I'm an admin on a new site http://www.downsizer.net it's a not for profit site which is aimed at people that think we've gone too far with globalisation and consumerism, or just feel a need for change in the way they live. We're trying to build up a resource rich site nad have people that can offer help and advice with topics as diverse as keeping chickens and setting up a website. Based entirely on user submitted material, at the moment our two most popular articles are:

Top 10 Wild Mushrooms

Chicken Keeping

We also have a glossary section, web links, a place to advertise (for free) any products or services you may offer and a forum. The site is only in it's third week so I'd appreciate your views, and you're all welcome to join up and help us make it a really worthwhile site.

Downsizer

Downsizer Forums

Any and all comments are welcome, even if it's only on the structure or aesthetics of the site, and we're always looking for people to submit articles that could help and inform others

Come on guys, 37 views and no replies

I don't care if you say it's a piece of crap, just like to know what you think as I know that there's a lot of intelligent people on here

Be patient, Europeans are working, Americans sleeping or stuck in morning traffic. Those who saw your post probably did not have time to peruse your site yet.

I am a bit puzzled about the 'ethical' bit in the title. OK, I know, avoid megacorporations, agrobiz etc, but still, when I buy or barter for home-made Dalmatian smoked ham or Slavonian 'kulen', or insist on buying locally produced tomatoes, it is entirely for gastronomical reasons

The site looks good, decently organized, perhaps a tiny bit too 'busy' for my tastes. It is remarkably well stocked for something barely launched.

Cheers!

Thanks for that Bonzi, guess I am a bit too impatient, too old to grow out of it know though

I'm not sure anout the ethical bit mmyself, I'm trying to think up an alternative, I don't know how we could make it less busy without removing some of the sections, which for a site as new as ours may not be a good thing.

Like I said all comments and suggestions gratefully received, and sorry if I'm a bit impatient

BTW If anyone checks out the forums on downsizer I post as Tahir (my real name) there

I think the idea rocks and I'm 100% behind it (ie: I'm getting my button molds created in the USA instead of outsourced to China).

Problem is, I clicked the link and trusty Netscape told me "a communications error has occured." Not even a hint of the site, just the message. Hm, worked in IE though.

My 30 second first impression of the layout:
- Good.
- I can't read the forum topics on the right because of the light colored font.
- Rich green text might work better than light green and seems more earthy too.
- Why the "results" bar beneath the front page articles? It shows me more content, but I didn't know right off.
- The search engine actually seems to work, which is a rarity (but I guess it's Google, so it should work).

I'm tempted to write an "article" about "Reuse and Reduce; Recycling is just Garbage Collection for Suckers". Unfortunately, I have no facts and only slight suggestions to support this course of action. Eh, maybe I'll post anyway.

Good effort. If only humans weren't so lazy and greedy, we might be able to share this Earth with everything else that lives on it.

Problem is, I clicked the link and trusty Netscape told me "a communications error has occured." Not even a hint of the site, just the message. Hm, worked in IE though.

You should download Firefox already I would guess there are many sites that won't work with Netscape.

HI FireFox, glad to see you've already been and posted, hope you keep coming back. I didn't know people still used Netscape, I'll pass that and your other comments on to Jema who does that sort of thing. I use Opera and FireFox and everything's cool in those. And we all agree with your last comment.

It works just fine in netscape 7.1.

Nice. Yeah, there really IS a lot of content on that site. I'll have to spend a weekend day reading it.

I passed the link on to some of my chatrooms. It's a good effort, keep it up!

Next colour change: The page title. Don't use Yellow. At least not on any kind of a green background unless it has a distinctively dark outline. Hurts the eyes and the right side becomes very hard to read on a bright LCD.

Simple comment, but once the title is adjusted, I think it will make fr an effective change.

Bruno

We've changed the colours (this is the mirror):

http://82.10.105.226/downsizer/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

I think they look a lot better, but what we need is a logo, if anyone here has any ideas they'll be gratefully received.

Those colors are a little more interesting (of course, you do still need to change the title colors, but if you intend on making a logo, that'll take care of that). That also might be an awful lot of space there at the top that's taken up by the title - or rather the blank space around the title.

My only other suggestion is that, under the new color scheme, you join the menu with the body of the page in the same fashion as the body with the column on the right. Basically that means instead of the white space between the first and second columns, make it that dotted divider between the second and third columns. I don't know if that's possible with how the code is written, but I think it would look nicer.

Thanks, and noted, will seee if we can do anything about that

BTW I hope some of you have looked at the site and been interested by the content. Like I said this is our 3rd week and we're working hard to turn it into a useful (and used) resource. In the next couple of weeks we'll have articles on:

Home Education
Bee Keeping
Creating a Small Fruit Garden
Sustainable Building techniques
Small Scale Wind Turbines

And many more

And no, we're not a bunch of hippies we have a lot of people in IT involved, some small business owners (me), farmers, a blacksmith, we even have a couple of genetic scientists...

Bee keeping rocks! My family raised bees at my house for years and years when I was a kid. We extracted the honey and sold it to people in the neighborhood. And, if I was a good kid, I'd get a bit of the wax to chew on. Sounds stupid, but it was quite a treat. And it was fun to extract the honey too.

BTW do you prefer the new look of the home page?

Just wanted to let you know that I can't wait to read the site when i get home and have the time. I'm sending the link to my sig other, she's been wanting to raise chickens for a while! hehheh... to bad doing so in the city isn't to reasonable at the moment...

Thanks Loren

BTW we should have a review of the EGLU hen house on the front page soon:
http://www.omlet.co.uk/homepage/homepage.php

We've made some more changes, including an interim logo, any better?