April 29, 2002

1:50 AM

May 1st Reboot. On April 25, participating sites shut down and post a Reboot Holder, until May 1st, at which time they relaunch. Why?
Upon review of all of this year's participating sites, a good number of them are not using the required Reboot Holder. Most have simply continued with normal operations and even made updates as recently as this afternoon.
posted by Su (15 comments total)

More detailed commentary on their concept statement at my own site, if you care.
posted by Su at 1:51 AM on April 29, 2002

Yech - when did designers start writing like marketroids?

(And if we want to reopen the usability flame wars that flashturbation would be a good case study.)
posted by adamsc at 2:18 AM on April 29, 2002

I'm impressed at how many words you can write (on your site) without actually saying a damn thing, Su.

Still don't know what the point is. I gave up reading after the first two paragraphs boiled my brain.
posted by benh57 at 2:21 AM on April 29, 2002

Um, Su, do you have a secret button on your front page (via your Member page)? Or a simple and effective "No Idiots Allowed" policy (works with me, anyway)?

After the wait for the page to load and the doodads to doodad themselves into place, I found myself in such a mocking mood that I really ought not say anything. Sarcasm is bad for the Karma, particularly in one like myself who isn't any good at designing websites. Still. It does seem to presume that anyone apart from the participants will notice that these sites are gone. I'm not sure, but I suspect that the web doesn't work that way.

Most of the links I checked (for the record) were using the Flash page. That's another thing: most basic sites - even very bad ones - demand relatively little investment of time, and so it doesn't matter that much if they are bad. If you're waiting a minute for a page to load (seems like a long time while you're sitting there like a lemon) what results needs to be pretty good or you feel a bit conned. What we get here is, essentially, an Under Construction page with a certain amount of attitude and I feel a tad sneered on, frankly. God knows how long it takes to load on dialup.

Sorry.
posted by Grangousier at 2:28 AM on April 29, 2002

Oh, and Su, the first paragraph was about your site, the other two about the Reboot site (ahich I suspect you have nothing to do with). In case that wasn't clear.
posted by Grangousier at 2:29 AM on April 29, 2002

"Boot is slang for puke" - Su

Your weblog is ten times as entertaining as the reboot site, Su, and it doesn't take forever to download on a dial-up.

As I understand it , this is just a mass redesign of design sites. It's fun for them and they challenge each other and are inspired by each other. I actually like design/portfolio type sites very much, as eye candy and entertainment, plus they usually have great links. I'm certainly not waiting with breathless anticipation (having completely forgotten about it until you reminded me) but I look forward to seeing some nice design. Now if only they would ban flash for one year.

Grangousier - click on Hamlet Complex.
posted by iconomy at 2:35 AM on April 29, 2002

May 1st Bongload.
posted by XiBe at 2:40 AM on April 29, 2002

Iconomy - Bingo (in IE for Mac)!

Su - doesn't show up in Mozilla for Mac. Spot on commentary. You did all the sarcasm for me, and much better, thank you. How can something on the internet fail to be "worldwide and international"?
posted by Grangousier at 3:17 AM on April 29, 2002

grangousier: i think the implication is that the designers taking part in the reboot thing are from all over the world as opposed to (which is obvious) that the web sites can be viewed all over the world. The former is not really a given; i'd imagine that if you took a look, a vast majority of the sites participating are likely to be north american or western european.
posted by juv3nal at 4:16 AM on April 29, 2002

Fair point (I really should go for sarcasm-avoidance in future) although I must admit that I do take international (if not necessarily thoroughly worldwide) participation in web-based things for granted, although that might be a bit naive.
posted by Grangousier at 4:35 AM on April 29, 2002

i like last year's reboot. at least that one had corporate sponsorship.

h4w h4w
posted by jcterminal at 4:45 AM on April 29, 2002

Ah, I remember that day last year
posted by mathowie at 10:03 AM on April 29, 2002

Maybe I'm missing something here, but having your site down for a whole week hardly seems like a way to get people to visit, even if you do promise something amazing on May 1st. Is this supposed to have something to do with International Labor Day?
posted by gutenberg at 12:53 PM on April 29, 2002

May 1st Skiboot
posted by riffola at 3:18 PM on April 29, 2002

Cliquetastic!
posted by JoyG_n Josh at 5:50 PM on April 30, 2002