Is Having the Guestbook Good?

[Philip Mannering]

I think the topic tells it all really - when comparison is made between this site's guestbook and Keith's site (EnidBlyton.net)'s guestbook (or the message board) the result tells it. Keith's gets comments nearly every day, and this site? One in a week. I think the site would be better off without it. OK, this one has a forum, Keith's doesn't, but still, I think a forum is enough. The EnidBlyton.net had a Talk About Blyton section too, although it's now closed. But when it was running, still multiple comments were coming to the main Message Board.

So that's up to Tony really; whether he decides to end this guestbook, or decides to continue it. Who knows, I may be wrong, and as I'm still young, correct me if you think I'm wrong.

[Tony Summerfield]

I agree that Keith's Message board gets far more attention than ours, including a lot of rubbish which you never see as it gets deleted immediately. The main reason for this is that people put Enid Blyton into search engines, come up with Keith's site and go no further. Most don't even know that this site exists.

There are two main reasons for having the Message Board (I wouldn't really call it a Guestbook), firstly as a place where people who have one-off questions can ask them, without having the nuisance of having to register on the forums. Most of these would only post once anyway. The second reason, and I admit here we have failed, is that we hoped to get comments on the website as to what people liked and didn't like. The forums only form a small part of the site, but I spend a number of hours every day adding to the main site and it is a bit disheartening that this work never gets any comments at all. We had hoped that the addition of a message board might change this, but if it continues to get little or no attention, we might abandon it at some stage in the future.

[Bannerman65]

Tony,

The design of the website is pretty good, right now. My own issue is with speed. Particularly when Internet access speed is at dialup level. Site speed does slow a little. Perhaps you could look into having the underlying code optimized, so that the site runs faster on dialup connections.

I do have Broadband, Tony. But I do a lot of downloads. When I exceed my monthly download allowance, my Internet speed is slowed to 64Kbps.

David.

[Moonraker]

The EnidBlyton.net had a Talk About Blyton section too, although it's now closed.

Hmm, doesn't look closed to me.....maybe you'd like to take another look, old thing!

Tony has said everything that I was going to say, I will just re-iterate that the Society Message Board is really for people who are not regulars on this site who have a question to ask. This they can do without registering on the Forums. Of course, all the regulars post on the Forums, so the Message Board is obviously quieter than EB.net's, where regulars have to post to the boards. Therefore both regulars and non-regulars post on the same Message Board.

I look at the three main Blyton sites (EBS.co.uk, EB.net and the Yahoo Group) as a complete Blyton meal. I see the Society site as the main course, EB.net as an interesting dessert and the Yahoo Group as the after dinner brandies, sat round an open fire with some old (some very old) friends.

My own issue is with speed. Particularly when Internet access speed is at dialup level.

I haven't found that, well on the very odd occassion, but I guess if you're running at dial-up speed that may be a problem - a similar problem you might have had with a 1960 Fiat 500 when you came to a steep hill. Is that the hill's fault or the car's?

[Bannerman65]

The EnidBlyton.net had a Talk About Blyton section too, although it's now closed.

Hmm, doesn't look closed to me.....maybe you'd like to take another look, old thing!

Tony has said everything that I was going to say, I will just re-iterate that the Society Message Board is really for people who are not regulars on this site who have a question to ask. This they can do without registering on the Forums. Of course, all the regulars post on the Forums, so the Message Board is obviously quieter than EB.net's, where regulars have to post to the boards. Therefore both regulars and non-regulars post on the same Message Board.

I look at the three main Blyton sites (EBS.co.uk, EB.net and the Yahoo Group) as a complete Blyton meal. I see the Society site as the main course, EB.net as an interesting dessert and the Yahoo Group as the after dinner brandies, sat round an open fire with some old (some very old) friends.

My own issue is with speed. Particularly when Internet access speed is at dialup level.

I haven't found that, well on the very odd occassion, but I guess if you're running at dial-up speed that may be a problem - a similar problem you might have had with a 1960 Fiat 500 when you came to a steep hill. Is that the hill's fault or the car's?

