Five Reasons why I won’t Return to your Website
(note: bear with the layout, I’m just bored & fiddling..)
..because my patience is getting shorter and I cannot seem to find any decent websites or blogs of late. Starting from least annoying, moving on to most annoying (obviously).
5. You have nothing worth coming back for.
Such an obvious answer. The issue here is the “age of the script”. While the likes of WordPress make it easier for more people to own their own website and update it quicker, it seems to be draining the creativity out of people. Far too many are relying on pre-made themes, using WordPress pages to write a few sentences about themselves and passing it off as a website. What happened to spending hours coming up with a layout, crappy content that we all pretend to hate but read anyway and updating the occasional page manually? Ah, the old days…
4. You’re over the age of 21 but still use the word “bitch” (or variations thereof) to describe yourself in your sidebar profile
Seriously, those of us who were sad enough to do this in the first place got over ourselves by the time we hit about 15.
3. You’re using bitmaps for your layout images
I didn’t even realise people did this anymore — I assumed everyone using the Internet to display their supposed creativity was at least knowledgeable about graphic design programs. When your browser crashes trying to load some nutter’s 4Mb bitmap you know you must have been saved from a potentially horrendous website.
2. Your splash page has a tagboard on it
Splash pages are pretty stupid, irritating and generally pointless, but the annoyance I feel at webmasters who assume I want to leave a comment before I’ve even seen a website is verging on psychotic. The only comments I’m likely to leave aren’t allowed because of swear filters :(
1. You’re offering tutorials that you probably stole from pixelfx
It’s bad enough that pixelfx still exists in its current shitty coloured state with its equally shitty tutorials — I do not need to see the tutorials replicated across every personal website I come across, re-worded ever so slightly to try and make it seem less obvious that they were stolen. Not only does this make you a dull twat with no imagination, but it also spreads bad coding around the web design “community”. If you can’t do something right yourself, don’t try and teach others how to do it!
On a completely unrelated note, do you think David Cameron (leader of the Conservative party) has intentionally shown his oh-so-sexy white pants to the world..?
Niiiiice. If I was going to stage a trendy video blog entry in my own home I’d at least choose a better pair of pants to make the place look “homely”.
Alys said:
On 30 Sep at 3:56 pm
I was reading about Cameron’s blog in the Guardian this morning, I didn’t see the pants in the background, but the whole thing made me laugh because it was so un-natural! Like you would really talk bout the future of this country while doing the washing up.. Oh and Jem, can I use that image? I feel that this story is post worthy! (I won’t direct link it, obviously)
Jem said:
On 30 Sep at 3:57 pm
Help yourself to it Alys :) It’s only a screenshot of the vid on his site anyway.
Alys said:
On 30 Sep at 3:58 pm
Thanks, and does eating breadcrusts really make your hair go curly? Or did your header image lie? :P
Jem said:
On 30 Sep at 3:59 pm
That’s what my mum told me when I was little, and there’s no way she’d lie to me!
Jenny said:
On 30 Sep at 4:28 pm
I manually update most of my pages now, the only WP powered are the root pages.. about, domain, doodles, links – all others are manual with my staticJack plugin. :-/ I do agree with you though, sometimes I get annoyed when people use about a million plugins and.. overuse them to create their personal website. I saw some of the David Cameron stuff on the TV earlier, I was like “webcameron”? Creative. o_O
Jaide said:
On 30 Sep at 4:47 pm
Your right, were have all the good interesting blogs gone? :(
Vera said:
On 30 Sep at 4:49 pm
5)I DO use WordPress, but strictly for the blog related pages, everything else was coded by me… plus the wordpress stylesheet (when I had to make a theme). While I am fairly proficient in SQL, I’m not good in PHP (am constantly trying to motivate myself to learn further than chapter 5… but chick lit tends to be more compelling :P ) 4) I don’t think I ever used the word “bitch”… not even to insult a person. In reference to me: I prefer more sophistiated words. 3)I don’t believe I ever used bitmaps during the whole time I had a website up… (starting around the age of 16, or so – no I have no idea where my first site is). 2)I’m sick and tired of tagboards: they’re just spam magnets anyway (for further details see YS.nu) 1)I only offer tutorials that were thought out by me, while trying to find a reason not to do homework ^.^ So..I’m assuming that you’re not too cross with easy update of just the blog (if you notice I didn’t even dare to put up a validation link for those pages). Is it safe to assume you’ll return? *puppydog eyes*
Jem said:
On 30 Sep at 4:59 pm
@Vera: I’ve got nothing against people who use WordPress to update their blog, it’s just people who rely on it for everything and don’t put their own thought or work into the website it becomes sad. :(
Rosemarie said:
On 30 Sep at 5:08 pm
“You’re over the age of 21 but still use the word “bitch” (or variations thereof) to describe yourself in your sidebar mini profile thingy.” *stabifies*
Corinne said:
On 30 Sep at 6:05 pm
Here’s something for me, I just open my site, and bam… server fails. And it won’t work again until, hopefully, next week. But I spent hours making new content for the visitor that I can’t give. It just sucks that those who take genuine efforts never get acknowledged, or rarely do, and those who don’t get praised for their iframe layouts. (Not that iframes are necessarily bad, but I personally hate them). But, I disagree about the wordpress pages. It’s not as simple as you would imagine to validate them because the way they are configured just screws everything up. I’ve done the whole writing it, but for my blog, I’d rather use wp. I just use it with the rte off.
