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So... how would you want Fuwanovel to be like in 2016?


Nayleen

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I agree that the front page has kind of lost it's purpose with the removal of torrents. Suggestions of what else to do with it have already been made so I won't go over those, although I do think there should be more focus on the existing parts of Fuwanovel and integrating them more, especially the blog, Fuwagazette and the forums.

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Simple:

Have a pretty background.  I remember the beta site image, and I actually quite liked it.  Now whether or not we could make it look good and still implement the stuff below, that's up to whether or not Nayleen can channel his inner jesus.

So what do we need on the front page?

A very prominent link to the forums. Duh. I actually get to the forums by going to Fuwanovel.net and pressing the small button in the upper right corner.  I've done that for years, and when this change does go through, I will obviously be confused for a little bit.

Twitter/Facebook Feeds. Also somewhat important.

Fuwazette/Fuwareview Integration.  This is obviously the biggest change.  Really what we should be doing is changing the front page to provide a screenshot of the day's happenings.  The site is primarily split into three sections: Forums, Fuwazette, Fuwareviews.  The Three F's. And being able to see those three things at a glance needs to be the primary purpose.  Honestly we could cut the feeds out and just prioritize these three things and be perfectly fine.

A walkthroughs link? This might be a QOL thing for some people, but I personally don't have any use for it.  Can't speak for others, as it appears to be a popular section overall.

Removal of literally everything else.

A layout where every major section gets a cute little box with a border with VN characters/waifus would fulfill the cute requirement.  Or you could adopt a much sleeker look and do shadowboxes for each section.  Ultimately you want to make it fit on a 1024 x 768 screen without having to scroll.  Mobile/Tablet layouts would obviously have to look different, but duh.

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You could update and expand the "upcoming" page. It's pretty outdated now and therefore kind of pointless. Maybe integrate it with the VNTL status updates somehow? Also like most people have said it's probably a good idea to integrate the home-site with Fuwazette. It's were most stuff happens these days and new visitors to Fuwanovel won't barely know it exists beyond "appeared first on The Fuwazette."

I haven't actually seen how the beta site looked though so anything I say can already have been taken into consideration :vinty:

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I'll get the beta site back up for you guys to look at. Please not it's super barebones, only the immediate index page could be considered mostly complete.

Also putting up a notice on the forums index to raise visibility since new threads are flushing this one out (uggghhhhh.......)

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6 hours ago, Ryechu said:

Simple:

Have a pretty background.  I remember the beta site image, and I actually quite liked it.  Now whether or not we could make it look good and still implement the stuff below, that's up to whether or not Nayleen can channel his inner jesus.

So what do we need on the front page?

A very prominent link to the forums. Duh. I actually get to the forums by going to Fuwanovel.net and pressing the small button in the upper right corner.  I've done that for years, and when this change does go through, I will obviously be confused for a little bit.

Twitter/Facebook Feeds. Also somewhat important.

Fuwazette/Fuwareview Integration.  This is obviously the biggest change.  Really what we should be doing is changing the front page to provide a screenshot of the day's happenings.  The site is primarily split into three sections: Forums, Fuwazette, Fuwareviews.  The Three F's. And being able to see those three things at a glance needs to be the primary purpose.  Honestly we could cut the feeds out and just prioritize these three things and be perfectly fine.

A walkthroughs link? This might be a QOL thing for some people, but I personally don't have any use for it.  Can't speak for others, as it appears to be a popular section overall.

Removal of literally everything else.

A layout where every major section gets a cute little box with a border with VN characters/waifus would fulfill the cute requirement.  Or you could adopt a much sleeker look and do shadowboxes for each section.  Ultimately you want to make it fit on a 1024 x 768 screen without having to scroll.  Mobile/Tablet layouts would obviously have to look different, but duh.

What he said.

Maybe we could also add a comprehensive list of all translated vns as well?

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18 minutes ago, Nimbus said:

What he said.

Maybe we could also add a comprehensive list of all translated vns as well?

> Remove pretty much everything else and just link to other parts of the site

> Oh, but add a comprehensive list of all translated VNs

Not trying to be a dick, but this is exactly the kind of problem we've run into with the previous rework.

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Umm... Update the upcoming page, maybe?

