Staff

Past Staff

Review for Skyefairy

Oh, interesting. Photo manipulation layout with a grainy background. Though I can’t say I hate your layout, it sparks nothing of extreme interest in me. Some people can manipulate photos and create art that isn’t quite so obviously different pictures put together. Your layout is nothing of that sort. Otherwise, I like the antique feel I get from this site. It reminds me of old mansions with dusty furniture. I suppose that’s a good thing.

Information

Site: Skyefairy.net
Type: Miscellaneous
Owner: Skye
Reviewed By: Shishio
Date Received: 7/6/06
Date Completed: 7/22/06
Preview

Presentation

I have switched to 800×600 just to see how large your banner really is and, I do have to say, it’s quite a big ‘un. Your layout’s banner takes up about 80% of my screen. It also doesn’t help that your navigation (about 10% of said screen) is right below such a plump thing and further knocks the content down the page. Oh, joy. I can’t flip through your pages without flipping out. Thank goodness I’m a 1024×768 user. I think I’ll switch back now. If you didn’t quite get my drift yet, hack some pixels off that banner. Sure, it isn’t the worst sized banner out there, but all the more to see your content more, my pretty.

And because I mentioned the grainy background somewhere above, I’ll just quickly add my little ideas on the subject. I congratulate you, first, for being able to make it repeat. Many sites don’t seem to know how. At least, you do. But I can’t give you the gold star for all your efforts because I don’t find the grainy background to add anything in particular to your overall layout. After all, your layout’s header is more of a flow-y and gentle type of thing and then you have a chunky background. I don’t see the texture or ‘rough’ look used throughout your layout. Did you add it just because the plain background was boring? Maybe you should use that, instead. A darker blue would suffice.

Moving back to the header topic…The first thing (or person, I should say) I see is that girl. That’s a good thing because I actually have somewhere to focus. Yet, alas, doust thou carest for mine woe? What on earth does that scribble on your layout’s banner say? Oh, Skyefairy. Right. Remember, lass, the title’s font is just as important as its size. As of now, what the heck? I can’t read it without staring for a few moments. It’s nice that you’re trying to bring the antique feel into the choice of font, but it’s too bad the font is slanted. I have to practically tilt my head to read it. What’s worst is you even decided to overlay it onto the header. Tsk tsk. Bright blue on desaturated blue doesn’t make me happy. However, we shall move on with all haste before I drive myself crazy from trying to decipher what the decorative and “Version: Something” (What, you overlayed this stuff, too? The dark blue really likes to show off.) text say.

As I sing a tune and scroll down the page, some things decide to knock my breath away. Not in the good way, of course. A punch to your gut isn’t what you’d consider painless. To begin in a more severe tone, talk about blinding. What are these white pixels that occasionally dot my screen among the dark blue pixels that are normal text? What, you want me to highlight to read your links or something? You want me to squint and cut years off my life expectancy? Goodness, gracious. Obviously, you have little sense up there in that noggin of yours. Especially since your hover does me little good, as well. White on light blue? Give me a break.

I look to the side of the layout, and I’m even more appalled. You like fading stuff out, don’t you? Let’s see, following the dark blue border up… Oh, dear. Where has the border gone? For a minute, I thought I was hallucinating. Do you enjoy playing with my mind? Funny, you don’t do this to the border outside of your footer. If you want the border, use it all the way. Be proud that you have a 1 pixel border. I don’t see any reason to fade it away. It only gives your layout a more lopsided feel. Pretty and blending up there around the banner, what the hell down here around the content.

We have arrived at the footer. Sadly, your footer is prettier than your header. Wow, who would have thought of that? Now, why do I like your footer better than your header? It matches your color scheme more than that big banner up there. Yeah, read that again if you don’t believe it. Your header comprises of many photos, obviously, blended together with overlay, maybe screen, etc., etc. Your footer is, on the other hand, not blended together with said blinding filters. And because your layout is more of a grey/turquoise color scheme, your footer is actually better in terms of consistency. If you really want to use the bright blue up there, bring it down here and add it to your CSS. Or, if you were really aiming for a more mellow feel by using grey, desaturate your banner.

It’s also strange how your footer is more condensed than your header. Really, you made these two images separately, didn’t you? I don’t see any connection between the header and footer other than the watch, some water, some ice (or rocks?), and some black blobs that look like mountains. Where are the trees? Maybe part of the girl? Furthermore, you have a border that totally encases your footer, thus giving a complete look to it, but your header lacks a top border and also lacks said feeling.

I think I said before that I thought your layout was lopsided? Yeah.

Coding

I’m not much of a coder and I’m certainly not very familiar with the DIV layers coding style popping up all over the net. I’ve actually never tried it myself. Therefore, I will be a moron here and assume all your pages’ coding is fine. Yes, not a great thing to do for a reviewer, but, what can I say? I’ll admit your coding exceeds my own. Your CSS, on the other hand, does not.

It’s tradition to have a semicolon (;) after every single value in your CSS. You, however, sure like to break that tradition. Although it may not be necessary, it’s one of those ‘things you just normally do because it’s normal’. For example, you have:

#top { ... width: 736px; height: 298px }

I would edit the second to last line to this:

height: 298px;

Simple enough, isn’t it? Adding semi-colons also gives you an advantage. If, for some reason, have to re-arrange all your definitions, you don’t have to add them all over again.

You also do this a lot in your CSS:

padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 5px; margin-left: 18px; margin-bottom : 0px; margin-top: 0px;

You repeat a lot of these repeating properties in your CSS. You can shorten this to:

padding: 2px 5px 5px 7px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 18px;

For a tutorial about this, visit here.

You also have incorrect properties littered among your CSS. font-style is not a property. font-weight is.

Not only are some properties wrong, some of your values are, too. 0 is not a value for line-height.

