uR W3B SiGht SuX0rZ~!... and tips to make it not SuX0rZ
by Mike "VegettoEX" LaBrie

Originally Posted: 1 February 2003

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Having been out of the loop for well over a year, it was definitely time for me to check out some websites. After "Daizenshuu EX" went back up, I figured the easiest way for me to find out what the most popular DB fansites were would be to simply look at my hit referrals, and check out the ones I was getting the most hits from. So I did! Not only did I visit the more popular ones, but almost every single site that I received a referral from. With that in mind, you can only imagine how many sites I've come and gone from just in the last week.

It's been very difficult to come back into the fold in finding out what is popular, because the time that I, myself, left... began a long, horrible process of fansite deaths. Many of the informative, fun, and just plain wacky sites that I used to know of simply closed-up shop. Basically, it was as if I was a completely new fan thrown into a community I didn't know.

So basically, I've taken a look at a lot of sites. A LOT. I've come away from them all with a lot of ideas, both positive and negative in nature. On the plus side, I'm seeing a lot of people trying really hard to give a great presentation of their site. On the negative side, what's being presented on a lot of these sites is... well... on all of them.

I'd like to state right away that I'm guilty, myself, of a lot of the things I'm going to mention. Some of them are impossible to avoid, others are done for convenience's sake, and others are the result of just plain laziness or disinterest. My goal with this is not to personally attack or criticize anyone's work; rather, my intent is to let people know what I'm seeing as a fellow DB site maintainer, as a web designer, and as a random visitor to these sites.

With that in mind, let's take a look at a collection of these items that I've come across on fansites.

General Web Design

Splash Pages

It's a well proven fact that visitors will make, at the most, three clicks to find what they're looking for. When you have a splash page (an initial "page" that says something like "Enter Here!" with no actual content) on your site, you're already adding to that terrible number three. The last thing you want to do is agitate your visitors to the point of their leaving because they couldn't find what they were looking for fast enough... especially if you do, indeed, have what they were looking for.

Navigation

Your navigation is something very important. It's essential to have something intuitive for your visitors to use. If they don't know where to go, they're going to leave as soon as they can figure out how! Arrange things neatly and by a specific category, if need be. Unfortunately, this brings about the plague of "left side navigation," something I'm undoubtedly guilty of, myself. Ninety percent of the sites you go to are going to have a menu over on the left. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing due to the fact that since people are so familiar with it, even if they haven't been to your site, they'll figure out how to get around. However, it's a curse because... well... they've just been to a site with left-side navigation! All sites start to look alike, one after another, when they all have the same navigation, no matter what crazy color scheme you've come up with. Try top or right navigation, if you can, for the sake of experimentation, or just to be different! I know someone out there is going to come up with a revolutionary new method of navigation... and when you do, please drop me a line. I'd love to know how the hell to do it.

Oh... no-one likes frames. Don't even go there.

Images

Images on a page can really boost the aesthetic qualities of your site design. However, when not optimized properly, you're alienating users on slow internet connections, and people who just don't like huge images! Keep a consistent ratio of image size to text size throughout your site. Tiny images placed in key locations can really boost the level of eye-candy. Also, make sure you "optimize" your images for the web; get rid of those level ten JPEG files! Low resolution GIF files are perfect for placing on a page, especially for images from an animation (you don't NEED many more colors than 64). Take a look through your image program's help file for ideas on how to get the best out of your images.

Color Schemes

Folks, you can't read dark blue on a black background. You just can't. Seriously. It doesn't look good.

You always need to keep in mind the wide range of people you potentially have coming to your site. Some of us are old and feeble and have trouble reading a dark color on a dark background (then again, every person has trouble reading dark on dark). For your text, try to pick something that really contrasts with what it's up on. The traditional "white on black" always works well (and vice versa), but if you're going with a different color, your best bet is to experiment.

Yellow on red doesn't look good, but yellow on blue can be read. Experiment to see what looks good; be sure to get lots of outside opinions before you settle on something. You might want to look into using ZSPC's Super Color Chart (http://www.zspc.com/color/index-e.html) for testing out colors.

Website Names

"Saiyan Planet." "DragonBall Domain." "SSJ5 Gotenks' Place."

As far as I know, none of these are actual website names. However, I think you get what I'm talking about.

Literally half of the sites that I found as referrals and got for link submissions have "Saiyan" or some variant in the title. It's been extremely hard for me to keep track of all of these, mostly because they all have such similar names!

