So, about the banners...

I don't like complaining. In general, when it comes to stuff that really doesn't matter in the long run, I tend to just try to roll with it than get all worked up. Stuff changes, and I don't always like it, but oftentimes it's just not worth the trouble to worry about it.

However, after writing 99 blog posts that aren't complaining about anything, I think I've earned the right to have at least one that does. I'm not particularly angry or worked up, and I'm not going to go off on some big tirade, but I'm pretty sure I can't be the only person who thinks that the most recent change to the site (you know what it is, and if you don't it means it's been changed back already) is dumb.

I can see (kinda), what knighty wanted to do in regard to the profile pages. Make the author front-and-center rather than off to the side. The problem is that every other page on the site was affected by the change, and not for the better.

Here's the thing: the banner made the site look nice. It added color, adorable ponies, the site logo, and in general made any given page something more than a wall of text boxes with the occasional tiny picture. But more importantly, it was a visual indication of what the sight is about: ponies. It used to be that when you went to Fimfiction, the first thing you see is a pony. I think that gives a way better clue as to what the site is than a bunch of text. This website exists because of ponies. And at the moment, there are very few ponies on the homepage. Sure, there are few in the featured box, but those are tiny and change every few seconds, and half of the covers aren't even ponies anyway. Having the giant banner pic made the site look inviting. It made you want to dig deeper to get your pony fix for the day.

In short, the banner images made the site both more visually appealing (it just looks boring now) and more importantly, it made the site look fun. That's what we're here for, right? To have fun. Sure, it's not a big deal in the long run, but this goes beyond a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" issue; it's an active step back for Fimfiction's design, and I would much rather have it back. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Seriously, look at how crappy this blog post looks because there's no picture breaking up all the text. Awful.

So what do we do about it? Well, there's this blog post, and you can post in your bio or whatever in protest. Those are both great, but the problem is that I'm pretty sure the people with the ability to actually change this (i.e. knighty) aren't going to check my blog or profile page. So here are my tentative suggestions:

1. Wait for a sitewide blog post and comment on it. I can't imagine that such a visible change is going to be made without some sort of acknowledgement, so it seems very likely that someone on Fimfiction's staff is going to post an announcement. That's clearly the best place to make our thoughts on the matter known.

2. If you're too impatient, send knighty a (obviously very politely worded) PM. And I don't mean an aggravated "WHERE ARE THE BANNERS TURN THEM BACK ON YOU [buy some apples]!" kind of thing. That's not going to get anybody anywhere. Just give a simple (and brief) explanation of why you think the banner improves the site.

But whatever you do, whether PMs, comments, blog posts, forum threads, whatever, don't be a jerk about it. While I hardly agree with everything knighty does, the fact of the matter is that he puts a lot of work into creating this site and the majority of it good. It works a lot better than most fanfic sites, and the occasional misstep is no reason to drown the guy in a flood of profanity.

And if you prefer the site without the banners, you have no taste uh, just go back to waiting for my next fic. I'm currently editing it, and I'm hoping to get the first chapter posted by New Years Day.

And now an image to distract everyone from what I was talking about:

Comments

[ReFro]

Probably gonna get down voted to hell for this, buuuut...

if you prefer the site without the banners, you have no taste

My tongue works just fine!
I like the look of it a lot more, it's sleeker and at lot of the functionality is right there for you to use and not buried away. [User page only]

I do wish the banner was back though when you weren't on a user page.

[Spectrumancer]

Obvious solution: Author stuff now has an author banner, stories have a story short summary banner, but the front page has no banner. No I need to spell it out?

[JapaneseTeeth]

2670163 Like I said, I can see what he was going for on the user pages, but I think the main page looks pretty lousy.

2670166 That would be the obvious solution, yes.

[Idsertian]

+1 for this. No banner = boring as all hell. I loved having that picture of Twilight scrubbing in the bath, it lent a splash of colour to the site and provided instant identity to it, as well.

I don't normally care that much about any given update to the site, but knighty... yeah, he dun goofed with this one.

EDIT: Just sent this to knighty:

I find the site's lack of banners disturbing.

This blog post by JapaneseTeeth sums up my feelings quite succinctly, but to put it simply:

I can see what you're doing with the author info and I, personally, like the idea, but the lack of banners and grey colour scheme render the site very boring looking. It lacks warmth and identity, and the front page is now just a bunch of boxes. As JT says, with the banners, the first thing you saw on load was a pony and the site logo. Instant identity and clarification of subject matter.

This, now, as it is... To be quite honest, and with the best will in the world: Lack of pony banners sucks.

I would politely request that they make a return, please, if at all possible. Thank you and good day, sir.

[NeotheLunarMedic]

Normally I don't say anything but, why get rid of the banner? I always enjoyed watching princess moonbutt fishing when I first get on the site. I also completely agree that knighty kinda dun goofed on this one.