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Personal Short Story Website--Feedback Desired

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posted on Oct, 7 2006 @ 07:08 PM
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Okay, I just finished setting up a website to post my short stories, and I was hoping someone in here might have some comments on it. The url is www.bluestardev.com... (I was trying to do web/software development once upon a time, and that was roughly the name of the company; stuck with it for now.)

I "stole" the overall layout from basically every blog ever created--my original intent was to use a blog or CMS engine, but I couldn't find one that had the features I wanted. Even the overkill ones, like php-nuke, would've taken much more time to either add the necessary functionality or figure out which modules to install (not to mention learning how to use everything.) It's all hand-coded, although I am using a software program I wrote to generate the pages for the stories--that'd be too much typing, even working off of a template and copy/pasting everything.

Please feel free to give me any tips, suggestions, or criticism regarding the site--stories too, if you'd like, but at least whether the design could be improved for readibilty or just in general. You can post here, or if you'd rather I do have a feedback form on the website as well. Thanks in advance!

(I know ATS has a good forum for stories, and I have posted in there a couple of times, but this way I have a bit more freedom as far as the T&C goes; whether I'd break them or not is a different story, but I'd rather not worry about it one way or the other. Also, in the unlikely event I get something published, I don't want to have to worry about bugging a mod or staff member to get the story taken down.)

Edit to Add: I forgot the most important thing I was wanting to ask about. I have absolutely no clue what to "title" the site. If nothing else at all, I'd really appreciate something along those lines. I've thought about just my name, like "My Short Stories" or something, but it seems both cheesy and pretentious. Any suggestions for a title would be absolutely wonderful.

[edit on 10/7/2006 by MCory1]



posted on Oct, 9 2006 @ 12:22 PM
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Just wanting to bump this to see if the weekday brings anyone along who might be interested. You may now return to your regularly scheduled BTS'ing (with a gaurantee of no further bumps from me.)



posted on Oct, 18 2006 @ 06:14 PM
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Nice site! My philosophy for designing a website that focuses around art, writing etc. is that the web site should have minimal design elements, allowing the focus to be on the art, story etc. I think your site accomplishes this quite well. You have a nice image at the top to bring in some color, but not so much that it detracts from the what the site is about - your writing.

Navigation is also well done - simple and very straight forward. I also like how readers are able to navigate to each page of a story.

I also noticed that you didn't neglect to have your copyright at the bottom of each page - good move!



posted on Oct, 28 2006 @ 03:44 PM
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I appreciate the comments DC
Thanks. I do have a quick question, and I thought you might have some hint at an answer since you mentioned this:


Originally posted by DCFusion
I also noticed that you didn't neglect to have your copyright at the bottom of each page - good move!


I did make 100% sure I had a copyright notice at the bottom of each page, even just the feedback form. However, after checking my hit logs for last night, I found that someone had copied one of my stories verbatim to their own personal blog without so much as a hint that it wasn't theirs--they even copied some of the hit tracking code for it. The "offending" blog is here.
(Of course, the first page to the original at my website is here)

Would you--or anyone at all--happen to have any suggestions as to how I can get this remedied? I left a comment at the person's blog, but that's about the best I can think of at the moment, other than reporting them to Yahoo--I'd like to get it resolved personally first if possible.

I knew something like this would probably happen; at the same time though, I didn't really expect it too...



posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 08:12 AM
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Just checked the offending 'bloggers' site and looks like everything turned out well. I would have recommended to do exactly what you did.



posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 12:47 PM
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Yeah, I meant to come back here and make a note of that. Thanks for the input anyways though



posted on Nov, 13 2006 @ 12:53 PM
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Just wanted to post that I've changed over to using a content management system now, so the site design isn't completely "mine" anymore (although I've spent quite some time modifying the theme it came with.) Too difficult to do any decent changes with a static site, so...

Anyways, if anyone goes there to take a look from here out don't think I'm claiming to have done it myself



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