Obiter Dictum

Content Only Review of Zwinkyness
Date Submitted: January 3
Date Completed: April 11

Content

Looks like there’s a lot to get into here! Your blog posts are long and at first glance they don’t seem to be about random uninteresting tid bits. I’m not going to read all your currently displayed blogs, but I’ve sort of skimmed them and I can see that if I wanted to take the deeper time to read them I’d probably learn a lot about you in a short amount of time. You write very well with acceptable spelling and grammar (always a plus) and your posts are detailed with your thoughts and ideas.

There is a lot of information in your sidebar and footer. I like the ability to change the font size. I am okay with asides (or Twitters, or whatever you want to call them) and you’re not showing too many, but I would put the blurb about you before the asides. You should put sidebar content in order of importance - if possible, I’d even put the about snippet first or right after the font size changer.

It’s always interesting to me the about details people choose to put in their sidebars. Some people just list of some interests, some people define themselves with descriptive words. You’ve done a bit of both, though I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about the “random words” thing being chosen over an actual paragraph that sums up some basic facts. Some errors - You aren’t “17th” years of age - you’re either “in your 17th year” or “17 years of age.” Your “author” link leads to your blog, the page I’m on, and I’m not sure why.

Your recent posts list does not need to be in the sidebar and the footer. Pick one and stick to it. Your sidebar has too much information, so I’d go with the footer if it’s absolutely necessary. I’d also either nix tags or categories. You don’t need both. (I may be wrong on this. I personally prefer one or the other, though I know a lot of people like to have both. Just stating my opinion, however.) The archives by month also become unnecessary. A simple link to an archives page displaying the available months would suffice.

The subscribe header says “Subscribe2;” is that intentional?

As for the footer, you should open “about_text.txt” file in the theme folder to edit the footer text. The instructions are right there on the footer for everyone to see that you haven’t done that yet.

I also assume that the “Recently Reviewed” content will appear sometime in the future. I saw that you had opened a review website but have not yet performed any reviews.

Zwinkyness

You’re funny! This is surprising since I didn’t really see this sillyness in your blog entries. Perhaps it just wasn’t present in the entries currently on the index, but I hope to see more of it throughout the site. You have a few spelling errors such as “recommand” (you’re commanding me again?) under the “design” heading but instead of going through each one and pointing them out I’ll just recommend a quick spellcheck. It’s clear that your spelling errors are due to typo and lack of proofreading, rather than the inability to spell. :)

I love your “Zwinky Dictionary!” It’s very cute. Just a few things, though -

“I’m going to Zwinky all night long.
This means either: I am going to have sex all night long, I am going to drink (alcohol) all night long or I am going to dance all night long.

First off, this and the one above it are both missing end quotes. Secondly, when using “either” you’re expected to be comparing two things, not three. Use “any” for three, for example:

“I’m going to Zwinky all night long.”
This means any of the following: I am going to have sex all night long; I am going to drink (alcohol) all night long; or I am going to dance all night long.

Your “reviewed by” paragraphs has an error:

Although I uploaded my website to some review website, no review has actually been finished yet.

Either you’re saying you submitted your website to “some review website,” as if to say the name of the one website to which you submitted is not important enough to mention, or you’re saying you submitted your website to some review websites and forgot the S. I’d also recommend linking the words “contact me” to either a contact page or an email address.

I would just like to say that it’s not until I clicked “The Queen” that I realized that there is subnavigation in your sections. It needs to be in a more prominent position, preferably on a shorter sidebar and you may even want to mention on the main page that there is also subnavigation on the right. Otherwise, it’s completely overlooked.

Terms of Service. Don’t assume that everyone has a “red X” in the upper righthand corner of their screen. It may seem trivial to point this out, but it seems silly to have a terms of service if you’re not going to take the effort to be correct with it. Also it seems a bit rash to threaten to ban someone for not following your terms of service - how many people have you really banned? How many people have “broken” your rules for your website? And if it’s that important to include a list of guidelines for “using” the site, why isn’t this linked directly from the first page? Some spelling errors I won’t dive into because, again, I think it’s due more to typoing than misspelling. Just two things to point out:

6. Please restrain from posting links in your comments directing to +18 sites, graphic violence or other sites that may seem inappropriate for a public lets say 13 and up.

should look more similar to:

6. Please restrain from posting links in your comments that direct to 18+ sites, graphic violence, or other sites that may seem inappropriate for ages 13 and up.

Also,

7. This page can be updated whenever I feel like, so be sure to check it every once in a while, suppose anything has been changed. Thank you very much.

would make more sense as:

7. The Terms of Service may be updated whenever I feel like changing it, so be sure to check it every once in a while supposing anything has been changed. Thank you very much.

Your disclaimer is necessary to read, not necessarily to read. You’re submitting your email address (presumably), not your emailadress.

