It seems that spring is the season for new layouts and revamps. It also appears to me that the more revamping certain people do, the less appealing and functional their web sites become. Maybe it’s the pollen.

Trend number one: the increase in the sizes of these layouts. Which either forces us to switch our resolutions to something bigger or maximize our windows. Whatever happened to the running trend of having layouts work on all computers? The increase in sites that specialize in a specific browser is funny as well.

Take the new layout for Elysium Designs, for example. It’s large and clunky. It’s aligned to the right side of the page, which completely sets the entire thing off balance. It takes forever to load, and I have a relatively fast internet connection too. Selphies World is another large layout with a lot of wasted space, but the award of biggest-piece-of-junk goes to Esaudrae. At least I’ve got my trusty scrollbar for Elysium and Selphies.

Esaudrae, at least, has improved somewhat from her old flash-infused site that didn’t like running on the computer I use in the public library. Which brings me to the second trend of the season: making your web site as garish as you possibly can without any regard for the viewer.

Starwind Cafe, it seems, likes to put as much sparkle onto their site as possible. That is to say, as long as your computer isn’t crashing, then it’s all good. As amusing as the hovers are, they slow down the loading of the site and aren’t always functional. Then again, it’s just further evidence to their air-headed personalities, so at least we get a preview of who they are as people. But at least they have descriptions of what you’ll get if you hover over something; ExistiQue designs doesn’t. Was I supposed to be able to read your mind and know that those random bars on the right-hand side of your layout were links to your affiliates?

But Arcadia goes to prove that even when your layout isn’t way-too-big and ugly or weighed down with too many special effects, you can still suck.

Whatever happened to functional layouts?

How old are you, dear? I wonder. I won’t mention it just in case you decide to kill me, so it’s up to you to tell the world. Well, how much have you changed since the forever I’ve known you? Well, you’ve become more like a hag and crazier, too. Hah. But whatever you’ve become, I want to wish you a happy birthday.

Yes, that hag comment was revenge for when you stole my pencil in high school.

Cross-posted in LiveJournal. The original entry was made a week ago. Somethings have changed since then. I’d also like to add that if such things as copied coding has been able to ignite such powerful arguments, then how is it that the topic in this entry is being overlooked? Perhaps because it’s so common in the community?

Mei Zhu: http://tafanino.com/ asd;lfkjas;ldkfj;laksdjf… T_T
Lucy: Yes?
Mei Zhu: What is it with people and not crediting?
Lucy: You were expecting her to credit?
Mei Zhu: … Good point. But she’s not the only one.
Lucy: Unfortunately.

And then we went on to have a conversation about crediting, which sparked some interest in me.

It all started with this layout (layout was disqualified and taken off) which offended a certain someone and in turn offended me (simply because I had it shoved in my face whilst I was stressing. Thank you, love, for being subtle.) The layout itself isn’t that bad; but the site that she got the image from claims (and I quote):

Do not use any images on your site.

But perhaps she didn’t read that? Except Mei Zhu emailed her to tell her. And yet the entry is still there, so… obviously, some sort of communication was lost somewhere along the way. (Again, the entry was disqualified a few days after this entry was originally posted but many weeks after the entry was submitted.)

I have friends who are artists, and I’ve seen first-hand the time it takes for them to produce something worthy of praise. As a friend, I get annoyed easily if people take their art for granted. So it is easier for me to get offended when others don’t pay attention to the rules laid out by other artists. (Especially when their own terms of usage states “Give complete credit.”)

Which brings me to why I hate Aethereality.net so much. People have seen the site on Acerbic Bitches’ “Hit List” and asked, “what has Ivy ever done to you?” Well, the answer is: nothing.

Note, however, her gallery’s terms of usage:

* No hot linking.
* Credit the original artists.
* Please link back to Aethereality Gallery.
* Do not post anything scanned by me on forums or user submitted gallery sites (e.g. MiniTokyo and AnimePaper)
* Email me if you want to post these images on your sites.
* Support the artists by purchasing the original publications.

Note her most recent update on her main site:

On a slight note, scans credit that contains an asterisk next to my name (e.g. Ivy*) means the artbook was partially scanned by me. I seldom find high quality scans on torrents, p2p servers. Instead of rescanning everything in the whole book, I only scan the pages needed to complete each artbook gallery. If you are the original scanner of the other portion of the book, let me know. Enjoy the additions and have a great weekend.

Partially scanned; as in, “I didn’t fully scan it.” She’s taken the time to state “Scanned by Ivy (*)” and yet she doesn’t take the time to credit the other places she got the other images from. And yet she asks for a link back for slapping an image on her site and archiving it.

Well, if that’s the case, may I slap her layouts onto my “layout gallery” site and ask for a link back?

Mei has proper credits, so do Veve and Skye. (I’ve been told by Mei greatness of Skye for only using images she has permission to use and providing full crediting. Hence why she’s on the list.) So why can’t everyone else do the same?