This is not a well planned, elaborate article on accepting change and what we can do to make it better. This is a series of thoughts, questions and sarcastic comments taken mostly from messages between link and link about why we are not fans of the Facepop Makeover of July 2010. If you would like to read an article about accepting the change, exploring some of the finer parts of the makeover and moving on, please read link article by Fanpop's amazing link. Actually, you should probably read that anyway if you’re at all concerned about the makeover.
A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON.
One of the things Missy and I have always loved about Fanpop is that it was… well, Fanpop. (Most of) the people were great, lots of cool content, the creators were down to earth guys who actually talked to the users and cared about what they had to say (I still love you guys even though I hate this new layout with a fiery passion!). It had a nice, simple, clean layout. It was original, not like most of the up-and-coming sites that are essentially ripoffs of more popular sites like MySpace and Facebook.
We’ve been here since 2007. Some call us “the old people”. We are not normally fans of change. But before you write this off with a “Oh great, it’s just Missy & Dasm bitching about the smallest change again,” please at least skim this article. I may be a bit biased, ‘cause I helped write it, but I believe there are some interesting points below.
LADIES & GENTS, I GIVE YOU... FACEPOP. (Or: THE WALL)
There was a repeat pick in the Fanpop spot the other day about whether Fanpop or Facebook was better. Fanpop has won every one of those picks! There is a message in that.
Aside from the fact that walls are thought of as a Facebook thing, this is going to open up a world of pain, as trolls and spammers can now abuse whole spots and individuals much more easily now.
I think almost everyone can agree that the wall box is ridiculously large. Downsize, please.
Why didn't the site test the feature on a small group first, so that issues like expanding comments and the report function could already work before releasing it to everyone?
Yes, it has been asked in the past and the slight majority wanted something similar to a wall. One thing that needs to be taken into account is that the people who wanted "comment walls" and such were the same people who wanted personalized backgrounds for their profiles etc. Those were the same kind of users who just wanted it to be all sparkles and hearts like their MySpace accounts.
THE LAYOUT.
Despite hiding half the features & content, the new layout makes the pages look so much more cluttered. Junk like popular content and the mind-blowing four updates are all on the right side while everything else is overlapped on the left.
No links on the main page of a spot? And articles way down the bottom of the page where no one will look? Great.
Forums were already ignored, now they're basically useless. Older users will still know their purpose, and hopefully where to find them, but why would a n00b post a forum for discussion when there's a gigantic wall they can write on, right on the spot's home page?
This screws over quizzes, too - forget that whole 'I'm here for a purpose, but ooh, I know the answer to that quiz 'cause it's right there where I can see it!' thing. This was one of Fanpop’s coolest features and now it’s hidden just like videos and forums.
...but by all means, put the answers section right where everyone can see it, it's not abused by 98% of the site or anything.
After trying for ages to get it drilled into the heads of uploaders, even putting a note on the upload page itself, about adding images with link, guess what? Image names don't show up on a spot's home page.
THREE SEARCHBARS in a spot?! THREE searchbars for people to ignore?! The placement of the new search bar commands more attention, so I can accept that. But THREE searchbars per spot?! (Black Bar of Doom for site-wide searching, Grey Bar for spot, and now another spot search in spots that don’t have wall posts yet.)
What determines popular content? Personally, I've never paid any attention to it and now it's taking up half my page.
It seems that most of the spots I checked that have no quizzes have the 'quizzes' tab shown in default instead of the 'picks'. What determines which tab is shown on individual pages?
Putting articles all the way down at the bottom and the "wall" up the top functions to totally devalue article-writing while promoting Twitter like "Oh LOlz i ? FanPOp!!!!!!!1" contributions. It will also probably scare off potential new users over the age of 12. Nobody loves a crazed fangirl.
USER PROFILE CHANGES.
"Club Activity" is a pain in the ass to navigate through. With the old system, once you were in a user's activities, it only took a click to get where you wanted. Why did that get more complicated?
The link to props on the profile header is gone, now the only way to get to them is to click the prop icons or go through the wall.
...but there is a link to "photos" which leads to -waitforit- the user's gallery. Which can also be accessed by clicking "more photos" next to the user's icon, the icon itself, or the tiny thumbnails of other icons in the user’s gallery.
In order to get to the picks a person has made, you now have to go through the picks section in the "my club activity" menu (instead of being able to see it from the 'activity' section).
As of now, I haven't found out how to find the quiz questions a user has made through navigation (other than just typing it in the URL bar). The quiz page allows you to sort the quizzes the user has taken, but nothing on the ones they made.
Each user now has link on their page for "updates" which only leads to the home page. The status bar looks like it's going to take you to the updates for the spots the users is a part of (fanpop.com/fans/username/updates/filtered), but last I checked, you could only see your own updates. Which would be why it's redirecting to the home page. Also, why would you need to see the updates for someone else's spots?
THE BURNING QUESTIONS.
Why has this kind of "makeover" been given priority over other issues such as the repeated failures of the reporting system, the FAQ that hasn’t been updated in ages, the insanity of the duplicate spots issue, and the tons of worthwhile suggestions in Dave’s link?
A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON.
One of the things Missy and I have always loved about Fanpop is that it was… well, Fanpop. (Most of) the people were great, lots of cool content, the creators were down to earth guys who actually talked to the users and cared about what they had to say (I still love you guys even though I hate this new layout with a fiery passion!). It had a nice, simple, clean layout. It was original, not like most of the up-and-coming sites that are essentially ripoffs of more popular sites like MySpace and Facebook.
We’ve been here since 2007. Some call us “the old people”. We are not normally fans of change. But before you write this off with a “Oh great, it’s just Missy & Dasm bitching about the smallest change again,” please at least skim this article. I may be a bit biased, ‘cause I helped write it, but I believe there are some interesting points below.
