Chibimoon

Sailor Moon Hideaway - " inside you will find the best of pictures, polls, profiles, fun things to do and more" as the owner says. Let's see if that's true. ^^

By typing http://www.geocities.com/harpette2000/ I am transfered to the enter page. The Javascript effect with the flying flowers is nice to me. My complaint is the picture which leads to the main page - the two pictures of Eternal Sailor Moon doesn't fit the rainbow background of the whole graphic. I suggest making the background of ESM transparent. Below from this graphic there's an introduction to the site, well, let's see if I'll find "the best of pictures, polls, profiles and fun".

Graphical Design: The graphical design of the main page is so-so. There's a snowflakes Javascript but it doesn't suit the design because the site is neither a Christmas/New Year designed, nor winter designed. The main picture of the layout with Usagi is very cute and the font that was used to write the site and version name is pretty, too. Unfortunatelly, the picture named "sailorback555.jpg" (the one that should display below the main one, under Usagi) is broken.

The manga picture of Super Sailor Moon is beautiful. The buttons which lead to the pages in the site are UGLY. I love the text-font, but they look kind of TOO dark. That's because the sprites of the Senshi were in GIF formatt, but they were cut and pasted in a JPG image. NEVER DO THIS OR YOU'LL END UP WITH THIS RESULT. The best choice for graphics is the PNG formatt, in my opinion. It's not colour-lossy, and the pictures in this format are small size. And I'd suggest to keep the same layout on EACH AND EVERY page!!

Content Design: The design of the content in the main page is separated into three parts - the first one contains news, intro and a link to "Out of My Mind!" ; the second part is the navigation menu and the third one consists of credits, polls, email me ad, link to guestbook. Even though there're many picture it loaded fast for me. BUT I am not on dial-up. NEVER, NEVER put many images on the main pages or proceed on your own risk because the dial-up visitors may have problems loading your "heavy" site and just go and press the big "X" on the left corner of their browser. Overall

Notes:

1. I recommend removing the broken image named "sailorback555.jpg" and putting the navigation links on its place.
2. The owner MUST to make the buttons smaller but the best choice is even to use ONLY text links. There're TWO pictures-links in the site (in the main in the profiles page, ect). That's awful for dial-up users and for bandwidth limit. Somebody once suggested: *Ctrl+C* *Ctrl+V" "One of the biggest problems is that you are trying to go image crazy without design to it. Try keeping images, buttons, and such to a minimum and instead concentrate on content as that is what people come to your page for. And on the top of all some of the sprites are pretty useless!
3. There're not one or two broken images (it's AWFUL to see a broken image on the main page).
4. And I HIGHLY suggest adding more information. 3-4 sentences is NOT a character profile!!
5. The enter page should be removed because it's not that usefull.Being a Geocities site, the bandwidth is only 1 GB/month! I don't want to see the "Bandwidth limit expired" message.)
6. I can't make you use the original Japaniese version plot in your site, but I HIGHY suggest it.

Pluto

Breakdown of site 15/100

Welcome and site Identity 1
- Weird graphic at the left hand side of the splash page (looks like a weird line of sprites). The enter image is not in keeping with the black background. What is up with the polls on the splash page? That's not exactly the place for them.

A broken image on the front page isn't very good. The text is disjointed and having a different colour background to your links is bad practice. The choice of text colour is very hard on the eyes, given the black (again) background. There are those mysterious polls again...

Navigation 1
- A series of buttons in the middle of the front page. Not the greatest place to find them. Ideally you should have them in a row across the top, or down the sides, rather than smack-bang in the middle of it. Using that particular script font for it isn't that great either. It looks poorly done and choppy. The sprites don't really add much to the buttons either.

Content of Interest 2
- A rather uninspiring 'about me' page with a terribly blurry graphic that supposedly talks about the designer/owner. *yawn* The about me page is in dark red on black and also hard on the eyes. At least the weird graphic isn't found on THIS page.

On the History page, it appears that the information has been ripped from elsewhere and placed here verbatim, and horribly linked. You don't need to link all that stuff honey, it's just lame and nobody's interested in following links to television stations unless they already are members of those websites. What IS that empty table doing in the middle of the page? That lame-ass graphic is in there again too. The one from the splash page. *sighs* Light pink (?) text is easier to read than the fuchsia text that was there before, so at least that is an improvement, altho it clashes with the graphic at the side.

