Feedback & Question

[Nemphtis]

This thread is to point out some things I'd like to see on TheOtaku plus questions I want some answers for, so if anyone can answer any of them I'd be grateful. Let's begin with my suggestions though...

I've noticed you don't have "hubs" for everything, I searched for a Gunslinger Girl hub on the website and couldn't find one, so naturally what did I assume? These guys don't cover it, I'll go find a better website which does. Now the sad part is, there's barely any 'better' websites I've found out there, they are always lacking in something, be that design, features, quality of articles, there's always something. Funny how when you search videogames you find awesome websites like Gamespot yet when you search anime you find websites that look as if they've been designed by 15 year olds, but TheOtaku's design made me smile as it was pretty. So my suggestion is simple, when a new anime is coming out make the 'Hub' for it, don't wait until someone submits content for it. When they see that there is no content for it, more people may be willing to write some content for that title.

Also your suggest a category feature would not be needed if you decided to do what I just suggested, but I did notice you say "Every month, we follow a natural evolutionary process with the site. We delete old, never-used categories and add new, exciting ones." there will never be a category that nobody will ever check again. A 49 year old might come and want to see if his favourite old series was covered on this site only to see you had deleted it because it wasn't used much. Coverage is an important thing, if people can't find any coverage on what they're looking for, no matter how crappy/unpopular it is, they assume your site isn't top-notch but infact second rate. If you visited Gamespot and realised they don't have any coverage on Halo, you'd be surprised and think "Wow, I guess these guys aren't as pro as they look..." so what makes TheOtaku any different from the general judgment of internet browsers looking for information on their favourite anime or even doing research on an old anime series to see if it's good or not.

Take GunslingerGirl for example since it doesn't have a Hub. I've never seen the series before let say, and I want to see how many episodes it is, check out a few screenshots, read comments about what others think and such but wait, I search for it yet can't even find it, hmm... Then I search for another anime and what the hell, that's not on here either? Hmm...

Also, I write videogame reviews for various sites in my spare time as I'm studying to become a journalist. I would like to know if normal users are able to submit reviews for Anime to be displayed on the website or must I become some sort of 'staff' member for this to be possible. If so, how is the process done.

EDIT

Also, two more things I've just noticed. The back & forward arrows that are used at the bottom of the website don't work for me, I went to the reviews section and wanted to get to the next page yet the arrows wouldn't take me back or forward but the Home button works. I'm sure you already knew this though.

Another thing I want to suggest is screenshots, you've got Related Fanart, Wallpapers and whatnot but what if I'm looking for screenshots from the anime, where do I find those on the site? I think adding at least one or two screenshots for each Hub when possible would be great, then I don't have to leave the website to Google search them or try and find another site that has an extensive screenshot database or something.

[Raiyuu]

[font=Trebuchet MS]I think the logic is that an empty hub is just as useless as no hub at all. If you'd found the Gunslinger Girl hub, clicked onto it and found no content, you'd still have had to navigate away from the site, and you'd probably be left thinking "What's the point of having a hub if you're not going to put anything in it?".

Any member of theOtaku can submit reviews. [u][url="http://reviews.theotaku.com/"]Click here[/url][/u] for the Reviews homepage; on the left, just under the login box, is a bolded link saying [b]Submit Review. [/b]There's a drop-down menu of series and films that have yet to be reviewed, space for the main body of the review, and a couple of other options like rating, number of episodes and trivia to fill in.

About screenshots, I don't really know. When a review is accepted, Adam usually tacks three or four screenshots on the bottom (take a look at some reviews to see what I mean), but we don't have a dedicated screenshot section for the site.

.:EDIT:.
Reading another thread in this forum, I've just noticed that review submissions are currently suspended while Adam upgrades the process and interface.
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[Petie]

[quote name='Nemphtis']Also, two more things I've just noticed. The back & forward arrows that are used at the bottom of the website don't work for me, I went to the reviews section and wanted to get to the next page yet the arrows wouldn't take me back or forward but the Home button works. I'm sure you already knew this though.[/quote][font=Verdana][color=blue]These back and forward buttons aren't for what you think they are. They are just buttons added to the page to replicate the browser's back and forward buttons. They won't work if Javascript isn't enabled on your browser or if you have no page to go back or forward to.[/color][/font]

[Nemphtis]

Ahhh, I see now. So wait, how do I change pages when browsing through the review database then?