Three hours in three days.
That's how much sleep I think I got while preparing the
new homepage, which actually took longer than a week as it required prep work on the forum itself. By prep I mean upgrading and fixing all the
mostly invisible to the naked eye broken bits. Three hours in three days. And I didn't even code it. My lot was to feed ideas to a designer and true webmaster and watch as he turned them into virtual reality. This involved much discussion, much of it while we were both half asleep. He was in a different timezone so his percentage of this precious commodity was even less than mine. Several mornings I wondered where the night had gone.
It was a huge amount of work to accomplish something many people might not even notice, given that the forum is where the action is. That's not to say our welcome mat isn't dynamic; it's flexible and easy to change. It will be updated on a schedule dictated by a combination of necessity, whim, and time available. Fingers crossed that haiku and testimonials start coming over the transom, to keep those sections fresh and interesting.
So, why all the effort for something that may, by my own admission, go relatively unnoticed by the bulk of users? For the same reason given by many woman who get their breasts enlarged: I did it for me. If other people appreciate it, great. Actually that's not wholly true. I also did it to showcase the work of members, and to attract new ones whose experience of acf starts there. It's a reaffirmation of my commitment to keep this forum not just good, but very good indeed. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but was unable until I found a designer who was talented and professional enough to make the entire process bearable. I did it because it was worth it. I hope you think so, too.
on edit: Alas, the homepage has gone static, much like
BikeReader did years ago. There are only so many hours in the day, especially when it comes to things like stocking the
Library and Post of the Day, which was supposed to feed this as well. My ideas about
haiku and
testimonials didn't fly either.
