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.

Technical-

Site doesn't work for Firefox 3.6.16 on Win XP Professional Svc Pack 3
Just thought I'd add that to the list.


Opinion-

I'm not too sentimental about losing the “drunk” part myself. It would probably make it easier to share kid-friendly webcomics hosted here with kids that way.

I still don't like the overall color scheme used. If they can create an option for website color scheme display personalization post-login, (which someone suggested long ago), that'd be brilliant.

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.

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.

Wowio has the same issue Platinum did. They don't give a single shit about user feedback, and if they actually do they certainly don't show it. When the first thread went up they genuinely made changes to the template, but after some time told us all to politely cram it. I can see the reasoning, having a ton of people saying “no, this should be like this, and this should be this color” comes off as nit-picky and personal bias. They didn't comprehend that why we did that in such frequency was because we were displeased with the job they were doing.

To make this perfectly clear: free service is not a valid excuse for shitty service. The users control the content, Wowio controls the channel, and people will refrain from providing content if the channel becomes a cumbersome mess.

edit: if you seriously think the colors are the only thing wrong about the design and layout of the new site, you're hilariously wrong at best.

edit: anyway I'm done. good luck with the latest disaster, guys!

I'm also one of the few who doesn't care all that much about the name change. URL change though might've bugged me, but it's good to hear the Drunkduck urls will still work.

Yes there are issues with the layout, like the people have said, it's mainly the colors. The rest I personally think is fine. It also DOESN'T work on Firefox which is bad. VERY BAD. There are lots of Firefox users and I'm one of them.

But yes, must the colors be so obnoxious just because it's called the Duck? That seems to be a curse with DD layouts, it's either too plain or too much (too childish?). The forums especially are hurting my eyes. The yellow and green, guhh. And this is just a little nitpick on my part but the greenish background/pattern? It looks…like a badly compressed jpeg.

Also, aaghhh the layout I made for Cwen's Quest is completely ruined! XO What the heck happened?!

Also, I know you guys put that gray line/bar at the top of the comic pages to let there be more of the user's layout visible…but I almost prefer it being full up there. That just looks like some sort of awkward glitch to me. =/ I guess I'll get used to it, but I don't know…it seems like there could be something done with that to make it look better. A color changer for that would be nice at least.

ozoneocean
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.

I especially understand that it might lead people astray but that doesn't mean I like it.

-_-

But I think it might grow on people.

@fukujinzuke and SarahN - what doesn't work about the site in Firefox?
Please use the feedback system to make reports on that.

I've found that the site works ok on exactly that version of Firefox on that same version of Windows XP, as well as Vista. And it works the same in Firefox 4 in Vista and Widows 7. And in IE9 and IE8 in XP, Vista and Windows 7.
Where I've found most errors so far have been because of strange browser settings like font settings in Firefox and having compatibility view set to on in Internet explorer.

@ozoneocean

This is how it loads for me on two different computers on said Firefox and OS:

click for larger view.

Loads okay on IE8 though.


Edit:
Firefox default font setting: Times New Roman size 16pt
I have no idea what compatibility view is.

That's what it looks like for me in FireFox 4 on Windows 7 Professional 64bit

Was anyone able to register a new account at the preview site? Since my account was not recreated I tried getting a new one with no success. I tried with Opera, Firefox 4 and IE7. It doesn't give me any errors or anything, it just reloads the same “sign up” page and does nothing. I don't get any emails after that (I tried a few hours ago too).

Thanks for clarifying those details, ozone.

Thumbs down to Wowio for the handling of this. My scorn is not for them making changes/decisions without feedback or even doing so without prior announcement. I understand that sometimes decisions have to be made definitively and have to be kept confidential. My scorn is for making the announcement and changes without giving any rhyme or reason behind it. Frankly, it is an insult to members' intelligence to be told “By the way, this is how it is now” without a simple “and this is why.” It's leadership 101. We don't need to have input in every decision or change, but respect us enough to tell us the purpose.

