had nothing to do with criticism and everything to do with making up assumptions and lies. I have no real beef with anyone online EXCEPT for the three people in that godawful forum. When someone makes up lies about you and tries so hard to convince people that you're so and so then in my opinion it is NOT acceptable and that person has a right to defend themselves.
This year I got the wrong impression about a girl, and I wrote about her. I heard from her via email a few months later and after she explained herself I realised I'd got it all wrong so I apologised not only through email but publicly through my blog. I felt pretty foolish for jumping to conclusions with Maria and admittedly I didn't particularly like having to admit that I was wrong, but at least I did it.
I've covered criticism now and explained how it can so easily get out of hand, so now onto unrequested reviews again. I've never actually given anyone an unrequested review, but not because I think it'd be rude to do so. I don't think it's rude at all - I just always have a great deal of people to give requested reviews to and so I'd rather give reviews to people who actually want them instead of someone who doesn't. Sometimes though when I give a small commentary on a few select aspects of a website I get accused of giving them a mean 'unrequested review'.
Take the case of Irene from Faccia-Bella.Net for example. At the beginning of the year I dedicated a whole three lines to her in a blog, musing about the fact that she was reasonably older than many others in the blogosphere yet she was still using pint-sized text, iFrames, and conducted babyish site of the month contests. As a result of this I received an e-mail from her saying something along the lines of 'If I wanted a review I would have asked for it. Thank you." A few casually written lines isn't classed as a review in my opinion...a review tends to be a reasonably lengthy composition covering key aspects of a site such as structure, layout, and most importantly the content. Coding is usually mentioned as well by those who have a sound understanding of it. (That's me out then!).
The "If I wanted a review I would have asked for it" argument is beyond lame, especially when it wasn't a review in the first place. However, Irene seemed to think it was...so it's only right that I now give Irene what she assumed I had already given her a few months ago. Nothing against her as a person blah blah blah, I just want to try my hand at unrequested reviewing and who better to review than someone who already thinks I've reviewed them in the first place.
Behold...
Name: Irene
Site: Faccia-Bella.Net (Unrequested)
Review completed on: 31/12/07
SPLASH PAGE
No splash
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Hey Irene, here's the unrequested review that you thought I'd already given you. Unfortunately in my meaningless opinion three lines about your structure and content does not constitute a review whether it be requested or not, so here I am with the full monty, ready to present it to you on a 24 carat gold plate of honesty. I know you won't accept this and you'll probably throw a tanty or e-mail me, after all you are in your thirties, but there's a small part of me that hopes you'll want to take at least a few of my suggestions on board. Should you have a problem with this review I want you to realise that as a paying user of the internet I have the right to comment on whatever I see fit and this is no different than reviewing a book, a movie, or ANYTHING. We cool? Okay then, let's get started.
LAYOUT
It is with great misfortune that I am presented with what appears to be a non-Safari compatible shambles. I don't know much about your site and have only visited a handful of times, however I do remember visiting once many, many years ago and I read that you were in your thirties. This would now make you in your mid to late thirties, am I correct? Forgive me if I'm wrong, I only make a point to remember things that are worthwhile. I also remember that your site looked pretty much the same structurally as it does now, despite the fact that several years have passed. I was of the understanding that site owners tended to improve over the years...I can't think of a single veteran site that hasn't apart from yours. Why is this? It's as if you're living in a timewarp, and god help anyone who tries to give you some sound advice designed to help you improve the look of your website and make it look more current.
You seem to have ditched the iFrames finally, and that's something at least. But what's with the weborexic sidebar, the misaligned layout, the overkill on pastels and the snoreworthy content? There's nothing original here and for someone who's been making websites for so long I'm genuinely surprised that you have it this way. It's like you've started at the bottom like the rest of us have, and instead of ascending closer and closer to the top you're stuck somewhere near the bottom. Paralysed, if you will...
The whole 'three images of the same picture' header image thing is pretty stale these days...oh wait, they're not entirely the same, each picture becomes gradually lighter! How very creative - not! The pictures could at least have been more different - this would have made your image look more interesting and appealing to the visitor, instead of being presented with some mundane repetitive crap that is mediocre at best.
Your entire layout is strangely aligned - it's not to the left nor the right, nor is it even in the centre. Oh my God, it's even like this on your self-proclaimed browser of choice, Internet Explorer. Can't you see that it looks sloppy?! Why the non-central alignment? Why the 1.4 centimetre white space at the top before your header image begins? I suggest fixing these errors in order to achieve a more structurally acceptable look, and while you're at it some extra padding between the sidebar and the content wouldn't go amiss.
