8 Months Later - The Evaluation

@WhiteDragon:

I disagree with you Worfeh, Purely because a lot of people come to these sites to download mods, look at screenies etc Having them only available for something in exchange will not only turn a lot of players and visitors away, if someone needs a file urgently for a mod or something, then they have to wait for more “points” or more “cash” etc.

If you only knew how many times scripts etc came to this site to copy the arvive download section you would know what i mean.
Im not pointing out that people should only download with a certain amount of points or with restrictions. Its just a simple barier to prevent scripts from downloading massive amounts from the site, and for the statistics its good as well for mod/tool dev’s.

I wasn’t disputing that it does not happen, perhaps a quick .htaccess is in order?

good got improvements are possible (they are always possible)

good:
content
structure
people

not so good:
the news (there have been problems in the past with the visibility)
slow loading of the site and its pages
-> running code validators might help (i got tons of errors last time i checked the site)
-> or its the server (dunno)
dunno about the need of the forge site… visited it 2 times only and didnt find something that was interesting or not covered by the SP main site

after all SP meanwhile is the no1 source for FLmodding… so congratz on this

I like the site.

I’ll tell you what I do. I click “Starport” on my favorites, i look at the recent topics and pick and choose which ones I want to view based on the titles, and open them in new tabs then work back from the last one I opened closing tabs after I’ve read them.

For that it’s great, although I’d rather it show the last 7 un-viewed topics, than the last 7 in general, and possibly more if a scroll function wouldn’t look overly crap.

I also notice that when quoting everything f’s up on me and the theme just disappears and I just get the forums with what appears to be a lack of CSS.

I agree with putting something different on the homepage rather than just news. Perhaps split it into a few nicely tabbed sections - recent threads (a whole page of 'em instead of just the top-right box), recent posted news (like what is currently displayed), and a few other tabs of various things that I can’t think of right now.

The website integrates pretty seamlessly with the forum as far as transitions go. From my perspective, things are easy to find throughout. Clean interface with very little clutter overall. I like the collapsible section format for the boards. Personally, I’ve had no problems with the editing interface here. And of course a great base of modders on-hand.

Page loads / refreshes are a tad slow -as I’m not a web dev, I am unfamiliar with alternatives and such.
Image navigation might merit further work, as it stands, it’s hard to find any specific one you may be looking for (perhaps user tag functions would be useful). Updates / submissions of pictures and files takes a bit of time -perhaps the submitter could have more control over their files after initial approval, to relieve your workload a bit and streamline the process.

Perhaps the forge section is underutilized, but that may be a result of unfamiliarity with the usefulness of such an item.

One thing that may add nicely to the site is a Wiki. Compiling all the knowledge here into a searchable, easy to access interface like that would benefit everyone I think. Submitted by the community, updated and crosschecked by each other.

Either way, I have enjoyed time spent here thus far, and learned a lot as well -which is always good. We may not have 2000+ members, but what we have is a very solid base, and a lot less “spam” to sift through. Perhaps more tailored to modders than purely players, but that’s ok as it becomes a trademark of the site.

@Mini_Me:

Page loads / refreshes are a tad slow -as I’m not a web dev, I am unfamiliar with alternatives and such.

I was thinking this, but didn’t mention it as after the initial load and everything is cached the page loads as quick as any other

@Mini_Me:

Perhaps the forge section is underutilized, but that may be a result of unfamiliarity with the usefulness of such an item.

+1

@Mini_Me:

One thing that may add nicely to the site is a Wiki. Compiling all the knowledge here into a searchable, easy to access interface like that would benefit everyone I think. Submitted by the community, updated and crosschecked by each other.

I was actually thinking this whilst sat in uni earlier (we had a quick discussion on wikis… boredom) - didnt we have one at some point? Or am I remembering things that never happened?

@Kaze:

@Mini_Me:

Page loads / refreshes are a tad slow -as I’m not a web dev, I am unfamiliar with alternatives and such.

I was thinking this, but didn’t mention it as after the initial load and everything is cached the page loads as quick as any other

Somehow this CMS/FORUM waits on loading untill external link images are loaded.
Might be solved with a cache setting in the webserver, i’ll have to look at that.

Being forum admin myself i got to say you did a great job (to whoever did the skinning and coding)

Yeah page loads to slow sometimes

One thing that may add nicely to the site is a Wiki. Compiling all the knowledge here into a searchable, easy to access interface like that would benefit everyone I think. Submitted by the community, updated and crosschecked by each other.

I like the idea also because I also thought over setting up a wiki bout freelancer - but I dropped because of lazyness and not existing knowledge about wikis.

Yes, we need a wiki

EDIT by FF: And we’'re on it

2n EDIT by Worfeh: Yup, and clooooser than you think

Anyway,

The page loads sould be a lot shorter from now on. Cept the page loads on the forums with people who have signatures with external links who can be somewhat slower.

Overall im pretty happy with this new box, loads a lot quicker and we have some more resources free to get some other stuff running, cept dunno what yet

bump

9 months now.

We are still looking at improvements. We did some changes allready but we want more.
We are also tempted to get this CMS on a higher level soon.

Please give us input so we can improve our lil site.

Is there need for more stats than the standard ones who come with this forum?
We log all hits made by the community bar, and i have to say thats its impressive, thank you all for that .

A posting system on the forums where people are rewarded for quantity/quality rather than per post:

I waffle on loads but at the end of the day it gets me the same as some guy who wrote “Lol” as a reply

A feedback system where users can give thumbs up or down based on advice given or help offered etc.

This may sound silly, but I usually end up checking the Starport more than 88 Flak’s own forums when I feel like checking up on Freelancer stuff. I realized that the links on the top navbar are basically what I was asking for with “tabs” (duh, of course). It really is a pretty cool site, and I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that could improve it.

Also, Worfeh, yeah, I think the Community Bar is one of the best things to happen to a Freelancer community - nice and standard, so it is easily integrated to - and, most importantly, kept up to date on - all sites that choose to participate.

Did the Wiki ever happen?

@HazardFN:

A feedback system where users can give thumbs up or down based on advice given or help offered etc.

Thats in the big bag-o-ideas now. When the new site comes we will try to have this implemented.

@Roo:

Did the Wiki ever happen?

We will install a seperate Wiki site. Propably mediawiki.

Thanks.