[ELECTRON] Website ideas

[Blair Thompson]

*Thanks Paola.  Interesting suggestions...*

"the mailing list/forums can simply be communication options
so rather than forum, i would probably call that tab
'get in touch with electron members' then subtabs or a page with links
to all the options (mailing list, forum etc)"

*I think in the short term that might be a good way to go.  Longer term though it would be preferable to have one communication channel.  The ideal would be:

A forum that could...

Send an e-mail for each post created
Allow people to respond by e-mail as well
Be native to the main site
Operate as a standard forum as well.
Require close to zero moderation (ie successful captcha or similar)

Sadly I am still searching!*

"would split the news session into electron club news, but also
wider /related/member news  and initiatives"

*
That is entirely possible.  The site is organised with sections, categories and articles.  When you place an article, you specify the section and category it should be placed in.  This sends it to the correct location of the site.

The Latest News section simply aggregates articles as they are published in the other sections
but I can tell it to ignore a section such as an external news section.  Then we can create a different page for that.  Is that what you mean?*

"and initiatives and  a twitter box and other
dynamic aggregator for displaying 'live news' thru other sites/services "

*Can you expand a little on what you mean by this please?  For a twitter box, do you mean one that displays electron club generated tweets?

I have by the way nabbed the name Electron Club on twitter.  My intention is that I am going to set up an automatic update to twitter that will post links to new articles as they are published....

As far as an aggregator.  I was planning to add an RSS aggregator to the site.  RSS feeds is an important way for some of keeping abreast of site updates conveniently and it is a relatively easy thing to implement on the Electron-Club site.  There are other advantages to this as well in terms of content indexing.  Allowing Googles Feedburner service to read your feeds creates very fast indexing of your content in my experience.*
  
"and an enter your news: section"

*Do you mean for other groups to add content?  I could create a form for non-members to submit content to the site.  As for members, anyone who registers (ie becomes and Electron Club Member) with the site can be given permission to submit content.  I propose that this should be a human verified process rather than an automatic one as there is a danger attached to giving this permission (ie spam posting)

The safest way to do this would be using a mail form which when other groups submit content a mail goes to a human editor who copies and pastes the content in.  It is also possible to have an article placed on the site via form (ie non-members can submit articles) but it would be foolish I think to allow them to publish willy nilly.*

*Martin, Thanks for your input.*

"The idea behind the groupserver<http://groupserver.org>solution is that
it's (downloaded, configured and) run it from your own (or in this case,
Ben's) server."

*Ah that makes things clearer thanks.*

"Integration should be possible, failing that perhaps something as simple as
loading the content into a<DIV>  in a joomla template would address your
concerns of EC Forum/Mailinglist content seeming to be on another site."

* From a visual side of things this would certainly be on the right lines. It does mean adding frames to the site.  I have done this before and it is a bit finiky.  I would probably need a little help in styling the groupserver.  I am unfamiliar with its workings*

If joomla has a groupserver style component/plugin, which ticks all the
(same) boxes even better.

*I will look into this*,*but a quick google search says no :(*

This would also allow appropriate time to properly security/penetration test
any new site, since we don't want Ben's VPS to get rooted, or anything of
that nature (lest we forget Little Bobby Tables

*If we have anyone with these skills then that can be arranged.  What I would say is that the site is using the latest version of Joomla and popular well tested plugins.  This will never mitigate all risk of hacking, but it should be pretty secure.  If you do find vulnerabilities then there is an open source community out there who will want to know!

Ben I am sure is aware that there are risks attached to hosting the site.  The other solution is to use an independently hosted location for the site.

Bob...
*
"Can we not have a few workshops along the way on site building, usability, maintenance. Something I would be very interested in, since I spend half my life struggling with such matters?"

*I am more than happy to run a class on how to use the site when it is complete, though publishing the is probably within the reach of most people without tuition I would think.

If you are looking at a course which goes into the detail of creating/setting up a site, then I am happy to lend my albeit limited experience.

Though I don't have time right now to put something together*.*If anyone wants to put together a workshop on php then count me in as an attendee!  I have lots left to learn on the topic.

Thanks again folks for your input
*

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