Silent Star
http://kiss.to/silenceglaive/
( https://www.angelfire.com/mo2/smrpg/index1.html )
Here's Why:
- Direct-linking pictures
- Got ticked off because someone she direct linked to changed their images,
which altered her page
- Poor Navigation
- Seems she messed up some links and now there are Angelfire pics everywhere.
Positives About The Page:
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Nominated by: Jupe, plus a large group of other
people from past months |
Comments: |
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Before we get into the review, let me give some background information
about this site. I feel that is necessary for two reasons. One, to tell
you how strange the situation around this site is, and two, to let you
know why we picked this site over the first runner up this month, which
is equally deserving of winning "Worst of the Month".
This site was first reported to us way back in February for direct-linking
several pics, including the ones on its old index page. Because the pics
were direct-linked from a domain site, which pays for its bandwidth, I
decided to let the real pic owners know about it right away. They responded
by renaming the pics, thereby creating broken pics on the offending site.
The owner of Silent Star soon after replaced the index with a new one
without direct links. We decided then that she may have learned her lesson
and would soon remove the rest of the direct links. In short, we gave her
some time to clean up her act.
Well, here we are, four months later, and nothing has changed. She still
steals pics, and as a matter of fact, she now supports two anti "copy-cat"
groups! Why did she join them? It seems it was due to people altering
or changing the pics she direct linked! She calls it people "flaming"
her page! Oy... [shakes head]
Anyway, on to the real review of this site. Let's leave the whole
direct-linking issue aside for a second. There are other problems with
this site as well. First, there is a useless splash page that asks
you to click on "one of the princesses or the Time Gate". Since when are
Mistress 9 and Queen Serenity princesses? Moving on to the index we
find several pics that earlier in the week were of the Black Lady, but
for some reason are now (June 3rd) all Angelfire pics, including the table
background! Because of this, the page is almost impossible to navigate
because one of those Angelfire pics is the one you need to click to get
the drop-down nav menu to work. Even if the pics did work normally, I
want to point out how I dislike drop-down menus being used as navigation
menus. I feel it just makes things more difficult to follow, to know
where you have been, and where you haven't, to know which selection leads
to a page, and which is just a title for an area of the site.
The subsections are not affected by the "Angelfire pic problem". However,
they are filled with some very familiar information. I'm sure I've seen
bits and pieces of the info here on other Saturn shrines. I don't know
exactly where I've seen it, however I can tell you my feelings were
further supported when Jupe nominated this site. Jupe was the owner of
"Silence", a now closed Saturn Shrine, and one of our former "Best of the
Month" winners. I trust she has quite a good memory of what is, or was,
on other Saturn shrines. The owner of this site does sort of credit one
site for her info, but ironically, it's also a page with a big honkin'
pic saying, "The webmaster of this website is direct linking this picture".
Basically, the owner of this site needs to learn why stealing is wrong.
I hope our reviews show this to her. If she does read this, she may also
want to check out parts 5 and 6 of our Page Tips FAQ for more info on why
direct-linking is wrong. You can view that by clicking
here.
The article will open in a new window.
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I visited the site before Angelfire decided to prevent direct-linking
entirely and after the page had already cleared out the Angelfire
pictures and updated some of the "problems" (namely the pictures and
the princesses thing on the splash page). Because of that, I'll be
relying on memory for some of the stuff that's been removed.
To begin with, the navigation is rather confusing. The front page has a
bunch of pictures of "princesses" (now removed) and if you click them,
they all take you to the same page which is weird, since I thought they'd
be... I don't know, different links. Then inside, there was a nice
little message (now removed) with lots of cussing about how mad the owner
was that someone had messed up her "Cute Stuff" section, and she was going
to mess with them big time if she ever found out who it was... which is
funny considering how she direct links to everything on the "cute
stuff" area... not to mention that it takes a billion years to load up
with all the gifs piled onto the page. She also says she's thinking about
moving... which is also funny given her tendency to direct-link to nearly
everything.
Anyway, back to the navigation. It's a javascript menu, and it works, just
that when I click on "Information" and such, I get taken to a page that
says "Click here", and I click it, then I return to the main page. Huh? It
was then I figured out that "Information" and the weird symbols were
headings not links... which is odd, since why doesn't the owner just
not link to them in the first place?
On to the information: "Silent Star" has HTML tags sticking out on top, then
claims that Hotaru is the "Messiah of Silence". Then it says her nicknames
include "Hota-chan", her henshin phrase is "Saturn Planet Power, Make up!",
and her age is "17 (before she was reborn)". Below, it says "Is Hotaru a
Goth? We think yes and no." Then almost immediately after that statement
"Well, Hota-chan is not a Goth" and ends with "So to conclude our Goth shrine,
Hotaru is NOT a Goth. We would know it if she was." Exactly why is it a
goth shrine, and why does it say "We think yes" when they never even agree
with any points about her being goth, just directly say "no, she is not"?
"Zero Star of Sagitarrious" (which is misspelled) is dedicated to Mistress
9. The front picture is huge with a pic that says that the webowner is
direct-linking to the picture. Info wise: "Name: Mistress Nine (Some people
still called her Hotaru)" "Powers/attacks:She can turn things to stone with
her hair, shoots fire from it, and she can strangle people with her hair.
Her faves: She enjoys destroying things." Then it butchers Mistress 9's
episodes. "Flame Star" mixes NASM Raye with the original anime Rei;
"Silver Star" does the same thing with Usagi/Serena. "Name: Serena/Usagi
Tsukino-Chiba. Age: 14, 15, 16. Best friend: All the Senshi, and
Naru/Molly. Family: Queen Serenity, mother, King Kronos, father, King/Prince
Endymion/Darien, husband, Queen Neherenia, aunt, Small Lady, daughter.
Nicknames: Usako, Sere, Serenity." All of those are wrong, by the way (and
*who* is "King" Kronos?). And for those of you thinking "Chronos" is Pluto's
father, think again. The manga only says Chronos' blood is in her veins, so
she may only be an ancestor.
"Who Lives Here" - I still don't get what that's
supposed to be. The Quotes section just takes stuff from Alex Glover and
probably VKLL fansubs or something, but it starts off with "Different ways
to say 100 dollars off: New York: "100 fricken dollas off." London: "100
jolly good dollars off." Southern California: "Duuude." "Boingy boingy
boingy!" -me "Augh, as if!" -me and Cher/Alicia Silverstone of Clueless".
Aside from the confusing navigation, the site itself set-up isn't too bad
if you don't count the Links page (which has a billion banners and unreadable
text), the "Cute Stuff" part (with the many direct-linked gifs), the "Rings
and Clubs" area (with lots of webrings piled up), and the pointless splash
page. Oh yeah, all those things plus the fact that you must ignore how
she's a major bandwidth stealer.
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