Hello, on 10/28/2009 06:37 PM Paul M Foster said the following: >> Anyway, if you are that sensitive to design issues, why don't you >> participate in the contest to propose a better design instead of just >> complaining against the work that others do to help the PHP community? >> >> You can earn prizes and start helping instead of just putting down what >> others do. >> >> http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/104-Submit-your-site-redesign-proposal-for-the-contest.html > > Here's a free suggestion. You don't even have to give me a prize. You > know those random words which are underlined on that page, and when you > mouse over them, you get the random advertisement on a completely > unrelated subject, which also emits a *sound* on my computer? Get rid of > them completely. They are beyond annoying. I get that you need to make > money with this site, but those obnoxious ads are the exact opposite > wrong way to do it. I suppose you are not familiar with the site publishing business. This site, like many other, is a relatively small site, with only 2 million page view a month. If you do not have sites with at least 20 million page view a month, you are considered a small publisher, so you do not have a bugdet to pay for an advertising sales team. Therefore you need to work with ad agencies with take a big cut to sell ad space to advertisers. Those ads you see are placed by agencies like that. They were supposed to be contextual, so they would be relevant and related with the site content. If they do not look relevant is because that is the advertisers they are getting now. We are still in the middle of a big crisis that will probably not end before 2012. Many governments are saying they have exited the crisis, but I am afraid that is just wishful thinking with the purpose of spreading optimism and help recovering the market. If the ads you see are not very related, that means that the related advertising have closed their business or are afraid to spend. Unfortunately, we small site owners need to be patient and wait for the market to return. > Also, while I wouldn't have expressed it quite as crassly as Robert, I > have to agree on his evaluation of the site's look. I have a logon on > your site and have been to it many times. I just figured you liked it > like that. But in truth, it needs a serious and complete makeover. But > like Robert, I have no end of things to take care of, quite outside of > redisigning phpclasses.net. I'd suggest you scrap the contest and go > find a good free CSS template. But that's just me. That would not solve anything. The vast majority of the users does not really care. The problem is that those that care always want something different that changes every year. Picking up any other template will not solve any problem. Complainers will keep complaining, probably forever. The point of the contest is to let those that are sensitive to design issues to propose something they believe it is better, instead of just complaining. It is impossible to please everybody. Whatever design will win, there will always be people complaining. To make sure the change will be more liked than disliking it, I am making it democratic. People that care will decide. This way complainers will not have anymore excuse to blame the site for not having a better design. The majority decides. I will be like Pilates, I will wash my hands, and pay the prizes, of course. The main prize is not huge, but it is not cheap either. USD $3,000, a big elePHPant and a lifetime premium subscription. Runner ups will also get prizes from sponsors. http://www.phpclasses.org/award/design/ So, now it is not time to complain. If you care about the site and the current design bugs you, this is your chance to propose something better and even earn prizes. The submission period will last till the end of November. If you are interested, you may start here: http://www.phpclasses.org/design.html -- Regards, Manuel Lemos Find and post PHP jobs http://www.phpclasses.org/jobs/ PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP http://www.phpclasses.org/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
