The-OncomingStorm

Info

Site Address: http://www.the-oncomingstorm.blogspot.com/

Web Host: Blogger

Run by: Bex (TOCS)

Opened: May 2008

Review

Owner

From before the cbox was taken down, we became aware that the owner of The Oncoming Storm was kind and respects her visitors. The cbox was taken down, as the owner hoped for more comments on posts, and, thankfully, it's working, as most posts get on average 3 comments each. This is satisfying, and shows that people are still sharing interest of talking and commenting on the site. 

Layout

The layout for The Oncoming Storm has an fantastically eye-catching layout. The layout colours have changed quite recently, and now the site looks very professional and fitting. There are various different colours now, ranging from the dark blue background colour and the standing-out white outlines, and so, nothing looks out of place, but looks just right. A visitor could get drawn to the site by just the layout any day!

News Posts

On the main page of the site, the news posts are shown. On average, only one news story is posted a day, so you couldn't say this was a great news site in itself. When they do come out, they are fantastic posts, with a great avatar to the top left of the post, usually not to do with the news story, but appropriate for the post. Bex finds interesting news you would most likely to find enjoyable to read, but a lot of the time there are, at least at this time of year, posts saying that there hasn't been much news today. Even though there may be things, it doesn't matter, as she finds something to post about new features on the site or like, which is great, as the pages are the main part of the site.

Spelling and Grammar

If you were set the challenge of searching through the whole site and its pages to find at least one spelling or grammar mistake, and you could not stop looking until you'd found it, it would take you up to your demise, and then still go on in the next life! Enough said?

Pages

I think this is one of the best blog sites for pages. You can't normally find this many extras, and even been made into the main part of the site! Bex puts so much work into the pages, and it definitely shows. If you ever said that you would be able to get bored with the site, then you must be lying, because there are many things, from information about the owner, characters, quotes and more. Media, with many splendid galleries, banners and wallpapers made by the owner. Another thing is the avatar page, which is not hosted by blogger, in which you can request for an avatar, specially made for you. There are a few great games, where you can enter the monthly caption competition, try to guess who the character is by the clothes they are wearing and which episode a picture is from. There are then bright and interesting episode guides for the complete four series of Doctor Who, which are linked onto pages, with gerat contrasty avatars for each episode. These are linked to all the episodes from that series. The guides themselves give you brilliant information from the episode in an amazing layout. And then there are the fantastic stories, also written especially for the site by the owner. There are four short single stories, which are great if you want a moderately quick read. At the moment a new series of thirteen stories, like a normal series, but with new companion Beth, are being made, and already two parts have been added. These are really long, and loads and loads of work goes into them, and it definitely pays off! I think the stories are the best part of the pages! They are so original, but at the same time quality writing, that should even be made into a short book!

Sidebar

The fantastic layout really helps to give visitors and easy and great way to view information about the site and the pages linked off it. At the top, is the usual warming welcome sign, explaining what the site is dedicated to, which is not hard to work out! Under this are a few pieces of information including the site owner, page hits and when the site opened. There is also a part saying the month's music, which gives you a tune from a Doctor Who soundtrack for the month. Not only that, but there is a player that plays the tune whenever you arrive on the site, to emphasise it, plus to make the site more lively. It then tells you how many people are on the site exactly at the time you are looking, with a clever widget, and it also tells you the most number on the site at one time since the owner has been tracking visitors. Usually there is a poll on various different subjects, which is great, as you can see what people think on a certain topic. After that, and the main part of the sidebar, are the site's pages. These are very clearly marked, easy to access and looks impressive. Each section, Information, Media, Games, Stories, Episodes and TOCS Series 1, are marked with a Doctor Who picture, fitted to the right size, with the name of the section in the bottom left of the image in white. These are quite random pictures. Another way to put it is that they don't have much to do with the section, but that does not matter at all, as it doesn't have to! One thing that I might suggest though is on the series of episodes written by Bex, you might consider putting the ones that have been written, and have links to them, put into a different colour to make them clearer, but, apart from that, marvelous!

Other Features

Banner; The Banner for The Oncoming Storm fits the site nicely, and looks vibrant, so that's good, but I might suggest putting a new one up every so often, and possibly making the logo stand out a bit more, to show exactly what the site is!

The Month's Music; At the bottom of the sidebar is a player which plays the chosen music for the month from a Doctor Who Album.

atts key suggestions

• Change the banner a little more often!
• Possibly news posts more often, and maybe about about merchandise, as there is news out there! I can understand that most work goes into the pages though!

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

Overall

This is an amazing must-visit site! Whether you are a beginner to the world of Doctor Who, or a full-time Who fan, this will be a fantastic reference and information site, but with inspiring stories, fun things to do and great things to look at! You won't get bored by the features and hard-work poured into The Oncoming Storm, with all the regular updates, and great news stories, when they are posted, of course!

Rating:

Word Count: 1192