Profiles....well, what can I say about these except for the fact that they are woefully inaccurate for the most part, poorly presented (it looks like the designer got bored and just put in any old rubbish towards the end) and the graphic profile idea is redundant. You don't need to have several different versions of the same thing. Especially when they're not done by yourself and no credit is given. At least the weird graphic has been replaced by a poorly cutout anime Sailor Moon.

The Fun page isn't fun. It consists of a paper doll page (taken from somewhere else, as I have that same paper doll) and a lame attempt at YKYLSMTMW (you know you love sailor moon too much when...) humour with something that also appears to be taken from somewhere else, as I've seen this on so many other lame sites. That weird graphic is back, altho further down the page. What's with the counter at the TOP of each page? It should be at the bottom of the FRONT page only. And not in some hideous shade of green....*gags*

Advertising and sponsorship 1
- Advertising a bunch of dubious looking shops. I dunno about you but with the amount that one of the shops is charging, the poor quality design and photos, would you buy from them? No...didn't think so...

Self-promotion 1
- There appear to be many attempts to promote the website, but the affiliates seem to be more of the way of friends' sites than anything else.

Filler 1
- Pretty much all of this site is filler, as there isn't really enough to keep interest past a few clicks.

White-space 1
- Poor use of space, and too much white-space in all the wrong places. The idea behind white-space is that the information flows in a coherent manner pleasing to the eye, and that there is enough space in the right sorts of places to rest the eye as it's moving along the site. Obviously something foreign to this designer as the information is disjointed, interrupted by meaningless stuff and just basically all over the place.

Other 3
- Not the greatest site by far. I don't know what you were thinking but this site is a prime example of poor website design it almost makes me cringe to look at it. It's fine for someone who is just learning but given the fact that this site appears to have been around for some time, you would have thought the designer would have taken the time to get to know PROPER web design and do something about it. Those graphics. Damn they are so bad. Ripped sprites everywhere, poorly cut out images everywhere else. The image gallery is a joke. Text images are NOT what someone is looking for when they want to see a gallery. You show the pictures themselves. Thumbnails maybe but not text links. Consistency is an issue here too, in that the graphic seems to change every few pages, and even the site changes for the graphics.

Saturn

Oh goody! Another Geocities site which means on each page I will have to close that damn Geocities ad in the upper right corner! You know what is even better? A badly done splash image and animated flower petals falling on the browser! Yes! I needed some cheese tonight!

Oh boy... The "Sailor Moon Hideaway".... so how long did it take you to decide what veteran site to steal your name from? For those that don't know. The Sailor Moon Hideaway used to be a site that was around in the late 90's to my recollection. It offered scanlations and such and it was a real favorite of mine. It was NOT hosted on Geocities, and the web author had some idea of how to design a site... unlike this author that not only stole the name, but also decided that cheesey animation and a horrid attempt at a layout could possibly pass off as a site, let alone a good site, which I am SURE they think that this site is. It seems that every bad site has an author that thinks that that site is just the greatest thing, and has at least one or two groupies that will back them up.... well at least until the guillotine starts to fall at which time they quickly retract their heads, proclaim that they are a sinner, and then get stones and rotten veggies thrown at them by the spectators.... yeah... they are THAT into the site :P

However, this site isn't just bad, it is very bad.... hell it is ugly. The scrollbar alone makes me want to poke my eyes out because it is the most obnoxious shade of hot pink I have EVER seen. Wait! Scratch that. I think I had some spandex bike shorts that color when I was a kid. But aside from that.... lets try to get onto the content as I could harp on this layout for the rest of the day.... maybe the rest of my life, who knows! Sometimes I get ambitious.

Ahhh... I love a site that has the first link "About Me". That always supports my theory that they really do think highly of themselves even IF the flower petal animation is staggering like a drunk because they decided to build this "site" on Geocities. The fact that I can't read the text in the main graphic doesn't help, so I am reading the rest of this person's profile just to get a laugh.

And I just got one... "October 22, I'm a Libra, the hottest sign of the zodiac!" No my dear, that makes you the airhead of the Zodiac as Libra is a wind sign...