Anyway, I think Ozone handled that end of things. But it would have saved an awful lot of wtf if srhdt had done that in the first place.


~~~~~~

Oh, and I was unable to register. I filled out the form and hit the button, and the page simply reloaded. I received no email. The password I put in doesn't let me sign in either. So, I can't check out any of the comic creator features – which are the things that matter most to me. :P

I think my Firefox problem had nothing to do with DD. My NoScript was blocking certain parts of it, it seems. It was kind of odd I had to allow individual parts of the page to see everything, I've never had to do it that way before, but that's not DD's problem either.

So it seems to be working okay for me now but my version's 3.6.16. However I can't log in or anything either.

That fixed my issue too SarahN :P

For those with Fire Fox screwing up turn off the ad block for the site.

Same here. Thanks!

Yeah, new account registration seems to be broken. I've submitted some bug reports about that so hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I'm afraid I don't have the energy right now to add much to what Oz has said already, maybe tomorrow morning. :] The long and short of it is that some things were up for negotiation and some weren't, we did have opportunity to feed back to them about some things (which they variously implemented or not), and some things we just didn't know about.

It seems to be their trend that they want a few days to see what responses come in and then respond to those together, so we'll see what they have to say. I do think they could have explained a little more at the outset- I'm never sure how much we're allowed to say, and I'm not always comfortable explaining things on their behalf (besides not being an official response, I may be uninformed about current information, etc.)

Please just keep in mind that this is an incomplete preview, and some changes which are deemed necessary (like, a majority of people are suggesting the same change) or simple to do may still happen. Functionality will be added and bugs will be ironed out.

The practicality remains however that Drunk Duck is a very expensive site to run and probably has not actually paid for itself, ever. That's completely unsustainable and has killed smaller sites than this. From a business perspective, Wowio has to get something out of DD even if it's just the ability to pay for itself. As much as people hate ads, for some reason they are still the best way to make money off a site and Wowio has to work around that- which has affected some of the design and branding decisions. Some of the functionality changes are practical decisions as well. I think that DD has been very lucky to have all the abilities and customizations it has historically had, but the price for that has apparently been an unsustainable site.


As far as the HTML goes, they've told us that they'd like to ensure that users can still do all the things they want to do on their pages, but using some method which doesn't involve directly coding html.

I think that the css and button customization that's there now will take care of a large majority of the site's users, and is something we've been sorely missing since the big crash several years ago which wiped that out.

For everyone else I think it may be more productive to focus on what it is they like to DO which requires custom html, and communicate that to the programmers, so they can work on a solution for that. I am imagining they intend to make customizable modules you can drop into a page and reposition or something, maybe.

What kinds of things to users customize their html for?
- customize “presentation” elements like color, bordering of image, etc
- nonstandard navigation elements like prev and next placed to the side of the comic image, rather than below
- rearranging page elements to maximize avialable space (like, above the fold)
- add extra pages (characters, fan art, etc)
- add menus (in various positions on the page)
- link/banner exchanges
- advertising (own - like deviantart pages, kablam stores, etc)
- advertising (for revenue, like project wonderful)
- web comic toplists and voting sites
- trackers or metrics drop-ins
- twitter, facebook, etc buttons
- twitter feeds, shoutboxes, and other advanced integrated elements

Have I missed any out?

Sorry for the double reply, but I've found that the new user registration does work so long as you are filling out all fields (not skipping zip code, for example). It could possibly also be something to do with the country or state fields.

It wasn't working for me when I was putting in “United Kingdom, N/A, 12345” (because the field won't accept letters currently), but did work when I put in a valid US/state/zip combo. I don't know which of those elements was the key. I'd have created more accounts to test it, but currently you can only use an e-mail address once (something we've raised with them).


