I have been visiting quite a few of the sites around the webring and other general Amateur Drama sites.

I found some really good sites that were well maintained and had lots of information on them BUT I also found some that were SHOCKING!

I found the following things really annoying....................

1) Music on a site (I mean the ones that start playing without asking you!)

2) Graphics that have been reduced in size for the internet but are so badly distorted they look a mess.

3) Dayglo Yellow backgrounds with HUGE black writing

4) Where the main page consists of more than 3 full screen views of text, I mean where you have to keep scrolling down and down and down...............

4) Gross Misuse of Colour (You don't need every colour under the rainbow!)

5) Where the first page takes more than 30 seconds to load.............

6) Popups (I dont mind them when it is someone that is on a free host and cannot avoid them but I hate it when they are added on purpose)

Anybody got anymore ideas on the subject.................

Also hate garish sites, but the thing that bugs me most is when someone's gone to the trouble of setting the thing up and then don't update it. The number of sites I look at that are still advertising shows from months ago....

While I would certainly agree with the comments above, and some of the designers clearly have no sense of fashion (I think the web analogy is style), you have to remember that many of these so-called "webmasters" have little or no knowledge of web design best practices let alone any knowledge of html (I know, becuase I've been exchanging emails with them to fix their sites).

Another consideration is that many of the worst offenders are on "free" homepages whose "hidden" price is actually pop-up advertising. That is one of the reasons I started a a thread about this in the web design forum ... so that people who didn't know any better could learn a better way to achieve their aims.

Some of them are also victims of the application that they are using for web design, which also limits their flexibility to control the content/layout. I'm not going to give any examples but I've come across more than a few sites who don't know any better because that's what their web design app generates. In some cases the sites only work in Internet Explorer for example.

What I would say is that, to their credit, these people are having-a-go rather than doing nothing. You can't fault them on that. Many are learning as they go and, hopefully with some support from us, will learn more rapidly.

I could raise a bigger complaint about people joining the web ring and failing to add the web ring code to their site. Some of the worst looking web sites in the ring have been the quickest to add the web ring code to their site!

p.s. I would classify myself as a fairly advanced/experienced web designer but my amdram site still spent more than 12 months riddled with various midi music for each show page.

p.p.s. I've also experimented with advertising as a means of generating more income for the society

p.p.p.s I also suffer from a web site that goes out of date, primarily because I don't always get the input I want from the committee. Is that my fault?

p.p.p.p.s I go round the whole ring once a week at the moment to check it's working ok. How annoying do you think that is for me :-)

Zorro, I bet you love it!!

But I must admit, the think I feel most strongly about is the use of (sometimes absolutely awful) music that you haven't asked for. On the odd occasion I've come across them at work - and searching for things online for my boss could encounter some very strange sites - it's very embarassing to come across one of those sites when you've forgotten to switch the mute button on!!!!

And I agree that although pop-ups can be a pain, it's one of life's little niggles that you can just ignore. You can't ignore the midi files!

... and lets not get into the ethics of spending the day on amdram from work

One of my pet hates is the amount of time the initial page takes to load. Unless it's a site that I have to look at, if it takes more than a few seconds to load I'll cancell it and look elsewhere. Once I'm in a site, if subsequent pages take a little longer then fine, I'm already in.

Freely put my hands up and say that we were one of these! We've got a webmaster that isn't, how shall we say, wildly contactable ... Apologies again, Zorro.

Try keeping a website up-to-date when you put on two shows every month!

I find a useful way of getting information out of each director (yes, we have to chase 22 different directors for their input!) if, for instance, they haven't got their poster done in time, is to put up the nastiest, tackiest image file I can find. They usually get me something more appropriate pretty quickly then ...

I meant this in the general sense, not specific to any individual. Wasn't looking for any admissions of guilt.

Maybe I was a little harsh................

I can appreciate that because I have tried different software etc and I have to admit my first site was terrible...........................

I must stress to anyone considering creating a site, you must make it have some appeal and be relevant. Without these two basic principles then there is no point wasting your time (I appreciate there is more to it than this but you have to agree these are fairly fundamental!)

If your site design is criticised then as long as it is not really nasty then take that as being "constructive". If you work from that then you know what visitors really think of your site.

I have been to many a site and thought.... "This might be better organised" and I have made the suggestion direct to the webmaster........

Any Webmaster should not mind criticism, but just don't tell them it is disallowed word or leave a message on their guestbook saying it is disallowed word. Make postitive suggestions!!

Current pet hate is web sites that don't work in Opera, Mozilla or Netscape i.e. only work in Internet explorer. Another is sites that refuse to open unless you have cookies turned on (not an Amdram problem).

good thought Zorro, but most members I suspect only use one brand of browser not all four, have you all four and if so could you inform those in the ring that have problems in certain browsers.

dogs body just an amateur and one browser man IE6

Yes I do have all four since I use them to test my own web designs and I have also been advising members of the web ring where there are problems with their sites, including problems with specific browsers.

Each time I do a test browse round the ring to make sure it's still working, I'm trying to use a different browser so I can see how the sites look.

The only problem is that the non IE browser use in most site stats probably adds up to not much more than 10% of visitors at the moment <_<.

My webmaster put the ring code in the same day - best improve my site then

If it EVER becomes live......

I did say some and are we talking about saucy vixens perchance?