[Beds] Website

[Stephen Newey]

On 31 Aug 2006, at 13:40, Alan Pope wrote:

> Hmm, I've re-read this and it might sound too negative, that's not  
> how it's
> meant.

Sounds like to voice of experience to me! And I certainly appreciate it.


> A great idea. However I word of warning. LUG members won't maintain  
> the
> site, period. You have to lead by example, often putting a lot of  
> time and
> effort in yourself to get content in there. On the whole most LUGs  
> have a
> core of a few people who actually do most of the work with a few  
> others
> helping out here and there. The "general population" of the LUG may  
> use the
> mailing list and/or forums if you have them but more often than not  
> will not
> actually generate any content at all.

I guess it's the old 100/10/1 rule, 100% read, 10% comment and 1%  
create. Which means we need to find a few hundred more people to join :)

Seriously though, I'm happy to put the work in to try and engage  
people and get things organised, but it's certainly not a one man  
show, and I will need help. Moving forward with a consensus rather  
than dictatorial decision making is very important to me.

As far as engaging people goes, I'd really like to try and sort out a  
physical meeting within the next couple of months, hopefully with a  
more technical bent than just a trip down the pub. I've got an idea  
for giving a demo/talk on a Linux-powered IPTV system that's been my  
day job for the past 18 months or so. And I'd hope that some other  
members here have got technologies or applications they're passionate  
about and would like to show to the rest of us.

I think semi-regular meetings of this kind are also a good source of  
content for the site. Especially if we were to record any demos etc  
and make the videos available on the site for anyone who was unable  
to attend.


>> If you're all happy with this I can get it set up ASAP. If you've got
>> a better idea, please say!
>>
>
> Have a wiki to make it really easy for people to add/edit content?

My concern with a wiki is that it'd be harder to maintain, defending  
against spam etc, that it could result in less innate structure than  
a Plone powered site (where there's clear sections for news,  
articles, events, etc) and that it's harder to maintain visual  
consistency.


> Install a planet to aggregate LUG member Blogs? This helps to keep  
> the site
> up to date and helps to foster the community spirit.

I think that's a fantastic idea and I'll get it moving on the server  
side. So if you're a member and you've got a blog with an RSS/ATOM  
feed that you'd like to be included on the LUG site, mail me the  
address.


>> Finally, we need a logo! Send any suggestions or indeed mockups or
>> finished logos to the list (you'll need to keep it below 30Kb or so,
>> if it's bigger let me know and I'll bump up the message size limit).
>> Then we can all decide which we prefer.
>>
>
> You might want to mail logos directly rather than fill the archive  
> with them.

If this is preferable then feel free to send them directly and I'll  
put them on the end of a URL so we can see them all in one place.

Thanks Alan for your advice, and thanks to Alex for our first logo  
submission!

Cheers
Steve