Habbox.com Site Suggestions.

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Originally Posted by Jamesy

I think he's referencing vBCMS which I really hope doesn't happen. My suggestion would definitely be to simplify the site, only keep essential information visible while making sure other content can easily be reached too.

And bring back more orange.

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Theres actually been no mention of vBCMS, so I'm not sure if that's even an idea in Jins head. (Maybe it is) but he has mentioned to some of the Site Coders he is interested in some site designs which some of them have been working on/editing on and so on.

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Originally Posted by sex

Hi.

Get rid of news from the main page. Habbox's page is twice/three times as long as any other fansite page which is a huge turn of. You could make it shorter and use the space to advertise events/comps. The news comments average at about 3/4 per article which isnt good at all, especially seeing as its on the main page.

You should also get rid of the graphics section (if its still there). I remember jake being honest when he was agm and saying that they aren't up to the standard of Habbosolutions and other resource fansites. He planned to remove them yet they are still there lol?

When you hopfully move the new from the main page you could get rid of this ?
http://rbguides.com/screenshots/1141771b.png
as they could be posted in the gap left by the news.


also get a flash radio like habboxlive cause it seems to work better lol


this sums up habbox news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-nDmXHmng

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I don't think Habbox news is "dead" like you are suggesting in your nice music video there, nice song anyway. What you see on Habbox.com, is not what you might see on the V6, we want something different and more easier to use and user friendly which does include having widgets and what not. Regarding the Jake/GFX bit, I will leave that for Alkaz.

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Originally Posted by sex

Hi.

Get rid of news from the main page. Habbox's page is twice/three times as long as any other fansite page which is a huge turn of. You could make it shorter and use the space to advertise events/comps. The news comments average at about 3/4 per article which isnt good at all, especially seeing as its on the main page.

You should also get rid of the graphics section (if its still there). I remember jake being honest when he was agm and saying that they aren't up to the standard of Habbosolutions and other resource fansites. He planned to remove them yet they are still there lol?

When you hopfully move the new from the main page you could get rid of this ?
http://rbguides.com/screenshots/1141771b.png
as they could be posted in the gap left by the news.


also get a flash radio like habboxlive cause it seems to work better lol


this sums up habbox news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-nDmXHmng

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From what I understand (although I haven't been told too much yet), news will be more condensed in the new version. I think instead of having near enough full articles displayed it would be good to have like just the first paragraph along with an image (possibly all sized the same if possible). This would allow for "blocking" of articles side by side rather than just a long lengthy list of them. This would look smart, be functional, still mean we can attract readers attention with the headline/image and also mean that pressing "read more" will take them to the full article. Individual news pages could of course be kept normal, with full length articles, but I think for the front page more of a smart system like this needs to be implemented.

I completely disagree that news is "dead", and I think the fact that popular articles still attract comments is good. Some sites don't have a comments system and so it's a useful thing to have. Pre-merge we had a couple of articles with excess of 100 comments. It often depends on what the Habbo news is, and how important.

I think the News reporters do a really good job in writing up the articles, and effectively saying we are "dead" is rather insulting to those who work at their best to ensure the readers are happy. We have to ensure that we are aiming our articles at the correct usebase, and whilst older forum members may not like the news element of the site, we have to remember that we are a Habbo fansite and providing a solid foundation of all the news and goings ons within Habbo is a core element.

Thanks for your feedback, but I really was quite upset and quite hurt by your comments, which in all fairness lacked constructive critisism on how you think we could improve. I'm always open to suggestions. As I outlined above, I think the best way to go would to "shorten" the news aspect down by blocking the articles side by side, with perhaps 6 articles on the front page (2 columns of 3). I'm not sure if there is a new system being put in to write/present articles, but I'm sure this will all be found out in due time.


Edit: I also just read you wanted to put the Habbox today section where news is? I think that would be ridiculous considering Habbox today is something which just lets you know what's going on with departments and events etc. It needs to remain a Habbo fansite, and featuring Habbo content should remain important.

