PlanetCatfish.com

It took me FOREVER to find out how to contact you, and then it took FOREVER to find the link to register, and when I found it the link was broken!! I finally had to go to the site map just to be able to register, just to be able to ask a simple question!! Which is this...do you sell fish????? I did not see a stock shop button on your homepage. Site looks great but is not user-friendly at all!!

and when I found it the link was broken!!

You just happen to catch us when the FAX are being revamped

do you sell fish?????

No

Private sales are here http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=23

The register link is at the top right of every page that you require to be registered to interact with. The link in the FAQ is broken, and we're actually in the process of working through all that, however, as you don't need to register to read the site, I don't understand why you needed to register to find out if we directly sell fish or not.

I'll post again when the FAQ review is finished.

Jools

I needed it to ask a question!

relax dude
using all caps and so many exclamation marks is considered shouting and hence bad form

the Tinkering Men In Kilts are working their behinds off to get the show back on the road, no worries

First of all, I'm not a dude. And I never used all caps. Exclamation marks signal not only "shouting," they can also signal frustration, which I was definitely feeling because your website is poorly designed. (Speaking of bad form!!) I could not understand why Jools asked me why I had to register. That was the only way to contact you to ask a question!! If you could just put a "Contact Us" button on your website, like every other website on the internet, this conversation would never have happened. Just a thought.

I've always found this site very easy to navigate, and hands down the best resource on the internet for info regarding catfish. Maybe it's just YOU and your comprehension of the internet that's lacking(not to mention you manners). David

PlecoPlanet wrote: And I never used all caps.

The title of the thread... WEBSITE IS HARD TO USE!!!!!!

PlecoPlanet wrote:First of all, I'm not a dude. And I never used all caps. Exclamation marks signal not only "shouting," they can also signal frustration, which I was definitely feeling because your website is poorly designed. (Speaking of bad form!!) I could not understand why Jools asked me why I had to register. That was the only way to contact you to ask a question!! If you could just put a "Contact Us" button on your website, like every other website on the internet, this conversation would never have happened. Just a thought.

Maybe there is no contact us button because this is not a store and there is really no need to contact Jools. Anything you need can be found on the site and if not then can be asked in the forums. The search feature works quite well you may find.

Way to go, Jools
website/forum's not only up and running, but the purple version is also back on

neat job!

as for this person, let me retort:

Exclamation marks signal not only "shouting," they can also signal frustration, which I was definitely feeling because your website is poorly designed. .

let me bring out an old but still highly accurate form, it's called "netiquette".
this translates to an ancient Code (like the Pirates Code) for behaviour on the internet.
frustration doesn't come up, but the use of caps and the use of more than 1 exclamation mark in a row do: they are both considered shouting as well as a displasy of bad manners.

Furthermore, design of a website never is a personal attack, wether it's well or badly designed. it just is.
and let me extrapolite a bit here:
literally thousands of users find Planet Catfish to be THE number one website on catfishes around the world.
it's also run on a template of the latest phpBB forum software as well as the latest most up to date webdesign.
on the homepage there are little buttons to go to ANY part of it.
the Cat-e-Log, the catfish-of-the-month archive, the book sections, the FAQ, the forum, the pictures, the L/LDA archives etc: ALL can be directly entered through the homepage.

poorly designed? we (just a few tens of thousand users) beg to differ!

I could not understand why Jools asked me why I had to register. That was the only way to contact you to ask a question!!

to use the site, registration is NOT required. a website serch or just using the buttons on the upper display would answer a LOT of questions, but then.....
even to search the entire forum, registration is NOT required.
this is not the case on many other forums, where you must registrate to use the search function or to view certain parts of said forum.
Planetcatfish is fairly unique: when NOT logged in, ANY part of the forum is perfectly visible........