Also, the background or banner may be changed to something new. (Is it too much hassle to change the banner with, maybe new translated/released vn once a month, if I may ask? I don't know much about those how-to-change-site thingy.) :vinty:

Oh, and like Ryechu said about link to the forums, it's something when you always get to the forums by going to fuwanovel.net and press the forum button. :rimu:

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I think one thing we could do differently is to let our members speak for VNs. Basically, each VN page would have a section (maybe this could be the very focus of the main site?) which would include impressions and/or detailed reviews from Fuwa members. It's essentially the free-to-edit text box of yore (RIP), but with more of a focus on shedding light on a particular VN's strengths and weaknesses and no anonymity (probably a certain period of Fuwa membership would be required such as several weeks or 50 posts to prevent brigading and whatnot). Implement blogs on the main website instead of the forums. See if you can get regular bloggers. Try to round up people willing and able to do reviews of any sort, and centralize a FuwaReviews team. Make companies be able to proudly quote

Quote

"[Sakura Satan is]...A magnificent journey"- FUWANOVEL.NET

 for example. Don't keep the review quality expectations too high of course, but I think this approach could work really well if there were enough people. Try to score interviews with localizers, translators and OELVN developers. Maybe form integration with the VN Of The Month Club and get the participants' opinions on the VN of the month and feature them on the main page?

You, quite evidently, lack the sufficient manpower to realize your dreams of the main site by yourself. Not throwing shit at you, no single man can lift a mountain on his shoulders. Recruit a small web design crew. Encourage contributions to the main site and maybe even form a crew of Front Page Managers tasked with providing and curating the flow of content to the main page.

Most importantly,

Make Fuwa Great Again! (tm)

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I'll leave big ideas to others. Two small things that I think would make the main page better:

- Fix the About page. Given how the site has changed, it would probably be best to remove the pages advocating piracy: http://fuwanovel.net/faq/objections, http://fuwanovel.net/faq/response-to-mangagamer, http://fuwanovel.net/faq/spreading-culture-increases-supporters

- Make the forums link pop better - right now it's easy to miss entirely because it's not one of those little colored tabs

Edit: accidentally submitted before I was done...

Edited by Fred the Barber
accidentally submitted before I was done...
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At the moment I feel like the front page lacks a purpose.  Originally it was for showing off the new translations (Hence the scrolling bar there currently) and giving people a jumping off point with recent stuff to expand upon.  But since the torrents are gone that screen space is basically rendered moot.

The goal is obviously, to get a passage for a new user to start from and go into the larger world.  I'd suggest giving some consideration to providing links to both recent news in the VN industry, and maybe a monthly recommendation of a not-too-expensive VN (Be it Katawa Shoujo or Danganronpa's new steam release depending on sales, etc) in order to give them a jumping off point so they can enter into things.  Sales would probably influence this as well, as too high a price raises the barrier to entry.

Some support for OELVNs would mean that ones that manage to pass the quality bar have a larger chance of getting noticed as well, even if they don't have to be the absolute highest.  Fuwanovel's goal as a whole seems to be shifting towards more official growth, and the front site should serve to feed that growth in both knowledge about Japanese and Original English VNs, in addition to perhaps some sections in case somebody wants to get interested in developing them as well.  This would include stuff like resources for individual disciplines (IE You could link to Writing Excuses as a resource despite it not being VN-specific) in addition to stuff about how that discipline relates to VNs as a whole.

 

Once OELVNs start growing as well, Fuwa could try and have some form of interviews on the site as well for those who want a deeper look into what goes into creation as well.  There are probably quite a few people who would be interested in that, especially when it comes to comparing the approaches of individuals and groups.  These would be both useful resources for those trying to enter into the industry in addition to something the everyman VN-wise or fans of a particular series could be interested in.

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17 hours ago, CeruleanGamer said:

I don't care for any major renovations whatsoever as long as this site remains intact, we can make threads and chat with each other. Above all else, the belongingness and the community are more important than anything else.

I quite agree with you Cerulean, the sense of community  is more important than any major renovation 

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Here's the links to both themes we actually implemented for the beta site:

http://beta.fuwanovel.net/?theme=oldschool-cool (Classic)

http://beta.fuwanovel.net/?theme=summer-sky (New, fancy, pretty, reboot-y [hehe, butts])

 

Please note that nothing apart from the index page has actually been created.

Also note that they're responsive (resize your browser window / open the site on a mobile browser and you'll see!), so there's a lot of work that went into this.

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I humbly believe we should make a brand new thread location specifically for whale memes, we can call it the "Blow Hole Forum": 

giphy.gif

Other than that, the only thing I want are the torrents back :kosame: pretty pls?

Oh and a way to divide English and Non translated VNs.   

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A slightly ambitious proposal, but since quite a few people seems to believe that the front page lost it purpose, I feel that it would be great to find something regarding that. I personally believe that the front site as it stands currently is useless as well : you can always find a better website that does the job better, whether it is concerning VN information (VNDB) or VN related news (reddit).

