Website thoughts and ideas...

[Rick]

Yes, there are ways spammers can get posts and profiles into the forum, but for profiles they have to work fairly hard, and for posts the down-side of closing the route they use is that genuine folks who're having difficulty getting stuff into the forum will have no way to indicate what the problem is.

We're working on finding suitable content management systems for the website and gallery, but I'd ruled .Net out because it severely limits other aspects (particularly for cheap hosting), and because I have no experience with it.

[JohnP]

Rick,

As long as you agree there is a problem with spamming you/OAS should be doing everything possible to stop it.. I really do not see what the problem is with having a 'membership only' forum.. If anybody is interested in the OAS/ the messages etc. that members post then I'm sure that they would have no problems in joining if they want to participate. I also really don't see a problem with a membership procedure that takes for example 24hrs for approval...  (just so spammers etc. are excluded)

John.

[Mike]

I think that being able to access and post on the forum without delay is a good idea personally. However, some kind of system to stop the spammers is essential. The usual one is the one where it shows a word or group of characters that are distorted and you have to type the word in. Virtually impossible for any kind of spam-bot to get past those !

I also think we shouldn't restrict what we use just because one of us doesn't know hwo to use it. The whole idea of expanding the site and getting our own server is so that several people can be the editors. If Chris is offering to help with any kind of .NET software and willing to train others then I don't see why we shouldn't go down that route if it offers a good solution.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

Did you know by the way you can host dot net nuke sites for approx £60 per annum?  How much disk space would we need.

Chris

[Rick]

The level of spamming on this forum is, in my opinion, tolerable at present. The level of spam registrations dropped dramatically when we turned on the extra confirmation step. I'll happily add an extra moderator (or maybe two) to the public forums if we need more folks able to delete spam posts.

[Rick]

I'd like to keep this thread focused on content, and general ideas about function, and avoid discussion of particular implementations, please.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Guys,

Here's my 2 pennies worth.

What I would like to suggest is a flexible CMS system which will allow us to show and external site with some control over the moderators and also the level of access to the site.  For example it should have: -

Open Web Front end where meetings etc can be maintained easily by any authorised member.

A Member only front end set by permissions in the database; this would be for things like behind the scene, contact info for members and maybe special forums and postings etc.

Sections for specialist groups or sub groups, like the committee for the postings relating to committee meetings etc, this could be read only for members and not visible for the public.

The public front end we could have: -

Meeting
Observing details
Special Events
Membership
Gallery subset
Photo of the month
Usual other tabs


The we could have for the members: -

TOAST on-line
Full Gallery where members can load up and maintain their images in directories, and it should be as unlimited as we can, personal interest here.
A private discussion board for things like getting our own observatory, or maybe the web site.
Tutorials
Work in progress collaboration, like building tutorials or even documents for publication.
Observing logs on-line
Etc
Equipment reviews

Whatever system we implement we should be able to add remove or change the permissions or security of any tab or layout without the need to engage a web designer.

Also I would like to see the ability to have XML feeds such as space weather or metcheck in the site and even links to web cams and live events.

Lastly we could video the member's evenings and put them up on the site for non-members to view, I would not have a problem with that.

Simply put a full Astronomy forum, I really would like this to be good, we have to remember that as the demographics of the UK change people will use the web more and more and it's likely that if we have a good site which is maintained and its up to date then people will find us easier and attend and even join.

I do not subscribe to the keep it dull and simple with the bare minimum of resolution and facilities school of thought.  The fact of life at the moment is that people are used to technology, its here to stay as we should keep up with it, although probably two steps back.  Not everyone has 19" monitors with 1480x1024 resolution, but 1024x768 would be good because nearly everyone has that as a minimum these days, and there's always scroll bars.

Please remember if we're going to get kids and other adults interested in OAS and also members of the public we have to get ourselves more attractive, this obviously includes the web site, but it should also include other things like the speakers, equipment etc.  We should also try to get funding if we can for some form of observatory, it does not have to be a eyeball one, CCD would be nice, especially because we're in a light polluted area.....

Gosh I'm nearly on my high horse now.  Anyway it's a start I suppose.

[Fay]

Wow, Chris, a lot of really great ideas!

[Tony G]

What a coincidence Chris,
I seen this post earlier and was half way through typing exactly what you typed, but you must type a lot quicker than me, anyway well constructed message Chris, well done.

Tony G

[Rick]

Thanks Chris, that's a useful list.

[Fay]

Chris's post reminded me of Henry V's call to arms at Agincourt!!!!!!

Fay

[Rick]

Ok, a couple of points just to stir up some discussion:

A reasonable Content Management System will cover the business of allowing section leaders to edit the appropriate bits of the website, and should also allow for members-only (or registered users) sections, if we really want them. Getting more people to contribute content is the most important part of the project.

The second most important part of the project is to get the gallery all into one place with good connectivity and bandwidth. I see no reason for having only a subset of the gallery available to the public. If an image shouldn't be seen by the public then it shouldn't be in the Society's gallery.

