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What makes for a good web site?

Since this is an award for worthy online work in the science fiction and fantasy genre, we thought it would be a good idea to detail some of the factors that should be borne in mind when evaluating a web site.

• Depth of content: A site with 10,000 pages should obviously score higher than a site with only five.
  
• Ease of navigation: Does the site let you navigate its structure in an intuitive & easy manner? Does it have it's own domain name, rather than an easy to forget free webspace URL? Does it have its site search function that makes it easy to locate content?
  
• Freshness of content: Is the site updated every day, every month ... or is there a little line of text informing you the site was last updated in 1997 or that it is copyright (c) 2001?
  
• Quality of content: Does the site feature well-written articles by informed authors, or is it the random diseased ramblings of an unmoderated bulletin board system?
  
• Access to content: Does the site charge for access for all or some of its material (even if dresses said fees up as a members only society deal), locking its best content behind a password system. At the next stage of annoyance down, does it have an irritating free registration system to get at the goodies? Or is it totally free like, say, SFcrowsnest.com?
  
• Originality: Is the site offering content or services that are hard to find anywhere else, or is just a twenty minute PHP-Nuke build for another flipping Lord of the Rings site?
  
• Design: Does the site have a polished look & feel and a quality design; or is it white text out of a black background, using the <BLINK> command with that animated flying saucer GIF you last saw in the PowerPoint clipart library?
  
• Stability: Does the site download in a reasonable amount of time without crashing your web browser with bizarre Java-scripts, ASP components and PHP hacks? Does it work as well (or at all) in Opera or Navigator as it does in Explorer? Does it assault your PC with porn adverts that are impossible to shut down because it's hosted on free web space?
  
• Personality: Does the site have a unique personality, where you actually know - dare we say care for - the people behind it? Or is it bland corporateware where the only human face is contact webmaster@company.com?
  
• Interactivity & services: Does the site offer anything apart from flat HTML? Does it have bulletin boards, chat, free e-mail, dating services, shopping and Macromedia Flash movies?

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