Feedback Portal Page

  • Thread starter Thread starter Miros
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Miros

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Hey there friends,

I'd like to see your thoughts on the portal page that we have. Do you like it? Do you find it useful? Would you like to see something else on it? Do you think new users would find it useful? Should anything be added to it? Taken away from it?

I'd like to just see one post per person on here. I don't want arguments going on since this is mainly for my benefit. Any extra posts will be deleted without warning so be sure that you get everything in your original!
 
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From an administrative perspective:
I like being able to link highly active threads that typically discuss updates or other such high key topics.

I don't like that there are still broken images on it... (view it in IE to see what I mean).

I like that the dynamic content has moved us up google's searching index.

What I don't like:
Images that break the board, break the portal. Where's my image --> caption hack? ^_^

Moink said:
I personally feel that "If you're planning to come back to XI, here's some consideration" is not the best thing to have upfront and the first thing new viewers read. Also, it's out of date. A viewer, especially new viewers should feel welcomed and enticed to sign up and log in and or buy the game and try it out. Something small like adding the newest PoL updates as the 1st thing displayed would be more approriate.

Secondly, if a portal is to exist, or any theme or page is to be added it should be done so with consistancy. You can litterally tell where effort has been made to keep the portal maintained, and where it has not (images not displayed where they should be, Links arent working or the code behind them are broken). The BLM Theme also lacks the portal.
Click to expand...


Miros will forgive my incursion on his demands to answer this.

1. The "planning to comeback" post
I have that there by design and choice. If it is a bad thing to have as the first thing to see -- it is easily changed. I would like to know more people's opinion on what would be useful to put there. (I've got your input already -- PM me if it changes)

2. Think I already mentioned both board breaking images, and the missing images. There is an easy fix for the missing theme images. There is also the correct way to fix the theme images -- but it involves a lot of digging. Board breaking images, unfortunately, must be hacked around to resolve.
 
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I personally feel that "If you're planning to come back to XI, here's some consideration" is not the best thing to have upfront and the first thing new viewers read. Also, it's out of date. A viewer, especially new viewers should feel welcomed and enticed to sign up and log in and or buy the game and try it out. Something small like adding the newest PoL updates as the 1st thing displayed would be more approriate.

Secondly, if a portal is to exist, or any theme or page is to be added it should be done so with consistancy. You can litterally tell where effort has been made to keep the portal maintained, and where it has not (images not displayed where they should be, Links arent working or the code behind them are broken). The BLM Theme also lacks the portal.

1. The "planning to comeback" post
I have that there by design and choice. If it is a bad thing to have as the first thing to see -- it is easily changed. I would like to know more people's opinion on what would be useful to put there. (I've got your input already -- PM me if it changes)
Click to expand...

Like I said, the "Coming back" thing is not welcoming to either new users or potential members, it is also out of date (atleast the OP is, because thats whats displayed)

2. Think I already mentioned both board breaking images, and the missing images. There is an easy fix for the missing theme images. There is also the correct way to fix the theme images -- but it involves a lot of digging. Board breaking images, unfortunately, must be hacked around to resolve.
Click to expand...

Cus we mentioned this at the same time, maybe? :p

Also, the rest of QCDN is flowing nicely throughout the different theme, why is the portal behaving differently? Is it litterally sitting outside of the Database, where it can't adapt as the rest of the boards indiviually?


In terms of purpose:

I see it more of the cover of the site, just as a book needs its cover. You don't use the cover of a book except for protection, and you would use the portal as representation of the rest of the site.

Arc said it already but:

I like that the dynamic content has moved us up google's searching index.
Click to expand...
It never hurts to have more recognition.
 
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If it were me I'd trash it completely. As it is now it has no use to 95% of your users.

If someone wanted to, you know, actually put some relevant information on it (a more condensed active topics list, some links to important stickies/rules, maybe a member of the day function?) it might have some use, but I still wouldn't like it. :p I come to QCDN to read about what's up in the community, and the forum index does that better than anything else.
 
I click right past it 99.5% of the time. Partly because I'm too lazy to change my bookmarks, and partly because I simply don't find it very useful. It could potentially be useful I guess, but in my 3 seconds of glancing at it as I whiz by, I haven't noticed a single change since it's inception.
 
