volunteer design help needed!

[slanoue]

Hi. I found the rules a bit confusing...I hope this is ok, so please move or modify my post as needed...thanks!

I am looking for someone to redesign my website for me. My old design was done by a professional years ago, but he's too busy now. My site runs on volunteer work only, and I have no money to pay anyone. However, my site is very popular, so if you do help me, hundreds of thousands of people each month will see your name and work. It's good experience and advertising for you. I would be happy to put a banner ad up for you as well. My site has been around for a decade or more, and it's very stable and gets more hits every month. I'm hoping that a better design will increase that.

I sort of know what I want, but I am just really bad at design and knowing how to use the software to make it look nice.

My site is at http://tvmegasite.net

I want it to look simpler, cooler, with better navigation, and ideally to load faster.

This is an example of the type layout I'm looking for, but obviously I want it to look much better than this. This is just a suggestion, I'm open to ideas.

http://tvmegasite.net/test/newdesignstuff/tempnewpage3.htm
and I want it to fit in the window, not make users scroll over.

I do have to keep the ads, unfortunately, as they pay for the site's hosting fees and other expenses.

Right now we use MS Frontpage for the site, but we are looking into using a CMS such as Drupal. I don't have a technical person to help me set that up. I am trying to learn it now, but technical stuff is not my strong point, which is why we use frontpage in the first place. So if you are able to work with that, great, too.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in helping out, please let me know!

Thanks!

[:: mod edit :: no sigs for new users ::]

[Agrunyan]

Hi. I found the rules a bit confusing...I hope this is ok, so please move or modify my post as needed...thanks!

I am looking for someone to redesign my website for me. My old design was done by a professional years ago, but he's too busy now. My site runs on volunteer work only, and I have no money to pay anyone. However, my site is very popular, so if you do help me, hundreds of thousands of people each month will see your name and work. It's good experience and advertising for you. I would be happy to put a banner ad up for you as well. My site has been around for a decade or more, and it's very stable and gets more hits every month. I'm hoping that a better design will increase that.

I sort of know what I want, but I am just really bad at design and knowing how to use the software to make it look nice.

My site is at http://tvmegasite.net

I want it to look simpler, cooler, with better navigation, and ideally to load faster.

This is an example of the type layout I'm looking for, but obviously I want it to look much better than this. This is just a suggestion, I'm open to ideas.

http://tvmegasite.net/test/newdesignstuff/tempnewpage3.htm
and I want it to fit in the window, not make users scroll over.

I do have to keep the ads, unfortunately, as they pay for the site's hosting fees and other expenses.

Right now we use MS Frontpage for the site, but we are looking into using a CMS such as Drupal. I don't have a technical person to help me set that up. I am trying to learn it now, but technical stuff is not my strong point, which is why we use frontpage in the first place. So if you are able to work with that, great, too.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in helping out, please let me know!

Thanks!

Suzanne Lanoue
The TV MegaSite, Inc.
http://tvmegasite.net
suzanne@tvmegasite.net

I understand needing help, but you can't web designers to just give you their time and skill for free. A web designer is a job, like a plumber. So it's like asking a plumber to come to your house and fix your plumbing for free. So you see there's no real benefit expect maybe a portfolio entry.

Alex

[Lab860]

I will redesign your site for free in return several back links from your site would be required including your main page, contact me.

[slanoue]

Thanks, Lab860, I will contact you...

Alex, I'm glad not everyone has that attitude. My whole site runs on volunteer labor (including myself). None of us makes any money. It's all done for the love of TV and for the fun of the site and contributing to something popular and great. The site makes a little on ads, but it all goes back into the site's expenses, including the gifts I have given out at Christmas and for Volunteer of the Month (before the site made money, I paid for the gifts and expenses out of my own pocket).

Also, if you are unemployed, volunteer jobs look good as resume-filler. They are good for your portfolio and give you experience. Some people just enjoy helping others out or giving back or whatever. Not to mention, my site is really popular, so it can't help to have me linking to your site. I have done tons of volunteer work on my own for many years, and there are many sites online that are run by volunteers.

My current design was done by a professional, Dave, and he has also been giving me some tips on my new design, but he is too busy now to do the work himself...people help out when they can, when they have the free time and inclination. There's nothing wrong with that. Life is not all about money.

