Chernobog
Some thoughts…


3. Ads. I realize it's an important source of income, but excessive ads scattered all over the place make the site look like a cheap remnant from the Geocity pages back in the late 90's. Shrink ‘em or use less somehow, I don’t know. Too many ads tends to be an issue, especially when the site has problems. In the past, DD at times struggles to load while the ads are jumping up front, trying to animate or make themselves known.

I agree. They added every big ad you can get in there. Every comic site has…the rectangle the big one on top AND the skyscraper next to the comments. Oh man that's too much. Also will it allow Project Wonderful ads?



How about we call it… The Mighty Ducks! Ahahahahahaha!

…man, who ever designs the website is going to have a fit when they read this thread, I kinda feel bad for them. :/ but problems are problems, and problems need to be sorted out :dizzy:

mind you, I think we're all just being a little bit nit-picky because we're all used to the current site and how its laid out. New things are freaky when you've gotten used to the old, and I think I'll just have to wait and see how you deal with everything before I can make a judgement…

though, one judgement right now: PLEASE get rid of the deep yellow, its cool to have yellow and green, I get those are the site's official colours, but I think you should really make them paler, so its easier to read text, or change them completely

“The Duck” sounds like you have to arch your eyebrows and wiggle your head a bit in true yuppie fashion, doesn't it. ‘Where are you and Missy eating tonight?’ ‘Oh, The Duck!’ Perhaps it could be called the ‘Frog And Peach’.

Or, ‘The Duck’, the sequel to ‘This Is Spinal Tap’… ‘This Is The Duck’…. A little known band from the 60's that instead of being part of the British Invasion, was part of a British Vacation…. They're one big hit (that reached #57 on the American charts), ‘Your Words Are Like Water Off My Back, Baby’….

Just leave the name alone! Drunk Duck is fine… think of those who have Drunk Duck tattoos…

Hippie Van
-Pictures that are larger than the width of the forum are not resized, and just stick out to the side.

Umm…so that appears to be fixed, but now I can't scroll down on pages with images. Very weird.

Actually, spending a little more time on them, the forums just seem to be broken in general. For instance, posts are not showing up in the right order. And quoting doesn't appear to work at all. Also, links - or pictures with links - all have an annoying next to them.

OnlyFoolsAndVikings
…man, who ever designs the website is going to have a fit when they read this thread, I kinda feel bad for them. :/ but problems are problems, and problems need to be sorted out

Well, so far they haven't cared…like at all. I doubt anyone involved in the website design will read this thread at all, actually. : (

while i understand the changing of the name from drunkdunk to something else, ‘the duck’ is really not better. its kinda excessively lame, cheesy, and a bit insulting that it was decided upon without imforming us drunkduckers. its also like taking facebook and just renaming it ‘book’, myspace becomes ‘space’, and youtube is just ‘tube’. it's silly, boring and frankly confusing:

“ah yes. just posted on the duck.”

“what?”

“the duck?”

“how could you? what did ducks ever do to you?”

“no its a website”

“sure. abuseanimals.com- jerk”

“what just happened here?!”

hopefully you'll rethink this name change. yes, we have grown attached to the ‘drunkdunk’ but it isn't just that. its that ‘the duck’ is silliness, and rather a big change to spring on a community of people who, for the last few months, have been pulled around this way and that thinking that the reason they'd stay is because they believe that this is a great community with admins and people who will hopefully either listen to them or leave them alone. this is a good site, i hope with all the improvement you plan to make to it that it will improve into a great site and not turn into some comic verison of 4chan with a prettier face

rokulily
its also like taking facebook and just renaming it ‘book’,

This is very ironic.

rokulily
its also like taking facebook and just renaming it ‘book’, myspace becomes ‘space’, and youtube is just ‘tube’. it's silly, boring and frankly confusing:

you don't like The face, The space, and The tube? BD

But idk i've always thought drunkduck was a retarded name and had nothing to do with webcomics. Not that ‘the duck’ is loads better, but it's not completely random sounding.

Hippie Van
Well, so far they haven't cared…like at all. I doubt anyone involved in the website design will read this thread at all, actually. : (

Despite what I said, I have to agree. :/ from the other threads I've read relating to this new layout, no one who has anything to do with the design really cared.

