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developer|web

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Hi

We just started in October. We need authors, freelancers and others interested in creating a developer community. We have no real ambition, or direction, so it can morph into whatever you like.

This site is focused on SA.

At the moment we are thinking of
  • articles
  • news
  • code samples
  • freelancers
  • projects

We want diverse articles, from git to node, c# to python, to bleeding edge ec6. We want to create a little network of people who can teach others, a freelancer database where jobs can find you, and much more.

We are against advertising in massive full spreads, we will only have a few text ads and a few unassuming boxes. That should be enough. the ads will also only be web related.. I dont think anyone wants get a loan ads and rubbish

if the site picks up, we will build an app for that, add forum and anything else the community needs.

we are looking to create a committee that will oversea things and make democratic decisions on where it goes.

please join us on irc freenode ##developerwebza
contact us through the site developer.web.za
we are on twitter - @developerweb_za and @webdeveloper_za

We would welcome your support.
 
I have some suggestions (these are my opinion):

Getting people to write for you
  • Advertise on the site and in articles, but non-obtrusively.
  • Pay writers a commission for their articles based on how many hits/comments/shares/etc. the post article. Don't pay them peanuts -- it's their content, not yours. I'd say 60% or higher.

The site
  • The site is a bit difficult to navigate. Add better breadcrumb navigation to the tops of articles.
  • Clicking the logo should take you to the home page.
  • You suggested that writers use h1-h4 tags. Do not use more than one h1 tag per page (for the article title). Nearly all SEO specialists state this.
  • There are a few elements on different pages that look a bit misaligned.
  • Clicking anywhere on an excerpt on the list of posts should take you to the article, in my opinion -- or at the very least also the thumbnail.
  • The data that becomes visible when hovering over a post should be there initially. Hovering should maybe just change the colour.
  • The hover effect on said articles ^ should be on div.content not the article tags. You also don't need to use javascript to do this. CSS can do it with less of an overhead.

Other:
You should try focus on a niche that makes the site worthwhile to visit. I'd say focus on South Africa -- the lives of developers in South Africa, how they work, what their jobs entail, etc. It focuses on a smaller audience who is interested in a different perspective of web development.
 
Thanks

Thanks for your comments. appreciate it.

giggity said:
I have some suggestions (these are my opinion):

Getting people to write for you
  • Advertise on the site and in articles, but non-obtrusively.
  • Pay writers a commission for their articles based on how many hits/comments/shares/etc. the post article. Don't pay them peanuts -- it's their content, not yours. I'd say 60% or higher.

The site
  • The site is a bit difficult to navigate. Add better breadcrumb navigation to the tops of articles.
  • Clicking the logo should take you to the home page.
  • You suggested that writers use h1-h4 tags. Do not use more than one h1 tag per page (for the article title). Nearly all SEO specialists state this.
  • There are a few elements on different pages that look a bit misaligned.
  • Clicking anywhere on an excerpt on the list of posts should take you to the article, in my opinion -- or at the very least also the thumbnail.
  • The data that becomes visible when hovering over a post should be there initially. Hovering should maybe just change the colour.
  • The hover effect on said articles ^ should be on div.content not the article tags. You also don't need to use javascript to do this. CSS can do it with less of an overhead.

Other:
You should try focus on a niche that makes the site worthwhile to visit. I'd say focus on South Africa -- the lives of developers in South Africa, how they work, what their jobs entail, etc. It focuses on a smaller audience who is interested in a different perspective of web development.
Click to expand...
 
It feels like the content on the homepage needs some right padding or not be justified.
I'm struggling to read it a little but it could just be me ..

Else nice site.
 
rward said:
It feels like the content on the homepage needs some right padding or not be justified.
I'm struggling to read it a little but it could just be me ..

Else nice site.
Click to expand...

I would like to repair it, if its a problem for you, it may be for others as well.
it would be really kind of you to tell me
What browser are you using? desktop or phone?
and possibly a screenshot if it shows the problem?
 
Strange - it looks better now .. but the css appears the same..
meh - nevermind..
 