Honestly, I would never compare a designer to a plumber...designers are artists. I'm not saying you shouldn't get paid, just that it's a poor comparison. I know how difficult your work can be. I can draw really well, but I can't design for ****. I don't have the eye for it, nor the patience to really learn it well. My strength is writing. That's why I get volunteers to do designing, making graphics, doing scripts etc. - all that stuff I can't do.

Have a good one, and thanks for your time anyway!

[Makawak]

Hey Suzanne,

I've been checking your sites stats out online seems your night quite 10 years old yet, nor does it seem you get hundreds of thousands of visits each month, however I'm willing to help. All I would ask in return is text at the bottom of the screen saying that the site was created by me and a link to my site.

I have been using drupal ever since version 3 and am extremely proficient in it. In fact it is the primary CMS I use when creating every type and size of site. I started my company always willing to help those who need volunteers out and I still stand by doing so.

I would recommend thinking of an alternative design as the one you have/want seems to be very outdated.

Best of luck,

Pete

[slanoue]

Hi, Pete. I'm going to see what the first guy does/says and see how that goes first, ok? No sense having both of you guys do it at once, which would be wasting your time...

I don't know what you saw on my site, but yes, the site has been around over a decade. At first it was part of my site suzann.com which I started in the mid-late 90's, then it all got too big, so I split off The TV part in 2000. When I first started my site, it was to trade videotapesbut then I started making pages for various shows, and the rest, as they say, is history :)

Yes, I do get over hundred thousands of unique visitors per month. I have several different stats counters on there for visitors, page views etc. so you may not be looking at the right one. First I used one counter service, and it did not have page views, and I had advertisers that wanted to know those so I had to add another one, but I dont't think that one is as accurate for visitors. My webhost sometimes gives me stats and they seem to be confirming what the first one says about unique visitors.

Not sure which design you mean- our current one or the one I've been working on? I don't care about "outdated", it just has to look ok and be fast-loading and easier to navigate. This one I'm working on is my own design, and as I said, I am not a designer, so I have just been doing the best I can....that's why I need help! :)

I think we are moving away from Drupal because my webhost tells me that it would require a better, faster server, which I can't afford...we are probably sticking with Frontpage for now unless I can get help with Webgui.

I appreciate your offer!!

Suzanne

[Makawak]

Sorry about that I only saw when the domain was registered. :) However the stats are still telling me you only get about 28,000 hits per month.

Regardless best of luck, its nice to see others willing to also volunteer their time, and don't be so quick to ditch Drupal. A lot of people like to make claims about it without trying it themselves :)

Be sure to post a link when its done though, will love to see it.

Pete

[slanoue]

Thanks, I will try to remember...

I've never seen anyone care about "hits", only visitors, unique visitors, or page views. We get over 100,000 unique visitors per month, so that's all I care about (well, and advertising revenue, which have only gone up).

Suzanne

[slanoue]

I am still looking for help...please email me if you are interested in helping me with a new design or with Drupal or Webgui.

Thanks,

Suzanne

[John Kim]

Dude, you have a whole lot of advertising on your site. don't tell me you have no money. Stop Scamming people, and any who would do your site for free is a fool.

Also for anyone who is a newbie. I work in the industry and I see what advertising goes for on popular sites. It's not pocket change, that's for sure. Also what does web servers cost these days, maybe $70 a month for a dedicated server? domain name would probably cost no more than $20 a year. Your overhead is extremely low considering you have run your site completely on volunteers. You are a big scam.

This person is a fraud. don't believe her.

Nothing should be free unless you are some kind of needy charity.

[slanoue]

Wow, another a-hole. Ok, first off, not a dude.

Secondly, not a scam. If you'd bothered to look through my site and read the history, you'd know that.

Not that it's any of your business, but...the site does make a little money, but it all goes back into the site, not into my pocket. Because the site is huge, and popular, it costs a lot to host it (over $200 a month). Huge bandwidth and space requirements the likes of which you have no idea.

The rest goes toward the volunteers, or other expenses such as domain names, postage, etc. We have anywhere between 50-100 volunteers, and I give them Christmas presents every year. Also, we have "Volunteer of the Month" where I give gifts out. Believe me, it all adds up.

I am not a fraud. My site has been around since the 90's. I work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week on this site.

It's up to you whether you want to volunteer or not, and whether you think that volunteering for a web site is worth your while or your time. Some people don't understand volunteerism, and some only understand it if it's for a charity.