I've submitted a bunch of bug stuff on that signup page though, it's not the greatest functionality-wise.


Edit: Registering a new account should be fixed, previously it was requiring both a state and a zip code.


Edit2: emails will only be able to be used once. I guess this is an anti-spam thing.

I'm not clear about the best way to report bugs. Not in this thread? In another the “I've found a bug” forum? or by selecting the side “feedback” on the preview site? do those post anywhere?

Also, the two items I found are probably not bugs at all, they're either there and I can't find them or they're functions that haven't been added yet:
(a) how to upload files other than comic pages and avatars
(b) comic hits and rating

Is there any place where Wowio can list what is going to be added and when, so we don't waste time looking for something that won't ever be there, or is just scheduled for a week down the road or so?

—

I HATE the egg. I really HATE THE EGG.

between the color scheme and the Egg it's like Peter Max does Easter in Tim Burton's wonderland

Obviously it doesn't matter what I think about the missing drunk, but replacing it with the Egg? THAT's more – professional? polished? clever? WHAT?

—EDIT—

I'm willing to put up with changes, losing the “Drunk”, maybe even having a compromised web comic with not being able to customize html, but there is a very easily identifiable deal-breaker for me.

The day either Oz or skool quits, I'm GONE. Both of them have guided this community with great heart and intelligence, and I thoroughly trust that they continually advocate for us.

ayesinback
I'm not clear about the best way to report bugs. Not in this thread? In another the “I've found a bug” forum? or by selecting the side “feedback” on the preview site? do those post anywhere?

Use the “feedback” system there. You do have to make a simple account for it, but it's kind of a social bug reporting system from what I can tell. Once someone reports something, other logged-in people can say ‘yes, this is happening to me too’ which, I believe, raises the priority of the issue.

Oz and I are using a different system, we get slightly more direct access to the programmers, so you won't see the stuff we're reporting on that Feedback system for the most part. Don't let that discourage you, because they are keeping track of that system too.

Also, the two items I found are probably not bugs at all, they're either there and I can't find them or they're functions that haven't been added yet:
(a) how to upload files other than comic pages and avatars
(b) comic hits and rating

Both of those aren't there yet. I've raised the issue with them and we're told those are things which will be coming, but we don't have a timeline.

Asking for some kind of list is a good idea, although I suspect it might be too much stuff for them to try detailing everything about.

The day either Oz or skool quits, I'm GONE.

No pressure or anything! ;)

I'm sure if we get a new admin at some point it will be someone the community likes just as much. :]

I seem to share Bffsatan's dilemma.
Please deal with this evil clone of mine, who has stolen all of my comics.

My issues with the forum:

*Posts sometimes appear in random order.
*Missing a reply button at the bottom of the last post.
*Increased difficulty in embedding video files.
*Changed posting mechanism interferes with my firefox auto correct feature.
*Can't delete posts after posting them.
*All posts appear with “Last edited on…” even though they're the original unedited posts.

*And I fully support any and all changes to the current color scheme and arrangement for the forum. It could only be an improvement.

I hope you guys are also reporting these using that Feedback system. :] Thanks for helping with this though, I've just spent the last 3 hours just doing feedback on the new user registration and various issus around password resets (and a couple forum things, some of which PP just mentioned)

This is what I sent to them as a proposal for the forum changes. I just moved the buttons because, but I think the important bit is the change to the yellow background:




Edit: Product Placement, are the posts within a thread appearing out of order, or the threads within a forum? Is it the ones that were all dumped in on April 13th, or specifically the ones which have been added since then?

A few issues with “The Duck”
1- My comic layout does not work properly anymore.
2-All the links and adverts on my comic are gone.

The idea of premium member ship seems to deny the point of “the duck” (cause it wont be DD anymore.) If I have to pay for it…I might as well just host my comic on its own site.

If I cant post my links, ads and custom layout, this will probably be my next move.
I dont even have a link to my forum anymore!
I need my forum!

I think the site needs more white, especially the forum part. I've got to have somewhere safe to look…

skoolmunkee
Edit: Product Placement, are the posts within a thread appearing out of order, or the threads within a forum? Is it the ones that were all dumped in on April 13th, or specifically the ones which have been added since then?

