The World's Worst Webpage

[Monte Gardner]

Here's the situation:

I'm a part-time instructor at ITT. In about 2 weeks, I'm going to
start teaching a class titled 'web authoring and scripting'. I
figures that a fun yet interesting way to start the first day of class
would be with a counterexample site. That is, a site showing all the
wrong ways to build a website. I've got a start on this site, but I
would like some more input on what to put in.

Right now I'm focusing on 3 areas of bad web sites
- overblown marketing : I've got kind of the 'snake-oil salesman'
thing going on so far, with the exaggerated claims and ridiculous
allusions to scientific methods and proofs etc...

- Annoying 'catchy' stuff: Blinking text, highlighted text that isn't
links, constant font style changes, flashing images etc,etc.
Actually, I'm looking for one of those annoying "if this is blinking
you've won a prize!" type ads. Does anyone have a copy or a URL for
one of those?

- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all. I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags, tables nested 2
or 3 layers deep etc. I'm also going to include lots of proprietary
markup (<blink><marquee> etc..)

- Confusing intermingling of structure and style - I'm using no CSS,
and all the formatting tags (<font><b><I><blink> etc..). There
will be no <h1> <h2> or anything like that, it will all be like
"<p><b><font color = red size = 3>Buy Now!!!</b></font>" -- you get
the picture.

- Lack of indentation in the source code - The source html code will
be as unreadable as I can make it while still being able to add to it
as I go. Long lines of text and lack of proper indentation etc.

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

[Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen]

Monte Gardner wrote:

Here's the situation:

I'm a part-time instructor at ITT. In about 2 weeks, I'm going to
start teaching a class titled 'web authoring and scripting'. I
figures that a fun yet interesting way to start the first day of class
would be with a counterexample site. That is, a site showing all the
wrong ways to build a website. I've got a start on this site, but I
would like some more input on what to put in.
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Your page is too neat and tidy. I couldn't find a
single spelling error. You need to add more strong
colors, frames and a search engine that doesn't
work. Some Flash and a few applets are good.
A few hints collcted here:
http://home.no.net/ingernet/links.php#How
--
Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen
http://home.online.no/~ingerfaj/

[Darin McGrew]

Monte Gardner <Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote:

http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Hmmm...

You could add a few links, open them in new windows, and make sure they
break when JavaScript is disabled/unavailable, or when the user tries to
open them in new windows normally (e.g., with shift-click).

Since it's a demo page, you could add a blurb like

This site uses Xyzzy Wizzifier v3.14. Download it NOW!

Maybe a redirection to an "upgrade to MSIE 5.0" page is in order.

Images of text with no ALT text? Frames? Even more horizontal scrolling?
Microfonts?
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark." - Steven Wright

[Kris]

In article <ee**************************@posting.google.com >,
Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) wrote:

I'm a part-time instructor at ITT. In about 2 weeks, I'm going to
start teaching a class titled 'web authoring and scripting'. I
figures that a fun yet interesting way to start the first day of class
would be with a counterexample site. That is, a site showing all the
wrong ways to build a website. I've got a start on this site, but I
would like some more input on what to put in.
[..]
- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all. I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags, tables nested 2
or 3 layers deep etc. I'm also going to include lots of proprietary
markup (<blink><marquee> etc..)
You may want to tell them that any table layout is bad practice, but
that because of IE the only correct alternative is a steep learning
curve. In my book, it is ok when people use a table for layout when they
are (still) unable to do any better.

[..]
Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

- Specify no character encoding, or a proprietary one, like
windows-1252. Character encoding may however be a bit hard to understand
for a beginner.

- Use bad alternative text on images, like "Loading.." or "Green dot
with red line sticking out".

- Open links automatically in new windows, preferrably without informing
the visitor at all.

--
Kris
<kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> (nl)

[Kris]

In article <ee**************************@posting.google.com >,
Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) wrote:

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

- A JavaScript that pops up when the visitor leaves the page, demanding
they spend more time and disallows them to leave. Spawn the site in a
new window when the visitor closes the application.

- Make butterflies or stars follow the cursor. Make sure the script is
so badly written that it grinds the PC to a halt.

- Make the window shake for a full minute.

- Use noisy background images that clash with the foreground and make
the text unreadable.

- Try to prevent the visitor from viewing the page's source. Attempt to
disable the right mouse button altogether and punish the visitor when he
tries to use it anyway. (argh, no more of those butterflies!!)