Even though all of your other pages have a nice blurb about the page, your “credits and resources” page does not - makes it look comparatively empty. I’d put something about it there. I know you have some plugins installed but I can’t tell what they are from this page, neither can I tell what anything is on this page. It looks less like a credits/resources list and more like a list of links. It wouldn’t make sense to have two pages with links, so I’m thinking it’s just not formatted in a way that would immediately give away the fact that these people aren’t necessarily friends. You have the right idea going with “Sarah (alittlelessordinary.com)” and “Dive Into Accessibility.” I’d probably suggest making the link titles more like “Dive Into Accessibility (Article)” and “Alittlelessordinary.com (X Plugin).”

Archives

See here, you have your archives page, which renders your sidebar monthly archives links unnecessary.

The Queen

Ah, so I see on this page you do have a list of links in the main content and not just in the sidebar! I’d suggest making this “shortcuts” thing a standard across your website. However, there are some things on your “shortcuts” list that aren’t on your sidebar. You probably want those to have the same links.

I can see by reading this page that you’re very proud of your home (and by the way, I really love the bit about Belgium), you’re funny, you strive to be well-spoken with proper sentence structure (always a plus!), and you really like fantasy books. I hope that’s the impression you were trying to give off because it’s what I’ve gathered!

Browsing further, I wanted to visit the links in the shortcuts that aren’t on the sidebar and I see now why they aren’t on the sidebar - they’re parented by your “about-me” slug, but they aren’t pages that actually exist. Either create them or get rid of the links!

Your “in depth” information just seems to be your results from a bunch of profile/personality pages. That’s fine, but you may want to mention it in a blurb above the quicklinks, because I expected to see something you wrote (and I was a bit impressed that you’d written so much) only to find out I was reading generic statements based on your personality types. Some people don’t like to read those.

Your internet history says that the year 2000 was seven years ago. If you’re not going to update it with every coming year, you may want to reword it. I love that you link your old sites and the website that got you into web design! A lot of people are extremely ashamed of what they’ve done in the past, and of those they’ve admired in the past, and it’s nice to see someone fully willing to admit their building blocks for a change. I do think it’s funny that most of your old sites are on hiatus, though. ;)

I’d just like to say that some reviewers suggest you write more on your “favorites” lists, ie, a sentence or two explaining why you like something, what got you into it, why it’s important that you’re mentioning it, etc etc. I’d just like to say that I like the short, sweet, simple lists displaying what someone likes and letting that be the end of it. Your “personal favorite” page is perfect just the way it is.

The Sims II

The only Sim game I’ve ever played was Sim City 2000 so I can’t give a lot of comment in this area except to say that it looks very empty and you could probably add more. From what I know about Sim players, it’s addictive. Suggestion: Other players may want to see profiles or life stories on your Sims? Your kitchens article is very in depth and it seems helpful. More of those would probably be awesome for your visitors who find this stuff interesting. Also, at the bottom of your Primrose page, it says to “click here” to download the house, but there’s no link.

Sitemap

Simple and to the point, although like with a few of your other pages, it looks empty without a little summary blurb at the top.

Subscribe

No need to have this on the sidebar if you’re going to have a navigation link to it. Look! Another way to reduce the size of your extremely long sidebar. I like the page better because it explains why someone would want to subscribe. As someone who doesn’t enjoy subscribing to things, I find this page to be very convincing… Although once again I see the word “emailadress,” which isn’t actually a word, and it makes me wonder how many other times this has shown up on your website that I’ve overlooked.

404 Page

I submitted an error report form for most of the errors I found (there was one that I closed before I realized I could do that :p) so hopefully you fixed those before this review was posted. You have a lot of options for errors though I’m not sure why the last 10 blog posts are available, especially since the last 5 blog posts are in your footer already. It just seems like a feature that you could implement so you did just for the heck of it. Also, what happened to your sidebar?

Also, in reference to your 404, I’ve just added a new part to all my reviews - 404 pages. It’s a good and a bad thing - good, because you are officially my first 404 page review, bad because the only reason I’ve reviewed it is because I was sent to it by a broken link.

Comprehensive Reflection

Okay! Phew! This is by far my longest content-only review (albeit, it is my only content-only review). You have a TON of content, literally. If I were to put your content into a basket, it would probably overflow and possibly break the basket, because a ton (in weight) is probably too heavy for something made of wheat.

May have been exaggerating there just a bit.

But really, there’s a lot to go through here and even though the Sims sutff is your only real “visitor” content, there’s still a lot to look through as far as site stuff and you stuff goes. By the way, I’m a bit confused now about your Terms of Service. It seems to exist only for your free layouts and giveaways… but where are they? If they’re no longer there, there is no longer a reason for the TOS page.

The only thing that concerns me with your content is that there seems to be a lot more about your website than about you. One could argue that the blog provides enough day-to-day information so that the about content doesn’t need to be so full, but your blog isn’t anywhere near day-to-day. This website strikes me as one that focuses a lot on, well, itself, and less on you.

Overall, a very well thought-out website. I can tell you’ve put a lot of effort into it, but it could definitely survive a spellcheck.