I do like what you've done here - it's not a bad design-concept at all. However, there are some things I feel need to be pointed out.

Article Category Header Blocks
These three colour-blocks that flip around on hover need some work. Firstly, when they flip, their height changes, which is inconsistent with what would be expected. I also feel that they are simply too large, and should not be flip cards in the first place. They should be simple blocks that display the flip-side only, and a list of the three most recent articles for each.

Site Header
This could also do with some work. For the most part, a formal logo that uses a nice font would improve the design considerable. I'd also make that header shorter and create a nice drop-down menu system for the categories and other sitelinks. The three colour-buttons at the top left should go - feels like they're too far away to be used, if you know what I mean.

Responsiveness
It appears that the responsiveness of the site is not well thought-out. I think the main thing here is that the text is justified, including article headings. Resize your browser or use a mobile-emulator (like the one found in Chrome Developer Tools) to see what I mean.

Code Blocks
The code blocks appear to be using an old-school plugin for syntax highlighting. Unfortunately, the line spacing is too small, and the contrast is a tad too high - this makes it difficult to look at the code. As an alternative, have a look at the Laravel documentation to see how easy it is to read the code.

Footer
Lastly, the footer links shouldn't be blue - make them light grey, or even white. To a certain degree, they are difficult to readscan through.
 
Update on feedback

thanks for those who commented!
We have made changes based on the feedback.

Not all feedback made it into this new update, a priority list was done, but I hope you can see some of your comments really went through. :)

giggity mentioned authors and payment and ownership of content and all sorts.. I thought, I would just clarify something, as those who read it, may think we are trying to get money or something..

here is the skinny (if you care :) )

Today, the site is only 12 days old.
It is far too early to be deciding on financial gain.
We seek authors, who want to write, to put something online, and contribute to helping others.
You can use it to list yourself, get some back-links, and make yourself a writing star.

I had no where to write 15 years ago, so I was published overseas. I think we should have our own stuff here as well.
a site, where I can find the word 'braai'

We are not a 'startup' in the modern web company, silicon valley (or silicon cape), sense.
We are not looking for funding, finance or to make money from the site. ( not glamorous, trust me)

Everything published (unless marked), is developer|web content. (we dont want legal and copyright nonsense to have to deal with.) We also dont want to deal with invoices, and payments etc. This is an academic exercise for learning and sharing, not an administrative form filling, invoice processing, debt collecting mine-field!
I already have work for that.

We are not ruling anything out in the long term, but for now:
This is a free resource, there is no money given, NOR taken, and we are definitely not focused on that.

Freelancers are listed free, projects (coming soon), will be listed free.

We hope freelancers and clients will have another channel to find each other (we will never charge for this).

we will be bringing tshirts and a few ads here and there, which will go to running the server (if anything is ever earned), after that we can decide what to do. Those who join us, help create the community will never be forgotten, we will be throwing job titles around like its no bodies business :)
 
developer|web said:
stuff about payments
Click to expand...

I can agree with that for now. If the site becomes highly profitable, however, it's another story ;)

I think that the credit given for writing articles alone should help bring authors. It's essentially advertising, but people don't hate you, and they know that you know your stuff.
 
developer|web said:
We have made changes based on the feedback.

Not all feedback made it into this new update, a priority list was done, but I hope you can see some of your comments really went through. :)
Click to expand...

Great stuff - site is starting to look a little better. Will be watching out for future updates, and will make any recommendations as you go along.

Good luck! :)
 
Great Idea will definitely support it :D.

Suggestion
Add a search option to search articles based on the language you interested in eg search HTML and all HTML related articles come up.
 
thanks..
Seach, is a feature coming soon.
In the meantime, we also added tags, so you can click on html, advanced to see articles tagged as such.
 
There is one other thing that is quite irritating. When you hover over an article (whether in the article listing or the article itself), the background colour changes to white. From experience, that behaviour should not be present at all. People click on headings when they want to see an article, and so only the article heading should change colour once hovered over.

Oh, and I think that text-justification is not necessary. Whilst it does speed up reading, text-justification should really only be used in digital/printed publications, with the exception of the few sites that require it.
 
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