Dave Briggs linux@davebriggs.net
In that case, would it be a good idea to go right back to the drawing board and have a discussion about exacly what we want on the site and what we want it to do? I guess then it would make it easier to decide what system to use to sit behind it all.
I think you'll find that everyone will say they want the moon on a stick, but no-one will commit to holding that stick up for very long!
What should go on the site? At the moment, there's three sections (background, meetings and venues) and some pages and subsites, some of which need updating, moving or culling.
I don't like the suggestion that the whole site be a wiki. The wiki has been the most time-consuming part to maintain since it was introduced, it's been less and less useful and then it got thoroughly attacked when I'd not enough time to deal with it (so big thanks to Darren Casey and others for stepping in). I'd be delighted if it can be renovated, but I think it's not a good way to run the whole site.
ALUG has a problem that when people get busy, they often get too busy to hand over tasks. If all webmasters of the current site die, it would just sit there, going out-of-date. If all webmasters of a wiki die, it usually gets exploited and trashed.
I didn't consider a full CMS worthwhile for the main pages because:
1. There aren't that many pages and they do fairly simple jobs Evolution seemed a more efficient approach than revolution and we might develop something interesting.
2. The pages are already templated, but are stored on the server as xhtml, because it's faster, safer and there are a lot more tools which can work with it. To consider the self-referential link-adding script I asked about earlier: if it was CMSed, we'd probably need someone who can hack the template language or database structure in use.
I will remove the template parts from the editor soon, as they do actually cause some "fun" problems with the WYSIWYGish editor. To do that, I may update the page template, because it'll be fastest/safest in the long run anyway.
If someone has a new template design, please publish it. xhtml+css+accessibility really preferred.
By the way, the Shropshire LUG site suggested as a nice design also has double navigation, error messages and "search-engine unfriendly" URLs - all things which don't happen much with xhtml files and they can be mirrored more easily, although we don't have mirrors just now. It's also a little cheeky not to link back to LUG.org.uk IMO. Yes, a fairly nice style, though.
3. Applications and subsites have been developed independently and hosted on the main site or other servers, which makes it easier to manage and limits our losses when someone uses an exploitable PHP web application or just goes flamey.
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I'm probably getting ahead of the game, but someone started on tools before figuring out what the site needs to do.
I welcome help and I'm irritated by wild guesses at how the site works, instead of reading the source or simply asking. I ask helpers to appreciate the reasons and experiences behind the site. Some of it's probably wrong and can be improved, but we need to be cautious about breaking things.
Thanks,