The kids pages bring a lot of visitors to the site, and they deserve rather more attention (in the way of updates) than they get.

The main content of the website (excluding the full-size gallery images) should all be viewable without needing to use horizontal scrolling. I think we can reasonably assume that everyone will be able to see something 800 pixels wide without needing horizontal scrolling. The exception I'd make would be full-size images in the gallery. (In case it isn't obvious, I, personally, hate websites which demand I use horizontal scrolling (or a specific resolution, or a particular browser, or a plugin </rant>) in order to read the content.)

I'd expect this forum to be incorporated into (and integrated with) the new site. It already has a section ("Behind the Scenes") specifically for OAS members only.

I think the forum is the right place for things like equipment reviews, For Sale and Wanted adds, and collaboration efforts.

I've got mixed views on observation reports. First and foremost, properly recorded observations should be sent to the appropriate National and/or International organisations. Less formal observing reports could easily be posted in this forum. Somewhere in between, there may be scope for an Observing Reports section like the Meeting Reports and Event Reports sections.

We're looking at putting TOAST on-line, but the printed copy does sometimes contain information which folks do not want to see on the Net, so it's not as simple as just preparing a PDF and posting it...

Ok. Enough from me. Discuss, please.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Rick,

Good reply 

Anyway I still can't see what the issue is with not going for 1024x768 as a standard, but hey why not put it to the vote.  Is anyone reading this got a 800x600 screen anymore?

Anyway, I agree the kids section is very important and should obviously be kept.

For the photographs my only thought for a private/public viewing area was based around the need to get some draft info up and also ensure that if there we're any say 10mb images these are not exposed publicly without at first being re-sized properly to a degree where they would not cause any bandwidth issues, just a thought.  Some of our members do not know how to do this and therefore an intermediate posting area will allow us to get it done for them, only a thought.

Again public and private forums are good ideas and the exposure of what where should be easy to decide and reflect upon at a later date, so I don't see any issues there either.

The observations part again is not the way to do it, obviously most of us would not have a clue how to send a report to whoever, because fundamentally we're not astronomers, we just like looking at things and taking pictures of them.  But unless we share our experiences how do we get any feedback or input from other people.  If members decide to send things to the BAA or whoever fine, but personally I'd be interested to read what people are doing and contribute as well.  I sometimes thins that there is no harm in sharing things between the society members and getting it vetted or reviewed, then we could always submit it to the appropriate people.

And who are the folks who do not want to see TOAST content on the web and why?  Surely publishing it will save postal costs and it will be easy to mitigate any risk of upsetting people by just informing them that submissions will be posted on the internet.  Unless you are talking about copy write graphics in which case by putting them in TOAST we are already breaking the law.  If people do not want it on the wbe it's likely that they are anti internet and they would not read the thing anyway?

Someone else join in please I have a company of 60+ developers writing web solutions to look after and this is like my daily job now  it hurts.

Chris

[Mike]

Chris,

I am with you with regard to the resolution. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone using anything less than 1024 x 768 nowadays. I find the current website size is tiny on my resolution (1280 x 1024). Resolution independant coding for the site wouldn't be too hard to come up with at all and if we are going to invest so much time and money on the project then lets go the whole hog and do it properly, there are enough people with .net, php, xml, java, etc. coding experience for us to get some fancy coding going if necessary. There are also enough of us with artistic or graphical skills to not have to rely on busy people like Greg to update stuff.

I agree the kids section needs updating. From the statistics it seems like a popular entry point to the site and we should take advantage of that to get more visitors by ensuring the information is kept dynamic.

The gallery for me is an important part of the site that needs a serious overhaul. The ability to access full sized images via thumbnails or smaller images is essential really. The current gallery suffers from compressed images ruining the original beauty of the image. A search function would be very useful as well as a more intuitive interface and indexing system.

I don't really see a lot of point of observing notes unless the membership want it. As Chris says we don't do a lot of science in the society as we are more interested in the beauty of the heavens and more recently the astrophotography section has really taken off. Notes on how images were taken can be included in the gallery.

TOAST should be available online and password access to it can easly be enabled or blurring of information for non-members eyes can easily be done.

Another important point is that there is a team of editors and content managers rather than relying on one or two. As long as rigid set of rules is established with regard to the look and content and those persons folow those rules we won''t have any problems and will enable the site to be more dynamic.

I would like to see more sections about astronomy in there, i.e. information pages as well as articles or 'how-to' sections, i.e. how to polar align, how to stack images, how to find where an asteroid is to view/image it, etc. Take a look at the majority of the forum users and you will find that most of them are the same people who turn up at observing/imaging sessions and who are active or getting into astrophotography. Therefore the site should cater for these active persons with useful information for them on how to do various things related to their interest.

Anyway, i'm getting funny looks from my boss as i've been typing for some time now. I think he is concerned I am actually doing some work so I had better stop and walk around the office with a piece of paper in my hand instead.

[Rocket Pooch]

Good comments.

P.S. Learn to type quicker or be the boss.