PopCultureShock.com

  • hey all,

    i’ve just relaunched & redesigned PopCultureShock.com, now using WP ?? we’ve been doing this site for almost 10 years now (wow i can’t believe that) and as the site has grown i’ve really been feeling the limits of the backend i had created. so after a lot of trial and error with other systems (tried drupal, etc) i finally settled on wordpress and overall i’m pretty pleased with it ??

    i had some problems with site slowdown, but david chait kindly took the time to check the site out and pointed out some things i could optimize, starting with wp-cache2, which has helped quite a bit!

    anyway, we’re now in “soft relaunch” mode, so i thought i’d invite some WP-ers to check it out.

    let me say in advance that i know the front page is heavy. and i know that i have tables in my layout where i don’t need them (i do plan to fix that, along with everything else) and other no no’s.

    while i do welcome constructive criticism, mostly this is more of a wordpress appreciation post! thanks to matt & all the developers for making life so much easier ??

    -jon h.
    producer/designer, https://www.popcultureshock.com

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 22 total)

  • Froma design standpoint – me likes. Very “pop culture”!

    But looking at the code, I have one large suggestion: take all those scripts and make them external.

    Just my 2 cents ??

    Otherwise…nice ??

    You know my thoughts on PCS man — it’s very spiffy and better than ever!!! (I’ve also been thinking of making GN totally operate off WP… going to need a talented programmer to make that possible though.

    Anyways, nice work, Birdie!!! *thubms up* ??

    Love your site dude ?? well done!!!!!

    Just curious, bahn- why would you need a “talented programmer”? Looks pretty straightforward to me (at first glance, anyway..)

    Hey doodlebee,

    Actually our backend isn’t driven by WP… the CMS was created from scratch from an old friend. ??

    GotSpace (https://www.got-next.com/blog) is though… and the more I use it, the more I’d like to have it become a more involved component.

    One of my longterm goals is to have a commenting system incorporated into the rest of the site, thus offering our readers a more direct, interactive tool. That’s pretty much it — don’t wanna take away any attention from chanzero’s thread.

    Thread Starter chanzero

    (@chanzero)

    bahn: lol! funny running into you here! well anyway, as you can see i do recommend WP. the built-in commenting is definitely a nice incentive ??

    doodle: i’ll definitely do that. it’s mostly the front (non-single) pages where i have all the scripts in the page itself. that’s a remnant from testing which i need to move out now that things seem to be working properly. thanks ??

    puma: thanks man ??

    chanzero: Yeah, saw you were over at the XD Forums too!

    Re: WP

    It is one of the best applications I’ve come across, no argument there — but we’ve got over 2yrs of data that would be difficult to shoehorn with our existing CMS… otherwise I’d be more than happy to make a full transition. We’ll see what happens! ??

    Thread Starter chanzero

    (@chanzero)

    hmm. i know i initially stated that this was more of a “thank you wordpress!” post than a call for critiques, but i keep seeing referrals to PCS from this thread but no additional posts, and that’s a sad feeling ?? so let me go back on what i said earlier, and to whoever hits the site up, please let me know your feedback ??

    bahn: i love the integration of xdf, but it’s lacking a lot of features at this point. as far as WP as cms, i’m doing it and it works for me, but part of the reason i switched was ease, which is a big factor. in an alternate universe i might’ve gone with drupal, had i not encountered permalink probs which no one on the forums was able to shed any light on. maybe WP isn’t the best, maybe it is — but we really outgrew the custom cms i created back when, and WP was my best working solution. so far so good ??

    It’s a very nice site, but my biggest gripe is that it’s not built with pure CSS. Ditch the tables, and I know you mentioned that in your first post, but it’s something to get started on while you’re waiting for other feedback. ??

    chanzero: yeah — it’s definitely lacking and I SO wanted it to work. I’ve looked into the WP/vB bridge — but I’ve been told that it doesn’t offer quite what I’m looking for.

    Thread Starter chanzero

    (@chanzero)

    kineda: thanks. and good point ??

    bahn: hey guess what, i just went to SRK and their front page is a wordpress installation/error screen lol. EDIT: nm, they fixed it

    from a total non-technical person your site looks fabulous! pretty amazing what you (technical) people can do! I’m jealous!

    very nice design, ive also bookmarked the site

    Thread Starter chanzero

    (@chanzero)

    hey cw, i don’t consider myself that technical or even a very talented designer — it’s just playing with things and weighing that against your sense of color & porportion, etc. but thanks for the kind words ??

    thanks roraz, hope to see you in the comments section ??

    I have to agree with creativewitch in that techincally (and non-technically) the site is impressive

    I love the way the site is set out, kind of like a magazine site layout, especially the front page – it really presents alot of information as well

    Id be very interested if you had a list of plugins that you used on the site if you had one (this plugin can do that automatically ?? ) or do you do alot of the stuff manually eg the top stories list, images, video list, the news tickers etc??

    also i noticed that your images have urls within specified folders (year and post numbers) like:

    https://www.popcultureshock.com/2006/40379/

    Im just curious if you have an upload manager plugin for your images and files or if your doing it via ftp? Ive been looking for a way to keep my uploads more organised (on a post by post basis) and something I can use within WP – but haven’t yet found something?!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 22 total)
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