--
Kris
<kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> (nl)

[Harlan Messinger]

"Monte Gardner" <Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:ee**************************@posting.google.c om...

[snip]

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Music. There must be background music. Annoying, loud, tinny music.
Preferably the Chicken Dance.

I notice (or hope) that the "before" and "after" pictures of the woman are
reversed, by the way.

[Kris]

In article <30*************@uni-berlin.de>,
"Harlan Messinger" <h.*********@comcast.net> wrote:

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Music. There must be background music. Annoying, loud, tinny music.
Preferably the Chicken Dance.

The only thing worse than a soundtrack on a webpage would be.. two of
them. Simultaneously.

--
Kris
<kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> (nl)

[Leif K-Brooks]

Kris wrote:

In my book, it is ok when people use a table for layout when they are
(still) unable to do any better.

"In my book, it is ok when doctors use kitchen knives for surgery when
they are (still) unable to do any better."

[Kris]

In article <30*************@uni-berlin.de>,
Leif K-Brooks <eu*****@ecritters.biz> wrote:

Kris wrote:

In my book, it is ok when people use a table for layout when they are
(still) unable to do any better.

"In my book, it is ok when doctors use kitchen knives for surgery when
they are (still) unable to do any better."

When stranded in the jungle and the only thing you have with you is a
kitchen knive, yeah. It is a jungle out there. I try people to show them
the way out of it, though.

--
Kris
<kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> (nl)

[John Dunlop]

Monte Gardner wrote:

a site showing all the wrong ways to build a website.
[ ... ]
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

'Loose weight', which torments the participants of
m.f.weights, is a nice touch. MFWers wouldn't hesitate to
contribute more jargon and material of a humourous though
politically incorrect nature.

Cheers!

--
Jock

[Neal]

On 17 Nov 2004 12:16:49 -0800, Monte Gardner <Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote:

- Annoying 'catchy' stuff: Blinking text, highlighted text that isn't
links, constant font style changes, flashing images etc,etc.
Actually, I'm looking for one of those annoying "if this is blinking
you've won a prize!" type ads. Does anyone have a copy or a URL for
one of those?
Make some text have a color that isn't sufficiently contrasted to the
background. Spell some things wrong.
- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all. I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags, tables nested 2
or 3 layers deep etc. I'm also going to include lots of proprietary
markup (<blink><marquee> etc..)
For emphasis, put a h4 in the middle of a p.
- Confusing intermingling of structure and style - I'm using no CSS,
and all the formatting tags (<font><b><I><blink> etc..). There
will be no <h1> <h2> or anything like that, it will all be like
"<p><b><font color = red size = 3>Buy Now!!!</b></font>" -- you get
the picture.

<u>. Dont't forget <u>. And use it near links too, to make it worse.

Horrible work so far, keep it up!

[Barbara de Zoete]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:49:33 -0500, Neal <ne*****@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 17 Nov 2004 12:16:49 -0800, Monte Gardner <Mo***********@asu.edu>
wrote:

- Annoying 'catchy' stuff: Blinking text, highlighted text that isn't
links, constant font style changes, flashing images etc,etc.
Actually, I'm looking for one of those annoying "if this is blinking
you've won a prize!" type ads. Does anyone have a copy or a URL for
one of those?

Make some text have a color that isn't sufficiently contrasted to the
background. Spell some things wrong.

- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all. I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags, tables nested 2
or 3 layers deep etc. I'm also going to include lots of proprietary
markup (<blink><marquee> etc..)

For emphasis, put a h4 in the middle of a p.

- Confusing intermingling of structure and style - I'm using no CSS,
and all the formatting tags (<font><b><I><blink> etc..). There
will be no <h1> <h2> or anything like that, it will all be like
"<p><b><font color = red size = 3>Buy Now!!!</b></font>" -- you get
the picture.

<u>. Dont't forget <u>. And use it near links too, to make it worse.

ROFL Whooohi. It gets more and more hillarious.

--
Webontwerp <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html>
Zweefvliegen <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html>
Blog <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html>
DTD <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/dtd/not_so_strict.dtd>

[Michael Stemper]

In article <ee**************************@posting.google.com >, Monte Gardner writes:

Here's the situation:

I'm a part-time instructor at ITT. In about 2 weeks, I'm going to
start teaching a class titled 'web authoring and scripting'. I
figures that a fun yet interesting way to start the first day of class
would be with a counterexample site. That is, a site showing all the
wrong ways to build a website. I've got a start on this site, but I
would like some more input on what to put in.