I like how they just called down from on high, like God to Moses… ‘it’s called The Duck now'… no discussion, no warning… your son Johnny… oh yeah, his name is Steven now.

I just breezed through the forums… 1/2 page width for forums, 1/2 for ads.

Let's face it, Wowio bought this site to squeeze every nickel out of it that they can… the comics (the reason people actually visit here) are just an annoyance to them, but a necessary advertising tool… but no one comes here to see the ads, they come to read OUR comics… WE'RE the ONLY reason Drunk Duck exists… Wowio will push us all to the corner and beyond… but, everyone, all you artists… WE actually control the future of this website. We need to make some stands, to throw our clout around if needed. A site full of ads with no webcomics isn't going to get many visitors.

I feel they're starting to push us around a bit, making enormous changes without our feedback (they post these ‘previews’ but don't change anything we don't like), and we need to stop that immediately. Wowio owns a bit of barren webspace without us artists, we need to let them know that in no uncertain terms.

rokulily
i hope with all the improvement you plan to make to it that it will improve into a great site and not turn into some comic verison of 4chan with a prettier face

May God have mercy on us all if that happens.

I honestly don't care what the site is called as long as it maintains the POSITIVE features it already has in this transition.

How it allows us to host our comics and how the forums work should be the priorities. We can haggle whether the rose smells just as sweet with a different name after we find out if we really have a rose at all. :P

I'm having trouble finding my comic stats page.

Also, seriously, the capital letter bug is a pretty serious issue.

BffSatan
I'm having trouble finding my comic stats page.

Also, seriously, the capital letter bug is a pretty serious issue.

Unless of course that was just an error in importing the data, in that case; less serious but should be fixed before importing the whole site.

Tim Wellman
I like how they just called down from on high, like God to Moses… ‘it’s called The Duck now'… no discussion, no warning… your son Johnny… oh yeah, his name is Steven now.

To address this sort of thing-
EVERY single one of the points you've bought up were indeed contested pretty strongly and gone over by Skool and I with the Wowio designers and programmers.

And let's be clear on positions: Skool and I are Wowio agents on DD. At the same time we are DD advocates to Wowio.

All this sort of thing goes to us first weeks in advance and we have it out with them about what the DD community will stand for and what it wont.
A number of those points you mention are still going through the process. i.e. I put the community's case on a bunch of things and they're being reviewed. And you can rest assured that I will KEEP pushing those things. I see that as part of my job here at DD.

—————–
For the name:
That is staying. We were told about that at the end of last year. It can't be negotiated. There are a number of considerations; mainly it's a branding issue. Specifically, getting advertising revenue is easier when you can market the site to them without having the explain that it's not about strange drunk stuff… The Drunkduck URL will still go to the same place and TRUE DDers will always be DDer's and not “Duckers” ;)

—————–
Ad placements:
This is another revenue issue. The site is more expensive to run and host than ever these days. Those changes are being made so the site can pay for itself. This is very, very, very important, especially after all the months of work that've gone into the new version of the site. I can't stress that enough!
BUT, the placement of the positioning on people's comics is very problematic to me and I am in discussions.

-HTML editing, links, the look of the forums etc, that's all part of talks.

—————–

Features:
We've been promised that the features will roll out next week.

Maybe I've missed something, but are we supposed to be able to actually use the new website (in a limited capacity, I understand)? Are people logging into their accounts and experimenting with it? I've tried logging in with my account, and I get totally denied. Just wondering if this is only me, or not.

As for general criticisms, I am a bit put off about the name change, like a lot of people, but I can live with it and understand the reasons behind it, but that egg-shaped logo isn't entirely my cup of tea. From what I can see in the preview page, the website is nicely organized and very slick. I do, of course, have to agree with the comments concerning the color choices and lack of value contrast between text and background, especially where the yellow and blue is concerned. I also, like many, am having a hard time with those giant square ads that have been placed gratuitously in the author's notes section of comic pages, but they are just fine on the, let's call them the bones of the …duck website (main page, forum, etc.) My problem is when ads pull focus from the comic. The banner advert and navigation tool bar at the top of a comic page looks very nice and is in its place. Those squares, on the other hand, tend to be too flashy, animated/moving or even worse, have sound, and they can be very distracting. On the main page and the like, that is no big deal, that is the public, general space where money does need to be made to maintain the website. A member's comic page, however, should be a tiny bit more sacred! Not much, but a tiny bit.

