[Juri]

Hi all! Do you have any ideas, gripes, or even (gasp) praise for the Anime Central website? Post them here!

Thanks!

[XenoBlade]

Praises: Avatars XD, also everything is still running at full speed, not noticable slow-down

Gripes: For some reason, I get the "forum flood control" way too often when I click view new posts. Even when I just log in and click it. It wasn't like that til maybe earlier this year or later?

ideas: well that shoutbox that OneWing brought up would be awesome. But if it can't be done, it can't be done.

my two cents

[this_chick25]

Ditto on the search flood control. Even after a whole minute, I will still get that error, and I do get it frequently after first signing on.

BUT, now for the praise!

When the avvy upload and profile pic functions went on the fritz, we were patient because we knew that ACen was a WAY bigger priority, and we had faith that after the con was over, you'd fix it for us.

Thanks for proving us right! This is why we love you all!

[Rini]

Hmm...More color!
Its kind of boring after awhile!

But I <3 aviiiis.

[Rori]

Site
Good: The general info was there. And the graphics were nice.
Bad: I don't use IE and the dropdowns never worked. They would drop, but they would disappear again before I could click anything. Also, too many clicks to get what was needed in a way. (ex. Clicking something under "latest articles" takes you to a stub holding a link, when the one click could take you to the target of the link and skip over the stub entirely).

Forum
Good: Standard forum software that was stable throughout the time leading up to the convention. Information was also always extremely current.
Bad: Needs more smilies. And yeah, ditto about the forum flood control.

[Juri]

Galaxia, on May 23 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

Site
Good: The general info was there. And the graphics were nice.
Bad: I don't use IE and the dropdowns never worked. They would drop, but they would disappear again before I could click anything. Also, too many clicks to get what was needed in a way. (ex. Clicking something under "latest articles" takes you to a stub holding a link, when the one click could take you to the target of the link and skip over the stub entirely).

I'd like to replicate and fix that! What browser/OS do you use?
I hope to address the clicks issue as well. This year was a bit of a learning curve with the new CMS software running the site and that was one problem we ran into.
Thanks for the graphics compliment!

Quote

Forum
Good: Standard forum software that was stable throughout the time leading up to the convention. Information was also always extremely current.
Bad: Needs more smilies. And yeah, ditto about the forum flood control.

MORE SMILIES YOU SAY? HMMM.
As for the flood control! I was not aware this was still an issue, I'm sorry! I know what is causing the problem. I have a temporary solution in place and hope to fix the root cause soon. Please bear with me on this one.

[this_chick25]

May I suggest the "sick face" that is available as a post header to also be available as an emoticon? I can think of others as well, but I'd have to fish up links.

[Smokey]

There was much speculation about parking in the forums this year. Maybe an info page showing which garages belong to which hotel/CC/theater, their rates, patronage requirements and in/out policies. Also, I remember hearing something mentioned about posting a map of the area. If that was pertaining to the site, how about pointing out the locations of the Blue Line stop, Greyhound and (both of the) Metra stations?

[jenchan]

Gripes:

At times it's quite difficult to find the information you are looking for in the forums. Basic information seems to generally be posted to the forums (like registration or schedule info) before it is posted to the main web site. I think all major changes/updates to guests or departments should be announced not only in their respective forum topic, but to the Website announcements/updates, or some other general announcement forum. Perhaps consolidate the "Forum announcements and Web site announcement/updates? Please keep in mind that not everyone is as forum savvy as some of us(I had a parent randomly ask me (I'm not on staff!) where some information was cause they didn't understand the forum navagation), and there was some confusion as to where information was available. I did notice that the RSS Feed was always a little behind on the updates. I guess consistency/accessibility of information is what I'm asking here, and I should have to excavate for major con info such as concert rules or registration hours. The sooner people know, the better they can plan their adventure to ACEN.


I get timeout errors as well when in the Forums Portal, and click on the "Today's active topics" now and again. But if i wait abut 30 seconds, it's ok. ^^


Suggestion: don't know where to post this: My Anime Club is not listed on the website. How can I make that happen, and how are they chosen to be listed?

