Giant Flash Ad of Suck

[S.R. Krol]

capnq said:
From this, I deduce that PvP and Shrapnel have quite different audiences. (Of course, I could have deduced that from the fact that I stopped reading PvP years ago, but am still here.) Has Shrapnel gotten any positive comments on the ad at all?

Yeah, apparently that audience doesn't have grumpy old Linux gamers. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon17.gif[/img]

I don't know if anyone has written in praise of it, so I can't really respond to that, but like most things I'm guessing the negativity isn't really all that bad...

[Fyron]

I am neither old nor a "Linux gamer," and I still stand by the assertion that the ad is (was?) full of suck.

[Annette]

Well, we listened,and we responded. We appreciate your feedback.

[Ballbarian]

Thank you Annette.
(Shrapnel rocks!)

I feel a bit of sympathy for whoever the peel ad idea & implementation belonged to. I can see where it had the potential and intention to be a low key way to advertise, but as with many things that are cutting edge on the net you run into incompatibilities and inconsistencies between browsers and systems.

I have been developing a small web presence for the county that I work for and have found it very frustrating to maintain functionality of the site across different browsers and even versions of browsers. It can be a very trying endeavor.

[Hugh Manatee]

Fyron said:
I am neither old nor a "Linux gamer," and I still stand by the assertion that the ad is (was?) full of suck.

Early Onset Ornery Crotchety Bastard Syndrome?

Meh, the ad didn't suck that much, as far as I'm concerned shrapnel needs to get even more aggressive with the ad campaigns.

[Fyron]

On a semi-related note, the press release text no longer appears to line up properly with the bugler background image in Firefox 3 (at least, in Beta 4), for longer blocks of text. The text barely fits in IE7.

FF3

It also happens in Firefox 2, but to a lesser extent:

FF2

[capnq]

In Opera 9.26, the "Leading Aerospace Company" looks the same as it does Fyron's FF2 version.

But seriously, Fyron, is this really the first you've noticed that, or are you actively looking for things to criticize? Excessively long entries have overrun the boundaries of the Press Release box ever since it was first added to the site. (ISTR that initially the text was clipped rather than overrunning.) Whoever writes the press releases has gotten better at being succinct with the titles; this is the first one in quite a while that has overrun.

[Fyron]

I had the image blocked in FF2 (to make it easier to read the black text on top of the darker parts of the bugler), and only noticed it in a fresh install of FF3, sans any extensions. But anyways, the updated rendering engine in FF3 is something to keep in mind, since it apparently spaces the text slightly differently.

[Annette]

We do tend to have some wordy titles for our press releases We're currently working on a site redesign in which issues such as this should be eliminated. Stay tuned for more goodness coming!

[S.R. Krol]

Bear in mind that the press release text is aimed at email subject lines with no real thought of how they'll end up fitting in the little boxes next to the forum. But as Annette mentioned the new design should fix those issues.