The Elite Front Page

[HarryCoupe]

Yo I have a project for University to make a website. So for this project i decided to use speedrunning in general as my topic. So i wanted to research what people would want/need from such a website. Any recommendations would be helpful whether in the thread or on this google form - https://goo.gl/forms/KhAiNnfBUmQKZ4C53

If it turns out well and people would want or use it i might consider hosting it but i doubt it but would appreciate any ideas/feedback on features or just general design preferences for such a website!

[RWG]

Hey man,

I don't want to to bust your plans, but what about making a homepage for the-elite.net instead as your project? If you go to the-elite.net, you'll notice it just redirects to the rankings.  It'd be much better if we had a home page again... a simple landing page, where you could navigate to the rankings, the forum, Discord, some streams, whatever it may be.  You'd be making something practical that we could actually implement right away.

"Speedrunning sites" are a dime a dozen and almost always fail.  I know it's for a university project and you have your vision somewhat set out, but I think you should consider something practical that people are going to absolutely use for sure... and it'd be cool to be able to show your teacher something that is actually getting many daily hits!

(Feel free to ignore this as well as I have no idea what the criteria of evaluation are for your assignment, if this would even fit, etc.)

[HarryCoupe]

Hey goose,
I'd considered this and still would but i need to create 5 separate pages minimum so i'd be happy to work on something like an elite homepage if i had enough content and ideas to use across 5 pages. So i guess if people have ideas for that kind of thing id be happy to put them together and consider it
Thanks for the suggestion

[HarryCoupe]

Bump cause im starting design ideas and stuff so suggestions on features and design would be helpful

[HarryCoupe]

Initial spec i wrote today

[Shadow]

I'd like to have a home page again. Even if just to find the historical statistical things (like longest standing untied). I have to dig through Google to get to them now.

[Icy]

I personally like the PR feed as the homepage. Perhaps include the database website on it under the forum and discord links.

[RWG]

I know it's a troll example to use, but the DonaldJTrump.com website has been looked up to as efficient and clean.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/



Literally all you need, and these are the MAIN, KEY POINTS, MUST HAVES:

- the top bar where it says "rally, news, gallery, about, follow us" should instead read something like "rankings, forum, discord, streams, tutorials" and link to appropriate pages (more on these below.)

- the main image could be something like a screencap of the guys from AGDQ 2015... Gamesdonequick.com actually does this well: https://gamesdonequick.com/

That's literally about all that's needed!

    - could have a second landing page for DISCORD, so clicking DISCORD takes you to another page where it reiterates the main rules right on that page, (before you can actually click to get into DISCORD.)

    - could make a nice landing page for STREAMS, I don't have any ideas in mind for these though... embedding streams I always find to be a bad idea because people don't want unexpected video or audio playing. Perhaps it could go to a page which lists the currently active streams?

    - rankings obviously links to rankings, forum to forum, tutorials to the forum thread about tutorials....

Anyways, hope others chime in with their thoughts... I've always envisioned this as a very, very simple layout that just "introduces" people to the community and directs them where they need to go.

[TheFlash]

I'd like to have a home page again. Even if just to find the historical statistical things (like longest standing untied). I have to dig through Google to get to them now.

These are found from the "Related links" page. The only way to find that page is to scroll all the way to the bottom and look on the bottom right corner. *shrug*

[TheFlash]

Literally all you need, and these are the MAIN, KEY POINTS, MUST HAVES:
    - the top bar should read something like "rankings, forum, discord, streams, tutorials" and link to appropriate pages
    - could have a second landing page for DISCORD
    - could make a nice landing page for STREAMS
    - rankings obviously links to rankings, forum to forum, tutorials to the forum thread about tutorials....

https://www.the-elite.net/

Okay, there's a starting point.
To-do list:

- Streams: use the streams feed from the forum
- Recent: use the PR feed from the rankings
- Highlights: allow board moderators to edit this whenever they wish

Any major objections or suggestions?