Newer posts seem to be in order but the posts in the threads that were dumped in were all over the place.

I just want to be sure that this will not be the case when the site content is properly moved over to the new site.

I have not used the feedback feature as of yet but I eventually will. For now however, it is time for sleep for me.

I would like clarification of the following details:

Are you removing the ability to code our own site in raw HTML? Can we only use templates?

If we can only use templates, what are the variables we can adjust for our comic's page specifically? Will the template editor be in HTML5 for support of newer browsers and possible further customization?

skoolmunkee
Yeah, new account registration seems to be broken. I've submitted some bug reports about that so hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I'm afraid I don't have the energy right now to add much to what Oz has said already, maybe tomorrow morning. :] The long and short of it is that some things were up for negotiation and some weren't, we did have opportunity to feed back to them about some things (which they variously implemented or not), and some things we just didn't know about.

It seems to be their trend that they want a few days to see what responses come in and then respond to those together, so we'll see what they have to say. I do think they could have explained a little more at the outset- I'm never sure how much we're allowed to say, and I'm not always comfortable explaining things on their behalf (besides not being an official response, I may be uninformed about current information, etc.)

Please just keep in mind that this is an incomplete preview, and some changes which are deemed necessary (like, a majority of people are suggesting the same change) or simple to do may still happen. Functionality will be added and bugs will be ironed out.

The practicality remains however that Drunk Duck is a very expensive site to run and probably has not actually paid for itself, ever. That's completely unsustainable and has killed smaller sites than this. From a business perspective, Wowio has to get something out of DD even if it's just the ability to pay for itself. As much as people hate ads, for some reason they are still the best way to make money off a site and Wowio has to work around that- which has affected some of the design and branding decisions. Some of the functionality changes are practical decisions as well. I think that DD has been very lucky to have all the abilities and customizations it has historically had, but the price for that has apparently been an unsustainable site.


As far as the HTML goes, they've told us that they'd like to ensure that users can still do all the things they want to do on their pages, but using some method which doesn't involve directly coding html.

I think that the css and button customization that's there now will take care of a large majority of the site's users, and is something we've been sorely missing since the big crash several years ago which wiped that out.

For everyone else I think it may be more productive to focus on what it is they like to DO which requires custom html, and communicate that to the programmers, so they can work on a solution for that. I am imagining they intend to make customizable modules you can drop into a page and reposition or something, maybe.

What kinds of things to users customize their html for?
- customize “presentation” elements like color, bordering of image, etc
- nonstandard navigation elements like prev and next placed to the side of the comic image, rather than below
- rearranging page elements to maximize avialable space (like, above the fold)
- add extra pages (characters, fan art, etc)
- add menus (in various positions on the page)
- link/banner exchanges
- advertising (own - like deviantart pages, kablam stores, etc)
- advertising (for revenue, like project wonderful)
- web comic toplists and voting sites
- trackers or metrics drop-ins
- twitter, facebook, etc buttons
- twitter feeds, shoutboxes, and other advanced integrated elements

Have I missed any out?

I guess that I'm in the minority here, but I really have no problem with the color scheme being too bright or hard to read. I sort of feel just the opposite in that it seems a bit boring, but I can live with it and it won't make me run elsewhere. That said, I too hope to see some alternate color choices, not to say that I would choose another set of colors, since what I am saying is that I have to see the options in order to determine if there is a better alternative, but as there aren't any now, I can live with it and it doesn't put any strain on my eyes. Although I do like your suggested fix with the lighter yellow boxes in the forums, skoolmunkee. As for customizing, I basically use the black template with just links to toplists and voting sites, although a lot of the other things mentioned above appeal to me too even if I don't currently use them, and at least having the option to use them in the future is a big plus.

