The Witches' Voice is just one of almost 1,000 Witch/Pagan Web sites today. These are exciting times indeed! On this page the Web Slave at witchvox.com will randomly offer his opinion on various dramas in the Pagan Community (based on email and comments from our "Your Voice Matters Form"). Another goal is to also feature the opinions of members of the Pagan Webcrafters Association. Major additions to these pages will be announced via the Witches' Voice home page and could happen at any time. |
10/13/97... <Givers, Takers & the Pagan Web PART II> A must read... Guest <RANT> from Jorah ...Creativity and the Pagan Web
What does it take to create and maintain a powerful, interesting and easy to navigate web site ? The answer is simple... It's takes days and days of hard work. At present there is no getting around this. When you surf to an AvatarSearch or a Texas Pagan Awareness web site do know that there are thousands of hours involved in "getting it right". Web design involves literally thousands of variables and lots of experimentation as well.
Just last week we got a piece of email (once again) accusing yours truly of using images on the Witches Voice WITHOUT permission (they saw one on another site) AND like the other 4 times they were images that I freakin' created myself!!! This is starting to irritate me. If you don't know the images creator and decide to simply pinch a graphic, DO know that you may be held accountable legally and karmically for using it without permission. I can't wait to be accountable to the religious right for the picture of Ralph Reed that we will be "using" on this weeks homepage... A little posted credit won't kill anyone. Last year a lad named Marc Shannon created a icon for the Witches League web site and emailed it to me... The now famous "Spinning Gold Pentacle" (a beautiful piece of work) is one of the staple images of the pagan net. Marc tells me a few people have asked for permission to use it (I have an email link under the image)... Surf the pagan web and take note of how many people actually give him credit or thanks vs. how many sites have simply "pinched it". - Once this Photoshop "watermark" thing becomes a standard it will help to clarify exactly who is the creator... TIP: Few people realize that many animated gifs have their creator's name embedded in the file (open Ms word and they open the animated gif as a text file)... How many people have even bothered to thank the kid that created the famous fire.gif? I have ! (for some bizarre reason many people think that I created the flames - don't I wish) The information is right there in the last line of the code along with his email address...
And guess what... I tried this email address last year when I wanted to use the fire.gif and it WAS a real Email Address, I thanked him for his work and he cheerfully granted permission.
GIVERS and TAKERS. The net may be loose and free but that's hardly an excuse to ignore basic common courtesy... Wren and I have always had the policy of offering all of the words and graphics on the WLPA and Witches' Voice Web sites as "Yours for the taking". ALL we ever asked is that credit be given to the artists and authors were appropriate (I must have typed this 100 times in email). And speaking of Givers.... As far as I know earthwisdom.com and C.O.L.L. of the Goddess are the only pagan sites that have a section with icons, art and back ground graphics FOR the pagan community. And as far as I know, there isn't another detailed book of days either... (surprisingly this IS a niche territory on the pagan web - why aren't there more sites offering these kinds of services?). There is so much YOU can give... Get creative and do the work.
Postscript 5/30/97: During the first week that this opinionated editorial was posted I got barraged with other opinions siding both with and against my own... One of the most amusing came from the lovely Lilith who pointed me to a site that uses bad Web Design as a way to teach. It's simply called webpagesthatsuck.com So mote it be
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