Please and thank you.

[Juri]

Dave, on May 24 2008, 12:09 AM, said:

There was much speculation about parking in the forums this year. Maybe an info page showing which garages belong to which hotel/CC/theater, their rates, patronage requirements and in/out policies. Also, I remember hearing something mentioned about posting a map of the area. If that was pertaining to the site, how about pointing out the locations of the Blue Line stop, Greyhound and (both of the) Metra stations?

Good idea. This is already on the list for next year.

The area map is something on Production's list for 2009. I'd wanted to get this year's maps on the site but it unfortunately didn't happen. Next year definitely!

[Juri]

jenchan, on May 24 2008, 08:39 AM, said:

Gripes:

At times it's quite difficult to find the information you are looking for in the forums. Basic information seems to generally be posted to the forums (like registration or schedule info) before it is posted to the main web site. I think all major changes/updates to guests or departments should be announced not only in their respective forum topic, but to the Website announcements/updates, or some other general announcement forum. Perhaps consolidate the "Forum announcements and Web site announcement/updates? Please keep in mind that not everyone is as forum savvy as some of us(I had a parent randomly ask me (I'm not on staff!) where some information was cause they didn't understand the forum navagation), and there was some confusion as to where information was available. I did notice that the RSS Feed was always a little behind on the updates. I guess consistency/accessibility of information is what I'm asking here, and I should have to excavate for major con info such as concert rules or registration hours. The sooner people know, the better they can plan their adventure to ACEN.


I get timeout errors as well when in the Forums Portal, and click on the "Today's active topics" now and again. But if i wait abut 30 seconds, it's ok. ^^


Suggestion: don't know where to post this: My Anime Club is not listed on the website. How can I make that happen, and how are they chosen to be listed?

Please and thank you.

The forum versus website issue is also on my list of Things to Fix in 2009. It's definitely not acceptable for people to have to hunt through the forums to find information. RAR.

Anime Clubs: this was a new thing for 08 that we're still tweaking. I want to see about getting a form in place to make it easier for people to submit their info.

[akaikurama]

Maybe listing the staff sections people can apply for, I know there is a link for the Help Wanted section of fourms but you still have to look through them and having a list of what sections and breif decription near the staff application may help.

[Jguy]

A staff page would definitely help, listing all the staff for the current year, as well as all the positions open and the positions that ACen currently has.

I know there are tons of staffing positions out there but I just don't know what they're called, who's in charge of them, who's a part of them, and what they do.


Also Juri, I don't know if this is anything you can do ( I think it's the hearder or the footer of the forums), but if the page is just...all the way loaded except for a slight bit, and I scroll down the page, when it's done loading it sends me back up to the top and cancels whatever I was doing. (If I had clicked in the Quick Reply box and started typing, the page will scroll all the way back up to the header and take my cursor out of the box)
Not that big of a deal, nor would I know how to fix it off the top of my head, but if you have any ideas (it's gotta be in the footer, I think) it would help a bit. It could also be Firefox too, I haven't tried loading it in IE.

EDIT: I jumped onto my Windows machine and loaded the page in IE, it works fine. It something to do with how the page is coded and how it loads in FireFox.


As for information not being available, I recommend a modification to the site to display stuff right into the site from the forums. Kind of like an RSS feed, but not quite. The script is used on your index.php page and ports stuff right over from the News section of the forums to the Website. If you need any more info or a link, don't hesitate to PM me about it.

[Juri]

Jman, on May 25 2008, 12:19 PM, said:

A staff page would definitely help, listing all the staff for the current year, as well as all the positions open and the positions that ACen currently has.

I know there are tons of staffing positions out there but I just don't know what they're called, who's in charge of them, who's a part of them, and what they do.

Better staff page! Got it! *writes down*

Quote

Also Juri, I don't know if this is anything you can do ( I think it's the hearder or the footer of the forums), but if the page is just...all the way loaded except for a slight bit, and I scroll down the page, when it's done loading it sends me back up to the top and cancels whatever I was doing. (If I had clicked in the Quick Reply box and started typing, the page will scroll all the way back up to the header and take my cursor out of the box)
Not that big of a deal, nor would I know how to
f34
fix it off the top of my head, but if you have any ideas (it's gotta be in the footer, I think) it would help a bit. It could also be Firefox too, I haven't tried loading it in IE.