I can only come to these conclusions:
first: you barge in without a proper introduction of yourself on the forum. not required, but lack of manners all the same.
this is bad form

second: your first post has a title spelled in full caps with many exclamation marks.
this is bad form

third: you yell about "poorly designed", while the main problem here is obviously NOT the design of the Planetcatfish website but both your impatience and/or your ineptitude as an internetuser to use the website properly

fourth: your first posting on the forum shows a severe case of analphabetism: ANY reading up on a few links from the homepage would show that this is NOT an online-shop but a site where information about the fishes of the Siluriformes (catfishes) can be found.

fifth: your definition of "forever" is quite a bit different from ours.
time of joining as a user: Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:49 pm
reply of Jools: Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:17 pm
that's the same Jools that's up to his eyebrows in updating the forum.

heck, if less than 5 hours is "forever", you can all call me Connor MacLeod from now, cause I'm an immortal and already obviously living forever.

now, Plecoplanet, I have a question for YOU:
how would YOU feel if a total stranger kicked in your front door, barged in your place where you hang out and started screaming in your face that the whole place is poorly designed and why do you not sell fish?

luckily I ain't a mod (I don't have the patience with people needed for it, nor the extremely thick skin required to be one), but if I was, you'd be booted out asap, cause of the sheer lack of manners you display so far.
you have been weighed
you have been measured
you have been found wanting

have a nice day

While it is nice that forum regulars respond as above, one thing I've learned in my day job is to listen to all users.

My question above, "I don't understand why you needed to register to find out if we directly sell fish or not", was to ascertain why you couldn't clearly see that we don't sell fish and indeed why you actually thought we might sell fish. I mean, I wouldn't roll up to Wikipedia expecting to buy something. So, I was keen to understand that.

Secondly, most of the posters on this site are familiar with it. The register link is really interesting because it's the only one all of us should use only once. My thinking has always been that it only appears on a page where you have to be registered to interact with the site. That also means that, once registered, you are not asked to login unnecessarily. If not then it's not there. I mean, if there was a register link on, for example, the catfish of the month article, what exactly would a new user think they were registering for?

However, I thought I'd check the register page and access to it. I have Google analytics on the site and it tells me all sorts of things like %new Vs returning visitors, average length of time on site, what is looked at most frequently. Patterns of access (e.g. people that arrive looking at a CotM article, then, 80% of the time, go to look at other species in that family) and so on.

It appears that those, non bots, accessing the register link, are a consistent mix of return and first time visitors, and they spend, on average, 38 seconds on site before clicking on the register link. This is about 8 seconds longer than a great site and about 7 seconds shorter than a good site in this kind of domain. So, I don't think there is an accessibility issue with the register link beyond the FAQ, which is important and will get fixed this week/weekend at latest.

Jools

It's not obvious at all that you don't sell fish....I actually linked to your website from a Google search for "buy plecos." If you want new users to visit your site and be able to interact with it, then it has to be user-friendly. You said the link was broken, ok, that explains it! But I thought it was very odd that I had to register just to be able to ask a simple question. Aquabid is far easier, and (with the exception of Jools) the people are nicer! Thanks for your understanding and wisdom, Jools....that explains why you're the mod

Sid....what is "displasy" and "extrapolite?" I'm assuming you mean "display" and "extrapolate" but that wasn't clear. And to correct you, I did not barge in and ask "why don't you sell fish?", I asked, "DO you sell fish?" As I mentioned above, I reached this website from an internet search looking to buy plecos, so when I didn't see an obvious page to view plecos for sale, I wanted to ask to be sure I hadn't missed it.

PlecoPlanet, what on the site gives you the impression that it sells fish (like Aquabid, the site that you cite)? On the main page under the heading 'Cool' there is a shop, but that quite clearly sells merchandise only. Or do you mean the 'Wanted & For Sale' forum? Again I'd of thought it was quite clear it is a user based buy and sell.

Out of interest I googled 'buy plecos' (the way you found the site) and the first direct link to PlanetCatfish.com was on the 6th page (hit result 54, negating sponsored links). Thats persistent searching, I would rarely go to the second page of results, but thats just me.

I do agree with you about initially registering, I remember finding it difficult to find and navigating around the site wasn't the easiest and needed a little prior knowledge (like catfish family names). But this was when I was quite young (13/14) and a complete beginner to internet forums, information/reference sites and the hobby itself.