Anyway, I will say, that I really do appreciate the hard work that has gone on to get …the duck up and running, and even pretty. Just please do keep fighting, Ozone!

Knowing all the recovering alcoholics that I do, I agree with the name change.
But it seems that I don't exist on the preview site which might be a good thing.

But please the lemonade stand color scheme is hard on the eyes.

'The Duck' huh?

Abbreviates to TD.

Top Drawers final revenge.


What's with the bright red on bright yellow topped with bright green in the forums? Why's everything so skinny? The Duck lost a lot of weight when it stopped drinking, huh.

“Remember me Steaky? When I burned out your brothers retinas with hideous colors I LOOKED. JUST. LIKE. THIIIISSS.”

Obviously this means we should all be getting as drunk as possible before the change hits.


One minor design note: various bits of the preview layouts (the dangling menu under the top menu, all sorts of stuff in the forum layout which seems hard to read anyway) get out of joint if the reader is browsing with a large font size set in their browser. That's what old fogeys like me do. 8P

How about Vile Duck instead?

we can be VD'ers :) It fits with the colour scheme. It needs work, but I think Ayesinback summed it up well.


I think if the html editing isn't put back in MANY people will just leave. Taking it out was an idiotic decision.

I never once have doubted your sincerity and vigor in fighting for us. I think you and Skool are honest and try to look out for the artists and the integrity of DD… still, you're working for Wowio and working to try to save bits and pieces of the old DD site. It's tough being you, I wouldn't want the job. But it does, and be honest, seem the old DD is being turned into a completely commercial venture and the artists are secondary to profit margins. And that's a fine line, because again, we artists are the only reason the website exists… you need to make clear to Wowio that an empty site full of ads is not going to make them much money.

I trust you are trying your best to save parts of DD… I don't trust Wowio at all. And as I said before, I already have a domain and website ready for Time Girls (#77 overall today), and I expect most all the other comics in the top 100 have similar ideas after reading this thread.

Anyway, it's wait and see, right now… but I'm certain I'm not going to have my fans wading through an ad swamp just to get to my comic (which will look like crap because it will have to use stock templates). Add to that I won't be able to put up my own ad banners and links… what's the point, really, of being here?

And I noticed you didn't challenge my point about ‘free’ and ‘premium’ memberships :-) A point, actually, I don't mind that much… but will we wind up paying to keep our comics like they were before Wowio took over (meaning, like they are right now, and free)? Seems the plan is to downgrade everyone, then charge them money to get back to where they are right now. If you knew about the name change, you should know about this idea, too :-) So, tell us.

ozoneocean

Tim Wellman
I like how they just called down from on high, like God to Moses… ‘it’s called The Duck now'… no discussion, no warning… your son Johnny… oh yeah, his name is Steven now.

To address this sort of thing-
EVERY single one of the points you've bought up were indeed contested pretty strongly and gone over by Skool and I with the Wowio designers and programmers.

And let's be clear on positions: Skool and I are Wowio agents on DD. At the same time we are DD advocates to Wowio.

All this sort of thing goes to us first weeks in advance and we have it out with them about what the DD community will stand for and what it wont.
A number of those points you mention are still going through the process. i.e. I put the community's case on a bunch of things and they're being reviewed. And you can rest assured that I will KEEP pushing those things. I see that as part of my job here at DD.

—————–
For the name:
That is staying. We were told about that at the end of last year. It can't be negotiated. There are a number of considerations; mainly it's a branding issue. Specifically, getting advertising revenue is easier when you can market the site to them without having the explain that it's not about strange drunk stuff… The Drunkduck URL will still go to the same place and TRUE DDers will always be DDer's and not “Duckers” ;)

—————–
Ad placements:
This is another revenue issue. The site is more expensive to run and host than ever these days. Those changes are being made so the site can pay for itself. This is very, very, very important, especially after all the months of work that've gone into the new version of the site. I can't stress that enough!
BUT, the placement of the positioning on people's comics is very problematic to me and I am in discussions.

-HTML editing, links, the look of the forums etc, that's all part of talks.

—————–

Features:
We've been promised that the features will roll out next week.

