Dropdowns and Spot

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:20 pm

'Bin thinking - 'bout that sampler of Faubs and about that big debate with the Ghastly one and about this, to a lesser extent...

Kisai wrote:And you know what, if WE, as a community picked a new domain name, independant of what Keenspot thinks, there is nothing stopping you from using it.

... and came up with a capital 'T' Thought.

Dropdowns are, basically, an attempt to make Spot-like sub-communities based on genre. Unfortunatly, they do the bare minimum - basically just the dropdown. Why not the whole kit and kaboodle?

Look at Keenspace's website. The Guide link is hidden off the screen, the list of comics it produces is daunting and the first one anyone will click on will be, let's face it, a stick man comic on lined paper scanned at 2400 DPI.

The Keenspot front page is much more the thing. Lovely big graphics, organised list of a manageable number of comics, breif descriptions and so on.

Why can't the dropdowns do that? Make them something more than a simple list. Make them mini-Spots (with, yes, all the work that implies). Concentrate, basically, on a professional and positive presentation of the comics. Add eight page self contained short story samplers for each comic to facilitate quick and casual browsing. Run up a flyer for all members to post at every college, university, library, comic shop and what have you in their area. Get all members to put a link in every forum sig they have for the Dropdown site. Advertise the site on Ghastly's - split it ten ways and suddenly it's cheap, yes? Crossovers, collaboratives... Heck, run up some paying content. (Is that allowed?)

And, of course, if you want to be elitist, the boardies could set up their own and invent a new Keenspot of the really good comics (invite only).

As I said in that huge damned thread, the only difference between Spot and Space is that Spot takes command of it's own destiny. It does this sort of thing and Space doesn't.

- Joel Fagin

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:26 pm

I'm all for taking command of my own destiny, provided I can do it Friday afternoons because that's the only time I don't have class or work. I like the idea, except for the invite part because I wouldn't be invited.
Also isn't eight pages a little much for a short story about a comic. I've been doing comics daily since April and I don't have eight pages of story.

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 6:57 pm

well the genre listing was what the dropdowns were for originally but then a lot of them stopped updating, and the newer dropdowns got more and more specific.. until they have gotten to thier current form.

if you look at some of the older ones they were really pretty broad genres.

the other issue is if you get in try to set up very broad "dropdowns" they get heavy.. you can't have more than what two hundred comics in one dropdown before they start getting a little crazy and load funky?

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:01 pm

So, you mean, something along the lines of:

-I decide to make a community of, say, workplace comics.
-I get an account workplace.keenspot or domain workplace-comics.com or anything that's needed
-Main page links all comics that are part of community, there's a forum for all those comics, a dropdown that rotated all comics in community
-And to keep it l33t, I check every submitted comic to see if it fits my criteria, if I liked it, but all in all to see if it's not a stickfigure comic 2400dpi, or maybe just a comic unrelated to workspace that wants to promote his comic in as much places as he wants.

Hmm. I don't know.
M.E.Charm had an idea of starting such community, and we have our forums on xepher. He planned to do a rotating dropdown too, but he gave up on that. Now that you made me remember that, I might try to do it these days.
I'm very found of that community, probably partly because it includes such great comics as A&I, Star Bored, Feyenne, Purgatory, Ratz comic and newly received Digital War.
but I consider part of that community people who don't have comics there but are still posting there, like K-Dawg, YarpsDat, Superlance...
It's a nice place, really. You reminded me well, I (we) should try to work a bit on it's promotion.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:16 pm

It doesn't have to be a full blown community. How far it goes and what's done with it is entirely up to the individual.* I just think that it should possibly go a little further than a dropdown list box.

I mean, dropdowns are about cross-promotion, yes? So why don't they? Why do they stop with the bare minimum?

- Joel Fagin

* I would consider a seperate community forum to be too far, for myself, and probably pretty pointless to boot. Nevertheless, it does remain an option.

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:40 pm

I think Megs DID mention some thing like that.

And now that I think about it, why aren't we doing it? It is a good idea... I think Kisai said she wouldn't mind it either.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 8:35 pm

I haven't done any decent graphic design for a while so if anyone decides to do this, either with an existing or a new dropdown, I'm willing to cook up a website, logo and what have you.

God knows I need to do something design related. I doodled an entire website I have no use for in Photoshop last night because I was bored.

- Joel Fagin

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:00 pm

Joel Fagin wrote: * I would consider a seperate community forum to be too far, for myself, and probably pretty pointless to boot. Nevertheless, it does remain an option.

Actually, joined forums are more useful than that. A person that checks one of those forum can decide to check other forums of that community too. If someone is regulary visiting some of those forums, he will likely check the others too while he's still there. And authors of those comics will check other forums as well. It's something that is impossible on KS forum board, maybe even of TAc, because of a large number of forums on a list.

AndrewTaylor · Post by **AndrewTaylor** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:28 am

I reckon this is a great idea. Almost makes me wish I was in a Genre, and I reckon since Space stopped giving out forums it would be pretty good to have a number of them together - it would make it feel more like a "community" than a big site with links on.