EDIT: I jumped onto my Windows machine and loaded the page in IE, it works fine. It something to do with how the page is coded and how it loads in FireFox.

Weird. What OS were you using Firefox on? I haven't had that specific problem in Firefox on Windows, but I don't have a different OS available right now to test it

Quote

As for information not being available, I recommend a modification to the site to display stuff right into the site from the forums. Kind of like an RSS feed, but not quite. The script is used on your index.php page and ports stuff right over from the News section of the forums to the Website. If you need any more info or a link, don't hesitate to PM me about it.

This (along with a better way to aggregate news in general) is in the works. Shh, don't tell :3

[DJFLuFFKiNS]

psst psst that thing we're not talking about?

[Rini]

more color

and maybe the ability to show pictures in sig? ::shrugs::

[DJFLuFFKiNS]

I would love to have pictures and pictures in sigs... but it'd be a pain in the butt to moderate... If the board software had the ability to allow users to turn off viewing embedded pictures... I think it'd be much more possible

[Rini]

yeah, so people aren't putting pr0n in their sigs.

[DJFLuFFKiNS]

also size limitations too... but yes

[XenoBlade]

Oh yeah, I would love to have pics in sigs. I would hope most people here would be responsible and put family friendly images in their sigs.

Cuz pics in the sig would be awesome, but it just might lead to slowdown too.

[Tukaro]

I have some minor complaints about appearance (like the drop down lists not being the same width), but these can easily be ignored.

The largest thing that annoys me about the site is how half the links open new windows. That's rather annoying, especially when I have no intention of using whatever I was at previously.

Other things:

• Menu headers act like links but don't actually go anywhere. To narrow confusion, you should probably set them up such that they either go to a general page for that section or make them not act like links (link colors/hand icon). I would recommend the former, that way if someone doesn't have Javascript enabled they can still make use of the menu.
  
• I find a lot of the sections cluttered. Random use of font color, type, and size, and so forth. This may be me being anal, but it also means that when you do want to make something very obvious to look at the user will be confused, since the smattering of style doesn't give a clear indication of what should be important or not.

I would also recommend using the regular site header as another header for the forums, just for consistency's sake. That's just my opinion, though, and it isn't terribly necessary.

[Jguy]

Juri: Maybe it's the version of Firefox I'm using. I'm on my Windows machine right now, but my other OS (my main one) is Ubuntu. My Windows Firefox with the same version as my Ubuntu machine does the exact same thing. I'll try updating and editing this post with an update.

Odd, Firefox is fully up-to-date on both machines.

I can just deal with it, especially if I'm the only one having the issue, it isn't that big of a deal. I can still see the forums and web site just fine, it just takes a bit more scrolling after the page loads. No biggie, I don't want you to dwell so much over it

Another suggestion to go along with rini's quote "more colour" post, is the ability to choose different skins, maybe 2 ~ 3 different skins if you have the space to do so. I know the Invision Power Board skin is kinda dull and boring. Maybe if you put up a different website design, make a couple skins to match. Allowing members to choose skins would be great too, we all don't have the same taste others do.

[Cuddles116]

Make the staff/volunteer page look like you actually want volunteers. It is probably one of the blandest pages on the site but one of the most important plus it isn't easy to find. Most large cons have a link that says staff/volunteers out in the open where it can easily be seen rather than in a pulldown. Digging through the forums to find out any information on it is ridiculous all the information you need about it should be broken down above the form to apply.