And there are weird spaces here and there [and everywhere]. For example,

h4 a:link, a: visited, a: active

should be:

h4 a:link, h4 a:visited, h4 a:active

There’s also this ’space’ problem, though it is quite minor: background-color : #XXXXXX; would be better off if it was background-color: #XXXXXX;. And while I’m on the subject about the background colors, you are missing a dash between background and color under the .link property.

So, to end this section hastily, re-read your coding as if it’s an essay that will be graded as a midterm for your English or Literature class. Shorten your coding; be concise. It will be more organized. “Simplify, dude,” as a hippie would say.

Content

You have your navigation first, before your introduction, so I’ll chip in my thoughts about that first. Home, Site, Traditional, Digital, Articles, Reads, Hosting. Ho hum, now. I shall take upon myself the perspective of a newbie to more effectively relate my thoughts to you. The first two are pretty darn self-explanatory, but, Traditional? What, Traditional music? Writing? What is this traditional you speak of? Digital. Ahhh. Perhaps you mean Digital 3D or animation. If you haven’t gotten my drift yet, specify what the hell traditional and digital are. Yes, it may be obvious to the more experienced Internet surfers, but not to one who stumbles across your site looking for traditional rituals. Hey, you never know. Articles and Reads are also self-explanatory, but perhaps you’d like to tell me how those two are different. People read articles; therefore, they are reads. Reads can also be articles as they are just essays or paragraphs posted on the Internet for others to enjoy or learn from. It isn’t until I enter the pages do I figure out what they are. Before I rant about that, though, let’s move to the links below. Then, we shall go to the introduction to tie in what I want to say about your ‘reads’.

So, what are these? Daoine, Angel, Elysium, Jelena, Melfina, Nelchee, Noelle, and Viitoria. Ho hum. Are these other sites or pages? Oh, no! They’re links to other sites! Hm. Why are links to other sites here? Maybe they’re your sites? Maybe you like them? Maybe you just put them there for the hell of it? No. Obviously, they’re your affiliates. But a n00bie wouldn’t know that. No, they’d just confuse themselves while trying to figure out what the heck they are. If they’re lucky, they’ll click Daoine first and ‘get it’ (Hopefully, they won’t think that Daoine is a person or another site. Hm.) Funny, though, I’m an old-timer and I don’t get your Daoine. What the hell is a daoine? A poor attempt to be original? It’s not doing it’s job, then, because it’s not making anything easier for me. And that’s your job. To make things easy breezy.

Welcome to Skyefairy.net, a creative arts site containing poetry, stories, art, photography, blends, reads, designs, photomanipulations, articles, tutorials, and more by me and visitors to the site. Skyefairy.net is viewable at 800×600 and up. It has been tested in recent versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and AOL Explorer. This site is focussed on staying “kid-friendly” so there isn’t any material that would not be viewable to any audience. For visitor convenience, access keys are in place.

Hm, interesting. Very interesting. Skyefairy is a creative arts site that features poetry, stories, art, photography, blends, reads, designs, photo manipulations (for your information, these are two words), articles, tutorials, and more by you and visitors. Do you see it? The stupidity? The blunder in your words? You’re saying that your site is an arts site that features everything from fiction to designs to just crap (those reads are USELESS). Wow. Thank goodness you labeled your site as Miscellaneous in your application for a review. Girl, you obviously have no focus on this site. It seems you’re just throwing anything you can get your little hands on onto this site. Here is a word of wisdom or just plain logic: A site that features everything features nothing because there is no focus or specialty. I don’t know if you get it, but you, my dear, have a site that features nothing. The first thing you can do is delete all those reads. I can go search for jokes on Google and get more than what you have. It’s also ironic that you have no stories or poetry from what I can see. [EDIT AFTER BROWSING THROUGH YOUR SITE: What the heck? Why are your poems and stories under Traditional? I believe they are considered reads. How are they traditional? Move these to the Reads page. Thank you for confusing me even further.]

Felixa: Oh man, Skye’s site…
Felixa: She put poems and stories under ‘Traditional’.
Lucy: Define “traditional”.
Felixa: Exactly.
Felixa: I bet she’ll add classical music mp3s later, too.
Felixa: Classical music is considered traditional, isn’t it?
Lucy: I’d like that.
Lucy: I’d download them.

Your introduction is misleading and useless for any new visitor. You may as well change it to this:

Welcome to Skyefairy.net, a site that features some of this and some of that, but mostly crap. We have stories or poetry but they’re mislabeled and hard to find. If that’s what you are looking for, go search for it on a search-engine. This site has been tested in… [blah blah blah blah]. This site is definitely 100% totally kid-friendly and that is why we have things like this in our reads:

“Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?” (from “9 Things I Hate about Everyone”)

And this site is revered as one of the best? I think not. By the way, focussed isn’t a word. Focused is. Your introduction’s wordiness wants to make me throw up. Furthermore, who is this ‘me’ it speaks of? Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me as to why your name isn’t mentioned at all in this very important paragraph. Additionally, you should capitalize the ‘C’ in ‘currently’. Proofread. A lot of webmasters don’t do that anymore. It’s also nice to see you have access keys in place, but if visitors did use it, they would have to visit the page frequently to memorize them. If you’re going to use them, at least make them more accessible, similar to this site. And this is only the introduction? Already, I’m not looking forward to exploring every inch of your site. But, I will move on. Just to see how things become.

I will skip your Updates section because there are bound to be grammatical errors and such that I refuse to point out. Just a little piece of advice, though: Webmasters who can’t re-read and edit their updates shouldn’t be webmasters at all. I do hope you’re not one of them. What I definitely don’t understand, however, is this: “Skye spoke of fairies on…” Wow, you speak of fairies every time you update? Is that why i see no mention of them at all? These weird phrases that substitute the “Skye updated on…” were a trend a while back (maybe they still are right now?) and it just makes the people who use them stupid. You might as well say, “Skye jumped off a bridge on…”. I advise you: Don’t follow trends. That is, of course, if that’s what you’re solely out to do.

