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Perspective on SoFurry
16 years ago
I swore I'd never make another FA journal post, but I figured I'd use it to share a bit of information on SoFurry (formerly Yiffstar) from my perspective. For those who aren't familiar with me or my career, I'm a professional web developer, and some of my past projects have included sites like Sofurry; complex, custom sites with social components and large audiences. So, in light of all the "omg yiffstar sucks now!" posts I've seen today, I wanted to share a few things.
First off, I wholeheartedly agree that the site leaves much to be desired. I could list my specific gripes, but most of them are shared by others, and that's not the point of this post. Needless to say, you won't hear me defending the site's problems, except to say that had they delayed launch by about a month, most of the issues people are complaining about wouldn't have been issues.
However, what makes Sofurry different from most other furry website projects is the presence of organization, and a pretty decent system for soliciting and addressing user feedback. Those two things alone can't make a site better, but having seen the difference between organized development and "Hey, let's make a website today!" (*glares at FA*), I'm willing to give Sofurry the benefit of the doubt, and I recommend others do the same. Yeah, they launched prematurely, and yeah, there are a lot of glaring issues, but they've also built a brand-new platform, and those are never smooth or easy to set up. So, if you had a negative first impression of Sofurry (as I imagine most people did), come back to it in a month or three and check it out again, as I'll be doing. It could still be a broken heap in that time, but it could be properly set up and working smoothly by then, too.
Also, if you can explain your complaints about the site more specifically than "it sucks" or "the old site was better", I highly recommend getting on the issue tracker at http://www.yiffstar.com/mantis/ to submit a bug report or feature request. Posting about it on the forums or on Twitter is ok for conversation, but when the developers sit down to work on the site, their to-do list for the day/evening/weekend/whatever will come almost exclusively from the issue tracker. That's the whole point of having one, to coordinate the development efforts of the site and keep track of what needs to be done. And, anything not in the issue tracker isn't likely to get done in the next year, if ever.
So yeah, they screwed up, but the new site has potential, and there's a chance they can still salvage this. I'm not saying to stop complaining about it (err, well, I kinda am), I'm just recommending doing something about it and helping the site's developers fix it, since they're actually listening and trying.
First off, I wholeheartedly agree that the site leaves much to be desired. I could list my specific gripes, but most of them are shared by others, and that's not the point of this post. Needless to say, you won't hear me defending the site's problems, except to say that had they delayed launch by about a month, most of the issues people are complaining about wouldn't have been issues.
However, what makes Sofurry different from most other furry website projects is the presence of organization, and a pretty decent system for soliciting and addressing user feedback. Those two things alone can't make a site better, but having seen the difference between organized development and "Hey, let's make a website today!" (*glares at FA*), I'm willing to give Sofurry the benefit of the doubt, and I recommend others do the same. Yeah, they launched prematurely, and yeah, there are a lot of glaring issues, but they've also built a brand-new platform, and those are never smooth or easy to set up. So, if you had a negative first impression of Sofurry (as I imagine most people did), come back to it in a month or three and check it out again, as I'll be doing. It could still be a broken heap in that time, but it could be properly set up and working smoothly by then, too.
Also, if you can explain your complaints about the site more specifically than "it sucks" or "the old site was better", I highly recommend getting on the issue tracker at http://www.yiffstar.com/mantis/ to submit a bug report or feature request. Posting about it on the forums or on Twitter is ok for conversation, but when the developers sit down to work on the site, their to-do list for the day/evening/weekend/whatever will come almost exclusively from the issue tracker. That's the whole point of having one, to coordinate the development efforts of the site and keep track of what needs to be done. And, anything not in the issue tracker isn't likely to get done in the next year, if ever.
So yeah, they screwed up, but the new site has potential, and there's a chance they can still salvage this. I'm not saying to stop complaining about it (err, well, I kinda am), I'm just recommending doing something about it and helping the site's developers fix it, since they're actually listening and trying.
And FA was not ready for launch when it launched, or even in a state to be launched in both major launches. There's a lot more history into that which I can't go into, but let's just say FA was forced to launch in the state it was in and it wasn't exactly something we wanted.
And you really don't want me to get into what I don't like about FA beyond this, it's not really part of this post anyway. Let's just say that, on a professional level, I wouldn't trust y'all to build a Geocities page well, and leave it at that.
Thanks for stopping by, and Merry Christmas
You've got it right. The site never should have been launched in this state. This isn't even beta code, it's alpha at best. They aren't going to fix it overnight, and they will be alienating both their existing userbase and any potential new users until it is fixed. Very bad move, I'd say.
The interface is incomprehensibly busy, in my opinion. It is also incredibly slow, probably due to graphics and scripting density. Makes FA look zippy, and I find that FA is on the raw edge of what I want to use with any regularity.