[Scottish] Discussion from IRC about improving the SLUG website [LONG]

[Kevin McDermott]

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Hi Everybody,

(I know this reaches people from other LUGs, we'd value your input)

<bigkevmcd> I'm proposing that the next ScotLUG meeting discuss the
ScotLUG site
<bigkevmcd> So...what I'm going to suggest is that a week on thursday,
we have discussion about what should be on there
<bigkevmcd> And then, I'm going to propose that we have a "competition"
to implement the new ScotLUG site
<bigkevmcd> People can either work by themselves, or in a team, and
after X months, where X is probably in [1, 2, 3]
<bigkevmcd> we'll have presentations from each of the "entrants" on
their design?
<bigkevmcd> In order to keep the barrier-to-entry low, I'd keep the
technical implementation separate from the aesthetic design
<bigkevmcd> Anybody have any views?

<mgdm> FWIW I do like the Abertay folk's site
<mgdm> and I'm not sure that scotlug.org.uk needs to be entirely built
on a wiki
<mgdm> it'll be nice to have one somewhere, but it doesn't need to be
the entire site

<bigkevmcd> that's my view of it

<pickle> so who's going to be responsible for keeping the non-wiki site
up-to-date?

<mgdm> I never said I had all the answers :)


<bigkevmcd> pickle: That might be more obvious when we work out what is
going on the new site
<bigkevmcd> pickle: For one, I'd like to see a simple way for people to
advertise jobs on the site
<bigkevmcd> pickle: They could obviously have an expiry date
<bigkevmcd> The "Equipment giveaway" is one of best-intentioned parts of
the current site, but there's no currency to it
<bigkevmcd> If they had a life-time of say, 1 month, with perhaps an
email prompted option to renew, that would be better?
<bigkevmcd> I think it's something that _everybody_ can contribute to

<Neil_> pickle raises a good point, the wiki anybody can mess with,
otherwise we need to designate somebody to manage particular sections
and so on.. just an important point to keep in mind

<NormaJean> is a CMS a laughable idea?

<mgdm> Maybe upgrading the existing wiki and adding stuff like CAPTCHAs
is another option

<bigkevmcd> nothing should be ruled out

<lazzurs> bigkevmcd: SAGE has a job board similar to the one you are
talking about but I am sure their thing is all 200 year old cgi scripts

<lazzurs> I do think it would be a good thing, the issue is making sure
the right people see it

<bigkevmcd> There are other issues to think about, how best can we
integrate content from other LUGs, if at all?

<NormaJean> bigkevmcd, if they published RSS feeds...

<bigkevmcd> Personally, I have no issues with things like pulling RSS
feeds, or perhaps providing a centralised calendar

<mgdm> I do like the idea of having something along the lines of a
Scottish lug.org.uk, but I don't think that scotlug.{com|net|org} is the
way to do it

<bigkevmcd> Unlike our CumbernauldLUG representative, I can see no
reason that ScotLUG would have to become an umbrella organisation, but
that doesn't mean we can't provide an umbrella
<bigkevmcd> subtle difference

<mgdm> Indeed, makes sense, IMO

<NormaJean> we provide an umbrella

<bagpuss_thecat> afaik pickle looks after a Google calendar for scotlug

<bigkevmcd> Yeah...so, we could do one of two things, syndicate that, or
replace it?

<bagpuss_thecat> could be mirrored on the scotlug page, from an ical
feed or somesuch

<bigkevmcd> Depends on how pickle feels about it?

<seaLne> there is already http://lug.org.uk/aggregator

<mgdm> at the very least a Scottish planet could be interesting

<seaLne> like planet.scotlug.org.uk?


So ideas?

Feel free to reply, or to join #scotlug on freenode, or to come along.

Kevin
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