It’s nice to see you have your banner rotation all the way down there. Usually, people stick them in the most inappropriate places. I commend you for that. But what’s after it is what confuses me. What is “… mise la meas”? I understand you’re trying to bring a less ‘English’ feel to the site (or something of that sort), but what on earth does that mean? Perhaps, you’d like to change it to something normal people would understand. But, of course, you don’t have to. All your visitors may understand it. Too bad that statement is now false because I sure don’t.

Ah, trackers. Every site has them. I presume the image to the right is your extreme tracker. Those are quite popular these days. Now, swinging back the left, [a decimal] little fairies. Oh, joy. Half a person entered your site? Actually, 800 something thousand did. You’re using a Spanish numerical system based tracker, dearie? Are you Spanish yourself? Or better yet, are all your visitors Spanish? Do they all know how the Spanish numbering system works? I doubt it. Or maybe, you just have it to show off how many ‘unique’ visitors you have so far? Hm, let me refresh the page. Ah, I congratulate you for finding a small counter that actually counts unique visitors. However, this thing is in no way necessary. You do, after all, have the extreme tracker. But, sure, keep it. Show off. And show the world how great your site is because of the huge number of visitors. Sadly, hits don’t really say much about the quality of your site.

Site

About: Oh, gee! Glee! I’m finally on your pages! That sure took a long time. It’s nice to see that you have a long, long, big ass essay about how your site came to be. You have the information, but you don’t have the spark. You seem to like to write in Passive Voice rather than Active Voice. Passive Voice is boring, long, and harder to correct grammar-wise. And because of this, I doubt any of your visitors will actually read it. Your word choice and sentence structure is also very boring. “begged”, “got”, “also”, etc. The words you use are generic and have no flavor. Not to mention, you have words littered throughout that you do not need. I will not revise the entire essay for you; do it yourself. Grab a few of those books about writing in Active Voice and change your History accordingly. Here are some examples of good and interesting Site History pages:

I also don’t find any meaning whatsoever to your “About Skye” section. This may be your site, but it doesn’t feature your work specifically. If you want an “About This Person” page, then add in descriptions about all the other people contributing. It seems as if you’re taking control of the entire site and claiming it as only yours. Furthermore, again, your essay about yourself is boring and long. Not to mention, I don’t want to know that you were in chorus and got an A+ on your science project. Do I need to know that to get to know the site? Chances are, 95% of your visitors wouldn’t give a flying flick about you, just what is on your site. Your ethnicity and elementary school life and almost all the crap you threw into your biography are of no importance. I want to know how long you designed and why and that’s it. To put it figuratively, cut the crap.

Terms of Service: To put it in internet language, ROFLMAO. You even have numbers in another language? Wow, how SAD. You’re trying to be so unique and this is it? This is Skye’s genius? Use numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.! What, you think being cool requires complicating everything up for your visitors? Pshht. Use bullets or number lists.

And your rules are also something that I consider a big joke. What, I need proper language to view your layouts? This is a Terms of Use page, not a How to Comment page. I don’t need to capitalize my i’s to use your layouts. But, oh, wait! “You may NOT use anything contained on this site unless permission is granted by the webmistress (Skye).” I can’t use the layouts without asking you! Huh, you want a million emails or something? What good are premade layouts if they’re not up for download and public usage? “Don’t Steal! Don’t claim anything as yours unless it is. Don’t direct link.” What does direct linking have to do with stealing? These are two different rules and, good job, you didn’t explain what direct linking was, either. “You may NOT use any creative works unless permission is granted by its creator. These are displayed for viewing and viewer enjoyment but NOT as a resource. For designs, follow the rules placed within the design.” Oh, so I can use your designs. Problem is, do I still have to email you? Do I have to email the person who contributed? Clarify, my dear. You’re terrible at it. Therefore, your rules are badly-worded with little thought put into it.

Past Layouts: Oh, goody. Big screenshots and nice explanations. I see you’re using your space quite well. I hope the screenshots are all the same size. Too bad I’m always disappointed. By the way, you need a colon (:) after Name, Version, Image, and Comments. Your grammar and language use are horrid here, as well. Let me give you an example.

I saw this image, by Amanda Keeys, and immediately fell in love with it. I could not NOT use it. So, I searched through her deviantart and found her email and contacted her. Luckily, she said that I could use her photography. I added the wings myself, with dragonfly wing outline brushes by Nela. I lightened the picture’s background immensely and Jelena helped me with re-touching the colors under her eyes. All in all, this was my biggest image editing project. I like the result much better with image editing rather than blending, so I will most likely continue with that in future layouts.

You can so easily change this description of Seanachais to:

I fell in love with this image, created by Amanda Keevs, at first sight. I couldn’t resist using it but needed permission, so I searched her Deviantart account for her email to ask her. To my delight, she agreed. I added the wings with the Dragonfly Wing Outline Brushes made by Nela. Then, I lightened the picture’s background, and Jelena re-touched the area around her eyes for me. This layout was my biggest photo manipulation project. The result appealed to me more than those of blending, so I will begin to use this technique more often.

I find the paragraph now more interesting to read. It is also more concise and to the point. Do this with everything on your site.

Now, moving on. Why do you have five layouts with big screenshots and descriptions up there, but seven tucked away into a mass below? Why are these called ‘Archived Layouts’? Weren’t they also your previous layouts? Aren’t the first five archived, as well? Why are the sections separated? Combine these sections. Use the smaller screenshots and write descriptions about each.

It also occurs to me you find your past layouts more important than your current. Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me a bit. Where were the images found? How did you make it? What programs did you use? Most people would want to learn about your current layout, not your past ones.

F.A.Q.: Your F.A.Q. isn’t just weird, many, many parts are useless and don’t have anything to do with your site. You seem to like throwing all the questions asked onto this page. If I asked you how many bad teachers you had before, would you put an answer up? That’s not the point of an F.A.Q. Not only that, some questions and answers are old and just make you look stupid. First though, I call your attention to this quote from your ‘F.A.Q.’:

Shinigami Asks: “If a hamster is travling on a scooter at 100mph and is hit by a marshmellow, what happens?!”
Answer: Uhh…splat??

