What SHOULD a fansite look like now?

[Kame-Sen'nin]

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating my own fansite recently. Yes, I know that this may sound crazy. After all, with the proliferation of informative sites, wikis, and online communities, creating a fansite does seem to be more of a relic of the past.

However, I do have several interesting pieces in my collection that I’d like to share information about, and a fansite seems like a fun project. Of course, that leads me to my question—what should a fansite look like now? We discussed what fansites tend to be in this thread, but I’d like to hear people’s opinions of what it SHOULD be.

Maybe you think a fansite should be reminiscent of an old Geocities page. Maybe you think it should be a blog. Maybe you think it should be a website with modern styling. Maybe you think it shouldn’t exist, and that posting the information in forums, on YouTube, or other platforms is a perfectly viable solution.

Whatever your opinion is, I’d love to hear it!

[SteveH]

Well, basics, right?

Clean, simple design, layout, navigation. Don't get cute with fonts, non-intuitive links, or overly 'thick' backgrounds that take forever to load.

No autoplay anything. Ever. Always give control to the viewer.

Think global. Don't isolate by using bleeding edge HTML (that might not be supported by various OS versions), keep as far away from Flash and Java as you can.

Don't be OS specific. Specifically, don't be Windows. HTML is SUPPOSED to be something that can be viewed by ANY system, hooking it up via MS specific codec crap defeats the intent.

Be mindful that for good or bad the world is moving to 'mobile' systems, so layout should be smartphone friendly and 100% accessible.

Reasonable thumbnails always. Good enough to be able to see whatever. Click to expand should be available.

Context context context. Hopefully you'll explain WHY you have the item, what meaning it may have to you personally, if not a broader historical background.

Understand that you do this for yourself. Do not get hung up on NEEDING page views or outside praise. You will toil long and hard in the fields for very little 'profit' (in terms of the ego boost of strangers telling you how wonderful you are for this) so you'd better be OK with that.

How's that for a starting point?

[Kame-Sen'nin]

Pretty much my exact thoughts Steve; I guess that means I'm on the right track.

Beyond the specific content I have in mind, are there any fansite staples that should be present? Though pages filled with animated gifs and fan art sections seem to be relics of the past, I do want to preserve the spirit of those old sites. Any suggestions on how to achieve this?

[SteveH]

Seems to me fanart is eternal. As relevant now as it was way back in the stone age.

I mean, I wouldn't consider intentionally degrading the image so it looks like a low-rez GIF transmitted on a 36k modem. I would imagine some kind of watermark, even if it was something that could be cut out, a corner 'bug' if you will, would be a good idea. Someone wants to steal your work, they'll find a way to remove ANYTHING you do anyway, so the point would be to not 'mangle' the image with a honking big mark. You'll be able to tell if your stuff suddenly starts showing up like some doofus trying to 'front' they were there in the '90s, mannnn.

There are lots of ways to organize this sort of thing. Pity I've never bothered to take the plunge but so much of the mechanics are beyond me. Plus I just don't have the energy anymore. What you could do is maybe take people on a journey, your personal voyage of discovery. The 'catalyst' anime, the one that took you out of being just a dude watching TV to becoming obsessed, to hunting down stuff, discovering stuff, how one thing led to another thing, the contacts, what you read, where you went, the tangle of threads that lead to right now.

Example. 1979 I was part of a local Star Trek club. I had been president, I had been part of a team that put a 'zine together, we all had been very excited by Star Wars, we loved Star Trek, we thought Space: 1999 was OK and Battlestar Galactica had taken over some clubs. I had plans for running a convention and by Sept. we were counting down to the December 7th launch of both the con and Star Trek The Motion Picture. As I slogged thru film school at the local college, I found myself enjoying some cartoons on local TV, Speed Racer and the recent Battle of the Planets. Then a new UHF station started to promote their fall new shows and here was this thing called Star Blazers. I watched it and became forever hooked. That's step one.

Step two, noticing the end credits. Star Blazers was, as far as I can tell, the very first 'Japanese Transplant' cartoon that openly and boldly acknowledged that fact, that simple card: "Originally produced in Japan by Yoshinobu Nishizaki as Space Cruiser Yamato". It was the third title card in the end credits, that's a significant place when it comes to that sort of thing. So here I knew it was something special, something interesting.