Connie said:
On 30 Sep at 6:19 pm
Hi Jem, I agree with more, but especially on point 5. I have often said it. WordPress themes are a good thing, but it kills all the creativity there once was. Also, text adds, google adds, whatever add. I hate staring at them between entries, under headers, they are so annoying. :-( Good old days, as you said.
Corinne said:
On 30 Sep at 7:36 pm
Whoa, I was wondering when I wrote that last message, but it wasn’t me, it was CoNNIE, wow, I’m going blind.
Joni said:
On 30 Sep at 8:27 pm
Noboby visits my website because my blogs are boring, but I actaully agree about your statement that WP seems to such the creativity out of people. I’d swear every WP user out there has the same basic layout (whether they use free themes or not)…ugh. I don’t use WP, but that’s mostly because I’m lazy rather than any other reason :D
Amelie said:
On 30 Sep at 8:34 pm
I use WP pages because it’s easier, but I make my own themes… Not that they look any different from most of the defaults out there, but I do try :(
chanel said:
On 30 Sep at 9:57 pm
Indeed, it is hard to find a site that’s not created with WordPress. I use WordPress too but only for the blog portion. Not theme wise. Back in like 2002-2003 there were some very good READING sites out made by designers like us. But they all gave up the social-internet-blogging trend.
Amanda said:
On 01 Oct at 1:01 am
*doesn’t use WP* But let’s face it…most people would prefer the quick and easy way of website-owning to the ‘slow’ manual way. It’s just human nature, most people would take the fast way out for everything.
Kelly said:
On 01 Oct at 2:05 am
I use WordPress and I like it. But I code most of the pages about myself manually, as I find it easier when I was to insert chunks of code (instead of having click the “html” button). I also use one of your beautiful themes, Jem, because of their excellent design. Not picking, because obviously I love your themes, but why do you offer themes for download if this annoys you so much? :P
Belinda said:
On 01 Oct at 3:26 am
*is so absolutely guilty of #1* I’m not too interested in coding sor WP is a blessing but it’s true that I do put off layout making… damn you uni asssessments!
Belinda said:
On 01 Oct at 3:27 am
… And by “#1” I mean “#5”. -__-
Jenny said:
On 01 Oct at 5:06 am
i use WP because i’m too lazy to do anything else, but all my layouts are original and from my own mind. so is my content. but its not really all that interesting so eh…
Jessica said:
On 01 Oct at 5:30 am
I read this post, after changing colors on a wp theme. I cannot figure out how to make a theme if my life depeded on it. I did find a style switcher for wp. I am tinkering with that as I know waymore about css then php & mysql. I use plugins that make sense for me. One day it will all make sense to me. That will be the day my kids don’t live with me anymore and my husband would rather sleep all day. So in 15-20 I would say. :P
Jessica said:
On 01 Oct at 5:32 am
Oh and the whole splash page thingy…. If my redirect would work then you would’t see the splash page I have. I always thought it beeter to have a generic splash page if you are using redirects instead of letting the world see your entire site they had no business seeing in the first place. One day that redirect will work again too.