You and your visitors’ attempts to make me laugh fail greatly. What is this? If I was looking for a certain question, you’ve wasted two minutes of my time. Wow, what a nice webmaster. Are you really working to make this site a user-friendly place?

Cottonkandy asks: “Do you make site layouts?”
Answer: I make all of the layouts featured on Skyefairy.net, including main layouts and free linkware layouts.

How many times did you revamp this site, dear? From what I know, about four times. Do you really revamp or is it just a lie to make it seem like you’re working? If you can’t even have a decent F.A.Q. page, I’m afraid to go through the rest of this site. The F.A.Q. is the most basic of all pages. It is straightforward and helpful. You’ve just twisted it into some mentally deranged page with no purpose whatsoever. If you think you’re ‘the greatest webmaster because I revamp a lot’ in the world, you’re wrong. You’re the opposite, sinking to just above a n00bie webmaster on my list.

Answer: To get more visitors to your site, first off, you need to have a worth while site. You need good content. Stuff people are interested in or stuff they would want/need. To expand the knowledge of people that your site exists, you could get more affiliates and link exchanges. The point of them isn’t to get hits but it does help. [What!? You’re answering a question about getting more hits; you tell them to get affiliates and link exchanges, but then say that isn’t the point? That is the point of affiliates and link exchanges, my dear. Get with the program.] They’ll link to you and you link to them. That way, people who visit their site might visit your site since they see your link there. To get people to keep coming back and telling their friends about your site, it also helps to have lots of content that relates to each other. [Your content (reads and designs) have no connection whatsoever. You’re being hypocritical. Don’t start giving advice out because you think you’re good enough.] Nice presentation means a lot, also. The design/layout means a lot. Your design needs to look nice, get the viewer’s attention, be accessible, compatable [compatible, dear], and navigable. You gotta [Gotta is not a word. And you tell your visitors to have proper language?!] be patient though. It takes time for a site to get well known. It’s not all about getting more people to visit your site. [I repeat, you’re answering a question about getting hits. Why are you going off on a tangent?] Have fun when you’re working on your site. Make sure it’s something you like doing. That way even if it takes a while getting people to notice your site, you’ll still be having a good time. Having a website is for you, not everyone else.

Your touching paragraph here makes me ill. Anything in brackets and italicized are my thoughts. Anything underlined can be removed. Anything bold (more than half of your paragraph) requires editing.

Hosting: Why is this linked here if it’s up there in your navigation? It’s not “bad” to have it in two places, but I find it redundant. I’ll talk about it later since you consider it its own section.

Credits: This page is normal. But what does ‘Started 4/05′ mean? It’s not even a sentence. And this site is closed: Hakunetsu.

Link Skyefairy.net: As I’ve said before, and will say for as long as I need to, buttons are little mini-advertisements. Usually, if a person sees an ugly button, they will not click it. Therefore, buttons must be two things: alluring or attractive and have a readable site name. Now, let’s transfer this idea to your buttons. The first three already have problems because they are unattractive (why do you insist on using upper-cased, tiny, white, bold text with a black border?) and the text itself is blurry. Remove them. The other four are a little better, but I can’t instantly pick out the text on the last one (you blended it in way too much) and the fourth one still has ugly, bold text. If I were to link you, I would choose button number six. It’s the best one.

As for your banners, these aren’t even necessary. Most visitors will use a small 88×31 button rather than a 468×60. Sadly, the ones most visitors won’t even use are the nicest. Why don’t you transfer some of that effort to your 88×31 buttons? It’s also sad that the nicest 370×70 banner wasn’t even made by you. What, are you really the webmistress or not? Oh, wait. I forgot. You practically co-own this site with about twenty other people. Hm. Well, what can I say? You’re sure doing a fine job. And just so you know, that sentence was laden with sarcasm.

Fairy Ring Links Out - Oh, gee! Look, Fairy Ring! This must be something out of Lord of the Rings! Oh, gee! It actually isn’t! Why, Skye, (Hey that Rhymed!) do you call it Fairy Ring? I can see it’s a ring of sites that you like or whatever, but some people may think Fairy Ring is a different website. Simplify everything on your site. You don’t seem to know how to. Think of all the people out there with lower IQs! Just call it Links Out, for goodness’ sake. There’s no harm done! Better yet, delete all those banners and merge these two pages. Like I said, S-I-M-P-L-I-F-Y. You make things too damn complicated. And it doesn’t make you look ‘cool’ or ‘unique’ or ’special’ (only maybe mentally ’special’) in any way. One quick comment about your introduction to this page: Why would you feel close to sites (is that possible?) you’re just linking on whim and preference? Do you want all these people to be your friends? Do you want a special connection to the sites, their designs, their content, or their webmasters? Clarify. It wouldn’t cost you a finger to.

Submit Work: I’ve become quite the paranoid person at your site. I’m afraid that if I begin to read your long, wide, boring paragraphs, I’ll be in pain for many days. You don’t know how to make things interesting. But, that aside, I’ll read it anyway. Ah, as I thought. Boring. Repetitive. Grammar errors. But only one thing caught my mind: “…if it is not I will edit the parts that aren’t or not accept it. I want to keep the site kid friendly.” You’re going to edit other people’s work? If you suddenly have the power to do that, then that means I must, too! Therefore, I can edit anything I find on your site and be a happy camper. Newsflash, who gave you the right to edit anything? As a person who is so anti-stealing, (thus, anti-editing and claiming as your own) and whatnot, you surprise me. You obviously have no sense whatsoever. Get your graphical morals straight and stick to them. Oh, yeah; and I think I mentioned this. Your site isn’t kid friendly. Get a life.

