Well, I’m about finished with the site redesign. The former design was pretty to the eye, but the white-on-black was a bit unfriendly to articles.
So, I’ve scoured around and came up with this. I’ve received good feedback so far. I used mainly open source styling from around the web, mainly from CSS Drive and Open Source Web Design .
Now for the douchebag part. Like any other true artist, I look around at other sites and see what works. I try to take the best of whatever site I like and try to integrate it. Of course, I always try to ask permission first or at least email the webmaster and tell them I’m going to use something. The responses are more often than not - full of arrogance and general asshatery. For example:
Dear Daniel,Our custom design is unique to our site and brand. Unfortunately, we will not permit you to use it for your own website, even if you make changes.
Furthermore, our website does not run on Wordpress, it runs on a custom CMS.
Best Regards, DouchebagOh, really now? And by “Custom” you mean you took Wordpress and changed the default folder structure. Unfortunately, your genius webmasters left the “Powered by Wordpress” comments in the site templates. Oops!
I, of course, replied saying this. Keep in mind this was in the “index.php” file. And this is the response: (bold is my emphasis)
Dear Daniel, Thank you for pointing this out. I’ve forwarded this to the engineering section who will look into this anomaly. I must advise you that our website is copyrighted and it is undesirable to have people like yourself looking through our protected website material. Please take this into consideration. Lastly, I consider this matter closed and I thank you for your understanding in this. Best Regards, DouchebagSweet Jesus! What has our beloved internets come to? Not that this is anything new, mind you.
Next on the plate of asshattery is the subject of giving credit where credit is due.
Now, I’ve been advised against naming websites directly. I’ll refrain for now. I’ll speak in generalities and such.
There are a lot of websites - gaming websites also - that use Open Source software to run their sites. Of course Apache and PHP / MySQL are webserver / database / language platforms that can be ran for free, which is nicer than paying thousands of USD/Pesos for an inferior MS product. I’m ok with not every website that runs these to not put at least a little shoutout somewhere for them. It’s ok.
However, what I do not accept is powering your “Web 2.0″, advertising ridden bullshit site and not at *least* saying what the hell you’re using. There are many, many gaming websites - and I’m talking some of the big boys here - that use Open Source stuff like Wordpress and then try to fucking hide it. At least these webmasters did a search / replace for anything that said “Wordpress” on all of their templates - but to an experienced PHP / WP coder like myself, I can tell within 2 minutes if a site uses Wordpress or not.
This is unacceptable. Trying to hide the fact that you’re using an Open Source solution for your CMS / Content Management is lame. In fact, if Charlie Murphy was here, he’d kung-fu kick your ass right into the mirror, then take you to Princes house for pancakes.
TL;DR version: If you use Wordpress and other Open Source stuff instead of paying for it, at least mention it in the source code / footer of your site. It’s bad karma not to.