Well, you'll have to see what the self-proclaimed "Worst Page on the Web"
looks like:
<http://www.hytext.com/worst/>
For something that's almost as bad, but not intentionally so, check out
the Time Cube:
<http://www.timecube.com/>

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The FAQ for rec.arts.sf.written is at:
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/sf-written.htm
Please read it before posting.

[Martin Clark]

Monte Gardner wrote...

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

You've not tried very hard, have you?
You need some background music. You need some animated .gifs. You need
some scrolling MARQUEE text. You need a repeating background image so
that the text is harder to read. Either that or the text should be
medium blue, rather than black. The font should be Comic Sans MS, with
odd sections being in Times New Roman. Some paragraphs should be in 18px
font size, with others being 8px. You have only got three words spelt
incorrectly (powerful, lose and body's, if it wasn't intentional!). A
bad web page needs lots more spelling errors along with poor
punctuation, such as incorrect apostrophes, and lots more !!!!!!!!!!!s.

You have: <TITLE>The world's worst web page</TITLE>
whereas it should have been: <TITLE>Insert title here</TITLE>
--
Martin Clark

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Monte Gardner
<Mo***********@asu.edu> said:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

<meta name="Generator" content="Frontpage">

--
Mark Parnell
http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[SeaPlusPlus]

> Kris wrote:

In my book, it is ok when people use a table for layout when they are
(still) unable to do any better.

Leif K-Brooks wrote:
"In my book, it is ok when doctors use kitchen knives for surgery when
they are (still) unable to do any better."

"In my book, it is OK for people, in any endeavor, to perform
incompetently when they are (still) unable to do any better."

[Lachlan Hunt]

Monte Gardner wrote:

That is, a site showing all the wrong ways to build a website.
Keep trying, I had little trouble viewing the site in Lynx [1]. Try
using images for text, with missing alt text, and badly nested tables
that do not liniarize correctly. It should depend on the presentation
to be read correctly, and should read out of order for those annoying
users with Lynx or Jaws that can't see your page in all it's glory!
Right now I'm focusing on 3 areas of bad web sites
- overblown marketing :
Needs more banners. About 5 or 6, all flashing banners should do the trick.
- Annoying 'catchy' stuff: Blinking text, highlighted text that isn't
links, constant font style changes, flashing images etc,etc.
Needs more blinking, marquees and, Gasp!, blinking marquees [2].
Actually, I'm looking for one of those annoying "if this is blinking
you've won a prize!"
Try Dictionary.com. They often have flashing sirens and other awful
usability nightmares in their banners.
- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all.
Use an <?xml?> declaration, with an invalid HTML DOCTYPE. Take some
advice from the HTML House of Horror [3|4]
I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags,
Then, that's a good reason to use XHTML served as text/html! Don't
forget to mismatch the case. eg. <FONT>...<b>...</Font>...</B>
tables nested 2 or 3 layers deep etc.
Don't stop at 3. Go at least 5 or 6, and with many spacer gifs.
<img src="spacer.gif" height="30" width="1"
alt="spacer: 30 pixels high, by 1 pixel wide">

If using XHTML, don't use />, but if using HTML, then use it. Don't
forget alt="spacer ...". That's important for people using lynx and
screen readers to read. Since they can't see the layout, it's important
to describe it to them however you can.
- Confusing intermingling of structure and style - I'm using no CSS,
and all the formatting tags (<font><b><I><blink> etc..).
Don't forget <nobr>
it will all be like "<p><b><font color = red size = 3>Buy Now!!!</b></font>"
Don't use <p>, use <br><br> between paragraphs. Or, even better, put
each paragrah in a <td>, and use an blank <td> with a spacer gif for the
margin.

eg.
....
<tr><td>paragraph 1</td></tr>
<tr><td><img src="spacer.gif" height="10" width="1" alt="spacer"></td></tr>
<tr><td>paragraph 2</td></tr>
....
- Lack of indentation in the source code - The source html code will
be as unreadable as I can make it while still being able to add to it
as I go. Long lines of text and lack of proper indentation etc.

Try encrypting it [5].