Your rules also sicken me. Poetry has to be eight lines long? Poetry is art. You’re limiting your contributor’s artistic ability? What, haikus are suddenly evil? Poetry doesn’t have a limit, but stupidity does. And to show you how terribly vague your rules are, I will personally edit them. All of them. And, please, number your rules. Can’t you even do that much?

Poems

All poems must have at least eight lines in length. [Pfft.]

You must submit at least two poems total. [Why can’t I send in only one? Explain.]

Stories

Break up all lengthy stories into parts or chapters.

Art

Tell me anything you used to create it (pencil, pen, color pencils, etc.). [You didn’t define medium.]

Send me a description of the art piece.

All artwork cannot be wider than 650 pixels. [Why not? Just have anything too large open in a new window.]

All artwork must be saved in .jpg form.

No porn or hentai. [So I can send you pornographic photos, blends, stories, or poems? You think porn is only found in art?]

Photography

All photos must relay a sense of artistry.

Tell me what camera you used.

Send me a description of the photo.

All photos cannot be wider than 650 pixels. [Same applies from above.]

All photos must be saved in .jpg form.

Blends and Colorizations

Credit properly. Tell me who created the images and where you found them.

Send me a description of the blend.

All photos cannot be wider than 650 pixels. [Same applies from above.]

All photos must be saved in .jpg form.

Photo Manipulations [And I shall enlighten you, oh ignorant one. Photo manipulations are NOT images you make from scratch. You use photos to make the piece.]

[You edit this rule. It makes no sense and you can’t properly explain; therefore, I can’t properly edit.]

Credit properly. Tell me who created the images and where you found them.

Send me a description of the piece.

All photos cannot be wider than 650 pixels. [Same applies from above.]

All photos must be saved in .jpg form.

Designs

All layouts must be coded with either tables or DIV layers. [Why not frames? Are they evil, too?]

Give proper credit where it is due.

All layouts must be sent in .zip files.

Don’t cry if I reject your submission; I’m picky.

I have the right to edit anything I feel needs to be edited to make the design better. This will only be done if necessary. [I won’t edit this rule because you DON’T have the right to edit another person’s art. You DON’T. Would you be happy if you sent something to me to publicize only to have me edit YOUR work and then POST IT UP for ALL THE WORLD to see and TELL YOU your designs aren’t GOOD ENOUGH? It isn’t just illogical, it’s disrespectful and insulting. You’re putting yourself on a high horse and belittling others. Sorry, lady, but you aren’t that great, anyway. Get off the net if you think you have the right to edit somebody else’s work.]

Articles & Tutorials

Tell me what genre your articles belong in. [Why don’t you have genres for your stories? I shall elaborate more about your Poetry and Story system later.]

Tell me what your tutorial teaches (PHP, HTML, etc.).

Reads

[NO RULES because your reads stink like butt and are as useful as a cell phone without a battery. I think we went over this already.]

Submission Form: Why can’t you put an asterisk after all the required fields (e.g. Name:*) and tell me that those marked with one are required instead of listing them in such a bizarre way? And why is ‘About Artist’ required for every submission? I’m guessing that’s only needed for the first submission, unless you want to edit your profile. Simply “un-require” this field. And what if the person wasn’t ‘inspired’ by anything to take a photo? What do they put for ‘Inspiration’? “I liked the flower”? And didn’t you say on the other page all images had to be in .jpg form? Why is there a reminder that allows .gif form? And you don’t need to repeat a list of ‘Image’ and ‘Written’ submissions. People do have brains. And it’s ‘in the form’, not ‘on the form’.

Banner Rotation Advertising: What? Don’t you just mean Banner Rotation? Anyway, boring paragraphs and wordiness again. Can’t you be more lively? And you sound as if you’re reaping for some pity in the first paragraph. I don’t want to know how sad you were that no one applied to be in your rotation. Be concise. Tell me how to get in. That’s all I want to know. It’s also nice to see you flaunting your hits, again. It’s also quite funny that you use the asterisk here but doesn’t label anything. I don’t see any asterisks in the options, so why do you define it?

Moving along, I don’t get your ‘Sites in Rotation’ section. You have In Obscuro and Celestial Star in both Constant and Restricted. Ah, another Skye blunder! How can they be both? Perhaps you’d like to explain it to my mathematical mind. Additionally, those question marks make you look clueless. Why don’t you just list the sites as ‘Site Name from Date’? And what’s with the periods? This is the proper way: MM/DD/YY or DD/MM/YY. Periods are trendy. They make people who use them look stupid. So did every other mistake you made so far.

Traditional

We’re finally past the horrid and hell-ish Site pages! Let’s celebrate! And I’m not being sarcastic in any way, m’ dear. Your site is a pain to go through. But, alas, it isn’t the time to POP the champagne bottles.

As stated before, why are your poems and stories here? I won’t even bother trying to figure it out myself because it absolutely makes no sense. It may to you, but that’s because of your large amount of sense, or lack thereof. Otherwise, I don’t like how these poems are organized. What if I’m looking for poems about winter? Where do I look? Oh, yeah, through every single author’s section while studying every poem’s title to find a particular one. You don’t know how annoyed that makes me. Use a better system. You do have a brain to think of one, do you not?

I apply the idea also to your stories. Come to think of it, stories are usually always based on genre. The library, the book stores, even other writing sites like FanFiction.net. They’re all based on genre instead of an author’s name. Sorry to say, but your names don’t tell me a flying flick about your stories. Not the language, the plot, the wit, or the quality. Get a better system. Your current one is not helpful.

However, I do agree with your artwork set-up. The thumbnails tell me a little bit about each piece, so it’s easier for me to browse through these sections. You might want to, however, tell your contributors to write in proper English. It was your a rule in your ‘Terms of Use’, wasn’t it? Why don’t you apply it here for these people? Do your visitors have to write better than your staff members?

Digital

I don’t find much of a problem here. This is the best section in your site because you didn’t write anything that would usually kill my mood. Let’s go a little deeper, shall we?