- A basic what the positions/departments are and brief discription of each.
- Minimum hours needed during the con and how those are broken up (1st - 3rd shift for example would be a straight 8 or can you have a 4 hour shift with break and then another, can you work 24 hours straight and get it over with etc).
- If you can not work 24+ hours because you will only be there for a day/only want to help out for a day what are the deptments you could help with, additionally are there seperate benefits/requirements for this.
- Finally sell the benefits, people aren't get paid but you do receive things for giving your time for 8 hours of work at least a day. Free badges/crash space/are any meals provided/do you get any con merchandise free or at discount/are there special staff prizes or staff only events/do you get to meet guests or get into things like concerts without waiting in line/etc.

After reading this people would be able to actually fill out the staff form and not have to go through countless posts trying to figure out what is going to be expected of them.

[rondo]

Jman, on May 25 2008, 01:19 PM, said:

Also Juri, I don't know if this is anything you can do ( I think it's the hearder or the footer of the forums), but if the page is just...all the way loaded except for a slight bit, and I scroll down the page, when it's done loading it sends me back up to the top and cancels whatever I was doing. (If I had clicked in the Quick Reply box and started typing, the page will scroll all the way back up to the header and take my cursor out of the box)
Not that big of a deal, nor would I know how to fix it off the top of my head, but if you have any ideas (it's gotta be in the footer, I think) it would help a bit. It could also be Firefox too, I haven't tried loading it in IE.

I suffer this malady as well on a Vista box with both IE7 and FF 2.0.something.something else. I do not suffer this issue on an XP box using the same FF.

It definately makes the boards behave in many bizarre ways.

EDIT: I'll see if I can get some screen caps to give you an idea of the weirdness I deal with regularly. Forum wierdness.

[Smeet]

rondo, on May 27 2008, 01:49 PM, said:

I suffer this malady as well on a Vista box with both IE7 and FF 2.0.something.something else. I do not suffer this issue on an XP box using the same FF.

It definately makes the boards behave in many bizarre ways.

EDIT: I'll see if I can get some screen caps to give you an idea of the weirdness I deal with regularly. Forum wierdness.

Same thing happens to me with updated XP and Firefox v2.0.0.14.

Kind of annoying to have to scroll back down and click back in the box, but I can deal with it. -shrug- Just thought I'd throw that info out.

[Juri]

Smeet, on May 29 2008, 11:50 AM, said:

Same thing happens to me with updated XP and Firefox v2.0.0.14.

Kind of annoying to have to scroll back down and click back in the box, but I can deal with it. -shrug- Just thought I'd throw that info out.

Hmm, okay. I'm going to poke around Invision's support and see if I can't find a solution. We're going to upgrade the forums to the latest version soon, too, and there may be a fix there. I generally don't poke around in the innards of the forums because I'm a designer more than a coder, but I can always rope one of our savvier staff members in. :3

[Smeet]

Juri, on May 29 2008, 01:35 PM, said:

Hmm, okay. I'm going to poke around Invision's support and see if I can't find a solution. We're going to upgrade the forums to the latest version soon, too, and there may be a fix there. I generally don't poke around in the innards of the forums because I'm a designer more than a coder, but I can always rope one of our savvier staff members in. :3

Thanks! Much appreciated! <3!

A bit more on topic... The only "gripe" I have with the ACEN website itself is that it's not very friendly for people new to ACEN. This was my first ACEN, and I would have loved to be able to read a sort of "beginner's guide to ACEN" page, which could have information such as, y'know, there's a map inside one of the booklets. xD; I've only been to one other convention before, and it was so much smaller that there was no need for a map. This year, I unfortunately missed all the panels I had been interested in seeing, mostly because I was too busy looking around all googly-eyed, but also because I couldn't find anything.

So, in short, a "beginner's guide to ACEN" page would be awesome.

[Darko]

Does anyone know when the main acen.org page will be revamped and updated for 09? I know its early but im sure the tech should be on it

[Aj-chan]

We haven't even gotten the post-acen update yet. Hopefully soon?

[~Sarah-Chan~]

Darko, on Jun 4 2008, 06:45 PM, said:

Does anyone know when the main acen.org page will be revamped and updated for 09? I know its early but im sure the tech should be on it

They just started working on that.

And as for gripes and junk the flood control notices are starting to annoy me. I click on things and I get the message right after I log on. Not cool but I deal with it. Just wondering why it does that......