REVIEW REQUEST: Webmasters Junction

You know, when I first saw this link I thought "oh no, not another wannabe webaster site." We get a lot of those. But when I opened the link I was impressed! the site looks great on first glance and I immediately changed my mind about it. Very professional looking.

Upon further examination though, I'm finding that there is a lot of junk on the front page. Do you really need a calendar there? What about the WJ Asssitant? (what is that, anyway) Who's online, WJ stats etc. don't need to be on the front page either - that could be kept withint he forums. Also, the main menu is really lost among all those other boxes. It should be moved up to the top and styled a little better so those links stand out. Another thing is that I don't see links to recent articles on the front page, which is what I was looking for in the first place. Forum topics could be pushed down a little bit. Or do you even have articles? Oh, I see, coming soon you say. Those should definitely go at the top of the front page when you get them.

About your actual forum, all those 0's are rather off putting at first. I would combine as manu of those forums as possible to start so those 0's become actual numbers. Then you might get more participation, and you can always expand more later on when you get busier.

I think you've got the start of something good going, so good luck with it. My biggest advice is to start slow and simplify until you really need the extras. Remember that there is *a lot* of competition in this area so you may have a tough road ahead.

Thanks for your comments & advice! I noted down your advice and soon make a change!
As I told in the above post, that the site is new, that why it don't have enough contents yet.. We will soon get the articles and other contents
WJ Asssitant? it is a mini user CP (give quick view of new posts, members, private messages, inbox space etc)

Nice design.
A couple of things thou, the background image in the main menu could be faded a little more as the colours cut into the text.
On pages like the meta tag generator, maybe place a little question mark image beside the input titles linking down to the descriptions as people on 800x600 wouldn't see it until the very end, if they got down that far as they could be very confused. also might want to explain things like 'Character Set' as most wouldn't know what it is/means.

I often ask this, why have people sign up for things like downloads? As Megan mentioned it's very competive topic and having to sign up for things will/can drive people away. The forums are understandable. Maybe have two sections, normal and members or place an icon beside the member only sections

And don't forget to add webmaster-forums.net to your resources

Thanks for your nice advice Busy!
I will soon make changes according to your advice! also I already added Webmasters-Forums.net in the resources directory it will be visible in next update!

first off the site looks really good. and the concept should be really good once you get more content.

ok two things , one , make sure your site validates, right now it doesn't, and you being a good webmaster i dont really have to stress the importance of it. plus it kinda looks bad when its a webamster site and it itself doesn't validate.

second on ur o/s poll, its vary racist, as i looked i saw 4 o/s ' s all of which are windows : ( , i didn';t expect to find my distro but perhaps a "Linux" in general option or "*nix" or "Other" , i mean u have two options for XP.... (this isn't ment to be taken super seriously as in a design or web web flaw)

good site though , i will look back later when u have more stuff

Well, thanks for the comments LostPuppy, I know the poll topic does not looks good, because I just post it for a testing!
Second thing is that, what you mean by validate? do you mean html validation? can you please explain!

Thanks,

I like the design (although it looks like any other phpnuke site) but there are a few things I think you should change.

1. Don't use fixed background

2. The calender at the bottom left, the empty columns are white where the other ones are gray, so the empty columns take your focus away from the actual calendar. Perhaps make them gray as well so they just melt in.

3. The main menu is hard to find and

Well as everybody here has alreay said how nice the design is, I would like to say something about content...

There is way too much competition out there to make this site viable, it doesn't have any unique selling points to get people to stay. In it's present state it is just the same as any other forum site (a little better looking than most though) about web design, even from my point of view - a geek who knows too much about the Internet for his own good - this site appears confusing, what is the resources part for - Link exchanges? Also why is that calendar there? That's what Outlook is for IMO...

This website seems to encapsulate the term "Feature Creep" pretty well, perhaps it would be better to create something functional but simple?

IMO the competition is too much, any forums on these kinds of subject are going to have to occupy a niche market.

Sorry if I seem stroppy, but am feeling a little ill, it's Saturday and I'm in work...GRRRR.

Anyway, the network idea is good...I like the idea of having the different sites hooking up together, seems like you could be making some $ from it all too: Good, it always helps

as in html validation yes , goto w3c.org for more help with it

as for your new poll my fav is 1st Page 2000 (free) and good old Notepad and Gedit (also free)

Thanks for the valued feedback and suggestions guys.... yes I know that there are lot of competition in webmasters related sites!
I noted down each and every point and I will try my best to improve the site & its contents

Nice design, is it run with php-nuke?

I don't beleive it's phpNuke. However, vBulletin has a content manager just like phpNuke, I beleive it's that one.

Couldn't review it - got Internal Server Error message

For adam01 & zollet its a Vbportal, based on PHPnuke, but modified to works with vbulletin!

bjdea1, Internal server error? :eek: well, I don't see one! where you get Internal server error? Its working fine

About Validation,I agree with Weblord.

weblord,

not too shabby. right off the bat my suggestion is that the logo is a bit busy and hard to read. those green and purple curves block out the T in webmaster and the J in junction just a little. I'm glad to see that you have a forum, as you can see here, as well as many other places on the web, that forums are widely used. Your background is a little hard to see too. You might want to either lose it altogether, or adjust it so it can be seen a little better. Though it doesnt look like it IS a phpNuke/postnuke site, it does look similar. Kudos if you did it on your own. Sites like this aren't easy, and sometimes are much easier to run as a nuke.

Best of luck

I think your site looks very nice, full of information, and easy to get around. I think the bright colors give it a very unique appeal.