Skye:

Bring Me Horizon: Sounds like baby talk. It’s not grammatically correct. Ah, you mean Bring Me That Horizon. Make the font of each layout’s title in each box smaller. What’s the use of a title if it isn’t really the title? This layout is nice, even though it’s a big over-blended. However, your Terms and Guidelines make no sense. This is explained in another conversation with Lucy.

Felixa: Read the ‘Keep to the code section’
Lucy: Rule - “Prescribed guide for conduct or action”
Lucy: Guideline - “A rule or principle that provides guidance to appropriate behavior”
Felixa: And she says I’m free to RAID, pillage, and plunder, but just have to credit her.
Lucy: Raiding, pillaging, etc. usually means going in and taking what is not yours and making it yours.
Lucy: Pillage - “Illegally obtaining goods or money”
Felixa: Therefore, I can screw the layout up, steal parts of it for my own graphics, and mess it up so badly, but still credit, and get away with it.

That one sentence at the end nullifies your entire paragraph about rules, savvy?

Shine on Me: This layout loaded slowly. I’m on a high speed computer with high speed internet. That combination doesn’t make me happy. Do you optimize? If not, do so. Simply go to Save for Web in Adobe Photoshop and check the Optimize box. Edit your settings as necessary. If you do optimize, you can optimize even further.

Separated World: The colors aren’t appealing and your efforts to make it look vintage or ‘olden’ fail. The image quality is bad and I can pick out some places where you added a square pattern that doesn’t match with the layout at all. This is a badly designed layout.

Black Rose: So, the rose isn’t black, there’s little black anywhere, and you tried but failed at texturing the image. Your boxed up content areas and navigation don’t help, either. Perhaps you’d like to start pruning?

Coldplay: You don’t know how to utilize space very well. Not only is there an ugly gap to the left, but your efforts to blend the picture (with brushes?!) fail terribly. The colors are also unappealing and the overall feel is one that I have whenever I look over a n00b’s layout. This is another horrible layout.

Arden:

Cazone: The dark font doesn’t match with the layout. The white font is blinding. The navigation sticks out of the layout and, therefore, disturbs me. It may be original, but it’s not working. The blend is nice, but overall composition lacks. It’d be nice if you re-do this layout.

Ariane:

Home Sweet Home: Grainy, brushed up, and lacks in all areas. The images are a bit too dark and the background was just slapped together. Not much of a layout.

Crystal:

Spinae Terrae: Nice layout. The 3D is a refreshing change from the usual designs I see. However, you also don’t utilize space very well. You can easily expand the content across the screen. Use the space. Your background image also overlaps your layout’s main image. This can be seen here:

Elysium: Deviant: Your layout doesn’t deviate from anything I’ve ever seen before. You also don’t utilize space very well. The gaps around the title in the banner and the crowded feel from the right fail to impress me. The boxes around each navigation link also disturbs me to no end. This supposed to be a pretty layout. Why is it so jagged and pointy and have so many right angles?

Jelena:

Precious: It’s an extracted image with blended geometric shapes around it. I like the feel, but not how you incorporated the image. Orange and purple is a combination I don’t see much. I’m not sure if I like it.

Angelic Spirit: The blend is pretty, though the jagged top doesn’t make me happy. Pretty and jagged don’t go very well together. This seems to be a trend on this site. The green/brown font is also too light. Make it darker.

Melfina:

Death Blooms: Gorgeous blend. The only thing that bother me is font choice and color. The font hurts my eyes and the color is too dark. The footer also seems out of place. It’s boxed in and bright red compared to its surroundings.

Midori:

In the Twilight: I don’t see any twilight in this image. Is twilight green and yellow? No, I don’t think so. This layout is too wide height wise. The blend and the striped background doesn’t work together. Font choice is also poor. There’s nothing wrong with Verdana or Arial. They would work better with your ‘pretty-like’ layouts. The double back slashes in the navigation are also out of place. Professionals don’t do that.

Mika:

Empryean: The layout is too wide height-wise again. The font is too small and crowded up for me to read it. Ironic because this layout seems so spacious. The dashed borders also do not fit with the layout.

Articles

Excuse me, as my review becomes less detailed and more critical as this goes on. I’m starting to tire of your site altogether; I don’t feel like reviewing it anymore. But what’s the use of an unfinished job?

This is just a general set-up problem with your articles and whatnot. You have ‘_____ by Bob’ after the article in a header, no less. Why don’t you place the writer’s name right under each article’s title? I’d know instantly who wrote it.

Linkage: I’ve noticed that every time I have to read anything you write, I feel like shooting myself. I’m going to stop with the formality now. Your language sucks, your grammar sucks, your organization sucks, and everything just SUCKS. Here are some places where you obviously have no idea what you’re trying to tell me:

“Affiliation is two sites referring visitors to each other and, in most cases, is meant to be elite. Quality sites linking to other quality sites. Many sites also become good friends with their affiliates or at least keep in touch. Usually, the links are placed on every page.” You can’t explain affiliation, so don’t bother. You never once mention that is an agreement between webmasters to simultaneously place each others’ link on certain areas of the website. Well, what should I have been expecting, anyway? You warped affiliation into Daoine. And how do sites become friends with their affiliates? Is that even possible?

“Sister Sites are basically the exact same thing as affiliates. Some sites use them as a more elite version, or as close friends only, where others see it as a way to load up on affiliates and totally undermining the whole purpose.” You can’t explain. I don’t know what you’re trying to say, so save me and don’t.

This is an article? Don’t start screwing with my head. My posts on Acerbic are better than this. If this is really an article, so are all the shitty opiniated posts on the net. This entire article was shit, shit, and, above all, bull shit.

Stop the Pointless Banners: Ah, better than the above article. And you actually clearly explain your opinion. And I half agree with what you stated. Only half because these listings are, of course, a means to convey to others your opinions. This article grammatically wise, however, still lacks.