There are a lot of things that you can get from helping out a site like mine (and there are MANY sites online that take volunteers, especially writers), such as getting a link to your own site that might help your traffic; being part of a great team; the good feeling of helping others out; a spot on your resume, and if you want, a letter of recommendation; and possible Volunteer of the Month and other future rewards.

You would not only be helping me out, but also all my volunteers, and the hundreds of thousands of visitors to my site every month.

And btw lots of things on the net are "free". The net was built on that concept.

take care,

Suzanne

[Makawak]

According to this, http://siteanalytics.compete.com/tvmegasite.net/?src=dt100 , you get just over 28 000 unique visitors a month.

As for over $200/month you're getting ripped off if you're actually paying that. I know sites with massive bandwidth use(online karaoke) that don't even pay that much a month for hosting. Not to mention they have more unique visitors a month too.

[Corrosive]

Have you considered a new platform for it to make your and your volunteers lives a whole lot easier? Wordpress maybe?

[Agrunyan]

Wow, another a-hole. Ok, first off, not a dude.

Secondly, not a scam. If you'd bothered to look through my site and read the history, you'd know that.

Not that it's any of your business, but...the site does make a little money, but it all goes back into the site, not into my pocket. Because the site is huge, and popular, it costs a lot to host it (over $200 a month). Huge bandwidth and space requirements the likes of which you have no idea.

The rest goes toward the volunteers, or other expenses such as domain names, postage, etc. We have anywhere between 50-100 volunteers, and I give them Christmas presents every year. Also, we have "Volunteer of the Month" where I give gifts out. Believe me, it all adds up.

I am not a fraud. My site has been around since the 90's. I work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week on this site.

It's up to you whether you want to volunteer or not, and whether you think that volunteering for a web site is worth your while or your time. Some people don't understand volunteerism, and some only understand it if it's for a charity.

There are a lot of things that you can get from helping out a site like mine (and there are MANY sites online that take volunteers, especially writers), such as getting a link to your own site that might help your traffic; being part of a great team; the good feeling of helping others out; a spot on your resume, and if you want, a letter of recommendation; and possible Volunteer of the Month and other future rewards.

You would not only be helping me out, but also all my volunteers, and the hundreds of thousands of visitors to my site every month.

And btw lots of things on the net are "free". The net was built on that concept.

take care,

Suzanne

Doesn't it seem odd though, that more than one person was pretty much saying the same thing? Not to mention the people that saw this thread and thought what at least I was saying (don't want to put words in JK's mouth)?

All I was saying was that building an entire new site, probably on a new platform (Joomla/Drupal/WordPress/etc.) for only advertisements and link backs is probably not worth the trouble. Which if someone IS willing to help, then I say go for it, they must obviously enjoy doing free work or REALLY need a high pr link back.

Alex

[John Kim]

You forgot to mention you need to support your high living standards. If you can work 12 hours a day at home, not deal with a boss, not deal with a commute, and not deal with any of those kinds of politics then I wish we could switch places.

Let's face it, you are living the dream on the backs of volunteers. I wish I could quit my job and work at home, but I'm not that fortunate. So don't act like you are a charity, you make enough from your website to have some sort of living standard. And that scam is that you are taking advantage of the kindness of strangers, not saying your website is a scam. This kind of thing makes me upset, because the rest of us work hard in a job we hate, while you get to kick back, and you have the nerve to ask for free work.

Also $200 a month for hosting is nothing, try $5000 a month to rent space out in a mall. What about the employees that needs to be paid, what about inventory that needs to be bought. You are whiny, but you are so blessed, so stop asking for free work. You need to start giving back. I'm not talking about christmas presents either. Give out paychecks and health insurance. People like you are no better than those scums in china that pay 1 dollar a day to their workers.

I apologies to anyone who is offended by this post. I just hate it when companies take advantage of people. I had a bad experience interning at a company where I programmed for hours on end. Had headaches every day, and probably shortened my life by 1 year. All this work I did for free, while the company benefited. From that day on I swore never to do free work, unless it's for a friend or a charity. What was even worse was that the owners of the company drove around in luxury cars, and I accidentally broke one of their prototypes, and they had the nerve to charge me for it.

So here is the line for volunteering, submitting content to a website is fine. But when someone spent years perfecting their web skills. They spent money for an education, they put in their 9 to 5 being the best web developer they can be. And you want this for free? Web Development is hard work, I got carpel tunnel, and back problems from what I do. Will I do web work for free? Hell No. But I'd gladly submit an article for free.

