Peeling the Onion Without Getting Teary-eyed

mmi — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 06:48:06 +0000

Hey weaklystandard

Looks great--excellent job! Do you publish weakly?

I agree the display would look better at higher resolutions if centered.

I like to visit the Great North Woods two or three times a year to spread cheer and suggested copyedits. Your site, with its journalistic qualities, seems particularly suited to receive this analysis. Please take mmy suggestions in the constructive spirit they're offered. I enjoyed reading your front page and I'm happy to offer mmy humble skills to someone I hope will appreciate them.

in slogan_elephant.gif

"insincerest" is not a word. I'm sure you realize that, but ...

I might slow down the animation a little.

Same thing with topticker_dt.html. - What is that, two seconds? Could ya go with maybe three?

It's OK to play the hits now.

Ann quickly skirted off - Don't think "skirted" works here - in her case, perhaps "slithered"

Should "brown ones" be in single quotes? (Fwiw, don't know what those are.)

In his typical flip fashion - I think ya want "typically" because you're modifying "flip." And fwiw, I'd probably go with with "flippant manner."

lower the unemployment rates - I'd drop the ess.

Willy Kristol

I'd probably go with "views regarding US immigration policy"

Why is the text for the blurb under "Embedded with Halliburton" italicized?

a pithy point-counterpoint approach - You used a forward slash rather than a hyphen earlier.

Somehow highlight "Living History"?

Does Carlson really appear on the Sunday AM shows? I think he sleeps late (esp. after annoying the staff at restaurants). And I don't see the contradiction that "shocked" party regulars.

I'd hyphenate "seven year"

basketballer LeBron James?

It’s a great day,” he remarked?

buy my moms that third summer house - More than one mom? :eek:

Why the after "to seek support from"?

select meditation audio recordings?

highly-placed source - can't hyphenate that, right?

get this faraway look in his eyes.

Texas Governor Rick Perry?

the President finds solace only in - I realize I'm moving it away from the verb, but ...

soon to be issued - I'd probably hyphenate this as a compound adjective.

I've decided I don't like these attributions. I'd say you can't add those second excerpts as part of one sentence with a comma separating them. They look like comma splices to me. Here and in the Carlson section (and some others subsequent).

I'd spell out 5 and 7.

While Kristol said he was pleased with the final tally?

You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad - That second comma's gotta go, right? I'd just drop "D.C."

Bush Finds Spanish Knowledge Insufficient In Trade Meetings - I dunno about that headline. "Inadequate"? And is it really Shrub who found it that way? The write-up seemed to indicate he was his usual oblivious self.

a half-hour speech

dim assessment of the President’s ability - Shouldn't you modify "ability" somehow? "Linguistic"? "Bilingual"? I dunno.

to investigate recent allegations leveled - I'd think about "allegations recently leveled."

U.S. Special Olympics Committee - I'm not sure there is a "US" Special Olympics Committee. It seems like there would be, but I can find very little reference to it. E.g., none on http://www.specialolympics.org/ . There's a US Figure Skating Special Olympics Committee, but ...

These guys might help ya nail that down: http://www.specialolympics.org/Special+Olympics+Public+Website/English/Program_Locator/North_America/default.htm

I'd punctuate the copyright notice:

Oniony formatting notwithstanding

fifeclub — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 04:38:29 +0000

The subject comparisons to The Onion are obvious but I think that the site design is enough different. Color scheme and logo-style are not similar. Speaking of the header, I'd like to disagree with the contention that it is necessarily "boring". Yes it is plain but the animated gif is origninal and conveys a sense of parody. (the gif looks very smooth with that blur/disolve yet it loaded quickly). The text portion of your logo is okay, but I will say that there is too much dead white space above and below the words. Even some horizonal bars would help out there.

The site fits nicely in 800x600IE. Good amount of content, although one more story on the front page and I would've changed my opinion to say too much. The archive section was a bit bland, and aside from the need for some graphic elements to break up all the text, you need some dates on the older stuff so people know just how old it is.

In conclusion, the site is cleanly designed, which is all you need on a site that will rely so heavily on written content. Good job. The hard part for you will be constantly maintaining the humor. BTW, some funny stuff on there, like the GOPersonals and question of the weak.

ROB — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 14:49:57 +0000

Very nice, but it might be worth a try to center it on the page. it just seems like it would look better centered.

I'd probably make the footer with the copyright & stuff smaller and sans-serif.

Renegade — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 06:41:35 +0000

Being on a high resolution, I see a lot of "white space" to the right of the screen, try centering the table the content is in.

The text is quite small, and there's a bit too much scrolling, maybe bigger text and the articles spread out over several pages?

Overall, you have a fairly clean site, looks ok

MaxW — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 01:12:33 +0000

as everyone has said, you have quite a nice layout and i can see few flaws. One thing i noticed though that you header is a big boring, it doesn't get attention when i first went to the site. Maybe put an image or two or something else where all the white space it to spice it up.
Keep up the good work with your site.

The Alien — Mon, 07 Jul 2003 03:10:29 +0000

Enjoy the layout very nice. The grey on the right edge blends with the scroll a little to much but I could be nit pickin. Colors run together real nice. As has been said does remind me of the onion. All in all nice site.

spor — Sat, 05 Jul 2003 14:04:02 +0000

Hello, Like the layout, reminds me a little of the onion.
All in all, i think you have made a very good layout for your site. not much more to say except, good luck.

Volterra — Sat, 05 Jul 2003 11:51:13 +0000

Nice pleasant looking site.
I trust the content is wicked.

In the future, when you have archives, and add other functions to your site, where are you going to add the links to these?

I would add them to the header, although this may be obvious to you

The Webmistress — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 18:41:40 +0000

Welcome to TWF,

Could you please review some of the others sites in the critique section as per the posting agreement.

Thanks