Netiquette: Hypocrite. You can edit other’s designs, but you enforce in this article that nobody can edit anything that belongs to another? You hypocrite, you. I like how you talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. And, just so you know, I’m skimming your articles. I refuse to wade through errors that bombard my brain and leave me to die. Re-read everything yourself and edit. I also like how you boast about how well you handled the situation. That sentence is also full of sarcasm.

Reviews: Reviewing and Being Reviewed: Oh, interesting. Something that catches my attention. I think I shall skim it in its entity. I can infer from what you say that I’m the court and disrespectful and evil reviewer out to destroy all of mankind’s websites and, hence, dominate the Internet. Is this what you think of Captious Pedants, as well? Anyway, this article is a big improvement from the rest. You’re still into the whole wordiness thing, though.

The Waves Theory: Wonderful. Amazing. Near perfect. This is the most well-written page on Skyefairy.net. Good job, Jelena. Not only did you capture my attention by building suspense, you left it completely open at the end to the reader. Your ideas are interesting, your sentences varying, your word choice different. I commend you for a job well done.

On Poetry: The second best article in this section. The sentences flowed and your ideas were understood. Parts were, however, repetitive and still others wordy. But this is nice. I’m starting to hate your writing less.

Words may Speak: Interesting idea. Very interesting. I enjoyed the beginning, but tired of the article in the middle section and didn’t bother reading the end. This article is extremely repetitive. It shows some organization, but most of it was just a stream of thoughts. This technique is called the Stream of Consciousness, actually used in books such as the Great Gatsby. Anything written with this technique in mind is captivating to read. However, you, Cam, overdid it. It can’t just be an interesting way to write; it has to be interesting in itself.

Reads

We went over this. Your reads aren’t funny, useful, significant, original, or great in anyway. I’ve read some of these before, and I don’t know why you put them here. Again, it just looks like you’re filling your site with anything you can think of. It doesn’t make you look cool, smart, or unique. These reads aren’t even yours and by not crediting, you are claiming them as your own. Isn’t that illegal?

Hosting

This isn’t different from any other of your pages with rules and regulations and blah blah. But, first, why this?

First off, please don’t think of me as some high-up person that you can’t email, and can’t ask for help. I’m not. I am here to help you in any way possible regarding your hosting and, in some cases, your site itself. I will do my best to help and will not cast evil spells on you for emailing me. As with most fairies, I am easily pleased and will do my best to keep misfortune from you.

So, now you’ve put yourself into the shoes of the knight in shining armor who will save a hostee from all his problems? I’d like to kick this “knight” off his high horse. If you don’t think you’re a stuck-up, high-up person, then don’t mention it. It’s also sad that you move on and call yourself a fairy. Why can’t you just keep it simple? Something like this:

I like to help people, so don’t be afraid to ask me. As your host, I will help you in any way possible with any site or hosting problems. I will do my best to see you through any problem you may have.

Enough with the imagery. It doesn’t explain anything about how you handle your hosting.

You will always recieve a response unless your email was completely rude and obnoxious.

Do you know what tenses are? There’s the past, present, present perfect, subjunctive, etc., etc. You don’t know how to talk within these tenses, do you? This is the edited version. This problem persists throughout your site. Get out those grammar books, dear. You also spelled ‘receive’ wrong.

You will always receive a response unless your email is completely rude and obnoxious.

Oh, and Skye? Internet friends typically won’t become friends for life, unless you meet and call and actually act like real-life friends. Furthermore, friendship doesn’t last unless it’s a two way street. You’re telling them to befriend you, but you don’t say anything about yourself. Why don’t you put some effort and become friends with them, too?

You really do have a problem with listing rules. I also think I said this before. I advise you to read this tutorial about Bullets and Listing.

It’s also interesting to see that you want sites to be kid-friendly, but you yourself don’t have a kid-friendly site. But, then, you also say low-profanity is okay? Kid-friendly and low profanity don’t go well together.

I like how you have a complete breakdown of your rules, plans, and form. It is detailed and actually very helpful. But about that kid-friendly rule again, here, you say nor cursing, no profanity, and then tasteful nudity? For some reason, I don’t find this logical. I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out.

I don’t like how you display your plans. Isn’t there a more professional way that you can think of? Maybe you’d like to do something like this:

Basic Sub-domain

[paragraph about it here]

Custom Sub-domain

[paragraph about it here]

Domain

[paragraph about it here]

[Then, insert a table that displays and compares all three plans your hostees can have. Something like this: Geocities’ Plan page.]

Hosting Form: I think you mean Hosting Application. But, in any event, the form corrections I stated above apply here, too. I’m getting tired of repeat things.

Daoine

I never understood your Daoine policy. They’re just your affiliates, no matter how much you deny it. I wonder, did you make up the word, or is it in a different language? You don’t explain the word and you don’t explain the difference between your Daoine and another’s affiliates. You try, but it’s so vague it makes no sense. Your Daoine are affiliates. Accept that. You are their Daoine because a. you want hits, b. you like having nice sites as your Daoine, and c. you may want a friend or so. That is the same policy that these sites keep: Akutenshi, Aquilus, and Wood-Elven Designs. The only difference that I can see is that you put them in your Banner Rotation and give them some space for their sites. I don’t see how your Daoine is any different. They even list you as their affiliate. Besides, it will confuse people who have never been to your site before. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but they may think ‘Daoine’ in your navigation is actually a person whom you affiliated with. Now, wouldn’t want visitors confused, would you?

It’s also pathetic that the only way you attract people to become your Daoine is “As a Daoine, these sites have many special advantages at the site. They get a link on every page of my site, free advertising on my banner rotation, free hosting and sponsoring (at least 200MB space and 10GB bandwidth), a friend, and so on.” Your site can’t attract them? You can’t attract them? Only the benefits can? Besides, what is this ‘and so on’? If I apply and am accepted, I’ll get ‘and so on’? Maybe ‘and so on’ is really nothing at all. You’re so very specific, Skye.