"Weight:I don;t know my exact weight but I am a little chubby, however I am losing a lot of weight with this new diet I'm on. So I'll get back to you guys on that one."

This is enough to make me spit Cola onto my monitor... Yeah I'm sure that diet is helped by the bulemia induced by viewing this mess of a site, along with the fact that your ass is sitting in a computer chair typing instead of getting up and exercising.... nice... I won't go into her comment about her hair.... Lets just say the line "I want it platinum blonde" makes me think of the anti-drug commercials of the chick with the platinum bleached hair and her nose dripping blood in math class while she thinks of her next hit. No offense to any platinum blondes out there, but it IS a stereotype...

You know, I can't take this anymore. If anybody wants to go get a REALLY good laugh, go to this page and just read the "About Me" page. If nothing else, you can laugh yourself stupid off this stuff.

I am in the affiliates page now.... (Did I mention that this is the second one to open in a new window? Man, Cindra would be proud!) However, how this person go affiliates, I am not sure. But I am sure that if I clicked on every one of them, that they would be JUST as if not MORE pathetic then this half assed attempt at a page is.

The links page is pathetic to say the least. A very long list of text links that I had to use the Control+A trick to read, but on top of that, at the VERY BOTTOM of the page there starts buttons.... when I know that more then a couple of these have link buttons already.... lazy much? I guess the diet makes you that way.

The fact that this site crashed my browser means I won't be reviewing the rest of it. I was glad to see some credits given at the bottom, but I don't even think THOSE sites would be happy that you credited them so much as embarrassed. I am going to relaunch the site and see if there is a guestbook to sign and then I am done.

Advice? Forget the diet and get some exercise. Shit I am supposed to give website advice. Alright, scrap the pink, get a layout that works. Ditch the animation and fix any other scripts on your site that are obviously screwed as they crashed my browser... and my browser is SUCH a whore that even I am surprised that it crashed. Also, get some more REAL content on your site... and the biggest one... GET OFF OF GEOCITIES!!!

Uranus

I've said before that I like pages with a black background. The Sailor Moon Hideaway is a crash course on how to ruin one. Step one, put the title in a this and wiry semi-cursive font. Step two, run the applet that had snowflake graphics falling across the screen. I've just seen two feet of it; I don't want more. Step three, augment said snowflakes with a tiny picture of Usagi from the skating episode, while contrasting with a colored manga picture . Step four, head up your page with an online petition which the author claims will return Sailor Moon to Cartoon Network if enough people sign it. Which only leaves one question: what color is the sky in the world the author comes from?

I head first to senshi profiles. Because it's me. I marvel and how so many sites can do these badly in so many different ways. In this case, the author has all of them on one page, with the dollbox stats for the inner senshi, and one-sentence writeups for the outer senshi, Tuxedo Mask, and Rini. Japanese and North American info is mixed here, to create confusion I assume. And it becomes obvious that the author hasn't seen past Sailor Moon R, as she says that not much is known about Sailor Saturn and that Sailor Pluto is named Arista. Maybe she runs a record company? There are links here for graphic profiles, and that name makes it sound like it's going to be the same thing only with lots of blood and gore. In actuality, they're little pictures that look like computer screens with SD senshi pics on them and more dollbox information.

Over to Fun Stuff, and there's more annoying falling graphics. In this case, flowers. Is there anyone out there who wrote to these web authors saying, "Your site is nice, but it needs something moving and obscuring the text"? In any case, this text might be better off. It's another you know you watch too much when. . . list, and let's face it, just about all of those have been exhausted.

Over to Graphics, because the only chance this site has of saving any dignity is a good image gallery. Instead we get a page of experiments in bad HTML. In the sub pages is a function that lets you change background color by mousing over a given letter. Therein lies the only fun you can have on this page, by running your cursor over them rapidly to cycle the colors. Oh, and for a real moment of sacrilege, check out the picture of one of the Powerpuff Girls in a Sailor Venus fuku.

The Sailor Moon hideaway certainly lives up to its name, as you want to lock it in a drawer and hide it away for a long time. There's really nothing interesting or original here, and what is here isn't even organized well. The One Good Thing that you will find is the series of senshi sprites that head up all the links, which are rather cute.. I don't know if those came from here, but I'd bet against it.