Also, here are some other tips to make it that little extra annoying:

* An unnecessary frameset to hide the real URL
* Unnecessary browser sniffing that alerts the user when they're not
using your preferred browser and settings, and redirect to a browser
upgrade message for anyone not using IE4.x or later.
* Write: Best viewed with Internet Explorer 4, Netscape 4 or later,
using a screen resolution of 800x600.
* Use script to resize the browser window for the user to save them the
effort.
* Every link should use target="_new" (It's invalid, since it should be
_blank, but it still causes new windows)
* Use <select> lists for JavaScript driven navigation menus.
* Don't quote attribute values, especially if they contain special
characters. href attributes work well, since a slash / cannot appear
in an attribute value unless it is quoted.

I have discussed all this, and more bad techniqes in my Net Twits blog [6].

[1]
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview....FbadExample%2F

[2] CAUTION: The following page contains many blinking marquees and
highly contrasting colours which may affect any user that suffers
from video-induced epileptic seizures, or similar disability.
Best viewed in a Gecko based browser that supports <blink> and
<marquee>
http://www.goer.org/HTML/examples/htmlhorror1.html

[3] http://www.goer.org/Journal/2003/Oct/index.html#26
[4] http://www.goer.org/Journal/2004/Oct/index.html#30
[5] http://lachy.id.au/blogs/nettwits/20...se-of-security
[6] http://lachy.id.au/blogs/nettwits/

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

[Lachlan Hunt]

Lachlan Hunt wrote:

Monte Gardner wrote:

That is, a site showing all the wrong ways to build a website.

One last thing I forgot to mention. Take out all those useless <meta>
tags. Do you really want to make your site more accessible to search
engines? I didn't think so!

Oh, and include any element in the mso: namespace. Open the page in
Word or Frontpage, make some changes and then save. Remember the web is
a pixel perfect medium, and Word generated HTML/CSS does a good job with
that! :-)

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

[Stan Brown]

"Inger Helene Falch-Jacobsen" <In***@neseblod.invalid> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

Your page is too neat and tidy. I couldn't find a
single spelling error. You need to add more strong
colors, frames and a search engine that doesn't
work. Some Flash and a few applets are good.

And make sure that it's completely blank if the visitor's browser
doesn't support some "kewl" technology. Javascript is a good choice,
but requiring even a more useless and obscure technology is good.

h yes, also make sure you browser sniff, guess wrong, and nag the
visitor to upgrade to Netscape 4.7 or MSIE 5.0 or some other
dinosaur.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Stan Brown]

"Kris" <kr*******@xs4all.netherlands> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

- Specify no character encoding, or a proprietary one, like
windows-1252. Character encoding may however be a bit hard to understand
for a beginner.

But make sure you specify em dashes and curly quotes with <font
face="Symbol">.

Gee, this is fun!

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Stan Brown]

"Neal" <ne*****@yahoo.com> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

<u>. Dont't forget <u>. And use it near links too, to make it worse.

For the full effect, you want to suppress the underlining of actual
links.

And has anybody mentioned yet <table width=865>?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Neal]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:13:15 +0000, Martin Clark <ma****@spl.at> wrote:

You have: <TITLE>The world's worst web page</TITLE>
whereas it should have been: <TITLE>Insert title here</TITLE>

Or <tItle>My First Web Page</titLe>

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Neal wrote:

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:13:15 +0000, Martin Clark <ma****@spl.at>
wrote:

You have: <TITLE>The world's worst web page</TITLE> whereas it
should have been: <TITLE>Insert title here</TITLE>

Or <tItle>My First Web Page</titLe>

<TITLE>New Page 1</TITLE>

Results 1 - 10 of about 4,220,000 for "New Page 1". (0.73 seconds)
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

[Lachlan Hunt]

Neal wrote:

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:13:15 +0000, Martin Clark <ma****@spl.at> wrote:

You have: <TITLE>The world's worst web page</TITLE>
whereas it should have been: <TITLE>Insert title here</TITLE>

Or <tItle>My First Web Page</titLe>

or <TiTlE/>index.html</tItLe>
or <TiTlE/>Untitled Document</tItLe>

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

In <ee**************************@posting.google.com >, on 11/17/2004
at 12:16 PM, Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) said:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Several popular HTML editors will remove "unnecessary" white space for
you. What I call a "Molley Malone" (She died of a faevor, from which
none could save her.)

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to sp******@library.lspace.org

[Jon Bell]

In article <Gt*****************@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
Lachlan Hunt <sp***********@gmail.com> wrote:

Neal wrote:

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 00:13:15 +0000, Martin Clark <ma****@spl.at> wrote:

You have: <TITLE>The world's worst web page</TITLE>
whereas it should have been: <TITLE>Insert title here</TITLE>

Or <tItle>My First Web Page</titLe>

or <TiTlE/>index.html</tItLe>
or <TiTlE/>Untitled Document</tItLe>

Don't forget the "Under Construction" banner.