BTW are affiliated with this site? The same name as your user ID.

http://www.plecoplanet.com/forum/index.php

PlecoPlanet wrote:It's not obvious at all that you don't sell fish

Sorry, I think you misunderstand, why would the default position be that a website about fish sells fish? I can get Google to put this site on its first page of results by searching for "buy Ugandan papyrus" and we don't sell that. We don't even have much to say about it!

PlecoPlanet wrote:You said the link was broken, ok, that explains it! But I thought it was very odd that I had to register just to be able to ask a simple question. Aquabid is far easier

Sorry, but I think you've picked up a few things wrongly. The easy to find link that most site users use to register and use within under a minute when they decide to register was functioning. You missed it. As at the time of writing it is in 48,234 pages which is around 82% of the site. What was broken was an old link in the FAQ, on one page.

The point about registration demonstrates that I'm not sure you've got a full grasp of why this works likes how it does. This isn't just planetcatfish.com, the worlds top 250 websites all need you to register in some form. You need to register otherwise we won't know who you are. We won't know how to contact you when, for example, something you've written gets replied to, and there are zillions of other reasons. The one that's important to me is that if a troublemaker registers then we know who they are and can act to keep the peace accordingly. We can't do that if everyone doesn't register.

The point about Aquabid being easy to use I don't really agree on as I find it a bit jarring, but that's opinion. The use of red text for example and, mixed fonts, centered text etc. Maybe that's style but measurably, from an accessibility point of view, it's not great. What is also a fact is that you have to register on Aquabid to post or bid and they don't tell you that until the third page of taking your info. So I don't really get the point about having to register. If you wanted to ask a simple question on aquabid (for example, "do you sell other fish") you have to register.

Here's a typical page on aquabid, is that really easier? I mean, really? It's great and functional and all, but it isn't easy on my senses!

PlecoPlanet wrote:Aquabid is far easier, and (with the exception of Jools) the people are nicer! Thanks for your understanding and wisdom, Jools....that explains why you're the mod

I've been demoted! Maybe aquabid is far easier, great, but I don't think you're accepting the point that you did rather bust the door in start shouting as it was put above. Perhaps a little more lurking was called for? Anyway, some of the guys you reckon are not very nice are mods. I am not, I am the owner. As far as I am concerned they acted very properly to what was a rather out of character topic for this site. We're maybe a bit more used to a more laid back attitude on this site than more commercial ones.

PlecoPlanet wrote:Sid....what is "displasy" and "extrapolite?" I'm assuming you mean "display" and "extrapolate" but that wasn't clear. And to correct you, I did not barge in and ask "why don't you sell fish?", I asked, "DO you sell fish?" As I mentioned above, I reached this website from an internet search looking to buy plecos, so when I didn't see an obvious page to view plecos for sale, I wanted to ask to be sure I hadn't missed it.

Yeah, again, you did kind of barge in (expecting to be in a shop and finding yourself in a library to extend the example we're trying to make) and Sid is trying to get across why you got the reaction you did. You've maybe also not picked up this is a very international site and Sid is Dutch, so picking him or any other user up on a couple of spelling mistakes might not win you a friend (in this case, soemtimes we really appreciate being picked up for spelling mistakes or other errata). Anyway, clearly we're not a shop. Your internet search probably found this site as we've a lot of content on buying plecos but not actually any for sale. Google can be tricky...

Meantime, the guys on this site are amongst the friendliest I know. I hope you'll take my word for it.

Jools

OK, so I've completed a root and branch revision of the FAQ and related articles.

There is a forum FAQ which has a few Planet specific entries in it but is mostly generic and will be kept up-to-date by the forum software release / upgrade process. This hadn't been refreshed since we went from phpBB2 to phpBB3, and is now bang up-to-date as well as being, as I said, being auto updated.

There is a catfish FAQ which has had every remaining entry checked and, in most cases, rewritten or revised by me.

The glossary has been revised and moved into article form.

The links and banners page has been split into two articles.

All links to same have been altered. This topic now moved to resolved.

Jools