One thing I posted in the feedback thing, I uploaded some pages and they appear in reverse order and I cannot change it save for deleting them.

I uploaded one then clicked the save and upload another. They were all going upon the same day but it meant that the one I loaded first is the latest page, which seems backwards.

The things we use rawhtml for (obviously). We want to put up our own ads, either just for more hits or to make money from our comics, and we want to make custom pages with links… custom pages like my Pinups page, which is html completely done by me, then uploaded… but then rawhtml allows me to create the link… and allows me to change my button graphics and where my navigation buttons are, etc… without rawhtml it's always going to be a template.

BUT, the main thing is, I want to be able to put my OWN ad banners on MY webcomic… just as I can right now.

It's funny, some have said, well WOWIO is listening to feedback… if they've read this thread they've got all the feedback they need… don't F**k with Drunk Duck. We like it as it is… we need a faster server, we need reliability… but the rest is perfect.

I should say I've already started uploading my comic onto another webcomics site. I'll move it to my own server soon… so, I have one foot out the door (like almost everyone else in the top 100)… so, if WOWIO carries on, DD… oh, sorry, TD, will be a site full of ads and gradeschool webcomics. If WOWIO is listening, as has been stated by the Admins, then listen carefully… you are destroying DD, you know you are destroying DD, but you think we'll just roll over and take it… you've VASTLY under-estimated us… you truly have screwed yourself into the ground.

The site looks nice, but I hope they keep the name “DrunkDuck”. I don't know… something about that name sounds very unique to me while the current name of that site (“The Duck”) sounds kinda… generic…

To answer a couple points:

We've been told that the custom HTML will not come back. This wasn't something we were aware of before the preview site went live, and ozoneocean in particular is very unhappy about this. However Wowio do not seem open to negotiation on this.

Instead they are telling us that they want to provide as much of the same functionality as possible, but with a set of customization tools. So please see my list above, trying to organize “what users need out of page customization.”

Ideally a set of templates, with the abilities to change colors and image elements, coupled with a series of drop-in widgets and layout tools will provide a huge amount of functionality. But I don't know what the programmers have planned. That's just me hoping.

Tim Wellman
BUT, the main thing is, I want to be able to put my OWN ad banners on MY webcomic… just as I can right now.

I'm not defending Wowio's decision, but removing the ability for users to put up their own ads does make sense on a few levels.

- User ads reduce the impact of the ads which are paying for space on DD, which is what pays for the “relibaility and faster servers” that benefit EVERYONE on the site. Those ads now have to compete for visitors' attenion and, if enough competition exists, may drive down clickthrough rates. (Additionally, letting users customize their html freely might give preferential placement to their own ads, or move the paid ads to undesirable areas of the page.) Some ad networks even require that they are the sole source of ads on the site, to ensure their dominance.

- Getting free hosting AND being able to make money off it with ads is kind of like double-benefits. It doesn't make business sense for Wowio to let people have that double dipping. Not only would they be paying for ALL hosting and support costs associated with your comic (as well as intangible elements like hosting a community your comic takes advantage of), they'd be letting you make money off that privilege (and at the same time, potentially reducing THEIR sole source of profit as mentioned in the first point). Yes, sure, it's nice for people to be able to make money off of webspace they get for free, but I can see how that would be considered too much. Perhaps you can't have both. In that respect, different levels of subscription might be a solution.

- A comic needs to be of a certain level of popularity to make any money off ads, the vast majority of comics on DD do not hit that level. Perhaps business-wise they realize they are alienating a small percentage of users (albiet one which brings in traffic and contributes to the community at a generally higher level), but the numbers may be in their favor here. Upsetting a smaller number of people to ensure provision of service for everybody could just be a pragmatic decision.

- If a comic is able to turn a profit from ads then perhaps it should have its own webspace anyway for a variety of reasons. I realize that argument means that it drives DD further down the road of “small comics, amateurs and mirrors” but that was already a giant percentage of DD's userbase.

