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In The Line Of Fire!

September 20, 1999 | Other
In last weeks edition of the Elvis Telegraph our reviewteam wrote a review of Jordan’s Elvis World and gave him our One Star Elvis Telegraph Award. Not everyone seemed to agree with our review and made us know it.

We got some reactions telling us we were wrong. On the newsgroup alt.elvis.king a very emotional discussion emerged. The two major points of criticism on our review were the fact that we dared to criticise his site and the so-called "age-attack" on Jordan.

It all started with an email Jordan mailed to his visitors after reading the review, which surprised him. He didn’t agree and let us know with the help from his visitors. Let’s have a look at Jordan’s email and some reactions we received and found in the newsgroup:

It Seems Some People Want Me To Close My Site For Good, And By Reviews Like This It May Be A Possibility. Please Visit This Site To See The "Under The Belt" Shots They Make About Me And My Site, And Please Share Your Opinions Directly With The Staff of The "Elvis Telegraph"

… enjoyed your site very much. But need to disagree with you on your review. Jordan's a one star site ????????? I'm left a bit speechless on that one …

… the thing about the "age" comment is that it is very negative ... Jordan uses Netscape Composer for his webpage, and I know that it is difficult to get a 5-star design with that program ... anybody who uses a $200 program can get a super-design. For those that don't have this kind of money have to improvise …

… Jordan, I enjoy visiting your site, we can not all be full time HTML wizzkids, some of us learn as we go along. ignore the small minded tossers. There comments were uncalled for ...

… I am extremely bothered by the age remark …

… I think Jordan's Elvis World is the best all around website to visit. I don't understand where one states it is hard to navigate and get around, I for one don't have any problem. Must be dummies for I don’t understand what their problem is for it is very easy…

… you have to justify your outrage, in the same way that these reviewers have justified their (it has to be said VERY MILD!!!) criticism of your web site … saying what so many of us only dared to think up until now ... have you actually read this review ?

… I wanted to let you know that I thought you were right about Jordan's website in your review. I find the site hard to navigate. The things that bothers me the most are his disclaimers ...

… I have never seen such a lengthy review of a web site as in the Elvis Telegraph …. the reviews and comments made about the design on Jordan's Elvis World are valid. I applaud the Elvis Telegraph for doing an objective, constructive review in terms of web site design rather than just focusing on the content. I see a good balance between site design and content (and other things) within the review ...

Looking at these reactions from both our mailbox and the newsgroup we can quickly see two teams emerge which were ready to start a fight, some people were really getting geared up ! But it has to be said, Jordan also called it a quit after a few days with this email:

… Ok, It's Time To Stop Fighting.. I Do Admit I Took The Article The Wrong Way At First, But Now I Will Use Some Of The Pointers To Make My Site Better And Easier To Use....

He also apologised for his reaction to us personally. It takes a man to admit his mistakes. One more remark about the "age", as at least two persons in alt.elvis.king noticed we were only talking about one phrase. It seems Jordan saw our point, because he already changed that line.

Everything got a bit calmer, less emotional and people started to read the review more objectively. We are glad to see that Jordan gave our pointers some thought. That’s exactly the objective of our reviews: to let webmasters know what we think of their website in an objective way and give some constructive advise on points where the site could be improved. We understand that each website is the result of much hard work on the account of the webmaster and we don’t want to press them in buying expensive software to improve their site. Some of the best-designed websites around are made with tools similar to notepad, so you see that expensive tools aren’t necessary. The thing that matters is to keep the thought of Elvis Presley "alive" on the World Wide Web, so let’s get back to that. Looking at the discussion of the past week that won’t be a problem since we’re all committed enough!

And for the webmasters who want their site to be reviewed, don’t be afraid. We don’t have real weapons!