Linda Belle said:
On 01 Oct at 7:46 am
I completely agree with you on almost all of these points. However, on the issue of using premade themes… I know you offer some premade themes on Jemjabella. I don’t think all bloggers who use these are incredibly intolerable. In fact, I’d probably recommend a premade them to someone who didn’t know much about coding. This would minimize the probability of them having tacky splash pages and tiny font.
Jem said:
On 01 Oct at 10:34 am
Perhaps a few of you would be better off reading point 5 again. I’m not criticising people using WordPress or premade themes, rather the combination of using WP, premade themes AND only placing a line or two of content on a page and calling it a website. If you’re going to pretend you have anything other than a basic weblog, you need to pad it out a bit.
King Echo said:
On 01 Oct at 10:57 am
I just read your comment policy, because you know… you write funnilly and I wanted to, and you said you’re not always right. I think that is the FIRST time I have EVER seen that on the web. Did I read it correctly? Anyway… could you stop bloggin’ about me? :x
Xeronia said:
On 01 Oct at 12:47 pm
I’d never visit those sites that you talk about. Most of the weblogs I run into today aren’t good at all, and I doubt that mine’s much better. I don’t have much of a problem with premade layouts if the person really can’t make a layout. But like you said, they better have tons of decent content!
Kimmie said:
On 01 Oct at 2:04 pm
“Tutorials” are the worst content ever. Especially when the kid has all sorts of basic html ones and then they are like, “Here’s the script you need to write up comment form.” And you’re like, “Whaaaaaaaaaaaat. Are you serious? This kid so stole everything.”
Lynn said:
On 01 Oct at 6:10 pm
I think it depends on WHY you have a blog…if you want it only to write in, as a personal outlet, then premade templates and wordpress is fine. But if you’re wanting a website to show off, etc. and have content for visitors to read, then yeah, you really ought to come up with your own designs. I did the second thing, now I’m doing the first. Eventually, once life settles out, I’m sure I’ll combine. But these are all good points, Jem.
Kenna said:
On 01 Oct at 9:27 pm
I love you Jem. :)
Jenny said:
On 01 Oct at 10:23 pm
Nice new layout. ;) :P
Aravis said:
On 02 Oct at 12:21 am
I was guilty of using bitmap images on my site a long, long time ago. Back then, I didn’t know Photoshop and the like existed. :P I love the new look! The colors look so pretty.
Adrianne said:
On 02 Oct at 4:04 am
“You’re over the age of 21 but still use the word “bitch” (or variations thereof) to describe yourself in your sidebar mini profile thingy.” LOL…. I seriously find that hilarious. Try others at age 30 and over— and still call themselves “bitch” at their sidebars… LOL
Riitta said:
On 02 Oct at 7:03 am
Haha, I love how you have that sad face at the end of The only comments I’m likely to leave aren’t allowed because of swear filters :( It cracketh me uuuup~
Alys said:
On 02 Oct at 9:51 am
Jemjabella! You have changed your layout AGAIN! I like it though! I’m at school, being forced to use IE, and the sidebar content goes over the actuall ‘bar’, if you get what I’m saying.
kachii said:
On 02 Oct at 12:16 pm
I’m not over the age of 21, can I call myself a bitch in my sidebar and you’ll still visit my site? :D
Gemma said:
On 02 Oct at 12:47 pm
Manual updating is sick and near dead. At least according to Ys.nu, where there are so many comments like ‘Don’t use iframes to update your content, use PHP!’ Because actually *hard-coding* the layout and navigation into each page of a six-page site might actually kill a person.
Jenny said:
On 02 Oct at 3:17 pm
Gemma, I get annoyed when people go “omg php is so much better than iframes!” Well, they’re two both very different things so how would you “compare” o_O
Alys said:
On 02 Oct at 4:03 pm
Jem, you’ve done it again, another great layout! :D You’ve conformed to my high expectations of you!
Anne said:
On 02 Oct at 4:04 pm
I like this new theme!
Cristina said:
On 03 Oct at 6:56 pm
Jem, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s reasons like those that finally got me to make an application/rules page for affiliates just so stupid tweens would leave me alone. Ergh! Hopefully more people will read this and grow up. ~ Bee #176
Amber said:
On 15 Apr at 4:05 pm
I don’t use wordpress but I do use an automated blogging..thing. It’s because I’d rather spend my time writing a quality blog post than working on the layout.. something I’ve been burnt out on for quite some time.