[slanoue]

We have more than one domain name for various parts of the site, so that chart is wrong. I have the actual statistics from the webhost as well as from two other sources.

Peter, not really interested in your opinion about what I'm paying (and you know why). I have been with my webhost a long time. He is very reliable and gives me good, personalized support, and a fairly fast server. I was with about 5 other webhosts before him who let me down in various ways, such as going out of business and stealing my money, being incompetent, capping bandwidth, etc. You get what you pay for.

We have looked into many different types of CMS. I forget why I decided not to use Wordpress, but there was a reason. I go back and forth on using a CMS. The problem with switching to one is that we would lose a lot of the helpful things that we have with Frontpage extensions. For instance: We have a huge site, with tons of links. If I move or rename one page, that is connected to hundreds or thousands of our pages, with Frontpage it will automatically change all those links. And it has a find/replace feature that I can use on multiple pages in the same folder (no matter how many there are), without even opening them. We use these features all the time. Using Frontpage hasn't been a huge problem so far, and there are two of us that put up most of what the volunteers send in, so....you see why I am dithering. Also it means that I have to learn the new CMS program, which I don't have the time to do, if I can't find someone else to set it all up for me.

Alex, it's not odd at all. As I said, many people don't think you should do any kind of volunteer work, whether it's charity or not. Just depends on the type of person you are talking about. I have had hundreds of volunteers over the years. Thankfully not everyone shares that attitude.

John Kim, I don't have to support my living. Yes, I am very lucky. My husband makes a very good living. We are not rich, just doing fine. I used to work for Ask Jeeves (now ask.com), but I wasn't able to find a job after that, so I stopped looking. Why should I get a job I don't really need or want, and take it away from someone who really needs it? Also, this way I can stay home with my 81-year-old MIL who lives with us; we don't like to leave her alone.

You don't have to volunteer if you don't want to. I'm not trying to force anyone to do it. I like to help out others, and they me. I have done volunteering myself before, and not just charity work. On the net, and in real life, my online as well as real-life friends and I help each other out all the time, not just with my website.

EXAMPLES: If I have computer problems, I go to this computer help forum I know for answers (and I give answers when I know them, too). When I went on Twitter, I asked my friend Jan for help because she's an expert. People send me tons of questions about TV and other stuff, and I help out whenever I can. I used to do the same work for Ask Jeeves and got paid for it (answering people's questions via email). I really don't mind doing it for free because sometimes we all need help. I'm on Facebook and we all help each other out there if need it. I used to make videotapes for people who needed one show I had; I did it for free and they just sent me a blank videotape (not time for that much anymore, unfortunately). No one expects pay; it's called just being human and giving to others. Ever hear of karma or paying it forward?

People all over the net volunteer to help each other out for free on message boards, Yahoo groups, other sites, and forums like this one. Do you think every forum you go to has paid moderators? Most don't. They help out for free because they like the board and want to help run it, get involved, etc. Same with our website. It is very popular, and many people like to see keep it going and feel part of it. It's a collective effort, not "MY" site, even though I started it. The guy who designed our site last time saw my post on one of these boards then. He is too busy to do it this time around, though.

ONE MORE TIME: the site does not support me, and I don't get any financial benefit from it. For years, before we had ads, I paid for it all out of my own pocket. The site was cheaper to host then, but still...and I also paid for the volunteers' gifts and other expenses back then. Now it's great that the ads do pay for that now, especially since it is more expensive to host because it's gotten so much larger and more popular.

I am not whining, just posting for volunteers. I am sorry you had that bad experience, but I am not like that. I wish I could afford to pay anyone who works on the site, including myself. If the economy ever improves, and I am ever able to get any investors or someone who wants to buy the site, I would NEVER sell it unless I was able to get enough for my volunteers as well. I hate sites and businesses that do that as well.

You make it sound like "submitting content" is not important and that those people's skills, talents and time are not as valuable as yours. Being a good writer or proofreader is just as valuable as designing web sites, and most of us went to college, too. A lot of people who volunteer have some free time and like to spend it doing what they love or helping out others. And as I said, good for the resume etc.

This is the last time I defend myself or my site here...

Suzanne

[Agrunyan]

And on that note this thread is closed. This has turned into more than it should have and I guess you will have to find volunteer work elsewhere.

Do not post another thread about volunteer work for this site.

Thanks,
Alex