Looking at your code (wtf) I notice that you're still using internal CSS. Very pre-2003 if I do say so myself. Having internal CSS is a waste of your time because whenever you want to change your layout you have to edit every page. I fully encourage the use of external stylesheets because that equals less work for you! With external stylesheets you can change the look of every single page while only having to edit one file. Easy and convenient, huh? To learn more about this, check out how to create an external stylesheet from Tutorialtastic.
I also recommend using a DOCTYPE. Declaring one is important because it tells the browser and the validator what language you're using. You can find out more about DOCTYPES as well as the code for the DOCTYPE you should be using (I'm guessing HTML 4.01 strict or transitional?) by reading this handy article at A List Apart.
Your navigation system, if one could even call it that, leaves a lot to be desired. Small and randomly placed underneath one of your image squares, all bunched up like a butt cheek trying to hold in a fart. I think either a vertical or horizontal CSS block navigation would look sexy...and again, to achieve this look refer to the horizontal CSS block navigation tutorial or the vertical CSS block navigation tutorial, both at Tutorialtastic.
The superfluous underlining, bolding and italicising present on your sidebar is, like most things I've been seeing here, stale. Only kiddies do the whole make certain words different colours thing, it's old, cut the crap.
CONTENT
All About Me proved very informative; crammed full of information just the way it should be. Good!
My Name - no no no no no. A cut and pasted definition ala Kabalarians. Granted you've provided your own commentary underneath, but still...
The Irene Currently section features two links, Beauty and Desktop.
I enjoyed the Beauty page, despite the fact that as far as I know the Bath and Body Works range is unavailable in New Zealand. Your review for these products was informative and honest - excellent!! You're being original here - I'd like to witness this elsewhere too.
Desktop - no offense but knowing what desktop wallpaper you're currently using will not benefit my life in any way, so I'll give this page a miss.
And now for the Irene in depth section, where the visitor is presented with truly fascinating examples of wholly in-depth content such as "Bookshelf", "43 Things" and "Lipgloss".
43 Things is a pasted thingymajig from some website or other. I would elaborate but I've already gotten out of the page on account of being bored to tears.
Bookshelf - naive and innocent me half thought that this page would involve critique of some sort - a list of your favourite novels and mini reviews on each, complimented by a shiny star rating system. But no...again I have been deceived, for this is merely a page with a litany of graphics showing book covers. It wouldn't take much effort to go through each title and give a short commentary on each. Tell us more about the plot, don't be lazy and link to Amazon. What made you enjoy the novels? What rating would you give them all out of 5?
Lipgloss - are you serious? This is a massive list of all the lip balms you own, organised by brand. What makes you think that people actually give a stuff? So you have a Bonne Bell lipbalm called "Lip Frosting Birthday" and one called "Peaceful Pineapple"... who fucking cares? The most this could have been was a brief mention of the fact you have a penchant for lip products and how many you have, and this could have been mentioned in one of the write-ups about yourself earlier. Certainly not an entire page devoted to it. God knows why you've included a copyright symbol next to the link by the way, it hardly deserves to be.
On The Inside and On The Outside are both fair inclusions in this section as they are indeed in-depth, especially the latter page. Two pages out of five that actually deserve to be here.
Exits
Button Wall -
You must have a site. (Duh.)
Um yeah...duh indeed. This rule is ridiculous and even you agree with that. Why is this nonsensical inclusion present, m'am? This is stating the patently obvious and therefore needs to be removed. People aren't as stupid as to think you'll want to exchange links with them when they don't even have a website.
Joined - kudos for stating that your joined fanlistings open in a new window.
SUMMARY
With a few small exceptions, your content is currently sub-par. The unnecessary lists were exactly that, unnecessary, and I'd say you could ditch them all together. You have enough information about yourself on your All About Me page to satisfy the average visitor and most of the other links (especially lip gloss) seemed to me like a desperate attempt to make your content seem more substantial, when in fact it doesn't need substantiating. Like I said, your All About Me page alone is more than enough to tide the visitor over. Your Domain section was pretty standard so I left that alone, as was the Exits section apart from the button wall.
The main problem with your site is the structure and the fact that you've been 'web designing' for so many years without any sign of significant improvement. That's what it's all about - you create a site from scratch that usually tends to be shite, you try to further your knowledge and start improving yourself based on tutorial sites and/or feedback from others, and you gradually start producing some quality work. You seem to find any kind of criticism adverse, which is maybe why you haven't been improving as steadily as you could be. Without criticism (requested or not!) it can be hard to better your site because you may not be aware of the problems that exist. Hopefully now you are, and I wish you luck with Faccia-Bella and hope that one day you'll feel more comfortable with receiving feedback.