LADIES & GENTS, I GIVE YOU... FACEPOP. (Or: THE WALL)
There was a repeat pick in the Fanpop spot the other day about whether Fanpop or Facebook was better. Fanpop has won every one of those picks! There is a message in that.
Aside from the fact that walls are thought of as a Facebook thing, this is going to open up a world of pain, as trolls and spammers can now abuse whole spots and individuals much more easily now.
I think almost everyone can agree that the wall box is ridiculously large. Downsize, please.
Why didn't the site test the feature on a small group first, so that issues like expanding comments and the report function could already work before releasing it to everyone?
Yes, it has been asked in the past and the slight majority wanted something similar to a wall. One thing that needs to be taken into account is that the people who wanted "comment walls" and such were the same people who wanted personalized backgrounds for their profiles etc. Those were the same kind of users who just wanted it to be all sparkles and hearts like their MySpace accounts.
THE LAYOUT.
Despite hiding half the features & content, the new layout makes the pages look so much more cluttered. Junk like popular content and the mind-blowing four updates are all on the right side while everything else is overlapped on the left.
No links on the main page of a spot? And articles way down the bottom of the page where no one will look? Great.
Forums were already ignored, now they're basically useless. Older users will still know their purpose, and hopefully where to find them, but why would a n00b post a forum for discussion when there's a gigantic wall they can write on, right on the spot's home page?
This screws over quizzes, too - forget that whole 'I'm here for a purpose, but ooh, I know the answer to that quiz 'cause it's right there where I can see it!' thing. This was one of Fanpop’s coolest features and now it’s hidden just like videos and forums.
...but by all means, put the answers section right where everyone can see it, it's not abused by 98% of the site or anything.
After trying for ages to get it drilled into the heads of uploaders, even putting a note on the upload page itself, about adding images with link, guess what? Image names don't show up on a spot's home page.
THREE SEARCHBARS in a spot?! THREE searchbars for people to ignore?! The placement of the new search bar commands more attention, so I can accept that. But THREE searchbars per spot?! (Black Bar of Doom for site-wide searching, Grey Bar for spot, and now another spot search in spots that don’t have wall posts yet.)
What determines popular content? Personally, I've never paid any attention to it and now it's taking up half my page.
It seems that most of the spots I checked that have no quizzes have the 'quizzes' tab shown in default instead of the 'picks'. What determines which tab is shown on individual pages?
Putting articles all the way down at the bottom and the "wall" up the top functions to totally devalue article-writing while promoting Twitter like "Oh LOlz i ? FanPOp!!!!!!!1" contributions. It will also probably scare off potential new users over the age of 12. Nobody loves a crazed fangirl.
USER PROFILE CHANGES.
"Club Activity" is a pain in the ass to navigate through. With the old system, once you were in a user's activities, it only took a click to get where you wanted. Why did that get more complicated?
The link to props on the profile header is gone, now the only way to get to them is to click the prop icons or go through the wall.
...but there is a link to "photos" which leads to -waitforit- the user's gallery. Which can also be accessed by clicking "more photos" next to the user's icon, the icon itself, or the tiny thumbnails of other icons in the user’s gallery.
In order to get to the picks a person has made, you now have to go through the picks section in the "my club activity" menu (instead of being able to see it from the 'activity' section).
As of now, I haven't found out how to find the quiz questions a user has made through navigation (other than just typing it in the URL bar). The quiz page allows you to sort the quizzes the user has taken, but nothing on the ones they made.
Each user now has link on their page for "updates" which only leads to the home page. The status bar looks like it's going to take you to the updates for the spots the users is a part of (fanpop.com/fans/username/updates/filtered), but last I checked, you could only see your own updates. Which would be why it's redirecting to the home page. Also, why would you need to see the updates for someone else's spots?
THE BURNING QUESTIONS.
Why has this kind of "makeover" been given priority over other issues such as the repeated failures of the reporting system, the FAQ that hasn’t been updated in ages, the insanity of the duplicate spots issue, and the tons of worthwhile suggestions in Dave’s link?
this week, fanpop reach the limit of unffair:
so, i join to fp, like a year ago, but i only start to contribute in janurary +- . for a long time my only contibutuons were for the Brtieny Spears Spot.
Here's My Contributions:
Links- 18
Videos- 600
Images- 3574
Comments- 49
Forums- 7
Picks- 110
Quizzes- 36
Articles- 5
Until last week i was the #1 fan on the spot, and i still have a "Die-Hard Medal", but now in #2. So i check the profile, of the new #1 fan- shopialover, and she have a "Fanatic Medal", now see what she contribued:
Links- 1
Videos- 467
Images- 805
Comments- 51
Forums- 0
Picks- 2
Quizzes- 0
Articles- 0
I Was Like, are you kidding me?, this is so unffair, i lost a lot of time uploading pictures and add video and thinkin in original picks! Could this be more unffair?
ANYONE WITH ME?
so, i join to fp, like a year ago, but i only start to contribute in janurary +- . for a long time my only contibutuons were for the Brtieny Spears Spot.
Here's My Contributions:
Links- 18
Videos- 600
Images- 3574
Comments- 49
Forums- 7
Picks- 110
Quizzes- 36
Articles- 5
Until last week i was the #1 fan on the spot, and i still have a "Die-Hard Medal", but now in #2. So i check the profile, of the new #1 fan- shopialover, and she have a "Fanatic Medal", now see what she contribued:
Links- 1
Videos- 467
Images- 805
Comments- 51
Forums- 0
Picks- 2
Quizzes- 0
Articles- 0
I Was Like, are you kidding me?, this is so unffair, i lost a lot of time uploading pictures and add video and thinkin in original picks! Could this be more unffair?
ANYONE WITH ME?