The only problem I have with it is that the link to the actual forum is somewhat disguised in there. I usually type /ffxi/ out so I don't have to bother. It'd be a lot better if you had a link to the boards somewhere easily visible, other than clicking on someone's thread.
 
I decided just to bookmark the new posts page because the portal thing was annoying.
 
I avoided the portal all this time by accident since I'd bookmarked index.php etc but whenever I went to the portal by accident i thought it was a programming glitch. I kinda don't like it but maybe I'm just used to the normal format.
 
I don't use the portal so I don't care about it ;|
 
If the pictures would work in IE, maybe I would look at it.

EDIT: I have an idea? Is there any way to tie in Event scheduling into the calendar? That might increase its usefulness. As well, like all portals, it should be customizable based on user, perhaps have quicklinks to certain threads within boards within a web-part (or equivalent).
 
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Miros said:
[27-10, 13:14] Miros There's not an option for the portal on every style Mor. And folks, even if you say I don't use it or I didn't even know we had one will help out a lot.
Click to expand...

Personally, the portal page annoys me. I go to /index directly to avoid the portal page. Then again, I know where I'm going on these boards and where I'm avoiding. So, the portal page does nothing for me but extra load time to wait for.
 
I kind of always bypassed portal as well. Didn't even know it was there until today. I will probably forget about it again in a week or so.
 
It annoyed me when it was first introduced because... well I can't remember exactly but it became my bookmark and I think I had problems with accessing index/userCP directly from it. I quickly changed my bookmark to /index and have not visited the portal until running into this thread.

It doesn't really offer anything to the daily qcdn user that cannot be accessed easily from the index page - and it if did, it would be quite the inconvenience. Can't we just tag a welcome to new users somewhere on the index?
 
Honestly? Some time back, going to qcdn.org by itself would bring up some sort of error, so I just memorized the URL (I'm not a bookmark person unless I have to be). I didn't even know there was a portal page until this thread.
But having looked at it, it seems terribly ugly and has a case of identity crisis.
I'd take out the Dynamis Scheduling, the posts with pictures that are front and center, and the "News Archive" section.
Have a permanent link to the Latest POL announcement, a link to the other announcements, and have the last link there being the "Returning to FFXI?" topic. Instead of the posts with pictures.
Keeping the "recent posts" section is a good idea, but if there's a way to limit it to, say, General FFXI and Endgame sections, that would be excellent. When there's a lot of stuff besides FFXI that this board does, I do agree that it needs to be known, however, no one is going to come to QCDN for these sections. No one comes here because it's a good WoW section (that isn't already friends with people), no one comes to our multimedia section to talk about movies who isn't a member of the boards already. If new people come here, it's going to be because of FFXI, and those parts of the board should be highlighted on the portal. If they stay here, chances are they'll just go to the index, like everyone else. I think the portal should be focused on attracting new users, rather than trying to cater to people who don't even see it.
 
Administrative:
What I am noticing is a lack of reason to use the portal.

Assuming broken images are fixed. Assuming board breaking images do not break the portal. Assuming that any programming issues do not exist.

Is the Portal something you see as beneficial and under what circumstances?

I love the suggestion of mentioning the specific boards that can be expanded by joining certain user groups.

I am hearing the "Return to game" post is not as good an itial post as there should be.

How would you like a larger calendar displaying Dynamis Schedules?

Do you have any further suggestions?

If you have posted prior to this; you must quote this post and provide appropriate feedback to prevent your additional post from being removed.

Edit
I just raped the contents of the portal. It will either go away, or as someone suggested -- inform visitors what boards we do offer and how to join them.
 
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I personally don't use the Portal much. I think new users might would like it if it had links to the FAQ section. I really don't have any other suggestions since I don't use it much.
 
I remember it being implemented, and I actually find it to be an annoyance when I link from QCDN from Google on a different computer and see it there.

After it was implemented I changed all my bookmarks to direct to the /ffxi page instead, so I never even see it anymore.
 
I just don't want the links to open up a new page when I clickidy clack on them!
 
I load up qcdn.org

Then I click the banner a split second later to get to main page.

And my post isn't out of date =(
 
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