[TheFlash]

- Streams: use the streams feed from the forum

Done.

[TheFlash]

- Highlights: allow board moderators to edit this whenever they wish

Done.

[TheFlash]

- Highlights: allow board moderators to edit this whenever they wish

Done.

Goose has agreed to be a moderator of this feed. Jimbo will also have access to it.

[TheFlash]

- Recent: use the PR feed from the rankings

Done.

Okay, should be all set for now. Let's see if we can go a few days without everything blowing up.

[flukey lukey]

im a sucker for a homepage

[sweetener]

wow scott did what i suggested

[Ignominious Sin]

Hey man,

I don't want to to bust your plans, but what about making a homepage for the-elite.net instead as your project? If you go to the-elite.net, you'll notice it just redirects to the rankings.  It'd be much better if we had a home page again... a simple landing page, where you could navigate to the rankings, the forum, Discord, some streams, whatever it may be.  You'd be making something practical that we could actually implement right away.

"Speedrunning sites" are a dime a dozen and almost always fail.  I know it's for a university project and you have your vision somewhat set out, but I think you should consider something practical that people are going to absolutely use for sure... and it'd be cool to be able to show your teacher something that is actually getting many daily hits!

(Feel free to ignore this as well as I have no idea what the criteria of evaluation are for your assignment, if this would even fit, etc.)

Pass him some clout Goose

[wishiwasfamous]

Could we have a link to General Chat below the GE/PD forum links on the front page again, please? I mean it is called the Big 3 plus 1 (not sure what the 1 is). I always have to go through a GE/PD forum to get to GC.

[TheFlash]

Could we have a link to General Chat below the GE/PD forum links on the front page again, please? I mean it is called the Big 3 plus 1 (not sure what the 1 is). I always have to go through a GE/PD forum to get to GC.

The part that says Forums links to just the main part of the forums. I also added one for General Chat directly.

[Slugg Christ]

Please readd the all/points/wr/uwr toggle :'(

[TheFlash]

Please readd the all/points/wr/uwr toggle :'(

That is part of the rankings site for logged-in users, this is a static homepage. Sorry.  If you want to see that, use https://rankings.the-elite.net instead.

[Shadow]

Awesome Flash, thanks!

[wishiwasfamous]

Thank you! 

[Silent Thunder]

Is there a technical reason why the current https://rankings.the-elite.net couldn't be modified to include all of the navigation bar changes and new sections?  It's just extremely jarring to me to click on the rankings section on https://www.the-elite.net/ and have the nav bar change around so much, while still being very similar in look and feel to the old landing page.  I would expect the nav bar to stay the same when moving to different sections of the site, maybe changing only if logged in.    Also, I may have missed it but I don't see any way to get back to the new front page once I'm in the rankings.the-elite.net sections without hitting my back button or having to type the-elite.net again into the browser address bar.

I like the changes that were made, but I just wish they were more seamlessly integrated.

[TheFlash]

Is there a technical reason why the current https://rankings.the-elite.net couldn't be modified to include all of the navigation bar changes and new sections?

No. I wanted to just update that page too, but every time I've suggested it, it has been shut down as nonsense, and we need a "real home page".

In my opinion, the rankings homepage has been serving as a fine homepage for years in absence of a never-updated blog with 2003 web design.  Adding some additional content there should have made it awesome.  I tried starting out by making small changes to the text on that page and was ridiculed publicly by the game's best player.  At this point, I'm too afraid to even so much as touch that sacred page. Just remember, anything positive you try will likely be met by a horde of mad maddies who would rather complain than help out themselves.

Maybe if there was more support.....

[Silent Thunder]

Ah, I see.  I completely understand.

[TheFlash]

Ah, I see.  I completely understand.

I don't want to send a bad feeling so I have to say the sentiment in that post was at least a little bit overboard intentionally.  I wasn't too scared to mess around with a single standalone page at 3am but not brave enough to make the same changes to the rankings homepage at the same time.

