[Gloucs] Draft new GLUG website

[Barbie]

On Thu, Oct 04, 2007 at 10:37:19AM +0100, Andrew Oakley wrote:
> 
> My main concern is that we, as a group, simply don't update our website.

Agreed, but that's mainly because that relies on (usually) a single
person to update the site. With a few admins it usually works better to
have content updated every so often.

> * Since our meetings are always the 3rd Tuesday of the month, and we've
> consistently kept this for a couple of years now, the site should
> automatically populate the next predicted meeting date, whilst advising
> people to check on the mailing list to confirm. It shouldn't require anyone
> to manually put the next dates in, not even if we do it 6 months in advance.
> Accept that we ARE that lazy and let the computer do the work!

I have no problem entering a year's worth of dates and then amending
them as appropriate if they change to a social or similar at a later
date. The benefit of the events, is that we can add notable conferences,
expos or technical meetings for other groups or events (eg Linux Expo,
LUGRadio Live, IET or BCS events, or UKUUG events) that would interest
others. It also helps with Google ranking, but that's another story :)

> * Equally, our venue hasn't changed often in a couple of years, and MLabs
> continue to be happy for us to carry on meeting there.

The way Labyrinth works we can add all that information based on the
venue rather than the event. This means that regular venues don't need
special editing, any content specific to them is reused. Then changing
venue automatically uses the correct content for that venue. 

> * Archives of lecture notes go stale quickly;

Sometimes yes. But having an archive gives people the idea that we are
an active group with a lot of history. Anyone new to the area, looking
to see what we are about, has a wealth of knowledge that gives a good
impression of the group.

If people are uploading slides to their own website, that's fine, but it
helps both the speaker and the group to have a reference to those slides
on the website. If they go stale at any point they can be removed.
People accept that sometimes those sort of links disappear, but it still
provides a degree of history.

This is actually popular of the Birmingham Perl Mongers website as
providing a history of meetings and links to slides and resources
(whether hosted locally or remotely) has meant anyone searching Google
has a better chance of finding them.

> * The only manually-updatable content I'd really like to see would be a
> links page, with categories which can also be updated.

Which is in Labyrinth already :)

> So you could have a category such as "Lecture notes" which could link
> to presentations hosted elsewhere

Any admin can add an extra category and links in seconds with Labyrinth
:)

> * RSS feeds I'm rather ambivolent about.

If a site already uses RSS feeds, the chances are that they are
agreeable to having their news as featured links on other sites. It was
one of the reasons why RSS came into existence ;)

> Unless you choose carefully, and stick to major sites

Agreed. It was more a case of what major sites are suitable?

> but if it's a
> bunch of eclectic occasional feeds that stall two months before anyone
> notices, they can make a site look worse than if they weren't there at all.

Again agreed, and I'd already considered that if a 'Last Updated' field
is more than 2 weeks old, then the mechanism that displays those links
ignores that feed until it updates with more recent content.

> * Basically I think we should accept that our strengths are in our mailing
> list and our meetings, and not try to pretend we can provide regular fresh
> new content to a website every week

This is one of the reasons why Glyn wanted something like a feed of tech
news from somewhere, which would help to keep the front page fresh.
However, the rest of the site should be a usable resource for
information, and whether something is 2 years or 2 months old, it can
still be a valuable resource.

> Our website should be minimalistic

That doesn't always give a good impression. We don't need to go
overboard but a good degree of content, which is there already, helps to
promote an established group with a vibrant membership, which we also
have :)

> and play up to our strengths; the mailing list and the meetings.

They are definite areas we should promote as much as possible, but we
also have the strength of having some fantastic speakers and have had
some great talks, and featuring that in some way on the website is also
something that helps to promote the group.

> * "Just because we _can_ do it doesn't mean we _should_" ;-)

Agreed. My thought behind using Labyrinth was that it means admins can
update it dynamically, without having to change content on their local
harddrive then upload to the webserver. The admins can be a group of the
regulars with the ability to add events, links, news and articles as
they wish.

Relying on one or two people to update the website can mean that it
takes a while to get updated, but with 4 or 5, or more, people updates
tend to happen more regularly.

The other reason I suggested using Labyrinth was that it already works
for Birmingham Perl Mongers and I've only really changed the templates
and CSS between the two.

> Curses, that was a lot more words than I intended.

Likewise ;)

Cheers,
Barbie.
-- 
Birmingham Perl Mongers - http://birmingham.pm.org
Miss Barbell Productions - http://www.missbarbell.co.uk