I'm not saying you have to be a literary genius and come up with some fantastic, unforgettable name to use. However, dive into the thesaurus. Find something unique. Remember the DB universe: there's a lot more to it than "Saiyan" and "SSJ" !

Useless / Uninteresting Information

Upon typing in "dbz fusion guide" into Google, you get a result of well over eight hundred hits. That should tell you something, right away. If you look down the "Information" section (and they are ALL called "Information" sections) of any fansite, ninety percent of the time you're probably going to see something that looks like this:

Fusion Guide
Tenka-ichi Budokai
Power Levels
Deaths
Attacks

... the list just goes on and on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having these kinds of sections. In fact, if it's pure "information" you're going for with your site, I applaud you for trying to be as complete as you can possibly be. However, what I've noticed is that the sites that promote their "information" sections also promote these same, very forgettable, sections. If you visit one site and learn of all the different fusions, chances are, you're not going to visit the "Fusion Guide" of the next few sites you go to.

Perhaps rather than focusing on these trivial information matters, you could find a new spin to put on them. I'd love to see someone do a flow-chart, with nicely done images, for all of the Budokai (from the opening rounds to the finals). Better yet, I'd love to see someone do some "what-if" scenarios for what might happen, say, if Yamcha actually managed to beat Shen / Kami-sama in the 23rd tournament.

Essentially, I'm suggesting that people just try a little harder with their information sections. In all honesty, it does look a little ridiculous going from site to site and seeing "Power Levels" on every single one.

Affiliates

This one I'm probably going to be a little ruder on, simply because I'm so utterly tired of seeing it.

"Affiliates" are stupid.

"Affiliates" mean more than simply linking to each other with buttons or under a l33t PHP menu on the front page of your site (take the official definition, for example: "To adopt or accept as a member, subordinate associate, or branch"). When I hear the word "affiliate," I think of a brotherhood (or sisterhood) of sorts, in which the two (or more) members each take on different aspects of a project. Possibly, an "affiliate" would be someone who works with you on your OWN site.

Instead, I see poorly organized, cluttersome, and horribly PhotoShopped graphics telling me to check out some other site.

If I just got to your site, why do you want me to leave to check out your friend's?

If you're going to do affiliates, please don't bombard you main page with an assortment of links that will immediately turn away someone looking for actual content.

"Affiliates" are simply glorified links pages and web rings. There are probably already places for these on your site, so why not consolidate them? Your visitors will thank you.

Full Epz

Lame.

First off, let me just completely toss aside the issue of legality (and the fact that you're hurting your own fandom). It's been discussed to death, and no matter what I or anyone else says, someone's going to think us wrong. It's pointless.

What's not pointless, however, is how utterly ridiculous it looks to have "Full Episodes!" and "Full Movies!" listed as features and sections of your site. When you think of a typical "newbie" site, what do you picture them to have? Power levels and Full Epz.

I've noticed that people have full episodes for one of two reasons: to get more hits (ego boost), or to "promote the series."

DBZ doesn't NEED any more promotion. It's on TV a bagillion times a day, and if someone's already come to your site, chances are, they already HAVE an interest in the show; you don't need to further promote it to them!

Chances are, your "full epz" are going to be low-quality (unless you're distributing 640x480 XviD encodes from DVD rips, in which case, you're getting yourself into a whole other mess), not to mention the horrible Anime Labs fansubs they're probably captured from. You're giving your site a bad name by having these files, and you're giving "DragonBall" a bad name by presenting it in this kind of fashion.

Rather than having "full epz," you should feel encouraged to have a wide assortment of high quality clips (hey, if you've already gone to the effort of scoring space for tons of episodes, put it to use by boosting the quality of the clips). If you wish to promote, what better way then by showcasing what you think to be the absolute highlights of the show? A newbie to the show isn't going to want to sit through an episode of Gohan walking through the forest chasing a tiger. They're going to want, right away, the "coolest" part of the show.

Music Videos

Right off the bat, I definitely encourage the creativity of fans in the outlet of music videos (you know by now that I'm huge into this community). However, I should break you the horrible news, as well, right off the bat:

People are sick of "DragonBall" music videos.

They're even more sick of "Megumi Hayashibara" and "Linkin Park" DBZ music videos.

If you're big into the "DragonBall" community, it can be very difficult to take a step back and look at it from another point of view. Unfortunately, the "DragonBall" community is horribly looked down upon by just about every other facet of anime fandom, especially those in anime music videos. Why?

