Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
I've been thinking about writing a style guide for the front page to go along with our redesign (Avec, maybe you'd want to get involved as well?), but one thing I'm still unsure of is our canonical site name and presentation, since we're incredibly inconsistent with it at the moment.
I usually call us "The Lifestream", since I feel that is the name of our site. It appears in the title of our front page ("The Lifestream - Compilation of Final Fantasy VII"), in every article ("Give us your reaction to the FFVII remake! | The Lifestream"), and in our official forum name ("The Lifestream Forums"). It's also the name and handle of our Twitter account ("The Lifestream" and @TheLifestream respectively) and our Google+ account ("The Lifestream").
In many other places, however, we go by some variation of our URL, thelifestream.net. Examples of this include some articles ("TheLifestream.Net Podcast - 2015 E3 Special Mini Cast"), the name and handle of our Facebook account ("TheLifestream.net" and thelifestream.net respectively), and our main banner. We've even managed to be inconsistent while using this form, however: I've seen "TheLifestream.net", "The Lifestream.net" (notice the space, which isn't actually in our URL), "TheLifestream.Net" (capital N in Net), "THE LIFESTREAM.net" (all caps until the .net), and worst of all, "TLS.net", which should never be used, since we do not own that domain.
Our Tumblr account is in a class all of its own: the page's URL is thelifestreamforums.tumblr.com, its title is "The Lifestream.net", it refers to itself as "The Lifestream tumblr", its description mentions "the Lifestream.net", and it shows "THE LIFESTREAM.NET" in its lower-left corner.
Personally, I am strongly in favour of "The Lifestream". Not many websites use their domain name extension as part of their identity; I can only think of places like last.fm and twitch.tv, who choose to do so because they are somewhat related to FM (radio) and TV. One could make an argument that we are a network of Final Fantasy VII fans, but that's really stretching it. Our main purpose over the coming years will be to provide news, analysis and opinion about the forthcoming remake, not to be a network: we are TLS, not TLSN. I also find "The Lifestream" to be a lot less clunky when used in combination with other words - these are The Lifestream Forums, that's The Lifestream Podcast, visit The Lifestream website - and it gives us the flexibility to acquire a new domain (like lifestream.com, if it were to become available) without changing our whole identity.
I understand the benefit in advertising our domain as often as possible, especially since we're not a .com, but that's not going to be a problem in most cases: either someone is already browsing our site or they're looking at something which links directly to us, like our Facebook page, in which case they're much more likely to click through (or to do a web search for us) than to type an URL manually into their browser (and even if they do that, it'll autosuggest the correct domain if they've ever visited us before, and possibly even if they haven't).
We need to either reach a consensus on this or we need Yop to make an executive decision - either one would be fine with me, as long as we start being consistent. What do you all think?
I usually call us "The Lifestream", since I feel that is the name of our site. It appears in the title of our front page ("The Lifestream - Compilation of Final Fantasy VII"), in every article ("Give us your reaction to the FFVII remake! | The Lifestream"), and in our official forum name ("The Lifestream Forums"). It's also the name and handle of our Twitter account ("The Lifestream" and @TheLifestream respectively) and our Google+ account ("The Lifestream").
In many other places, however, we go by some variation of our URL, thelifestream.net. Examples of this include some articles ("TheLifestream.Net Podcast - 2015 E3 Special Mini Cast"), the name and handle of our Facebook account ("TheLifestream.net" and thelifestream.net respectively), and our main banner. We've even managed to be inconsistent while using this form, however: I've seen "TheLifestream.net", "The Lifestream.net" (notice the space, which isn't actually in our URL), "TheLifestream.Net" (capital N in Net), "THE LIFESTREAM.net" (all caps until the .net), and worst of all, "TLS.net", which should never be used, since we do not own that domain.
Our Tumblr account is in a class all of its own: the page's URL is thelifestreamforums.tumblr.com, its title is "The Lifestream.net", it refers to itself as "The Lifestream tumblr", its description mentions "the Lifestream.net", and it shows "THE LIFESTREAM.NET" in its lower-left corner.
Personally, I am strongly in favour of "The Lifestream". Not many websites use their domain name extension as part of their identity; I can only think of places like last.fm and twitch.tv, who choose to do so because they are somewhat related to FM (radio) and TV. One could make an argument that we are a network of Final Fantasy VII fans, but that's really stretching it. Our main purpose over the coming years will be to provide news, analysis and opinion about the forthcoming remake, not to be a network: we are TLS, not TLSN. I also find "The Lifestream" to be a lot less clunky when used in combination with other words - these are The Lifestream Forums, that's The Lifestream Podcast, visit The Lifestream website - and it gives us the flexibility to acquire a new domain (like lifestream.com, if it were to become available) without changing our whole identity.
I understand the benefit in advertising our domain as often as possible, especially since we're not a .com, but that's not going to be a problem in most cases: either someone is already browsing our site or they're looking at something which links directly to us, like our Facebook page, in which case they're much more likely to click through (or to do a web search for us) than to type an URL manually into their browser (and even if they do that, it'll autosuggest the correct domain if they've ever visited us before, and possibly even if they haven't).
We need to either reach a consensus on this or we need Yop to make an executive decision - either one would be fine with me, as long as we start being consistent. What do you all think?
If we go with "The Lifestream", is it also OK to write "the Lifestream" in contexts where we need the definitive article, which is the accepted style in most major publications (e.g. the Guardian, the Economist)? If we choose "TheLifestream.net", what is the correct capitalisation, and when is it acceptable, if ever, to use a space?
. Of note though is that if you google for The Lifestream - in an anonymous browser thing to avoid personalized search results, and/or with the '&pws=0' query parameter added to it to disable it, you get The Lifestream.net way up there at the top - that's good enough for discoverability IMO, if the context of its mentioning is clear enough that it refers to a website or organization. As for where people come in: 34% is direct traffic (i.e. via bookmarks, entering the URL, or coming in without the browser passing in a referrer for whatever reason). The statistics for coming in via search engines are useless though; the vast majority indicates a 'not provided' keyword, because Google itself actually uses HTTPS for most of their search results pages (especially if you're logged into google). Results #2 and #3 are the full URL and 'the lifestream' though, I'm somehow sure that's how most people come in via google (also because few people type in full URLs nowadays). The search queries also confirms it.
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