The Overview section...

[AndyThomas]

Way back when I first launched my Star Fleet site, it was just a single page covering a range of information about the series. It was a very "tall" page, and has since been split to form the contents of the Overview section. So it's relatively unchanged since, oooh, 1999?!What I was wondering was, do people think it would be worth splitting "overview" up to add a couple of new sections to the "About the Show" section? I'd probably leave a basic overview section in place, but for example the Ships page is quite large and could easily be split down with more pictures and stuff added. It'll be a bit of hassle (even more pages to publish!) so I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks it would really make a material difference to the site. I'm hoping to get Dreamweaver in the not too distant future, which might make life a little easier when it comes to adding new sections and so on, so for the time being it's just a planning thing really...

[Bradster]

My, my, my... I just went and re-read the whole "About the Show" section. That *is* a lot of info!Frankly, I'm not sure how or if you should split it up. Perhaps the Characters and Ships sections could be trimmed down or simply moved from Overview to AtS since they are rather detailed. I'm just not sure.Anyway, I just thought I'd chime in that I'm giving this some thought, but really don't know what to make of it all. Keep us informed if you have any other ideas!(Edited by Bradster at 6:33 am on Aug. 14, 2002)

[AndyThomas]

Yes, that's the thing - they're not really very "Overviewy" when you stop and look at the size they are! I suppose it's been niggling at me. The only downside would be that the "About the Show" section would end up with a lot of sections if I seperated them out, although thinking about it I could merge the FAQ into the Overview section - although it's not the sort of thing I want to remove attention from because it's probably saving me a lot of emails...!I'm also conscious that some of the gallery pages also contain information relevant to other sections, but again, I'm not sure whether I should, or even want, to merge them with those other sections. Some people will want pictures, others will want words, so... Tricky. Veeeery tricky.

[AndyThomas]

Mmm, funnily enough I was looking at the h2g2 article I wrote today (after the h2g2 editors had looked at it, I don't think they changed anything material) and thought "that would actually make quite a nice overview of the series!"As you and Brad say, Mike, one option would certainly be to keep the overview section but limit it to just that - the FAQ, and a general top level summary of the series which would then be expanded on in more sections. Problem is, more sections would pretty much take me to the absolute limits of what my current publishing software can cope with. Doable, but it starts taking longer and longer to publish the site. Not that it's exactly automatic at the moment, mind you...Can I ask, Mike, if you feel you can't create a "better" episode guide as such - because short of doing a total transcript it's pretty much covered between the existing sites - why not just link to the pre-existing ones? For example, Big Dai X and SFXB are quite well linked together and I think that works well because our content doesn't really overlap all that much. The impression I've always had from SFP is that you're a bit torn between setting out information relating to the series as originally broadcast and the spin you want to put on it with a view to your creative work.I can understand why you would want people to understand the original background, but if the other sites can do that for you, why not focus on the new material you're creating? Just a thought if you're pressed for time - and it would keep SFP easier to manage as well, perhaps?