If enough communities like this spring up, we should make a big "map" of them all - a big imagemap thing maybe with Keenspace at the centre and the communities (and maybe some of the better comics if that's not too elitist) around it, interconnected by little curvy lines denoting similarity. It would be like a webring for the 21st century.

Psiogen · Post by **Psiogen** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 3:13 am

I tried to create one of those a couple years ago, the now-defunct Turbocool. I didn't do a very good job of running it, though...

[edit] God, it still has a typo on the front page.

JexKerome · Post by **JexKerome** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 4:48 am

Sounds to me like the Sundering of the Keen.

Van Douchebag · Post by **Van Douchebag** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:12 am

The problem with that, Joel, is the incredible amount of comics on Keenspace.
You have all sorts of different comics from different walks of the comic world that your dropdown would hafta be at least 50 some to encompass the best Keenspace has to offer. And therin lies the problem - the comics that would be in it would most likely be from the two first pages of the guide list.

A better idea would to have some some automated script that lists the top 50 Keenspace comics on frontpage.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:34 am

JexKerome wrote:Sounds to me like the Sundering of the Keen.

Maybe, but all I'm really advocating is facilitating and expanding the dropdowns and a more pro-active approach in general. Nuttin' wrong with getting more readers.

Van Douchebag wrote:The problem with that, Joel, is the incredible amount of comics on Keenspace.
You have all sorts of different comics from different walks of the comic world that your dropdown would hafta be at least 50 some to encompass the best Keenspace has to offer. And therin lies the problem - the comics that would be in it would most likely be from the two first pages of the guide list.

It sounds like you're talking about the "elite" dropdown. Well, that was half a joke but even if the amount of comics becomes a problem - and, heck, all you have to do is cap it - then it still doesn't matter because the "elite" dropdown can be sub-separated into genre dropdowns. Categorise them on the main page like Spot does and have a selection of dropdowns to match them (possibly with a sub-list of genres at the top) all of which stem from the same homepage.

That's just an idea but, really, it's completely irrelevant anyway. Once you decide to do something, the problems will generally take care of themselves. There's a whole section of your brain dedicated to getting you what you want - you just have to decide that you do.

A better idea would to have some some automated script that lists the top 50 Keenspace comics on frontpage.

Ignoring the problem of the, ah, inappropriate comics in the top fifty, that is a good idea. However, people won't be involved in that - it's just an automatic script on a page they they have no control over for a company that isn't terribly interested. That means there'd be no nice big graphics to help advertise each comic, there'd be no concerted advertising efforts and so on. People won't be trying. They will care more if it is something of their own that they can control and affect.

Basically, it comes down to tapping into the human tribal instincts.

- Joel Fagin

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:49 am

There use to be gigantic dropdowns.. and keenspace outlawed them cause they were to big and took forever to load them, if you look around however, I don't really see much of what is changing.

for example..

Keenspae @ work
Sci-fi Space
Real Likfe
Keen Dungeons
Keenime

which are pretty broad.. then you have sub catagory stuff like

Keens Shift, Bloodspace, Keenai, etc.

I guess I'm missing the point here, as to what you are trying to do here? setting up genres, within keenspace? isn't that a feature on the guide already? in the content section you click on what ya want and it loads up comics with that sort of content...

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 6:09 am

phactorri wrote:I guess I'm missing the point here, as to what you are trying to do here? setting up genres, within keenspace? isn't that a feature on the guide already? in the content section you click on what ya want and it loads up comics with that sort of content...

I want to draw people into Keenspace but we can't do that using the Keenspace URL. The Guide... As I said, massively daunting and of variable quality. Anyone coming through the Keenspace site itself would probably give up and go away before they found something that's both good and something they like. Ergo, we need something else. So, I simply want to take the dropdowns and turn them into something that will actually attract readers and then promote them so they do.

My train of thought, if it helps, went like this...

1. Keenspace needs to be more proactive and do more things like the sampler to attract readers.

2. Hey, how about flyers? Every comic shop and university has notice boards! That's our demographic! Cheap and easy!

3. Wait... You could only do flyers for individual comics because even if they find the link, people will be put off by either the Guide or the first comic they click on in it.

4. Well, obviously we need a Keenspot-like website, something to advertise the good comics in an appealing way.

5. 'Cept Space couldn't do that. It's abitary and unfair. Hmm.

6. Well, we could do a smaller Keenspotish site for the good comics! It'll seem elitist and unfair to outsiders but the idea would be to draw people into Space and we'd need the good comics for that.

7. Nope! Better idea! Link it to the dropdowns. They're already sorted by genre so all that's required is a nice website and the will to do something with it!

8. *For final part of thought train, see first post*

- Joel Fagin

AndrewTaylor · Post by **AndrewTaylor** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:29 am

You don't have to include ALL the KeenSpace comics. Most of them - I'm sure we can all agree - are rubbish. There's a lot with only one or two strips, at least one with zero (I know because they stole my preferred URL), and a lot that just aren't any good. It's to be expected with any free hosting service. Just include the good ones and you have a good site.