Let's see what other suggestions come up for this new homepage in the next few days and then sort out the rankings homepage as well.  It would definitely benefit from the menu bar updates. Whether or not the newsfeed and streamlist belong there, I'm not sure.  Then suddenly we have two pages that are more or less duplicates of each other, and the "the-elite.net" homepage is redundant again.

[Retrix]

I think it'd be awesome to post the tutorials as a link/drop-down/sidebar on the home page.
List all the levels with video links and/or text write-ups, like ParagonX9's and MW's defection write-ups. Really give the newcomer a ton of info to read up on to get them interested. (Yes forums are for that but having content without discussion is still really interesting.) It would be great to have the general tutorials in there too, like how to hold the controller, why we use 1.2 and 2.X, use of dots, how the point system works, etc.
Linking to speedrunwiki pages is one thing, but having some top player bios would be interesting (even if mostly copied from srw). Would be neat to have a "why speedrun?" page, an "about the-elite" page, some history, etc.
I'm super stoked about seeing a home page again. I remember one from way back in 2005. It looked real cool at the time, but I was like no way can I compete with these guys, I haven't even unlocked all the cheats. Maybe by offering the right kind of positive, engaging content, a lot of players who are on the fence about competing will give GE and PD a chance, 20 years later.

But that's my thoughts, and a lot of implementation falls on people actually updating this stuff. The last update I remember was A GoldenEye Odyssey by dsx, which is what put GE in my mind as my next skill-game.

Okay so it seems my ideas are too grounded in earlier net days. The trend these days is simple. The landing page with PRs works. I acknowledge all this and think modern home pages are boring AF.

[TheFlash]

Yeah, there's a line we have to find between adding a lot of stuff and having a ton of old/stale stuff.

By using forum topics and/or SRW pages as "official" links, a wider set of people can easily be tasked with keeping things current.  Making a dedicated page for a guide or profile is going to be seen as more authoritative, but often leads to a 5 year old page that is way out of date and irrelevant.

So my vote would be to use dedicated forum topics for tutorial stuff, they have the highest visibility and lowest barrier to entry for both direct quoted comments and questions. They should be easiest to keep maintained. Maybe even a specific sub forum just for tutorials???

The biggest missing piece to me from the rankings or homepage is something along the lines of "how to join" or "basic rules" that isn't the same as the proof policy. A getting started guide? Not sure on what it would be called.

I don't think we want to bring back a full "blog" but we can DEFINITELY use the "Events and Highlights" type section as a mini blog. When someone makes a cool update post on the forums, we can link it there. Will allow easy comments too.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[TheFlash]

Is there a technical reason why the current https://rankings.the-elite.net couldn't be modified to include all of the navigation bar changes and new sections?  It's just extremely jarring to me to click on the rankings section on https://www.the-elite.net/ and have the nav bar change around so much, while still being very similar in look and feel to the old landing page.

Okay, the 'homepage' and the rankings home now have matching menu bars.

Do we also want to include the same data feeds of streams and the "miniblog" on the rankings homepage? If we do that is there any reason to still have the more or less matching page at www.the-elite.net?

If people want to add tutorial content that's beyond anything I'm going to do. It could be linked from the Events & Highlights miniblog or we could add a link to a special forum section or something like that, but I'm not really taking the lead there as I have no idea where this content is if it even exists.

[Gelonidres]

Okay, the 'homepage' and the rankings home now have matching menu bars.

This caused the highlighting in the menu bar to be incorrect for some pages. All pages that should highlight "Players" highlight "Community", like here. Quickest way to fix that would probably be to just swap them. 

[TheFlash]

Okay, the 'homepage' and the rankings home now have matching menu bars.

This caused the highlighting in the menu bar to be incorrect for some pages. All pages that should highlight "Players" highlight "Community", like here. Quickest way to fix that would probably be to just swap them. 