Someone
And I noticed you didn't challenge my point about ‘free’ and ‘premium’ memberships :-) A point, actually, I don't mind that much… but will we wind up paying to keep our comics like they were before Wowio took over (meaning, like they are right now, and free)? Seems the plan is to downgrade everyone, then charge them money to get back to where they are right now. If you knew about the name change, you should know about this idea, too :-) So, tell us.

If that happens i'm off, there are other completely free sites that will do just as well. If I'm going to pay for something it will be my own site. There is a reason I don't use smackjeeves.

I wept delicious tears of joy when the pages took less a second to load for me. I really hope it stays that way! Good work on that.

Is it too early to criticize the forums though? Sections aren't separated well enough, the whole front page of the forums sort of blends together into one giant list. There should be a more defined separation of each subsection.

And when I enter a particular section, such as “General Discussion,” the boxes separating the topics take up way too much space. Maybe I'm just used to the compact form the original forums had.

Not really seeing the ad issue that everyone has been complaining about. Hasn't looked any different than before.

And while I'm not master on site design, I would think the most important thing to attract a steady audience would be fast and reliable load times. Like I mentioned before, I've already seen a huge improvement in that area.

Skullbie
But idk i've always thought drunkduck was a retarded name and had nothing to do with webcomics. Not that ‘the duck’ is loads better, but it's not completely random sounding.

That explains why you like to smack The Jeeves!

—

No html access? I haven't looked at every free host, but is there another one with no html access?

My opinion is probably flawed, but personally, I fell in love with how things looked in the preview. I want to wait till it's fully ready to begin using it; since I hardly get technical with my work (simpler the better, I say), I think me and it are gonna get along reaaaal swell. :3

I kinda lol'd at the title name… in a good way. It represents a change from something old and into the new, y'know? It's the equivalent of Takuma Sakazaki's joke persona and his “serious business” one in SvC: Chaos, the game.

ozoneocean
For the name:
That is staying. We were told about that at the end of last year. It can't be negotiated. There are a number of considerations; mainly it's a branding issue.

I don't remember hearing about this and I would have remembered something like that. It's possible that someone brought this up at some point but if that is the case then I obviously missed it but since it's coming off as a surprise to everyone else, I'm going to assume that it was poorly covered.

And to make a point, even the preview pages that they've been posting for the past few months contain the original name.



Nothing on that page indicated a name change. If they wanted this to go over smoothly, they should have introduced the idea gradually. Possibly even gotten the community involved with finding a new name for the site.

Hell, we could have even made a comic about the duck going to a rehab and then moving to a new place for a fresh start or something.

by “we” I think he meant the admins.

I think Webcomic Duck would sound better.

The Prohibitionist Mallard?

@ Tim Wellman-
Yes, I agree with you- it's the comic artists and their comics that MAKE this site, as well as the community. Everything possible must be done to accommodate this.

A premium version Vs non-premium version: I have no info on this at all. There are no plans for anything like that in the roll out. I can't say whether that'll be part of some future feature or not, but if it is it will still need to be decided what form it would take.
____________

The name of the site was only told to Skool and I and we hat to keep that under our berets.
Yes, it probably would've been better to open that to the community for suggestions. But it wasn't- maybe because know one had any good ideas about that at that stage. But that's the past now.
____________

Errors and bug reports:
Please report those using the feature provided! Those NEED to be fixed and addressed for the good of us all! It's not much use just listing them here.

Someone
A premium version Vs non-premium version: I have no info on this at all. There are no plans for anything like that in the roll out. I can't say whether that'll be part of some future feature or not, but if it is it will still need to be decided what form it would take.

I so hope they don't.

Someone
The name of the site was only told to Skool and I and we hat to keep that under our berets.
Yes, it probably would've been better to open that to the community for suggestions. But it wasn't- maybe because know one had any good ideas about that at that stage. But that's the past now.

It's things like this that are going to upset people, they have asked for suggestion but seem to do their own thing anyway. What's the point of asking the community if they don't listen? I know this is old ground but the attitude to the name change just drives the point home.

To summerise my views

Name change… ropey but hardly a big issue.

colours are pretty bad, especially forums.

Taking HTML editing out, seriously stupid move. I fail to see how that makes sense to anyone and will drive people away very quickly. How many other webcomic hosting sites don't offer this? None I can think of.



The speed, so much better.

Front page has a lot of good stuff but looks too jumbled, better divides between section would help.