Can I put this here? Will anyone mind?

I personally don't like the flair on the front page that makes it too cluttered. If we don't need the "recent loot" I think that can go. Considering our size, that list should go too fast to be relevant. Anything else that can be done would be great, if this type of commentary is welcome, I can dig further.

Anything that can be done to bring forums more to the forefront would be great IMO. Forums are where we are going to be putting original content.

What flair are you talking about?

I'm considering removing the 'Recent Loot' widget in favour of the 'Recent Raids' one; both link to the same data, they just present it differently. That said, if Botany Club is the only group that uses the Raid Tracker, it's sort of a moot point.

I feel like you're prrrooobably overestimating the amount of original content (?) that's going to wind up on the forums. If people use them a whole bunch, that's fantastic and to be encouraged, but I think (and hope!) that usage of the site will focus just as much on the other utilities on offer - public scheduling, photo albums, loot tracking, social interaction by way of the site feed, etc.

Just a little logo I thought you guys might like. I'm no graphic designer by any means, just messing around with paint and such.

I'm considering removing the 'Recent Loot' widget in favour of the 'Recent Raids' one; both link to the same data, they just present it differently. That said, if Botany Club is the only group that uses the Raid Tracker, it's sort of a moot point.Ada Prowbreaker

Well BBB hasn't been using the Raid Tracker because we haven't been raiding (and all our gear progression has been free-lot on alts anyway), so we've actually given up on tracking our loot (which we used to do).

I feel as though once people start running T6-9, it'll be much more useful to us and other groups.

I feel like you're prrrooobably overestimating the amount of original content (?) that's going to wind up on the forums. If people use them a whole bunch, that's fantastic and to be encouraged, but I think (and hope!) that usage of the site will focus just as much on the other utilities on offer - public scheduling, photo albums, loot tracking, social interaction by way of the site feed, etc.Ada Prowbreaker

Obviously I hope you're wrong; we have had a lot of people using the forums now, whereas almost no one used to before.

We also need a place to store our essay-like content (e.g. guides); I don't really want to put that in 'the forums', but that might end up being the case anyway. The problem with that is that there tend to be comments, and the comments tend to be outdated once the guide is updated, and it's difficult to tell where relevant commentary starts.

As for the widgets that Marc is complaining about, it might be too much but we actually don't know. If people don't see the functionality, they won't use it, so I think it's important to have it there (as it is at the moment) so that people who want to use it can. If it turns out no one does, then we could feature it less prominently or remove it altogether.

Yeah, AStacy's Mom is starting to use the tracker now as well, so hopefully it'll catch on!

As far as guides, there are always wiki pages, which you could link to from the relevant forum, and which you could compile into a central list linked from the main navigation. That said, everything would still have to be linked by hand, so I don't know that wiki pages necessarily offer any particular advantage over forum posts (and perhaps even a disadvantage, since wiki page creation/editing is restricted atm).

I think we're just at the edge of 'too much' on the front page. There's nothing else I'd want to add, and in a few weeks I'm planning to remove the 'PSA' box, so there's that. Possibly the fact that there's a bunch of widgets with information displayed in divs of alternating colours is adding to the clutter; I'll see if I can't simplify that a little without making the information too hard to read.

I wanted to leave this be and see how things went before I commented further. So some more detailed thoughts.

I don't full-screen my web browser, with the guildwork header, the logo and the widgets, I have to scroll down to see anything but the last "featured" post (sorry, I'm not digging too much into the actual widgets) aka the Momoko item about the patch.

The raid calendar and the recent raids is pretty much the same info, both that I don't find useful (personal opinion of course.)
We have two widgets showing recently obtained loot (Recent loot, FC feed), I don't find this useful.
Mumble status, that doesn't change.

Then we have the useful stuff wedged in the middle and bottom.

Regarding original content: That's what the site is being used for. Screenshots, raid results (whatever the teams decide to post) and conversations. I personally hope to use the forums for strategies that I write.

Regarding a hub for FFXIV info: There are many that already exist, lodestone, reddit, BG.com. I'm just not sure that I plan to do anything more than discuss/plan/mess about here.

I feel like an old person yelling about my lawn, but, I very much like the bulletin board style with the forums front and center.

And a last comment, these are just thoughts, I don't really have too much of an issue and don't mean to do anything more than provide feedback.

Edit: I feel like I should also say, Thank you Ada, regardless of any of these comments, the site is great and much better than the old one.

Mmmyeah, I definitely see where you're coming from, but a lot of that comes down to the way the site is being used (or not used) at the moment. A lot of that information shouldn't technically be redundant - but it is right now, because only certain people are using the features, and only for certain purposes.

For example: the calendar isn't a raid calendar, it's just… a calendar. It's (theoretically) useful if I'm wondering, "Hey, what days are Bloodbath running this week?", but it's also (theoretically) useful for seeing upcoming FC events, buff schedules, housing meetings, map parties, and… well, pretty much anything people want to use it to schedule.

Meanwhile, the 'Recent Raids' widget is just a record of recent endgame activity, which I put in both because it's nice to show any prospective Espers that we have an active endgame community with multiple statics raiding throughout the week, and because a lot of folks in our current statics are specifically interested in tracking each others' progress (hence the Recent Loot widget too, which is raid drops only).

All that functionality, though, is dependent on people actually using said features. If only raid groups ever bother to use the calendar, or if only one or two statics ever bother to use the raid tracker, then having them on the front page will be a waste of space for sure.

Likewise the 'FC Feed' widget, to some extent. It's not actually just a loot tracker; it also displays recent leveling progress, achievements earned, new site members, etc (you can see the full feed here). It's just loot/item-heavy at the moment, because as people sign up and link their character from the Lodestone, the feed thinks any item it doesn't already have associated with that character is newly-obtained, and updates accordingly. But if only a fraction of Espers actually register on the website, then the feed will only ever track the progress of a small amount of characters, and it becomes not so interesting.

TL;DR, my goal is to have a good mix of gear/raiding- and community-oriented stuff on the front page, such that if you took a screenshot of it at any given moment, it would be a summary of 'what's new and what's happening in Espers United'. But, the usefulness of any of that content depends entirely on the willingness of said raiders and community to use those tools, which is something I don't think we'll really be able to gauge until the dust settles after 2.2.

One thing I can do though, independently of 'wait and see which features people actually use/care about', is play around with alternate styling for reduced viewports, such that if you're using a small/mobile browser window, only particular elements (e.g. agenda, recent posts, site feed) are displayed.

You are a Lady and a Scholar.