03/09/2003
This is a review of evermind.diaryland.com.
Content - 21/75pts.
[-]Execution - 5/45pts. I hate your layout so much that I'm going to tell you I hate it in your content section. I hate it. I hate it. You can scroll down to the layout section for more details.
Okay, anyway. Your content. All of January seemed to have been about setting up the diary. A great deal of complaining. Most of it was not interesting for me to read because, frankly, I've read it before and I've read it again, and I think I'd rather turn off the computer and find a new novel than read January's entries and pretend to like them.
As I dabbled in February's entries, I found that although you seem to think that the diary helps you organize your thoughts, I find it mostly random and unfulfilling.
Sometimes, you manage to focus your energies on writing about one subject. You are trite, repetitious, and dull when you do this. And wah, woe is me, I-have-no-friends. Golly. You know that this sort of thing hardly ever elicits sympathy. Rather, it just induces boredom in your reviewers. Joke about it instead. Or make friends with your fingernails. Or make friends with old people. Old people are depressed and lonely, and they frequently have interesting stories to tell.
The suggested entry rather bored me. I counted typos to pass the time, and there were nine.
Sigh. You want to be great, and you spend most of your diary talking about how much you want to be great. Give up on the talking and work on the being part. Because I found the general journal to be so lacking, I bravely put on the "mute," and stepped into your other stuff. Ho hum. I'm never impressed by the "extras." After all, this is about the journal, not about who has the most extras. You have a lot of extras, but I'm disenchanted. None made for hilarious or revealing reading.
[-]Grammar/Mechanics - 5/10pts. It's spelled vaguely. You have a lot of typos. A lot. I have no patience with this sort of thing. Your grammar is all right though.
[-]Readability - 6/10pts. Your first few entries were long paragraphs that were difficult to read because they were long paragraphs whining about how difficult it is to set up the diary. They were long paragraphs. I thought that you would outgrow it, but, sigh, you didn't. In fact, they grew longer. Religion? You're passionate. You wrote a paragraph that was nearly five hundred words long. Oohhh, my. (That was an almost-homicidal moan.)
And what on Earth does Ah yes the cronicals of the-shamoozing-of-the-guidence-consulers mean? I feel alone, as this little girl makes inside jokes to which I am not privy.
But, generally, your prose is not annoyingly difficult to read.
[-]Style - 5/10pts. You write like a typical teenager. Do you like to read? Perhaps you ought to try reading someone other than Tolkien. Something other than science fiction and fantasy. In my experience, science fiction and fantasy authors write like fourteen-year-olds. Read a lot of Jane Austen to temper your ideas about love and a lot of Hemingway to encourage brevity. Try to find something by Flannery O'Connor, she writes beautifully and simply. Or, don't. It's up to you.
Layout - 2/10pts.
[-]Aesthetics - 0/5pts. Your site made me slightly nauseated. The biggest thing that's wrong with it is that I have to scroll down to the bottom for every entry. I have to stare at an ugly man before I can read your diary. And I have to do this every time. And I don't like "Lord of the Rings." In fact, now, I think I absolutely loathe it. This error is simple to fix - get rid of that horrible-looking man! Or, if you must have him on your site, put it *below* your entry, so that I don't have to look at it.
The font on your archive page is large and loudly bigger than the rest of your page. I like for the pages to look similar. It isn't difficult to fix. You seem to know HTML, so it especially shouldn't be difficult for you.
On this page, you have sound, and I hate sound. Don't click on that link! It'll be an irritating, homicidal tendency-inducing sort of sound! Bleh. You seemed to put sound on every extra page. My nerves were stretched, and it was a miserable time for me.
Also, making your links grow larger when one hovers over them (this includes making them bold, making them a different font, and whatever blurry, complicated thing you did with your links) detracts aesthetically from your diary. Every time I hover over the link, the paragraph shifts uncomfortably. Instead of doing that, why don't you try changing it into a different color? Or underlining it? For more information on how to do that, check out this site.
I found nothing to like about your layout. I would have given you a point or two for it being self-designed if you didn't make me scroll past that horrible picture every time. (By the way, it isn't just that I dislike LOTR and all things associated. It's also that the picture is bad quality. I couldn't read the words next to it.)
Look, I realize that it can be frustrating to design one's own site. But it is ten times more frustrating to have to view a site that is impossible to maneuver. I think that you don't spend a great deal of time on your site, or you'd know what I mean. Consider if your e-mail provider or CNN were as complicated. You absolutely have to think of the viewer; you can't just post whatever you think would look cool. I would suggest making your site as simple as possible.
That's all great, but you probably want practical advice, huh? I would get rid of that horrendous picture, of course, or make it a background or something of the sort. Then, I'd put the entry and navigation bar into a table, so that viewers don't have to scroll back up. It looks like you don't really know how to use tables. Read this tutorial for help. Anyway, if you're really dedicated, you can make your layout work for you. It isn't really that hard. Really.
[-]Navigability/Legibility - 2/5pts. I had to scroll to navigate, and that annoyed me. I've whined about that already. Anyway, when I first started reading your diary, I was afraid your font'd be too dark to read, but it really wasn't. On the other hand, it'd be nice if it were lighter, about the color of your links.
Contact - 5/5pts. Yeah.
Updates - 5/5pts. Uh, huh.
Errors - 0/5pts. In Netscape and in Opera, your links do NOT show up. Okay? I realize that comparatively few people use Opera or Netscape, but people do use them. I counted off all points because.. do you know what the Internet is? It's a bunch of links. That's all it is. Links are everything, and you have failed to give a significant number of people links. You've given them nothing. To download Netscape, click here. To get Opera, click this text over here. Check your site before you upload it. Common courtesy, and hardly any pain to you.
Total - 33/100pts. Your score may seem low. That's because it is. Ha, ha. Seriously though, don't sweat it. (Or sweat it a lot.) I really want to come over and take your code and fix things for you. But I can't. I hope you do what I suggest... This is meant to help your diary, not to make you give it up. Not that you would give it up based on a diary review by some dumb teenager. Ahem. Good luck.
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