Code: [Select]

-.active-players #nav5,
-.active-privileged #nav6 {
+.active-players #nav6,
+.active- #nav7 {

Thanks

[HarryCoupe]

Hi im still working on this project either way seeing as i started it.
Is there a way to pull the info for the PR feed onto the website i am producing or would that require being able to access some info and stuff?

[DYM]

Sorry I cannot help you with the above question, but I encourage you to work on your project and hope to see it. Do post your progress from time to time so we can give you feedback. I think the current landing page is frankly speaking, a pile of crap. You can tell it looks like a rushed, not well thought-out page.

[TheFlash]

Hi im still working on this project either way seeing as i started it.
Is there a way to pull the info for the PR feed onto the website i am producing or would that require being able to access some info and stuff?

There's a link at the bottom of the rankings pages to this page, RSS feeds:

https://rankings.the-elite.net/rss

In addition to the listed feeds, there are hidden ones for only times worth points:

https://rankings.the-elite.net/ge-pointprs.rss
https://rankings.the-elite.net/pd-pointprs.rss
https://rankings.the-elite.net/all-pointprs.rss

You can use Javascript on the frontend to read these and form them into a PR feed, or you could read them from the backend and parse in whatever language you're using there.

I use the -pointprs and -wrs ones for the board top feeds in the GE and PD sections.

[HarryCoupe]

Amazing thanks a lot!!

[RWG]

Sorry I cannot help you with the above question, but I encourage you to work on your project and hope to see it. Do post your progress from time to time so we can give you feedback. I think the current landing page is frankly speaking, a pile of crap. You can tell it looks like a rushed, not well thought-out page.

Agreed

It's pretty fucking petty that Scott, after literally 10+ years of not working on the front page, decides to do so at the exact same moment Harry Coupe is motivated to start working on it.  I mean really, how much more pathetic and genuinely autistic can you get?

Reasons like this are why Scott needs to hand over all the keys to the community immediately to Ogran, Jono, Harry Coupe, and other fit individuals, and just leave already.  It actually makes me really mad.  Who does that?

[TheFlash]

Sorry. I can put it back how it was if you don't like it. I just followed your instructions.

[Shadow]

 
In what way does this preclude Harry Coupe designing a home page? Scott took what we had and listened to the actual suggestions found in this thread. It's better than it was, does anyone disagree? Wins for everyone all around.

If Harry Coupe wants to design a better one, he can do so (though it's not certain he would). No loss if he does, no loss if he doesn't and in the meantime, it's better. Why the upset?

[TheFlash]

Yeah. I mean it was just a 10 minute quick project to hold us over until something better comes along but if it is that bad I can undo it in like 45 seconds. No problem either way. Not trying to be an obstructionist here. I will continue to be as open as reasonably possible about whatever work I do on the site to make sure the door is still open for those other guys to contribute in big ways.

[deletedprofile.u]

I don't see how calling people autistic left, right, and center is a reasonable way to produce meaningful progress. Goose, why don't you come up with some suggestions and post them in the thread if you're so inclined?

[TheFlash]

I don't see how calling people autistic left, right, and center is a reasonable way to produce meaningful progress. Goose, why don't you come up with some suggestions and post them in the thread if you're so inclined?

He already did, in fact his suggestions are the core of everything I did.  You can't say he didn't do anything.

[RWG]

I had been suggesting that Scott (or others) do this "little 10 minute project" for about 1+ years now, ever since the main the-elite.net page went down.

I have suggested this MULTIPLE times over the past 1+ years.

Why did no one listen, until someone else (a lesser known, newer member of the community) was willing to do it?  Scott is clearly trying to "show up" Harry Coupe, and it's just atrociously rude and disrespectful.

[deletedprofile.u]

I don't see how calling people autistic left, right, and center is a reasonable way to produce meaningful progress. Goose, why don't you come up with some suggestions and post them in the thread if you're so inclined?

