[kwlug-disc] Website Wishlist

[B.S.]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Andrew Sullivan Cant <acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca>
> To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 10:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] Website Wishlist
> 
> On 14/07/15 16:32, John Johnson wrote:
>>  On 2015-07-11 00:09, Andrew Sullivan Cant wrote:
>>>  Given that kwlug.org does not change that much, and discussion is
>>>  handled in the mailing list it seems like a good option.
>>>  We could remove the general posting functionality, and just aggregate
>>>  the FLOSS related blogs of members.
>>>     
>>  <BUZZZZZZ>
>>  More than once I have referred to my own contributions in the member's
>>  blog area.
>>  And I am certainly far from a prolific contributor.
>> 
>>  I have also reviewed contributions from others.
>> 
>>  I, for one, would like to see the member blogs remain - in one form or
>>  another.
> 
> John,
> 
> We should definitely preserve the existing KWLUG blog content, but I
> would still like to stop the KWLUG site for being responsible for
> creating new blog content. We have limited resources and time, and it is
> just one requirement that makes the site harder to maintain.
> 
> And there are now lots of blogging options available, and ones which are
> relatively FLOSS friendly. Figuring out how to advise and support
> members who want a blog would be cool. Might be something that could be
> outreach to non-members as well.
> 
> Maintaining a separate KWLUG blog site or some other distributed social
> network type thing might also be interesting.
> But I really would like to keep it separate from the code of the main site.

I can appreciate where Andrew is coming from. A static site = K.I.S.S. I also note Khalid's comments that such functionality in Drupal is resource heavy.

However, I can also appreciate JJ's point.

Not advocating it in particular, but there are free wordpress sites available for individual member blogs. (Goes back to links / plugins / associations of/for kwlug.org removing the requirement for hosting / maintaining on kwlug.org itself. But requires a dedicated body of people to map / refer to such consistently on kwlug.org itself.)

However, disparate individual's sites would not be collectively treeable / searchable as kwluggers. And I think the lack would be a sad thing. Raul is a bad example, as he uses many mechanisms, but it would be pleasant to go to kwlug.org, search Raul, and have a list of hits come up. Khalid comes to mind as same, but I better know that he writes elsewhere.

That's not to say it couldn't be up to individual bloggers having to be responsible for maintaining links on their pages to their other mechanisms, but again this would also lose the cross-kwlugger searchability.

It does seem from the comments that even if dynamic blogging ceases, user single static web pages should be made available. Where, for example, they could put in such links. (Would also be a place to dump current blog entries into the static history referred to earlier.)

It also seems that mechanisms like wiki's would accomplish the same, maintain kwlugger treeability / searchability, while letting the main site / pages be static, and splitting off maintenance complexity to 'well known' (i.e. robust facilities, 'self-maintaining', and easily google'able due to critical mass / popularity) processes.

> Maintaining a separate KWLUG blog site or some other distributed social
> network type thing might also be interesting.


Seems really apt.

'Problem' is / goes back to ... 'social network type thing' doesn't seem to be any single other thing these days / any more. More likely a 'network' of 'things'. And links / cross references on the to become static pages of kwlug.org.


Given the pre / event / post meeting topic dynamism ... isn't static pages all but precluded? Posts of slides, meeting notes, follow up questions, and so on. So is the static / non line already crossed, and once crossed the Pandora's box of all these other questions / complexities is already inherently opened?

Mind you, a wiki would satisfy all of that as well. Leaving the 'rest' to be static? For that matter, the wiki could easily incorporate the static.


If the unix way is for each thing to do but one thing very, very well, is kwlug.org trying to be too many things to too many people? If the primary purpose of kwlug.org is a few static pages about the nature of the beastie, and 'events' (meetings, including pre and post material), solve the events dissemination with best of breed, then connect to adjacent best of breed functionality to satisfy additional requirements?