Webmasters Behaving Badly: The PSGR T1M3 M4CH1N3

All we need now is a chunky java applet or flash movie, javascript back and forward buttons and an automatic "make this my homepage" script when people try and leave. Memories!

Upon clicking enter, I am taken to a full on pre-millennium homepage, complete with an animated starry background, gifs, and celebrity images with the webmasters' name, Mary Shaw, plastered over them. Why she's claiming the images as her own is beyond me, although I'm sure doing this was a common practice in 1999. There are more links than you can shake a stick at here, absolutely tonnes of subpages with the links scattered in several areas. A whole horde of them are located at the bottom of the page, whereas some are located in a table next to a picture of a strange hybrid of Lisa-Marie Presley and Mischa Barton. There is another table directly underneath, this time displaying a random brunette (looking rather spent after engaging in strenuous lovemaking) with another dozen or so links. All in all there's a good 50 or so links here, so I'll choose to cover my favourites.

About Mary tells how Mary is a '20-ish' psychology graduate from Canada, who is a freelance web designer and developer. Interesting. Very, very interesting. Judging from the tres poor setup of the site, I find it very hard to believe she is telling the truth about her vocation. Is it a common practice for web designers to use tables to store content, instead of using them to display tabular data, as they should be? Is it normal to have midi music playing on every page, invading the visitors' speakers when they are already enjoying their own music? Is it okay, as a web designer, to ignore accessibility, therefore totally disregarding your visitors needs? Is it normal to watermark every copyrighted image on your site, claiming them as your own?

The Site History page, complete with Cabbage Patch Kids and Ghost Busters logos that apparently belong to Mary, states that the site was opened in 1999 when she was 17. On the About Mary page she gives her age as '20-ish'. If she was 17 in 1999, right now she'd be either 26 or 27. That is not '20-ish'. I can't stand it when people are evasive about their age. It's not fresh, nor is it funny. It's simply pathetic.

Still on the About Mary page, under "Say Cheese". I am taken to a link that reportedly leads to a picture of Mary, when really it leads to an image of two very scary looking monkeys. Cheap humour, much? Monkey pictures instead of one of yourself? How clever, must have taken you ages to think up. Not. Don't tell your visitors to click a link to see a picture of you when in reality it's of a mutant monkey. It's not funny.

The Beauty page consists of a cliched picture of a forest decked in sunlight, with a caption underneath saying "The enchantment seduces you". It's hard to be seduced by a stock standard forest pic when tiny blue stars are hovering up the screen like ants. This page also contains an illegally obtained article from a 2001 issue of Psychology Today magazine, and once again displaying celebrity images with Mary's name watermarked on it. I didn't read the article, because beauty + psychology is a lethally snoreworthy combination for me.

Just letting you know that you've listed "So Happy Together" as one of your favourite Beatles songs. So Happy Together is by The Turtles (one-hit wonders) not The Beatles (musical legends).

FAQ -

The joy is never-ending!

Where did you get your music?

I don't have one single source where I get all of my midi music files from. I sort of just go to search engines and type in "midi" or "midis". There are LOTS of sites that offer free midis for the taking! You'd be surprised! I do try to find "different" midis because I like my page to stand out from others.

Yeah, forcing music on your visitors makes your page stand out all right. Makes me wanna party like it ISN'T 1999. Forcing unexpected things on your visitors isn't what I'd call user-friendly, but who am I to say - I'm not the one who claims to be a freelance web designer and web developer! Sod my opinion, for it is meaningless!

I hope your server allows you a hearty amount of bandwidth, because your MIDIs are surely straining it. Why the fascination with MIDI's in the first place? Why clog up someone's browser window with a dodgy, automatically-playing music file? Do you not realise that many web surfers choose to listen to their own music while they surf the net? Just imagine if someone was doing just that, and then they come to your site and have to deal with some prehistoric embedded MIDI bullshit playing on top of their sweet music? You go on about how you love your visitors - if that's true, why don't you cut the musical crap and spare a thought for their needs. Hell, I used to have illegally obtained Ladytron music playing at my personal site but at least I had the sense to house it in a player with stop, pause, and play buttons.

Can you send me one of your midi songs?

I am flattered that you like my selection of music on my webspage. E-mail me and let me know which page's music you want. Please keep in mind though that some midis I will NOT send because it may have been a unique composition of a song from scratch that someone let me use but not re-distribute.

Whoa - I've been donged in the head by the stick of double standards. It's perfectly fine to whore your name out on all of the celebrity / cartoon / weird ass fairy images on your site (which you are not allowed to redistribute) but when it comes to certain MIDIS you...oh, never mind. Sigh.

Where did you learn how to design a website?

In grade 11, part of my Computer Science course had to do with webpages and the Internet. We learned just basic, introductory HTML, like what the tags stood for, etc. We didn't learn any Java Script or interesting website add-ons. I basically learned all the rest by myself. I surf the Net and look at personal webpages, so I learn new tricks through exploration. I get my inspirations this way usually.

Really? Because to me it looks like you started learning in Grade 11 and finished learning in Grade 11, over a decade ago. Where on earth do you gain inspiration from these days? Lissa Explains? Jesus wept.

Should the backgrounds, text and graphics match on every webpage?

This one is entirely dependent on your preferences. For me, I like creating totally different looks on each of my pages because it reflects more of my creativity. Also, I like the challenge of having different layouts which still look nice, but don't follow the same colour schemes. I know a few people who absolutely dislike that. They like everything to be consistant (backgrounds, graphics, music etc.). I like that too. For professional pages I think that it is very important that the layout be the same. The viewer (and possible customer) must be able to find everything with ease. For personal pages, I say HAVE FUN with it. There's no need to be consistant with design, however they are very pretty. It's up to you.

