The vast 2016 overhaul is now live

It took years of accrued donations and 15+ months of drudge  work. But the big site overhaul is now live.

So, what’s so good about it ?

• Actual graphic/UX design done by an actual designer. *Much* prettier and slicker.
• Bigger pictures in the profiles, more pictures everywhere.
• Responsive, so it works right on tablets, phablets, smartphones, netbooks, whatever.
• Faster and much less likely to get choked by excessive traffic like the old site was.
• Lots of usability work, so everything is clearer – and easier to read.
• Much more powerful, unified search/exploration page using the same concepts you find on Amazon or eBay.
• Much more robust categorization system for the profiles.
• Additional categories for DC Heroes articles, FAQ articles, etc. to make those articles much easier to find.
• The profiles have a clickable “Related Entries” block. The categories, subcategories, power levels, narrative roles, etc. are all clickable to find more characters of the same sort.
• A homepage that’s much more useful, since as it turns out people do use our homepage.
• Revised flow for the profiles so they read better – and without having to hide the game stats.
• Lots and lots and lots of under-the-hood improvements, by switching to a modern CMS rather than early 2000s tech.

Things left to do

• Continuing to rewrite the old profiles for style and brevity.
• Continuing to replace old images with HD ones.
• Adding clickable tags to profiles.
• Continuing to add pointers for people who aren’t expert geeks (“Context” intro sections like in recent profiles, currently-being-reorganized FAQ content, hyperlinks toward further explanations of obscure things, a glossary, etc.
• Adding hyperlinks in the profiles’ text.
• Clickable team affiliations, clickable author names.
• Adding pictures in the search results.
• More pointers and guides for people without an encyclopaedic knowledge of those characters.
• Etc.

In parting

Regrettably, neither the content nor the site gets generated by minuscule sparkly fairies out of ineffable aether. Therefore, we need more people to join the community , as long as they’re not jerks.

Whitelisting us in adblockers  also helps a bunch.