--
Jon Bell <jt*******@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA

[Mark Tranchant]

Monte Gardner wrote:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/

[Michael Selent]

Am Mit, 17 Nov 2004 um 20:16 GMT hat Monte Gardner geschrieben:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

You could use a 800 KB image (GIF-Format for a truecolor-photo) with
a real resolution of about 1600x1200 pixels and size it down to 100x60
using the width="100" and height="60" parameters within the img-tag.
Do not use the alt-tag.
--
(^^\/\/^^)
~~~@@~~~ PGP key available
(..)

[Chris Morris]

Darin McGrew <mc****@stanfordalumni.org> writes:

Images of text with no ALT text?

Make sure these are in an unreadable font at an unreadable size.

--
Chris

[Graham J]

> Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly

appreciated.

Remember to pull in images from other servers using obscure port numbers.
Can't have people with firewalls not seeing warnings or blocking part of the
content.

It might be worth having a counter example of a page that actually looks
nice but where the source is complete nonsense. Here are genuine extracts
from what I consider to be quite an attractive home page.
<html>

<head>
<title>[...snip...]</title>
<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #EABB00; font-weight: bold}
</style>
</head>

<body topmargin="7" link="#008000" vlink="#008000" alink="#EABB00">
<table border="0" width="758" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="100%" colspan="2"><img border="0"
src="images/banner_logo.jpg" width="758" height="103"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="166" valign="top"><html>

<head>

<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {font-family: Verdana; text-decoration:
underline; color: #EABB00; font-weight: bold}
</style>

</head>

<body link="#006600" vlink="#008000" alink="#EABB00">

[...snip long table layout...]
</body>

</html>
</td>
<td width="592" valign="top">
<table border="0" width="100%" height="6" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="100%"></td>
</tr>
</table>
<div align="right">
<table border="0" width="590" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="400" valign="top">
<div align="center">
<center>
[...snip...]
</b><u><br></u>
[...snip...]
<div align="left">
<html>

<head>
<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #EABB00; font-weight: bold}
</style>
</head>

<body link="#008000" vlink="#008000" alink="#EABB00">
<table border="0" width="190" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="100%" colspan="3">
<img border="0"
src="images/county_guide_top.jpg" width="190" height="59"></td>
</tr>
[...snip...]
</table>
</body>

</html>

</div>
</td>
<td width="195" valign="top">
<div align="right">
<html>

<head>
<style fprolloverstyle>A:hover {color: #EABB00; font-weight: bold}
</style>
</head>

<body link="#008000" vlink="#008000" alink="#EABB00">
<table border="0" width="190" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
[...snip..]
</table>

</body>

</html>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
[...snip....]
</body>

</html>

[Chris Morris]

Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) writes:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Set the charset in the HTTP header to EBCDIC. Set the charset in a
meta tag to be some proprietary non-roman charset. Actually code the
page in iso-8859-1, utf-8, or similar.

Put lang attributes on everything, including the <br> tags. Make sure
none of them are accurate. Change language every paragraph.

If you have an image as a link, make a single-area client side image
map instead. Even 'better', use a server-side image map.

Specify font-sizes in inches.

Auto-refresh the page to itself every ten seconds.

Put half a dictionary into the <meta> keywords and description.

Use 'click here' for link text. Better still, use 'press the right
arrow here' for link text.

--
Chris

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Stan Brown wrote:

h yes, also make sure you browser sniff, guess wrong, and nag the
visitor to upgrade to Netscape 4.7 or MSIE 5.0 or some other
dinosaur.

http://www.google.com/search?q=pleas...net.explorer.3

This one that Google found seems particularly crass:

[EMBED]

[tlspec.gif]
We understand that there are special needs out there for goth parents to
vegans to wheelchair bound goths. The C10 committee has done everything they
can to find out more information to assist. If you have any questions,
please feel free to contact us and we can see what we can do!

[icspec.gif]

IFRAME: content

Your browser does not support the iFrames tag. Please upgrade to Internet
Explorer 3, [...]
So, "We understand that there are special needs", but we spit in their
face, it seems.

[Chris Morris]

Michael Selent <18***********@spamgourmet.com> writes:

Am Mit, 17 Nov 2004 um 20:16 GMT hat Monte Gardner geschrieben:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

You could use a 800 KB image (GIF-Format for a truecolor-photo) with
a real resolution of about 1600x1200 pixels and size it down to 100x60
using the width="100" and height="60" parameters within the img-tag.
Do not use the alt-tag.