I believe Wowio is also hoping they will be able to open up more opportunities for users to monetize on their comics themselves- a better-integrated DD Store, publishing at Wowio, etc. A good place to start looking might be WeVolt, their other comic hosting site. Those pages provide a lot of functionality layout wise as well as ways for readers to ‘subscribe’ to comics with small levels of donations, etc.


As ozoneocean said, he is pushing to get Project Wonderful back on because it provides networking benefits beyond just making people a bit of scratch. Wowio is not able to budge with the main ads though. Part of the reason we got such awful ads before was because with the non-exclusive adpsace and the poor website name, they were stuck using questionable ad services and a bunch of ads that other sites were rejecting.

Tim Wellman
I have one foot out the door (like almost everyone else in the top 100)

Please don't throw in statements like this about other people that you can't possibly speak for, it reduces the strength of your argument. Stick to your own experience and don't try to enlarge your point by saying things you can't back up.

- User ads reduce the impact of the ads which are paying for space on DD, which is what pays for the “relibaility and faster servers” that benefit EVERYONE on the site. Those ads now have to compete for visitors' attenion and, if enough competition exists, may drive down clickthrough rates. (Additionally, letting users customize their html freely might give preferential placement to their own ads, or move the paid ads to undesirable areas of the page.) Some ad networks even require that they are the sole source of ads on the site, to ensure their dominance.

I'd be willing to not have my OWN ads on my site to keep my current web design. Can they be negotiated into premium service options? I have my own web space but I like it here and wanted to use both as my main home. But this direction is looking unacceptable for me.

- Getting free hosting AND being able to make money off it with ads is kind of like double-benefits. It doesn't make business sense for Wowio to let people have that double dipping. Not only would they be paying for ALL hosting and support costs associated with your comic (as well as intangible elements like hosting a community your comic takes advantage of), they'd be letting you make money off that privilege (and at the same time, potentially reducing THEIR sole source of profit as mentioned in the first point). Yes, sure, it's nice for people to be able to make money off of webspace they get for free, but I can see how that would be considered too much. Perhaps you can't have both. In that respect, different levels of subscription might be a solution.

I totally understand. But if a subscription service is NOT offered then all our hard work on web designs are in vain. I and other have put a lot of work into them for myself and for several other people in this community.

If I can't have my web design here it will greatly effect how much presence I'll put into this site once I get back onto my feet. Especially since I'm willing to compensate them with subscription service just because I like the community here so much.

I'm glad that all of this has been explained, though I think it might have been a good idea to include all this information in the original post regarding the new site rather then reducing the DD community to a band of pitch-fork weilding maniacs :/ Just my opinion, unless Skool and Oz just found out about all this stuff or something, then that's excused.

I'm not too fussed about the HTML codes going, though I'm a little bummed I don't get to keep my custom header/title art that I love. As far as I can tell, its all very understandble with the ads and site upkeep and whatnot, thoooouuuuuugh still a tad disappointing, but, we'll get used to it I suppose. The idea of having different levels of subscription is disappointing, but bearable if it came to it and once again, understandable, Deviantart has the same basic idea.

as for the name change, I'm currently thinking like this for some reason to make myself feel better about it:

When it became clear that DrunkDuck's party animal ways were a danger to the community, and after a particularly bad black out that lasted several days, Quail and his faithful friends the Admins decided that an intervention was in order, and called on Wowio to help. Drunkduck was admitted to AA and began to follow the 12 step programme until he decided that he would never again be reffered to as the “Drunkduck”. He wanted to call himself the “Sobered up Mallard” but that was deemed confusing and he settled for just calling himself “The Duck.” He now has a fondness for lemonade, hence the colourscheme. Its sad that the Duck can no longer be the party animal that he was, but he will live, he will live.