[SLUG] Geeklog and the Lug Website

[Jonathan Worthington]

> Okay, I know the deadline it just about up but before anything is done I
would
> like to add my final 2 cents.
Which kinda prompts me to do the same.  :-)

> I have been looking at geek-log again and these are my thoughts:
>
> It *still* looks terrible. Somehow it still looks like a prebuilt out of
> the box CMS. Which in my opinion gives the impression that not much work
has
> gone into it. And it looses any individuality the site had.
>
> It also looks way too busy. The fact is that the CMS capabilities are not
going
> to be
> used that often. Even the mailing list dries up sometimes. Half the
categories
> are going to stay empty for a long time. If you have a cms like geek-log
it gives
> the impression that the site is going to be updated often. That will not
be the
> case. In my opinion we need something more simplistic, that can fit into a
> simple clean theme. Maybe a bit more like the page we have now. A cms is
> certainly a good idea, but I dont think Geel Log is the package we want.
Don't know it looks terrible in terms of colours, etc.  It is, however,
rather cluttered.  Like Jamie said, we won't fill and probably won't use
those categories much - how often do we update the site now?  A CMS is great
if you've got a lot of content being updated regularly, but this thing will
probably serve to advertise that this isn't the reality.

> Currently the pages do not render well in all browsers. For example the
DHTML
> navigation bar does not fit the screen in Mozilla (unless thats my font
> settings). Also, and (I know this will be irrelevant for most people) it
does
> not render well in text browsers.
Cross browser support is important for an LUG too, given the wide variety of
web browsers that you can use in Linux.  And we want it to look OK in IE
too, for those who are coming from the M$ background.

> I showed it to my brother yesterday and the first thing he said was 'ugh'.
I
> took it that he did not mean that in a nice way.
>
> I could probably go on picking faults, but I wont.
>
> In short, I hate it. I think it would be a huge let down to the group to
have
> this serve as the website. It makes us look unprofessional and amateurish.
But
> thats just my opinion. :)
I guess it shows we can install a PHP script and configure it...a bit.  ;-)
I don't want to put down the work people have put into doing the CMS, but I
have to agree with Jamie's points.  It's simply overkill.  I think we need
to ask:-

 - What is the purpose of the site
 - What do we want to put on the site
 - Do we really need a CMS to achieve/enable the above?
 - What dynamic stuff do we want/need?  A calander and a poll would be fine
probably

Just my opinion of course.  BTW, on a more arrogant note, I've been spending
the last 3 and a half weeks developing a content management system, so I do
have some insight into them and their implications...

Take care y'all,

Jonathan