A "super search" on AnimeMusicVideos.org (using both "dragonball" and "dragon ball") brings a total of approximately fourty videos done using Megumi Hayashibara songs. A search with just "dragonball z" brings a total of 178 Linkin Park videos (I fear to use the other spelling). These are just the ones catalogued on this site; there's a far greater number of "DragonBall" fansite people who are creating videos that aren't enough into the music video community to have catalogued their videos on this site.

The reason these videos are so looked down upon is exactly the reason I mentioned the "Fusion Guides" and "Power Levels" much earlier; everyone's seen them before. No matter how much of a new twist you think you might be putting on it, chances are, someone's done it before.

Just because it's been done, however, doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment and see what you come up with. However, you really do need to keep in mind your audience: if they're a "DragonBall" fan, chances are they visit a few other "DragonBall" sites. If they're a "DragonBall" music video fan, chances are they've checked out quite a few other "DragonBall" music videos. If you make a video with the same exact anime / song combination of what's already been done, why should your visitor feel they have any incentive to bother checking out what you've done?

Most likely you can present something new to your visitors, as well as contribute to and improve the reputation of the "DragonBall" / music video arena by coming up with something new! There's been plenty of JPop and death metal action videos done; why not try your hand at classical? It's only been done enough times to count on one hand, and would definitely be a breath of fresh air! Not only will you have something original on your hands, but with such an odd combination, you're sure to bring people who otherwise might not have taken a second look at your work.

Other than content, there's also the problem of distribution formats. No matter what you try to convince yourself by squinting your eyes and putting it at 50%... Windows Media Video and RealVideo just don't look or sound good. If you're going to put so much effort into creating something you want other people to see, why not encode it in a format that will present it as well as you want it to be?

MPEG and DivX formats are not only popular means of distribution, but can look damn fine, as well. A typical three minute video will run you about 30 MB at VCD quality in MPEG, and just under that at a slightly higher bitrate in DivX (if encoded properly). Not only are you getting your video out in a better-looking fashion, but you're also getting it out in formats that are much more cross-platform compatible (hell, you can play MPEGs on Dreamcast if you know how!), but also in formats that don't require CPU-killing programs that require you to update them every two weeks or you can't play their files any more (screw you, Real).

So you've got a good looking file, but it's also a larger filesize than you're used to. Chances are, if you're putting music videos up on your site, you've already got a little bit of space put aside on your server to hold them, so you should be OK (if not, be resourceful and ask around... you'll find a friend somewhere who will help you out). Then comes the problem of visitors on slow modems, who might not want to download your videos.

Well, it's at this point that I really can't help you anymore, other than suggesting GetRight (or a similar program without SpyWare). Do your best to play up the quality of your videos (especially if it's actually a decent video!). Let your visitors know WHY they're such the filesize they are.

When it comes down to it, if you have a genuinely good video, people are going to want to get it, no matter what it takes. Just strive for the "goods": good content, good quality, and good presentation.

When you're ready, here are some sites that can help you out:
www.animemusicvideos.org (specifically, ErMaC and AbsoluteDestiny's guides)
www.tmpgenc.net
www.virtualdub.org
www.divx.com

Spelling and Grammar

I don't care how much PHP you know and have implemented on your site. If you can't spell "trailer" properly, I'm not going to return.

One of the best things you can do for yourself as a site maintainer is present yourself as an intelligent person. Any idiot with a computer can throw up a page with images that describe "teh k00l db/z/gt carakters" that you love so much.

It doesn't matter what grade you're in, college you go to, nursing home you live at... anyone can spell-check, and learn the basics of grammar. Take some time out to re-read what you've written, and make sure it actually makes sense. Have a friend read it over to do the same.

I can't stress enough how important your spelling and grammar truly is. Or maybe I can.

pl3aZe speel riGht!!

Conclusion

Ya' know, I've learned something today. I hope you have, too! There's a lot to keep in mind when creating and working on your "DragonBall" fansite, or any site for that matter. Keep it clean, and make sure it's designed well. Have a name that stands out from the crowd, and content that does the same. No-one cares who your affiliates are, and they don't want to download your 6 MB WMV music video, but they'd love to check out your well designed links page and download your 30 MB classical music action video! And don't spell it "web sight"; it's not right, and looks retarded.

Most importantly... have fun! At the same time, try to do something really cool, especially if you want to get yourself known. No-one remembers "SSJ6 GoCku's Home Page," but everyone remembers "Suushinchuu."

Contact: VegettoEX@aol.com