Descriptions: You really are one lazy person if you can’t write a quick paragraph about your affiliates right after you accept them. Other than Kawaii Dreams, the other two who don’t have descriptions yet have been your affiliates for quite a bit of time. If you can find the time to update your site, then write a quick paragraph up, as well. You must have been half-asleep for many days, haven’t you? It’s a great excuse. Totally.

And, amazingly, we have finally reached the end with 22 pages. I apologize if I missed reviewing anything of importance as I no longer have the time to scrutinize even more corners of your website.

Final Statement

Skyefairy, no matter how many hits it gets in one day, fails to impress me in almost all aspects. Although it has a unique spark and potential, the spark is rather vague and the potential burried among junk. This site lacks in writing, organization, and overall composition. Nothing’s spectacular. You may have put a lot of time and effort into this site, but it doesn’t show. Or, maybe, you just revamp in places that don’t need revamping. Who knows? I don’t. But you better get that Revamp Checklist out again. This time, it’s going to be a lot longer. To sum it up: Skyefairy needs improvement - lots of it. Good luck.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Comments to “Skyefairy”

Skye Says:
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:49 pm
Thank you for your review, Felixa.

As you noted, Skyefairy is a very big site. Likewise, I do miss things and things do get old and outdated. Yes, I have revamped a few times. A revamp, to me, is changing the site drastically in some way. And poems and stories are in traditional because they are a traditional art form. I restrict poems a bit more than the rest because, to respond to your specific question, while haikus are nice, 3 lines of text is too small for one page. Each submission gets its own page.

And to respond to a few of your suggestions for improvement: I have been working on a minor reorganization, including rewriting many of the “site” pages, Daoine included. I didn’t write up the descriptions yet because that was one of the things I planned and decided to work on the bigger changes first. I added reads in the very beginning of SF because I liked them — and still do. That was/is one of the other changes I planned. They don’t fit with the subject of SF anymore, so I will be moving them to Rewyn when I revamp it (major change: moving to wordpress). I won’t get specific, but many of your mentioned lacking submissions (including my own) were/are already planned for pruning. As for your dislike of the way I word my pages, that is the way I speak. I may not word everything how you prefer, but that is how you speak, not the way I do. Each to his own.

I know there is much rewriting and changing to do. As there are so many pages and things, it is all gradual. The site does have a subject — creative arts — and isn’t merely crap thrown together.

To also dash your hopes, I’m not fond of MP3 rotations and/or downloads, so there will never be a classical rotation.

Shishio Says:
July 22nd, 2006 at 9:26 pm
It’s nice to know I helped you. You’re very welcome. It’s also nice that you speak that way. With wrong grammar and long sentences, I presume? And I’m also guessing you’re keeping the reads.

Ah, you also don’t see the sarcasm in my conversation with Lucy, do you? [Sorry, dear, but you didn’t really dash my hopes away.] To explain: With all the ‘Traditional’ stuff on your site, I wouldn’t be surprised if you really added mp3s. Very good that you don’t approve of the illegal re-distribution of music.

And though stories and poems may be a traditional form of art, they are still reads, no matter what. You may as well categorize everything with: Site, Hand/Manual Art, Digital Art, Articles, Literature, and Hosting. I find that to be facinatingly clearer.

Souji Says:
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:47 pm
Skye, I wholly have to disagree with you on your “I may not word everything how you prefer, but that is how you speak, not the way I do. Each to his own” comment. There is, believe it or not, a right way to write and a wrong way to write, and while passive voice isn’t precisely a wrong way to write, it does not, however, make a good read.

If you ask any English professor or teacher, to them, passive voice is actually a pretty hefty crime. On some essay rubrics I’ve seen, passive voice can drop a good 5-7% of your grade. It’s not an engaging tone, because the action doesn’t fall on the object itself.

I read two novels written in passive voice (they were translated from Japanese, a language mainly uses that grammatical format). By the end of both of them, I wanted to hurt someone because the writing was just that uninteresting. The story wasn’t, I enjoyed it quite so, but there just wasn’t any particular spark in the writing itself.

While it may be the way you write, it’s not a very good way to write. It does, in fact, make reading anything quite boring. After all, if everything had something happening to it (which is not very exciting), nothing would actually be doing anything, and that’s a horribly use of verbage.

Sammy Says:
August 24th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I suddenly got the itch to mention this: font style is a CSS property. As for the rest of the review, that was the most long winded, boring and utterly scathing review I’ve read in a really long time. I must admit that my attention span left me after the whole CSS fiasco.

Jenn Says:
August 30th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
I know this reviewing site wasn’t designed to praise all websites (good or bad), but I think your review did more damage than good. You have no idea how to use a combination of praise and criticism. Sure, Skyefairy’s not perfect, but you don’t need to trash it.

I also find it ironic and hypocritical that you are calling Skye a hypocrite when this review site obviously has errors and mistakes that you pointed out in her review. At least her layout had a place for the eye to rest at first glance! Your layout is a jigaw puzzle with no ending or beginning. I don’t know where to stare at. Not to mention, your color scheme is not totally unlike Skyefairy’s.

I was really expecting a “good” review, however you would like to define that. I was thouroughly disappointed. There are points that I learned and I will be careful of in the future, but I hope to never come back to your site, and I have to say that Skye wasn’t the wisest in choosing this review site. I only read this review all the way through because I enjoy Skyefairy, even with its faults.

Overall, a boring review. I really expected more. You obviously don’t know how to balance praise and criticism. You’re full of criticism and sarcasm. That’s just the way to live, huh? Your two best traits: criticism and sarcasm.

Sanosuke Says:
August 31st, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Well, okay, guys. Dissing the layout isn’t going to help anything. The reviewer didn’t make the layout, nor does she have any control over anything that goes on the site other than her own reviews, so calling her hypocritical because of that doesn’t really work.