He already did, in fact his suggestions are the core of everything I did.  You can't say he didn't do anything.

I never said he didn't do anything. I'm saying that the suggestions, if they aren't being followed, would be better suited being placed into this topic rather than tossing useless insults at you while you try to make the page better.

[Shadow]

I suspect if Scott really and truly wanted to "show up" someone, he'd put just a tad more effort into it...

[TheFlash]

I truly believe that I have been clear, consistent, and truthful in all my work related to this home page.

I had been suggesting that Scott (or others) do this "little 10 minute project" for about 1+ years now, ever since the main the-elite.net page went down.

I spent a while searching for any posts you made about restoring the homepage but I can't find them.  Not that I'm doubting you, I just wanted to make sure I hadn't promised anything I didn't deliver.  I have heard people talk about restoring it in the past, but the focus has always been on having a blog, some embedded video type stuff, and other content. No one ever took action though.

Why did no one listen, until someone else (a lesser known, newer member of the community) was willing to do it?

I only stepped forward to do it when you specifically requested a very simple page with basic elements that would be easy to put together.  I saw that it would be a beneficial project that I could do with minimal effort that would improve things until something better came along.  This was the first time I had seen real support for a simple landing page rather than something with all the bells and whistles.

Scott is clearly trying to "show up" Harry Coupe, and it's just atrociously rude and disrespectful.

I'm very sorry if I've offended Mr. Coupe.  Again, I'll undo it all if you wish.

Additionally, I had no desire to do this before now out of an abundance of respect for Derek Clark's own vision for the site.  I don't mean to step on Mr. Coupe's toes but I really don't want to step on Derek's.

Here is some communication between me and Derek. At the time the following thread started, our old host was having some major reliability problems. I was not an admin of the old host in any way and had no responsibility for any of the content on that old server, including the rankings and all other sites under the-elite.net.  My only responsibility was the forum which was hosted on a different server.  I volunteered my services to Derek to help him set up at least the rankings site on a different host.

(Prior to this thread there was discussion in early-mid 2015 online and a round table discussion at VA 2015 about redesigning the home page.  No specific tasks were assigned and Derek was still clearly the lead on the project.)

7 December 2015 - Thingy to Derek
What do you want to do about the wordpress blog? If we are happy with just "put up a static page for now, worry about the blog later" we can basically just move over all the content and run away from alpha hosting.

7 December 2015 - Derek to Thingy
WORDPRESS -- I'm OK with a static page for a few days. Honestly, I could get things going with a new WP install pretty quickly. Note: I'm going to fresh install as much as I can... I'll need to retain the WP template files, wp-config.php, and retain posts (as an XML export/import file), but lots of misc data in the DB will be left behind (users, comments, plugins, misc settings from plugins where pharmahax live, misc WP settings).

7 December 2015 - Thingy to Derek
If we install a wordpress to run on the main page, you'll take care of all the config? Sounds fine to me.  I'll get one set up and then you can configure it. When it's ready, we'll do the switch.

11 December 2015 - Thingy to Derek
I installed Wordpress on our new server your request, here are details to get into the web admin interface [....]

19 January 2016 - Thingy to Derek
Jimbo says the-elite.net is down.  I also can't log in to my @the-elite.net email account right now.

21 January 2016 - Derek to Thingy
This was fixed around midnight last night.  I had turned off auto-pay last month, thinking I'd be done with Alpha by (yesterday). It turned off all my services (which included the domain registration) immediatelyafter the due date passed -- no grace period!  Ridiculous.

(Somewhere in here the old hosting plan is abruptly canceled and all content that wasn't backed up is lost.  I think the losses were minimal. The rankings were already transitioned but everything else is just in some kind of zip file backup.)