Moonraker,

When my Broadband speed is shaped, it goes down to 64Kbps. So it may be the speed of my Internet connection. It's still possible though, that the underlying code might need a little tweaking, to help increase performance when on dialup speeds.

Oh, and my computer ain't no slouch, either. Not with a genuine Intel D865PERL motherboard (with a 1 Gigabit network interface), 2GB of RAM, and a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott P4).

David.

[Moonraker]

Oh, and my computer ain't no slouch, either. Not with a genuine Intel D865PERL motherboard (with a 1 Gigabit network interface), 2GB of RAM, and a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott P4).

That ain't no Fiat 500, then!

(I bet he drinks Carling Black Label!)

[Bannerman65]

Oh, and my computer ain't no slouch, either. Not with a genuine Intel D865PERL motherboard (with a 1 Gigabit network interface), 2GB of RAM, and a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott P4).

That ain't no Fiat 500, then!

(I bet he drinks Carling Black Label!)

Nah. Diet Coke. And not the illegal variety, either. Not with George@Kirrin around. She IS a Police officer after all....

*Grabs hold of George@Kirrin, and starts tickling her with a soft feather duster*

[Lucky Star]

Its a pity that the messageboard does'nt get more traffic but I still feel it is fulfilling its basic task of coping with one off questions. Those have virtually disappeared from the forums now and are all on the MB. I'd post there myself only thats not the point.

The website is fabulous at the moment Tony. It is hard to see how it could be a lot better. I would say that if there is a problem it is, as you say, that not a lot of people seem to know it exists. Perhaps we should try and have some kind of brainstorming session as to how to get the site better known.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I think the message board does serve its purpose. It does save people having to register if they have only one or two questions. This site is so easy to get around and understand, anything more complex would completely baffle me.

I also think its easy to find, if you just google the name Enid Blyton, this site normally shows up after Keith's site.

[Enikyoga]

After some lingering doubts it seems the message board and the forums section have existed side-by-side in a coplimentary manner

[Enikyoga]

My previous sentence should have read, "After some lingering doubts it seems the message board and the forums section exist side-by-side in a complimentary manner." My apologies.

[Keith Robinson]

The design of the website is pretty good, right now. My own issue is with speed. Particularly when Internet access speed is at dialup level. Site speed does slow a little. Perhaps you could look into having the underlying code optimized, so that the site runs faster on dialup connections.

As the webmaster I'd like to pin down exactly which parts of the site you think need optimizing. There's one area in particular that I'm well aware of, and that's the book listing pages, which now have lots of illustrations. I plan to fix it so that the illustrations only load if called on. Is this what you mean?

Or, if you mean the forums, then there's nothing I can do about that as the forums are an off-the-shelf standard application -- way too complex to try and cut back.

Or do you mean other pages?

I liked Nigel's point about the hill and the old car... but I also understand that a lot of people are stuck with dial-up or even "slow cable," so yes, making the site run faster for those people is something of a concern. But please let me know which parts of the site you specifically mean. Thanks!

[Philip Mannering]

Hmm, doesn't look closed to me.....maybe you'd like to take another look, old thing!

Well! When did this happen?
Tony, thanks for a great response. For feedback I can't really give any; this site is perfect. The 'About Enid Blyton' section is particularly good. It is great to read Anita's biography - you get a lot of knowledge about Enid Blyton; it's even greater to read Anita's article 'Enid The Writer'. I feel this has answered many of my previous queries - how Blyton became such an amazing author and else.
And the Book Listing is terrific! Totally unbelievable!

[Bannerman65]

Keith,

The slowness is noticeable, in the loading of pages. It does take longer for the pages to come through.

Again, it could indeed be the Internet connection that's doing it. Equally though, the developers could have used bad/sloppy programming, when they created the forum software.

At present, I'm not sure which one is applicable.

David.

[Keith Robinson]

But, David, is it just the forum pages you're talking about, or other website pages?

I do think the forum pages are a little slower than the basic website pages though -- there's a slight difference in speed on my fast connection, and I guess that would translate to a much bigger difference on a slow/slower connection.