The Medusa Cascade

Info

Site Address: http://themedusacascadesite.blogspot.com/

Web Host: Blogger

Run by: Luke

Opened: 26th August 2008

Review

Owner

The cbox for The Medusa Cascade has just been put up, but there aren't many comments. When there are though, the owner, Luke, replies quickly with kind words. We don't see a lot of personality towards the owner, but we know that he respects visitors, because of the welcome sign at the top of the site. In posts, also, Luke is polite, which is good to see!

Layout

There may not be many pictures in the posts or much background colour, but the colours on everything else looks brilliant. Everything looks well thought out, neat and tidy. The colour scheme has recently been changed. Before there were hardly any colours at all, but in fact now, it's great to look at! Also, pictures and colours on the sidebar have recently been added, adding towards the overall effect. It is nice and simple though, with a nice black background, which is useful. I think it looks just about right for what it tries to achieve. This downside could be too much writing, with not a lot of pictures in the posts, but because the posts are mostly just telling you what is on and when, it is not such a great problem.

News Posts

The posts are of good quality, but they aren't all that often. Most of the time, they are about the schedule on TV, but there is also the latest news from the who-universe also, so that's great to see. As I mentioned before, the main problem in the posts are the pictures. Maybe just a small picture to break the text up, because at the moment, it isn't all that eye-catching, and makes it looks a bit tedious to read. Apart from the that, and the infrequent posts, fantastic!

Spelling and Grammar

Looking down the site at a glance, I can see that the spelling and grammar is marvellous, with only a couple of errors that I can find (one in the title, which is a little obvious). The grammar is superb, and writing is constructed in a well thought out fashion.

Pages

There are no pages as of yet on The Medusa Cascade, but apparently there will be some hopefully at Christmas! I'm looking forward to these, and they consist of Episode Guides, Gallery, Monster Info and Links. This is reported at the top of the site. The site hasn't been going for terribly long, so it's good to see them quite soon.

Sidebar

The sidebar has also recently been improved with new features. The main one is probably the TV schedules for upcoming episodes, new and repeated. They are laid out with a picture of the episode, but one possibility could be to make all the pictures the same size. A few of them are slightly different, and looks a little messy, but this can be easily tidied! At the top is the short section on information. It's just a short three points about the site. A cbox allows visitors who come on the site a chance to talk and express opinions. Not in use a lot, but enough of the time. I think another definite highlight is the spotlight story and featured website. The spotlight story takes a look at a story from Doctor Who, and includes the synopsis. I think reader's will very much like this feature, to find out about a story they might be interested in from the Classic Series. The featured website just picks out one site once in a while, and talks a bit about it, advertising it. One problem is there is no actual link to the site, but just the site address, so this could be added, and possibly with a small picture of the site? Under that is a poll and the followers of the site.

Other Features

Banner; The banner for The Medusa Cascade has been made exclusively to the site by Jake from Doctor Rumours, and naturally features the Medusa Cascade and the Tardis in it, as well as a good looking logo and a quote from Journey's End, made by the creator of the Daleks, Davros.

Welcome; A short paragraph above the posts welcomes you and addresses the reader about what the site is all about.

Gadgets at the bottom; There are nearly more things at the bottom of The Medusa Cacade than there are on the whole of the sidebar! So, we have a search bar, to find exactly what you want to know about. The number of people on the site is shown, as well as an option to subscribe to the site. Then there's the written section. This is all about the site, including the owner and a copyright notice. I think a few of these things should, though, be put in the sidebar, as it might look tidier, but not the about section.

atts key suggestions

• Pictures included in posts
• More frequent posts
• Pictures in the sidebar all same size
• Sort sidebar and bottom page gadgets to look tidier.

Note - these are only suggestions, which you may or may not want to take into account.

Overall

The Medusa Cascade is a smashing site if you want to know dates related to Doctor Who, and when the pages are put on the site, it should develop the site even more!

Rating:

Word Count: 900