Hey there boppers. 

This is going to be a bit of a ramble. We’re going to have a conversation, only I’m going to do all the talking. (Not entirely true - you’re welcome to talk back to me in the comments. I guess I’m just going to be doing most of the talking upfront.)

I had a Webcomic O’ the Week that I was already to promote here, but I’m not going to promote it today, and here’s why. If you’re been following this comic (and why wouldn’t you?!) and been following our twitter (see above parenthetical) you’ve observed that I try and do a bit of research about the creator(s) of a comic before I post it here and on our twitter. I like complimenting creators by name, and hopefully giving their twitter a little boost. When I tried to do this research on the site the comic was hosted on, I discovered that the site (which doubles as the author’s portfolio) was quite possibly the worst site I have used this week. Links that aren’t actually links, and therefore can’t be right-clicked. Twitter and facebook icons that go to the facebook and twitter pages of the hosting provider the artist is using, rather than the artist. The comic is displayed in this weird gallery thing, and I was genuinely surprised to see the site wasn’t made in flash - that’s what we’re talking here. 

Hopefully you see why I’m not posting that comic, after the web design critique I gave it above. I’ll probably post it in the future, possibly after begging the artist to let us make their site more usable. But, as you can tell from the above, I was filled with righteous web-developer fury. For some reason, I immediately thought of this article about burritos. Please, for all that is good, go read that article all the way down to the end. If you’re not falling over laughing, we’re probably not going to be friends. Sorry. I wanted to link to that piece, as a funny parable of the kind of hipster fury I was feeling, when I noticed the author linked to another piece at the bottom. A piece admonishing people on the internet to take a good hard look at themselves before leaving negative comments on the internet. 

To put it mildly, that article made me “check myself before I riggedy-wrecked myself.” I realized that if I was just ragging on the site I describe above, I was being just the worst. I may have bought myself a tiny bit of goodwill by not actually naming or linking the site, but I’m still kind of being a jerk for the sake of being not-that-funny. (Not as funny as the burrito article, which my God you should go read again.)

So here’s my plea, and my suggestion for improvement: If you’re going to put something online, please make sure every part of it not just works, and not just works in a way that looks cool, but works in a way that will make your visitors happy. They’ll be more likely to link to your work, and not spend way too many words describing why they aren’t. If you’re unsure about how to make your site better, there are people who will help! Some will help for free, just because they want more cool stuff in the world. Get ahold of me and I’ll get you connected.

Thanks for reading this ramble, forgive me for being a jerk, and come back next week for more thrilling adventures of Captain Quail!

Philip