I've always seen the front site as a way to introduce new people to the community. You need to create this sense of comfort to the visitors so that they get used to visiting the site, and at some point consider visiting the forums. It might not be obvious for us since we're all pretty much forums veterans, but to the average internet user, forums are things people don't feel extremely comfortable with, and some are even afraid of them. With the removal of torrents there isn't a good reason anymore for visitors to visut regularly the front site, and as a result you have less chance for people to gather an interest in trying out the forums. If we're fine with the current state of things with the current growth (?) of the community, then simple design / qol / user comfort improvements such as those that were alreay suggested before should suffice.

But if we want the frontpage to actually have an active role in the growth of the fuwa community, then it has to offer something that you can't find on another website. I'm seeing two things currently :

- Walkthroughs : making the frontsite become a centralized place where you can find walkthrough. I don't think there's any other website / community that does it better than fuwa currently, and it's a shame that you have to actually search in the forums to find what you're looking for.

- A review hub made by users and rated by users (a system like MAL basically). Though it somehow defeats the purpose of having the review hub blog. And also it would probably be difficult and time consumming to implement. But that's the one thing that always bothered me when looking at VNDB scores when trying to find new stuff to read : there are no reviews, only ratings. And that greatly limits me in how I can assess if this VN is a good read for me or not. Also judging by the suggestions section in the forums, there are plenty of reasonable people who can write some good reviews. Anyway, it would be a community driven work that would actually create an incentive for outsiders to check fuwanovel more regularly, and eventually involve themselves with the community. Kinda like "Hey, I need a place where I can find various opinions on a VN to know if it's worth my time/money... Oh right, I could go to fuwa!"

Anyway, sorry if I'm slightly off topic, I'm more talking about content, and you're probably asking about functionalities. I do also approve of the inter-connectivity between blogs/forums/reviews/fuwazette though, we have quality content posted on the forums very often that would deserve being showed on the website, and on the contrary website content should really link to forums discussions more I feel.

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I really only use the forums, so as long as nobody pokes at them too hard - or changes the fonts etc (the changes to the site in the semi-recent past already destroyed my preferred theme, and made it harder on my blind eyes to read easily ;_; ).

 

As for the imput on the main site, don't really have an opinion - I don't ever visit it except when Fuwazette emails (vntls, reviews, etc) direct me to it.

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Due to the lack of torrents, the frontpage has lost its previous purpose. It should include the currently active parts of fuwa. Showcasing the blog, forums and reviews. Easily dragging you to try other parts of the site you might not usually read. The blog pages does this pretty nice. The frontpage should go for the same imo. Or some kind of integration so that the frontpage, forums and blog doesn't give of feels of being different sites.

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On 21. helmikuuta 2016 at 10:31 PM, Nayleen said:

Sooo... The dreadful day.

I'm not happy to announce that I completely removed the beta site. For those uninitiated, I started working on a complete overhaul of the fuwanovel.net late last year, and made some steady progress while I built the systems behind it, and luckily enough had quite a bit of design works done by the awesome @Emi. Things were looking good until, well, I don't really know.

Real-life happened, my day job (I work as a web developer) got stressful when we wanted to finish up a working prototype of our new product, and my usual winter depressions set in, and I'm still fighting them every single day as I'm writing this. It breaks my heart to say that I couldn't deliver, since we had a lot of plans on what we wanted the new front site to look like, how it should behave and what kind of features we wanted.

Yet, I'm not sure if it's what we need right now. Personally, it feels like we planned a lot of stuff that might end up never being really used, so I think I kind of want to just gauge community interest in a new site, or just new features, whatever comes to mind, since I don't want Fuwanovel to just be a dead-weight front site with a community forum attached to it; I want there to be a wholly integrated Fuwanovel Experience(TM). Question is how to achieve just that.

 

So my question to everyone of you reading this is: What kind of features would you like to see on the main page? I'll just let this thread run before offering some input of my own, because I really need to see what you guys want before I sit down and invest time again, as lazy as that sounds.

So go ahead, hit me, and go crazy - the more elaborate, the better. I'm a programmer, not a designer, so the better of a picture you draw for me, the easier for me it is to think about the implementation.

I don't know if it's just my browser or site itself but forum search only works in upper right corner and not in "Advanced search" page. There it says TypeError: offset is undefined @ root_framework.js:715.

I don't use main site (after purge) that much but front page could show latest vntls delta, newest blog posts and upcoming releases. Another one is "most viewed VN's" section if fuwa counts pageviews. To make room for this I'd remove FB/twitter feeds or move them and change 3 columns to 2.

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