16 March 2016 - Derek to Thingy
I will take responsibility for restoring WP blog posts and settings but wouldn't mind an assist with a WordPress install. Restoring the site is a pressing matter but I'm dealing with a work deadline that I requires 100% of my attention hereon tonight

16 March 2016 - Thingy to Derek
I'm not really planning on taking care of any of this stuff myself, but I can certainly help you get your server account set up so you can do it.
[...]
See excerpts from 16 Feb:

Send me your public SSH key and I can set up your user account.  If you have a preferred username, send that too.

I installed WordPress for you on 11 December 2015.  It is currently located at https://the-elite.net/blog.  Did you get account details to access this from the web side?

3 April 2016 - Thingy to Derek
Derek,

I have still been getting occasional questions about when or if the main page is coming back. I know you are busy so I have tried not to bother you, but I thought I would step in with just another little prod.  It has been a few months and I am still missing responses from you on several important details.  I'm going to just list the things I am waiting for a response from you on.  All the other information you should need is present in my previous messages.

[...]

16 November 2016 - Derek to Thingy
Scott, how hard would it be to set up a video feed on the home page with filter options (show only 80+, sort by player ranking, show only agent, etc)  If that's something you'd be willing to work on or discuss with minions, I would take the next steps to restore a simple home page with the old banner with sign-in, and links to popular pages -- just a portal as it's always been, keep it simple. We can discuss what platform later.

16 November 2016 - Thingy to Derek
I'm not interested at all in implementing this myself. If someone else wants to do it, I will go out of my way to facilitate.  Guidance, troubleshooting, setup, etc. No problem.

12 February 2017 - Derek to Thingy and Jimbo
Btw guys, I'm looking at Medium.com as an interim platform for the Elite's home page, mainly so we can just blog. No need to integrate it with anything in the near future. Goose's "Lore" videos would be great content... and any of 2016's edited vids would be gems.

12 February 2017 - Thingy to Derek and Jimbo
FYI, Wordpress has been running at the-elite.net/blog since 11 Dec 2015 but no one has done anything with it.

[...]

FYI, as of a few months ago, all HTTP requests to any part of the site now automatically redirect to HTTPS.  So if your test is on http://the-elite.net, it is probably being redirected twice, once to HTTPS then another time to the rankings page.

As you can see from the thread, Derek is very consistently signaling ownership over the home page project over a period of years.  Anything I do to help the site must meet his expectations and I try my very best to not get in his way.  For example, once it was set up the other day, I immediately added his suggestion of Goose's Lore series to the miniblog feed as he had requested a year ago.

I ended up doing at least some of the tasks I said I wasn't interested in helping with, because they were keeping the site from even functioning. Things like setting up the email server, site backups, content from the-elite.net that was specifically requested by users, etc.  Over time I have gotten a little bit more bold with some of my actions such as setting up a special link that goes straight to Discord, revamping the Summer Contest History site and putting it at https://contest.the-elite.net, adding a https://doom64.the-elite.net on request of enthusiastic users who wanted a Doom 64 Elite, restoring the timesplitters site under a subdomain instead of a directory like it was before, things like that.

If you think I've gone too far I can certainly stop doing things like that. I'm not trying to take anything away from anyone, only help.

[Shadow]

 Scott, I don't think you have to apologize or explain anything. I for one am very appreciative of the work you have done and am a bit baffled by Goose's attitude.

[Icy]

You do great work for the community and are very underappreciated, Thingy. Keep doing what you've been doing.

[RWG]

Look, it's a start, and I'm glad to finally see people working on the mainpage.  A simple landing page is more than enough.  I likely wrote about my wishes in Discord, rather than the forum at the time.  Search in Discord for "landing page" and I'm sure you'll find some discussions.

Anyways, while you're at it, could we rename "Leaders" underneath the Goldeneye & Perfect Dark rankings?  These confuse roughly 80-90% of new people who interact with the community over the past 2-3 years.  Something like "WR Count" might be a more appropriate name for these pages.

[AZ]

You do great work for the community and are very underappreciated, Thingy. Keep doing what you've been doing.