[imc-scotland-discussion] Changes to the site/ Indymedia Scotland dieing a slow death

[James]

Ulla, Tom, (Others)

There's obviously a need to get as many people as possible to meet up
and go over this issue in person. Clearly noone wants the sites to split.

It can be easy to get tempers inflamed over Email, where someone's tone
of voice and intentions are unclear. Meeting in person would help this.

Also, it would be good to get some regular contributors and users of the
site to come along and offer their views. Usability on the web is a
notoriously tricky subject, and what one person wants from a site varies
a lot from what another person wants. Having as many view-points as
possible would be a good thing.

A meeting could help us go over the issues, get feedback from users on
the site and help us recognise that despite our differences on site
features in the end we all just want the same thing - a working site.

I can book the meeting room in The Forest, where we would not be
disturbed and there are 4 good computers on the internet for us to use.
What time would suit everyone?

James



Anarcho Babe wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It is my strong belief that if the site stays as it is now you will loose half 
> of the readership by the end of the summer, and most likely up to 2/3 by the 
> end of next May - basically narrowing it down to the hardcore anarchists who 
> will also visit the site less regularly - maybe once a week/forthnight 
> instead of every day or so.
> 
> I do think that drastic measures are needed right now in order to avoid that 
> the Indymedia Scotland project is killed off by how the new system is used.
> 
> Editorialwise the site is a disasterzone at the moment,  apart from its grey 
> boring colour scheme, it is very hostile to user contributions such as 
> posting and viewing comments, posting and viewing other press, turnover of 
> features/middle column too slow, archive not accessible enough, lack of image 
> gallery, not updated quickly enough and the publish form is even worse than 
> the one we had 8 years ago under Active! 
> 
> As any suggestion made in a polite way is ignored, it seems only logical to 
> try different means.
> 
> At the moment I am intending to standby watching whilst you destroy the 
> project over the next three months, then I will start a little counter 
> project in autumn after my dissertation to try to keep the social movements 
> in Scotland together, and am then going to pick up the pieces of the site 
> next summer when you all deserted it and given up on it.
> 
> Alternatively we could also split right now and I could do a counter indymedia  
> site - however, given that you then won't recognise that it was your actions 
> which destroy the project I prefer seeing it die a natural death without you 
> having the excuse to say that the competition killed it off.
> 
> Yours Ulla
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday 04 May 2008 01:46, Tom Morton wrote:
>> Ulla,
>>
>> You might notice that I reverted some changes you made to the site. I
>> should explain why i did this:
>>
>> - You placed syndicated content from other IMCs above basic components
>> of our own site. For example, why did you put the anarchoTV feed above
>> the 'publish' button and above the IMC scotland newswire? Why move the
>> 'sections' menu down?
>>
>> - You moved the menu right to the bottom of the site making navigation
>> slow and annoying.
>>
>> - You cluttered the site with loads of syndicated content
>>
>> We need to discuss next meeting what feeds we should take from other
>> sites, and what  links to other sites we have. I'd like a return to
>> normal process where changes to the site are discussed at meetings. In
>> the mean time, since I have a mandate to set up the new site I'll revert
>> bad changes made.
>>
>> Also, playing with different themes on the live site is bad. The test
>> site at scotland.imcscotland.org is for that kind of experimentation.
> 
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-- 
James Baster
Theatre Photographer
http://www.doubtlesshouse.org.uk
+44 (0)776 497 0336