Better still, *do* use the alt tag. It's about time it got some use.
<img src="foo.jpg"><alt text="Foo">

I recommend *not* using the alternative form, <img
src="foo.jpg"><alt>foo</alt> as that might actually 'work' in some
browsers.

--
Chris

[Lachlan Hunt]

Mark Tranchant wrote:

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

I can't read it cause I don't speak German, but is that page legit, or
is it intended, in every way, to be an example of what not to do? It is
difficult to tell because the whole site is like that, with nothing sane
about it.

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

[Lachlan Hunt]

Chris Morris wrote:

Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) writes:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.
Set the charset in the HTTP header to EBCDIC. Set the charset in a
meta tag to be some proprietary non-roman charset.

Use the charset properly to set the document's default font:

<meta name=content-type content=plain/text;charset=Arial>

Actually code the page in iso-8859-1, utf-8, or similar.
Do what everyone else does, and use Windows-1252 like any other sane web
developer. Also, be sure to encode character references using the
numbers from € to Ÿ. Despite what the validator thinks, that
is the correct way to do them. Well, at least according to Microsoft,
whom we all know is the real standards organisation controlling the web!
Put lang attributes on everything, including the <br> tags. Make sure
none of them are accurate. Change language every paragraph.
lang="klingon"
Auto-refresh the page to itself every ten seconds.
Don't do this for the whole page, but put all banners in an iframe, with
each of them refreshing like that.
Use 'click here' for link text.
Other good link text includes: _this_, _click_, _here_, _read_,
_download_ and _push_.

Better still, use 'press the right arrow here' for link text.

For more information about making pigs fly, please _hover your mouse
pointer over this text so that it looks like a hand, then click the left
button on your mouse using your right index finger_.

Also, remember that alt text is meant to be used as a tooltip, despite
what those people making that broken browser called Firefox say.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25537#c31

All Hail IE's correct implementation!

Lastly, it's important that users do not feel the need to use any of
those useless buttons on their toolbar, like Back, Forward, Home, etc.
So be sure to open a new window that lacks all of these. They only
serve to distract the user from reading the content on your page. You
also don't want a regular user looking at your source code, so disable
the context menu too.

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/
http://GetFirefox.com/ Rediscover the Web
http://SpreadFirefox.com/ Igniting the Web

[Barbara de Zoete]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:18:25 GMT, Lachlan Hunt <sp***********@gmail.com>
wrote:

Put lang attributes on everything, including the <br> tags. Make sure
none of them are accurate. Change language every paragraph.

lang="klingon"

ROFL !
--
Webontwerp <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/webontwerp.html>
Zweefvliegen <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/html/vliegen.html>
Blog <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/_private/weblog.html>
DTD <http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/dtd/not_so_strict.dtd>

[Harlan Messinger]

"Lachlan Hunt" <sp***********@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:lS******************@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

Mark Tranchant wrote:

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

I can't read it cause I don't speak German, but is that page legit, or
is it intended, in every way, to be an example of what not to do? It is
difficult to tell because the whole site is like that, with nothing sane
about it.

I thought the same thing. He even intercepts right-clicks to disable the
context menu. Instead, you get a pop-up reading "Nischt klauen!"

But from the source text I think he's perfectly serious, atrocious and
inconsistent spelling aside.

[Neal]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:49:34 +0000 (UTC), Jon Bell <jt*******@presby.edu>
wrote:

Don't forget the "Under Construction" banner.

And a little digging guy.

This is quite funny, BTW...

http://www.homestarrunner.com/underconstruction.html

[Neal]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:08:41 -0500, Neal <ne*****@yahoo.com> wrote:

http://www.homestarrunner.com/underconstruction.html

.... should mention, it's a Flash cartoon.

[Darin McGrew]

Lachlan Hunt <sp***********@gmail.com> wrote:

* Use <select> lists for JavaScript driven navigation menus.

Better yet, add a few <select> lists that look like navigation tools, but
that do nothing.
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Entering Yosemite National Park: laws of gravity strictly enforced"

[dp]

Monte Gardner wrote:

Anyway, you can see what I've got so far at
http://www.gardnerweb.org/badExample

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

You can probably get some insights at the Guitar God's web site...