If someone was to start a website that listed five or six good comics, and added more as they became aware of them, that would be useful. If the comics listed linked back to it, that would be useful. That way, people could look at the comic, and find similar ones. That would be useful. There would be no obligation to list a comic that fit the main category, but wasn't any good, because it's an independant site that doesn't purport to be impartial. If you started to list poor comics to make things fair your site would become less useful and accordingly less popular. In theory you could include a couple of comics that weren't Spacers - that would depend on how KeenSpace-centric you want the project to be.

All this needs to work is a sensible head (or heads) in charge of each category-site-thing, and there'd be none of the "gigantic dropdown" problems you get with a free-for-all.

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:59 pm

Andrew... I agree with how you see it and I think I was reading it as somthing gigantic, and just "recatagorizing" all of keenspace. If it was somthing where a bunch of us got to gether or somthing it would be helpful.

heck a lot of the facilities of such a thing are already established. As those of us who chat on the forums already link chat/forum buddies. Part of me sees it as elitist... but part of me knows its not just about cause of friends.. cause lets face it people who post on the forum and become regulars with the intent to be part of the keenspace community come to the forums with a commitment to webcomics, and to thier skills and waton to make a quality comic.

so this could work easily, and there are communities out there that do stuff like this.. but a way to orchestrate mini-communites might help and its already heavily established. but looking at some of the communities, does this not ad to a "seperateist" mentality that we want to avoid? And how would the word get out to "fine" webcomics that are not posting on the forums. I know that a lot of people would be promoting it on thier comics, but will we maybe have a newsbox for it? how would we find out about fine comics that might be *caff* hanging out at page nine of the guide.. as somthing like this wouldn't be very benficial if all we are doing is gathering a community of the top fifty comics on keenspace. most of the time, people see all these webcomics anyways.

AndrewTaylor · Post by **AndrewTaylor** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 2:53 pm

Toe KeenSpace Top 50 (or whatever numver you ask for) is done on pageloads, though - this would be just the site organisers giving the comic a once over and if its good including it. If it has single figure readership, who cares - that's what this is for, after all. Comics that are already popular would get less benefit, since they'd effectively be advertising on less popular sites, but those less popular sites would be able to suckle at the collective teet of the more popular ones. That's what community is all about!

I think a good way to try and fight "seperatism" would be to give the communities similar names - like KeenSpot and KeenSpace have (for now) so that you can recognise that they're connected. If it's doable, I for one would like to see a fairly consistent page-layout between the various community sites.

Then if the comics in a community have a link bar of some kind on their sites (such as Spot has) and/or a tag on their newsboxes (say, the bottom 40 rows of pixels and maybe 60 columns on the end of the banners if that leaves enough room) it would feel integrated, hopefully without being too invasive. Of course, a simpler way to get the word out to comic authors would be simply to email them - between everyone in a community, you would know about a lot of the good comics in whatever style said community focuses on, and it wouldn't be much bother to grab an email address as you read the site (if you can find one), and send a mailshot out at the end of the day.

I'm not sure where you could cram a linkbar on most sites, though. Particularly if a comic can belong to two communities - which I don't really see why it couldn't, but there's probably a damn good reason why not.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 3:25 pm

phactorri wrote: but looking at some of the communities, does this not ad to a "seperateist" mentality that we want to avoid?

Yes but, you know, omlettes and eggs and all that. I am a believer in A) drawing in more readers to webcomics and stop recycling the same old ones around and around and B) Keenspace (as a whole) being a bit more proactive about getting readers. We complain that Spot gets all the advantages and that certain comics aren't getting spotted and that Space has a bad rep and so on, but there's no reason Space can't compete directly. The only differences are that we don't get to keep the ad revenue and that we get free hosting. Neither is terribly relevant here.

- Joel Fagin

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:03 pm

viewtopic.php?p=707318#707318
Grr.... Argh.

Somebody needs to snag doombees.com like now and make the communities be subdomains. fantasy.doombees.com, tentacles.doombees.com, workplace.doombees.com, isuck.doombees.com. http://www.doombees.com would be a listing of all the subdomains. It would be a kind of portal or something.

Each subdomain would have its own newbox running only the comics in the community. Each community could put together its own sampler. http://www.doombees.com would describe how to make and print the samplers, how to request/setup new communities, where to find forums, etc. It would need its own forum and preferrably individual forums (if not, just have threads for each) for each community but having all the comics on the same forum would be a little much.

No massive dropdown code to add to the page. All that would be handled in the index.html of the community's home site. The newsbox would graphically plug all the comics in the community and your comic would be more likely to show up. Just make sure to have the newsbox a requirement to belong to the community.

Seriously, though. This could be FAR more than just a dropdown community. The flyers and samplers you mentioned could be just the tip of the iceberg. Has anyone considered community supported printing and merchandise services? Seriously, if you have just two or three members in different countries, reasonably cheap international distribution is a possibility.