Ideas
[Furry Network Webpages | Site Ideas] Furry Network Front Page / Welcome Page
Request:
The conversion of Furry Network site URL (currently beta.furrynetwork.com) from Character Feed to a Homepage or Front Page.
Implementation:
Replace the Furry Network site URL destination with a proper homepage, and move user feed to another URL (user.furrynetwork.com for example [please excuse my lack of technical knowledge]).
Reasoning:
To me, Furry Network feels a bit disorganized, which is I think brought about by the fact that there is no clear frontpage to say:
'Hey! Welcome to our website! Wow, look at the 10 newest submissions, here's some site info and the latest update and details about the upcoming update!'
A front page, in my opinion, would be a huge benefit for everyone.
- It could tell people what the site is all about, and persuade non-members to become members.
- Obviously this would be more helpful after the site is more public
- It would help artists get noticed.
- I honestly don't see any way of gaining followers besides having friends and word of mouth, and I think it's a healthy way to make sure that the site is more of a community than just the most well-known artists that people would think to look up.
- It would unify the site by bringing you a page that everyone sees, with minor user-personal modifications to it to provide a better experience.
I think that having a place that is semi familiar to many people would go far in having more people adopt this site rather than sticking to an alternative simply because the site brings so many new ideas along with an alien layout and just isn't your average artist site.
While I'm not advocating to become just like other sites, there are reasons why dA, Weasyl, FA, InkBunny, and SoFurry have certain similarities, and that's because I think finding something that works and that people understand and tweaking it to perfection is how we get great things.
The front page of Weasyl, for example, being able to request critique and have a Tweet sent with your submission's link from the WeasylCritique account, along with having a submission on the front of the page until it got bumped by newer submissions was probably the single best thing a site could have done for exposure.
I know I talk a lot about exposure, and sure it's something I think everyone needs, it's a great way for me to explore the fandom I love so much and just find really amazing creations by really amazing people.
A better part of discovery comes from when I already have a goal in mind... I have to upload a submission or something, but something on a front page catches my eye and I go on a huge spree of checking out different artists just based on the art that sidetracked me in the first place.
Hopefully this is taken into consideration. I'm all in on this site and genuinely think, once things are a bit more smoothed out, that this could actually be the downfall of FA, especially by making things like Commissions easier and even having a fun system for that purpose.
Answer
I think FN does really well when coinsidering exposure, and even more so after groups become a thing. Instead of giving visiblity by favorites (which would obviouly just make porn visible), it's done with promotes instead - which not only make a piece stand higher on popularity page but also appear in the what's new feed if you're watching the person who promited. I've found quite a few artists like this, way more than I've found over FA in a while.
Good artists will promote other good art, so if you follow them you'll find out more.
When we get groups, they'll be a useful place to get exposure if you're new to the community and know nobody so far, I think promoting unknown art will ultimately be up to groups, not the site admins (they have other things to do!)
I do also think it's a bit awkward that the 'front page' is your inbox, but several other sites do this as well (like twitter). There isn't really much to put on it in the end (submissions have their own really well done area), so all there could be is beginners guide and site updates/announcements. Which could easily be placed elsewhere.
FN is more a community site than plain art gallery - reason why it's not too similar with FA, DA, SF, IB, Weas etc.
And that's a good thing, we have so many plain art gallery sites to choose from already.
Ah yes, this is all very true.
Hopefully groups are implemented soon. :)
The site has undergone some large changes, and the home page currently shows the most recent submissions. At this point, we want people to be able to access what they want a quickly as possible, and a greeting page would likely make this more difficult. We do want new users to be able to gain an audience, though, and we'll be discussing other ways this could be possible.
Customer support service by UserEcho
The site has undergone some large changes, and the home page currently shows the most recent submissions. At this point, we want people to be able to access what they want a quickly as possible, and a greeting page would likely make this more difficult. We do want new users to be able to gain an audience, though, and we'll be discussing other ways this could be possible.