design - vanilla | content - tutti-frutti
Reader caveat - I have to admit, I'm much more about content than style when it comes to web pages. I don't care about the design bells and whistles. In fact, the less filler to get in my way, the better. I rarely click on video links. I'd rather read the story and look at a high quality still picture.
That having been said, Fortean Times is one of my favorite time wasting websites.
news of the weird, anyone?
Fortean Times a website (and a off-line magazine) devoted to the documentation and discussion of anomalous events. It is named after a 19th century cataloger of such events, Charles Fort. Fort published four books that were essentially a collection of blogs about the "news of the weird" of his day.
This website either grabs you or repels you from the front page. Links to the most recent "news of the weird" stories from around the world are what greet you when you open it. There are no belief statements attached to the news, no debates for or against, just the links to the stories, on their respective native news sites.
are you sure you want to click on that picture link?
Since truly strange or inexplicable events are few and far between, a lot of the links involve mysteries of crime or science. There are almost always pictures, and oftentimes videos.
There are more in-depth investigative stories tucked here and there on the site, but the tone is never credulous. The rule of thumb for content presented on the site is that the simplest (most plausible) answer is probably the truth.
a community of "high weirdness"
There is also a very active community which posts weird stories from their respective locals. If the story can be documented (is something from an official news source) it may be featured as a breaking news story on the main page.
The community also features an extremely engrossing forum: It Happened to Me! These are first person accounts of encounters with anomalous events - ghost stories, alien encounters, run-ins with the Beast of Bray Road (a werewolf type creature said to haunt the byways near Elkhorn, WI).
My only complaint about Fortean Times is that since some of the content is tied to the monthly magazine, the site doesn't update as frequently as I'd like. But when I visit, I find myself spending hours.
Hey Susan, your posts were both great. You are definitely a writer. A couple things, instead of coloring your subheads, use a h3 or bold. It makes the content easier to scan. I love that you used images and linked to your outside resources. As far as the header make sure it's more descriptive. Besides that, great tone in your writing!
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