Chat
05-22-2015, 10:10 AM
After spending untold amounts of money on the new site, my developer has disappeared. So now my back is against the wall in terms of preparing for the IASD conference. The would-be new site looks okay, but it ain't anywhere close to being okay, with untold problems still yet to be found. Therefore, I'm taking a new direction, which some people may actually really like.
Where I feel we need to go with our website design in one that includes these concepts:
1. SIMPLE
2. Efficient
3. Robust
4. Expandable/modifiable
5. Ease of use for ADMIN
6. Wicked FAST
___________
Although many people loathe forums, the NDC MUST have a forum, and compared to what Wordpress can do, we would ultimately be going back to the dark ages by transferring this current forum into wordpress.
Basically this forum, although not enjoyed by all visitors, can do just about everything we need it to do. The main problem with it is two fold: 1) No customizeable dream input form, and 2) it's sometimes hard to find stuff.
In my rational brain I can't justify paying an enormous amount of money to get a brand new site up and running before the conference. Plus, I just don't think anyone can do it in that amount of time, especially with all the requirement I now have. Therefore, this is the plan I've selected:
- The main engine of our website will be our current forum.
- However, I will build some lightening fast and basic web pages to appease people who don't like going into the bowels of the forum software. More specifically, I'm starting with a new landing page, which is strictly basic and responsive html (which actually is the fastest software you find). My goal is to create something akin to front page Drudge. Very simple and extremely fast. It will have the latest dreams (which will now be put into the Just Dreams forum), the latest dreambot runs, and our latest discussion threads.
- All the content on the front page ( http://nationaldreamcenter.com/ ) is simply RSS'ed from the forum, and each dream/dreambot/thread is linked directly to the forum. The concept here is that new folks who aren't familiar with the forum will actually land on a page that has all the important stuff right there for them. In fact, some visitors may elect to just keep refreshing the front page instead of ever navigating to the forum!
- I will be making incremental (mostly cosmetic) changes to the front page and the forum. The front page and the forum will look like new pages, but everything else will stay the same. We'll have links to the old wordpress blog and the old dreambase, but those pages will look almost exactly the way they are now.
- This will be the way we'll run it until new insights arise about our future community software. Bottom line on the future website: I have extremely high expectations for what it needs to look like, what it needs to be able to do, and how fast and efficient it is.
- Once I get all that done, I may try to move the chat into the forum. Do you all like the current chat? If not, what are some of the main problems with it?
Where I feel we need to go with our website design in one that includes these concepts:
1. SIMPLE
2. Efficient
3. Robust
4. Expandable/modifiable
5. Ease of use for ADMIN
6. Wicked FAST
___________
Although many people loathe forums, the NDC MUST have a forum, and compared to what Wordpress can do, we would ultimately be going back to the dark ages by transferring this current forum into wordpress.
Basically this forum, although not enjoyed by all visitors, can do just about everything we need it to do. The main problem with it is two fold: 1) No customizeable dream input form, and 2) it's sometimes hard to find stuff.
In my rational brain I can't justify paying an enormous amount of money to get a brand new site up and running before the conference. Plus, I just don't think anyone can do it in that amount of time, especially with all the requirement I now have. Therefore, this is the plan I've selected:
- The main engine of our website will be our current forum.
- However, I will build some lightening fast and basic web pages to appease people who don't like going into the bowels of the forum software. More specifically, I'm starting with a new landing page, which is strictly basic and responsive html (which actually is the fastest software you find). My goal is to create something akin to front page Drudge. Very simple and extremely fast. It will have the latest dreams (which will now be put into the Just Dreams forum), the latest dreambot runs, and our latest discussion threads.
- All the content on the front page ( http://nationaldreamcenter.com/ ) is simply RSS'ed from the forum, and each dream/dreambot/thread is linked directly to the forum. The concept here is that new folks who aren't familiar with the forum will actually land on a page that has all the important stuff right there for them. In fact, some visitors may elect to just keep refreshing the front page instead of ever navigating to the forum!
- I will be making incremental (mostly cosmetic) changes to the front page and the forum. The front page and the forum will look like new pages, but everything else will stay the same. We'll have links to the old wordpress blog and the old dreambase, but those pages will look almost exactly the way they are now.
- This will be the way we'll run it until new insights arise about our future community software. Bottom line on the future website: I have extremely high expectations for what it needs to look like, what it needs to be able to do, and how fast and efficient it is.
- Once I get all that done, I may try to move the chat into the forum. Do you all like the current chat? If not, what are some of the main problems with it?