http://j-walk.com/other/todd/aboutme.htm

--
dp

[Joe Garcia]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <sp******@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message news:<41***************************@news.patriot.n et>...

In <ee**************************@posting.google.com >, on 11/17/2004
at 12:16 PM, Mo***********@asu.edu (Monte Gardner) said:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly
appreciated.

Several popular HTML editors will remove "unnecessary" white space for
you. What I call a "Molley Malone" (She died of a faevor, from which
none could save her.)

Are you saying that we should go out and purchase an HTML editor?

[Herb Wolfe]

Monte Gardner <Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote:

: - Annoying 'catchy' stuff: Blinking text, highlighted text that isn't
: links, constant font style changes, flashing images etc,etc.
: Actually, I'm looking for one of those annoying "if this is blinking
: you've won a prize!" type ads. Does anyone have a copy or a URL for
: one of those?

Don't forget to find one of those video ads that are starting to appear.
Kerry had a couple, and I've seen one or two others. Or just find a video
clip encoded with some obscure codec, or using some old format, like .fli.

~herb
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

[Otty]

Mark Tranchant wrote:

Monte Gardner wrote:

Any feedback as to how I can make this page 'worse' would be greatly appreciated.

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

That can't be serious. I refuse to believe. Where did you find it?

[Otty]

Graham J wrote:

It might be worth having a counter example of a page that actually looks nice but where the source is complete nonsense. Here are genuine extracts from what I consider to be quite an attractive home page.

How can that possibly be quite an attractive home page? How can it even
display anything? There are pages nested within tables and an
underlined break? Does it display in mozilla or just IE?

[Mark Tranchant]

Otty wrote:

Mark Tranchant wrote:

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

That can't be serious. I refuse to believe. Where did you find it?

Just round the corner in ciwas-d, some while ago:

http://www.shorl.com/dihyvystydihi

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/

[Nisse Engström]

Monte Gardner<Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote:

- Poor coding practices: None of the HTML in this page is to be
standardized at all. I'm using the old-style 'all caps' tags, little
or no quoting of attributes, improperly nested tags, tables nested 2
or 3 layers deep etc. I'm also going to include lots of proprietary
markup (<blink><marquee> etc..)

It's hard to beat real world examples:

<http://www.trollhaugen.com/>:

"...
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
...
<address style="line-height: 200%"><b>
<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: small-caps">
<font face="Gill Sans MT" color="#008080">&nbsp;</font>
</span></b></address>
...
<address><font face="Arial Black" size="4"><span
style="font-style: normal"><font color="#FF0000">&nbsp;
</font>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></font><font size="4">&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;</font>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nb sp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&n bsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp ; </address>
..."

And much more...

- - -

<http://tweakers.net>:

"...
<!-- (c)1998-2003 Tweakers.net B.V. - Website & Database
design by Femme Taken / fe***@tweakers.net -
Webserver: Argus - Dbase: Artemis -->
..."

Almost the entire contents on this page is created with
'document.write()', even some of the <script> elements.
And should JavaScript, for some inexplicable reason, be
unavailable, the elements are, naturally, incorrectly
nested. Even with JavaScript enabled, I believe there is
an unmatched </table> in there.

At least, that was the case a few weeks ago.

- - -

I also came across a site with seven levels of nested tables,
but I've lost the link to that one.

--n

[Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz]

In <94**************************@posting.google.com >, on 11/18/2004
at 07:56 PM, jo***********@earthlink.net (Joe Garcia) said:

Are you saying that we should go out and purchase an HTML editor?

The offenders I've seen, e.g., Netscape, are free. I certainly don't
suggest buying proprietary editors just to test them for such
behavior, but if you already have legal access to some it would be
worth testing them.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to sp******@library.lspace.org

[Bart Lateur]

Monte Gardner wrote:

That is, a site showing all the
wrong ways to build a website.

I once saw a site were every text on it was converted into an image --
and usign an ugly font at that, too. I though MS-Publisher was
responsible for that abomination.

Ah, yes: see a discussion here:

http://use.perl.org/~davorg/journal/16038

--
Bart.

[Bart Lateur]

Mark Tranchant wrote:

Copy this guy's work: http://www.frnz.de/

His site mentions: "Ich suche noch eine Frau!". With a site like that,
I'm not surprised...

--
Bart.