I think there is going to be widgets anyway, so you may well be able to move certain things round. Nearly 600 people took the current poll on the site (which is a lot of views alone) and 70% said the news articles look good. 40% of the figure said "they read them all the time". I know this isn't conclusive evidence, but it does show that a nice amount of people are reading articles.

the whole site just needs simplifying. there's too much text and its ugly. the homepage is too cluttered and is just likely to force people away
the colours are ugly. yeah managment say 'but they're the traditional habbox colours' or whatever. every time this comes up, users object and say they're ugly. but oh no, management have to dictate what users get (which i know in a way is what they're there for, but the colouring is a key thing in layouts and having colours people don't want and have shown they don't want it just stupid)
as if the main colour scheme wasnt ugly enough, the nav colours are just awful and i don't know why management insisted on them in the first place because it just makes adding things to the menu so much harder because when i was agm i wasnt actually told how to add colour to a menu item and so had to swap items for something which already had a colour, and people say i had bad communication. look at yourselvessss
the navs also so cluttered. before i got fired (lol) my plan was to make all links go to a 'hub' as the guides page does as it's much neater, clearer and more user-friendly as it gives users an idea of whats on each page. don't know if this is still being done, but it should be done
a lot of content on the site is also a mess which i was slowly focusing on in my time as agm and making sure people were sorting it, but seems not. the staff page is something i was going to delay until the rest of the site was sorted so that it could be done well, but look at it, its just a complete mess and if i was the one responsible for it, i'd be ashamed. not being big-headed or anything (well it is but whatever), i think i was what kept the quality of content up. when i quit as manager i think the first time, the site went to **** so i offered to come back and get the quality back. then i got fired, and the site's quality has gone down again. not saying i was the only factor in this, but some content staff work nowhere near as hard as required

@graham, yeh i was gna remove that whole section but got fired before i could lol
@bolt, there's a module for joomla i'm using on someones site that does that, not sure if it'd work how you said but it worked for what i wanted, www.emergencystories.com - right hand top module. think the modules called aidanews or something

A few weeks ago the graphics section was merged with the fun stuff section. Just like the rare watch section was removed, that is now a history article which can be found under guides but -:Undertaker:- is working on a new rare watch which will soon be under the rare values section. Hopefully the fun stuff and rare values sections will have a spruce up before our new version as well as getting rid of things which just aren't used any more.

As for the rest of the thread I will reply a little later. :)

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Originally Posted by Mr-Trainor

I believe the content department especially rely on the site's system, as well as managers to update the habbox today - if it's still in use, I haven't checked for a while!

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Yeh we still do rely heavily on it however what was suggested I think is possible but like Garion said it is something which will have to be discussed.

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Originally Posted by Jamesy

And bring back more orange.

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Hopefully we will but with a better orange and making it more subtle.

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Originally Posted by sex

Get rid of news from the main page. Habbox's page is twice/three times as long as any other fansite page which is a huge turn of. You could make it shorter and use the space to advertise events/comps. The news comments average at about 3/4 per article which isnt good at all, especially seeing as its on the main page.

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We're looking at trying to reduce this and fill the space more effectively however I think that there will still be news on the front page.
Hopefully with the widgets people will have more freedom as to what they want on their own homepage.

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Originally Posted by Alkaz

Yeh we still do rely heavily on it however what was suggested I think is possible but like Garion said it is something which will have to be discussed.


Hopefully we will but with a better orange and making it more subtle.


We're looking at trying to reduce this and fill the space more effectively however I think that there will still be news on the front page.
Hopefully with the widgets people will have more freedom as to what they want on their own homepage.

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just ignore my post then, not like it was there for a reason

In response to the news comment, I think we are letting you customise what you see on the main page, whether it be rare values, news, games, etc.

I think sex mentioned this but a flash player for the radio..

HxL flash works so much better to WMP on hx

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Originally Posted by pasta

just ignore my post then, not like it was there for a reason

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I wasn't just ignoring your post, you had a lot in there which I would have replied to but when I did post I didn't have the time.

Is this just for the website? I have ideas for both forum and site but maybe you could add some special features such as Habbo of The Week or Habbo Spotlight? Also, a suggestion for Rare Values, maybe add a page which has the latest news for Rare Values like the latest rares which will be comming soon like the old Rare Watch or something.