No!!! No!!!! What kind of website, apart from those hosted on Piczo, has varying backgrounds etc on every page??!? Consistency is your friend - accept it into your life and gain credibility as a result! These days (not that you realise) personal websites tend to have the same layout and text on every page. Professionalism doesn't come into it - it's just logical to be consistent. It seems as if you're saying that website layouts ought to be consistent only if the site owner is catering for customers or if the site in question is professional. This is simply not true in this day and age. Consistency applies to normal visitors too, and average personal sites. It amazes me how oblivious you are to the standards of modern web design.

The final question provides visitors with content suggestions for their own websites. Some are acceptable I guess, but what's with encouraging visitors to create celebrity fan pages containing images and multimedia? At 26 or 27 years old do you not know any better? I'm starting to get sick of your behaviour - now go and sit in the Naughty Corner until you've learnt your lesson.

Thin Like Me - a sob story going on about how totally awful your life is because you're ridiculed for being skinny. Oh noes! The things people complain about these days! If being thin is such a burden for you why don't you go to the supermarket and buy some weight gain powder or go crazy on the oh so dreaded carbs? If this doesn't work just go and see your doctor.

Lyrics - what a pathetically desperate grab for content, not to mention an illegal one. Now, I tell my younger reviewees the same thing, but I know that they probably don't know any better. You're in your late 20's - what's your excuse?

And finally - the Rainbow Brite page, chock full of Rainbow Brite scans as well as the following message:

None of the below images are to be used or re-distributed on any other website. Due to the numerous hours I spent scanning these images, touching them up, and making them my own, please don't lift them off my site. That would be very mean, and I'd be forced to take down this special Rainbow Brite page (to many people's disappointment). Be nice. Enjoy the pictures for what they're worth. Thank you for respecting my effort of trying to bring some nostalgia back. If you're looking for images that you may use on your website, I have provided a few here. It's kinda like the Garden of Eden. You can take any of the images from that page, but not from this one. Let your morality guide you.

You weren't letting your morality guide you when you scanned these images of Rainbow Brite that happen to be copyrighted to Hallmark. Scanning images with the intention of storing them electronically is still considered copying, and is only acceptable if you have sought permission from the copyright holder. You may have touched the images up a bit but that doesn't mean they belong to you. Duh. By the way, you sure you're in your late twenties? What with the Rainbow Brite and all...

Mary's Mail Bag -

Many times I check my e-mail inbox and receive some of the most hilarious, incomprehensible, ridiculous, stupid, and anally-retentive letters from people living all over the globe. Don't get me wrong....I receive more thoughtful, interesting, and intellectual e-mails, but occasionally the chauvanistic, neanderthal, and conceited will rear their ugly heads. This is life. You take the sour grapes or lemons and make wine or lemonade.....OR you make an example out of them...haha...Everyone could use a little comic relief, eh?

There's only one email here, and to be honest I can't see what the problem is with it. The guy wasn't being sarcastic at all, he was simply trying to help you. He makes some valid points, especially concerning celebrity images and your raping of ASCII. Criticism is not always welcomed, but you can always learn from it, especially when it is constructive like the type of criticism you received from this man. I've read and re-read the message several times and I'm struggling to understand why you were offended by it. Or were you simply offended by the fact that someone offered you unrequested tips and pointers? LOL! Unwanted criticism is part and parcel of having a website, and if you resent that then you should consider taking your site offline. Not everyone will enjoy your work, especially when it's been presented in the way it has been.

I do realise that you can have your site laid out the way you wish, but at least get rid of the unlawfully redistributed images, illegally reproduced lyrics and tacky MIDIS. For someone who is pushing 30 you should be setting an example for your younger visitors. Most if not all of my younger visitors have websites that are a hundred times better than yours, because they are so incredibly keen on acquiring new skills and techniques. They have a passion for making websites and are constantly striving to improve them. (Some of these visitors are over ten years younger than yourself.)

It seems to me that you learnt the very basics of web design a decade ago and stopped at that. That's not how it works. There is still so much for you to learn - so much for all of us to still learn. In order to learn and improve yourself, you have to be willing to do so, and I've learnt that first hand.

I hope this article has at least made you consider modernising your website. If you put in the effort it WILL pay off. Your site would be better off with an organised layout - a consistent one at that. You could organise all of your links into categories and implement a navigation system accordingly - all the links regarding yourself could be housed under a "Me" link, and so on. Your current set up is so disorganised and stale! How about taking a look at Inobsuro's Tableless (CSS) two column layout tutorial? This is the same tutorial I followed two years ago when I converted from iFrames, and I assure you it is very easy to follow. Somehow I doubt you'll want to make these much needed changes, but I'd love it if you proved me wrong. What'll it be?

The Departure

Mystic Realm is a prime example of how websites used to look last century. Inconsistent designs, animated title bars and invasive MIDI files litter the site, resulting in it being an inaccessible environment for Joe Visitor. Criticism via email, constructive or otherwise, seems to be treated with total disregard and is instantly labelled as 'hate mail' and is placed on a wall of shame of sorts. A webmistress who seemingly cannot take criticism, who enjoys using copyrighted images and claims them as her own, who willingly reproduces scores of lyrics.

Well, that's enough time traveling for one day. I'm definitely ready to quicky scurry back to 2008 and forget about this whole ordeal. After all, who wants to dwell in the past?