Step three, that Spring 1980 issue of Fanfare Magazine, one of many 'pro 'zine' out then talking about comics and pop culture, with Captain Harlock (promo image from the first GE 999 movie) boldly on the cover, and hey I recognize that style! Fred Patten blew my mind with his expose on 'Japanimation', because not only did he let me know there was STUFF that could be bought, but so MANY interesting shows! And there, on the page, the picture of the cover of a record album...

(Music is a very important part of my life and enjoyment of a movie or TV series. The music of Star Blazers nee Yamato was a big part of what got me hooked)

Step four, a friend in the Star Trek club happened to be a soundtrack LP collector, and he knew of a place that got imports from Japan. The catalog he gave me just happened, JUST HAPPENED RIGHT THEN, RIGHT THERE to have a copy of Symphonic Suite Yamato in stock. I was broke, no job, but I managed to somehow beg my folks to allow me to use the credit card and order it. I doubt anything can match that moment when I first dropped the needle on the vinyl. And so my downfall (or would it be my salvation?) was begun.

See? That's just me blathering. Imagine what you could do if you set your mind to it.

[Drew_Sutton]

Maybe you think a fansite should be reminiscent of an old Geocities page. Maybe you think it should be a blog. Maybe you think it should be a website with modern styling. Maybe you think it shouldn’t exist, and that posting the information in forums, on YouTube, or other platforms is a perfectly viable solution.

Whatever your opinion is, I’d love to hear it!

Sort of like what I posted in the other thread, there are ways to make an "old school" fansite, using a combination of several modern platforms that are most frequented - a simple index page for a home with a wordpress/typepad for lots of text and some graphics (blogging, essentially) and tumblr for your image/media galleries.

Lots of fandom has moved to tumblr now because of so many easy features; however, to me, I haven't seen stock tumblr that does well with long form writing. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though and I am just being grumpy.

I think fansites still have a purpose and maybe just more what I am interested in, but I prefer the blog format more because I'd rather see what people see in a given media, rather that just an "I LIKE THIS" statement.

[usamimi]

Sort of like what I posted in the other thread, there are ways to make an "old school" fansite, using a combination of several modern platforms that are most frequented - a simple index page for a home with a wordpress/typepad for lots of text and some graphics (blogging, essentially) and tumblr for your image/media galleries.

Lots of fandom has moved to tumblr now because of so many easy features; however, to me, I haven't seen stock tumblr that does well with long form writing. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though and I am just being grumpy.

I think fansites still have a purpose and maybe just more what I am interested in, but I prefer the blog format more because I'd rather see what people see in a given media, rather that just an "I LIKE THIS" statement.

I think that's a pretty good idea--having an index page that branches off to something that is more of a long-form blog, with a tumblr for images or whatnot. It's hard to think what a modern fansite would entail for me sometimes, because we def. don't use the internet the same way anymore...so when you need to find information on something media-related, your first instinct is usually to just look up whatever it is on Wikipedia, or if it's images, just do a Google Image Search or look through tags on Tumblr. I don't even know if the concept of a fansite is even something younger people even know about--unless it makes them think of themed blogs, Tumblrs, Twitters, or...heaven forbid, Facebook Groups.

Because of this, I would keep in mind how your site looks on mobile or tablet when designing it, too. So many people use their phones and devices to browse things now, so if it looks like a mess that way, they may not come back.

I do agree that even though I use tumblr to heavily promote my stuff (or other people's stuff I like), as a long-form platform it's pretty frustrating. A friend of mine recently discovered https://neocities.org/, which looks to be someone's attempt at reviving the Geocities feel, which is kinda neat! I'd love it if that kinda took off and people started making their own crazy websites again, but that just might be a weird leftover pang of nostalgia for those old 90s homepages? lol

[Drew_Sutton]

at NeoCities! That's fantastic!

But good points about designing/developing not just for web browsers but compatibility for multiple devices (phones, tablets, etc). Trying to get the best compatibility with multiple browsers has been a mainstay of web development for a long time (I remember reading about it when I studied web design in the late 1990s) but multiple devices is something, too, to consider in a design.

[SteveH]

I think of all the things in designing a web site, designing for the limitations of smart phones and tablets is probably the single most important aspect.

Lean, fast loading, don't clutter the page with ads and tracking crap and moving junk and auto play whatever. If you wish to catch the attention of the 'mayfly media' generation it should be impactful.

Stop me before I use words like synergy and going forward and the like.

[_D_]

My bud has convinced me to put up a Wordpress Blog and will host it on his server. I still need a good scanner among other things. Missed out on an Epson v500 for under $120 on Ebay today. Wong time o the month o such a purchase. Still looking...