Callistonian.net

I am, indubitably, a perfectionist. But Callistonian.net was rejected (twice!) from Perfection, a design gallery that aims to showcase the web sites of passionate/perfectionist designers.

Okay—what I really want to know is what I can do to improve Callistonian.net (because, you know, I’m a perfectionist. I honestly want to get better! :P ). What’s wrong with this layout? What’s wrong with my blog entries? What would you like to see? What would you like for me to blog about? I hate criticism, but I care about improving more than I hate being criticized. So, as much as it pains me to say this and as much as I feel that I may regret it: do your worst and critique my site. Thanks.

What do you think of the header (the large graphic above)?¹ I was rejected from Perfection because of it. -_-; … I like it. I think it fits my style: I can’t draw; I’m detail-oriented; I like complex things. I doubt that I will ever get into Perfection because its member seem to like things I dislike and vice versa—that’s fine. ♥

Anyway, I’m thankful to the members of Perfection who reviewed my site. Thanks! Also, because the gallery is all about perfection (and thus, improving), I’m going to return the favor by critiquing it just a bit. I made the mistake of getting rejected, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say the following comments aren’t the product of bitterness.

Suggestions for Perfection:

• Add a paragraph explaining how sites are added. The owner doesn’t decide who to add, so it’s atypical and hard to figure out intuitively… Sites are “reviewed” before they’re added, but how does it work? Do random members vote on the sites? Shouldn’t this be explained somewhere? If it’s a random number of random members voting on each site doesn’t that make the process more subjective than with most galleries because with Perfection different standards are applied each time? Anyway, an explanation is needed.
• Add more specific guidelines to the guideline page. This page doesn’t list anything besides the bare minimums; it makes it seem that all decent looking sites will be accepted.

  Add the following:

  * Clean, organized, often validated code.
  * Quality, well-written content.
  * Unique, eye-catching designs.
  * Exemplary use of color and space.

  The guideline page also suggests comparing one’s site to those in the gallery. That can be a little misleading; it can also cause bitter my site is better than X why wasn’t I accepted rants. Brigette’s site displays the most beautiful dolls, but she’s using a pre-made theme… :( Impish.ca’s layout is nice but really simple. Silencia.net and Amelie’s Not-Noticeably.net are also lovely and simple. But sites with equally simple layouts have been rejected. Aside from giving applicants a very rough idea of whether or not they can get in, comparing doesn’t have much of a point. It only seems to create false hope. What are visitors supposed to think when they see sites using pre-made layouts?

• Reevaluate member sites. Perfection lists the sites of perfectionists. If members become lazy and create things that are not up to the community’s standards, they should remove themselves or be cut. That sounds harsh, but Perfection claims to be “a collection of top-quality websites and like-minded designers.” It should push its members to achieve their best by refusing to list sites that have become second-rate. On the other hand, if it feels that all of the gallery’s sites are great - why refuse to list similar sites? :D

¹ Don’t comment saying they were insane &c. to reject me over the header. Different people like different things. :)

I remember…

1. When Napster was popular. While Napster definitely had its legitimate uses, most people used it as a one-stop shop for .mp3s. But, you know, nasty netizens still haven’t given up on downloading costly music for free. They will never give up! They’re dirty little migrants. When the feds shut a particular piracy party down, netizens simply move elsewhere. After Napster, there were Morpheus and Scour. When M & S went down, Limewire, eMule, BitTorrent, &c. began to prosper. When they’re taken out (if they’re taken out) where will people go? mIRC? It’s the only thing that’s been around forever.
2. When Netscape Navigator was the IE alternative. Firefox is the it browser now. No one uses Netscape. There are people who haven’t even heard of it. I like Firefox but, part of me wants Safari to eat up its popularity. Safari displays colors properly. Firefox doesn’t. I like it best when images look their best – who wants a browser that messes around with color?
3. When netizens created websites on geocities.com. Then, blog wasn’t a word. Livejournal didn’t exist. Nothing seemed to exist. If you wanted to make your own site for free, you went to geocities. Your site address was long and had numbers in it. It resembled a street address. You could have been number 4531 in Area51 or Tokyo or the Hollywood Hills. geocities.com/tokyo/7792…
4. When <i> was used for italics, <b> was used for bold, <u> was used to underline, and when <br> didn’t contain a ridiculous /. Now, everyone is nuts about <em>, <strong>, and closing tags. <em> for italics. <strong> for bold. As for <u>, well – no one wants to replace it with anything so, use it while you still can. Underline. Underline. Underline.
5. When netizens put unstoppable .midis on their sites. Enough said. For the curious, this is an old school site with .midis.