mrchad9 wrote:Am I the only one here that has noticed that WouterB 'Bad Example' slide isn't a picture of SummitPost at all?

Your Jedi mind tricks have no power here, WouterB.

PellucidWombat wrote:Chad - Server space for things such as photos is not free. The ads help pay for that, but that is a basic necessity for sustaining the site. Selling has not been nor is it a major part of the purpose of SP.

In SP's earlier days there were no ads, but it has become large enough that it needs some form of income to be sustainable. Now if you could find a wealthy philanthropist who wants to pay for the site, maybe we could get rid of the ads . . .

You seem to have missed my point Mark. I never said or implied that I didn't know what the ads were for. Nor do I have an issue with them.

I figured you had an implied point instead of a literal one there. My bad.

Yes, SP has ads and ads are meant to sell things. I believe BeDrinkable's point is that SP's purpose is not for selling things, so designing the flow of the site to sell products should not be a big concern for the site.

If there's anything that SP users should take note of for the visual flow of the page, it is for influencing the actions users take with the site. SP is already doing a good job of what the presentation says a web page should be doing in that realm. Now how much of that is continued into the users' pages? Well, that's a whole different thread topic!

It didn't look too much like summitpost, but when I clicked on the image hoping for a bigger photo, I immediately lost attention and went to Youtube for more videos.
WouterB has complained about SP format in the past, so I assumed evil intent. Maybe something to do with Sarah Palin.

Why can't we just go back to the days when everybody was honest and reliable, and watching Gilligan (and Ginger) was a PEAK EXPERIENCE ???

Right on ... I was just using Ginger as a "BAD example."

My personal feelings for the frontpage could be to make it slightly prettier. I'm not talking about major things as seen in the photo earlier, but you know, kinda like how when this forum upgraded, it looks nicer now than when it was phpbb2 in my opinion.

No, thats not SP but the format is the same. Yes, the site is text heavy but mountain climbers are generally not dumbasses. Mind you Google, SP isn't a used car dealership site...

I like the first page very much and thank god it doesn't look like that awful thing they present as "better".

I would a link to the FAQ higher up, in big bold letters. Oh yeah, I'd also have a butterfly or flower of the week.

goldenhopper wrote:very difficult to understand unless you are an elite class regular who already knows his/her way around a fine piece of machinery.

Are you just describing your play-mate?

WouterB wrote:Just thought I'd share this. Had a Google training last week and in their presentation they actually use Summitpost as an example of how NOT to do it. Maybe if Matt has some time in the future... .

I feel sorry for Google, but thanks to educated people the web owns a wide range of content natures, from the almost empty pages that show only impressive graphics and presentations, to more sober ones that will repel all rubbernecks. Thanks to that perhaps there is less crap in Summitpost, most of our contributors are cultivated people and the value added is there.
Let SP be as it it... and don't worry about Google
(besides of that, SP pages often come on top of Google mountain-related searches. Random ?)