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Re:

Postby kdc4 on Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:44 pm

[quote]Quoting ChrisH from 16:02, 2nd Oct 2007
Since the website has come up again could people possibly say what they think of the site. I'm slightly biased as I worked with Jess on the "old" site before the current yourunion one went up.


Stupid question from a technophobe: If the union website is difficult for us to maintain (it certainly scores no points for aesthetics), would it not suffice simply to link people to our old website when they clicked on the uds bit of the union website?

If there are great compensating advantages to putting it directly on the Union site, then fine, but I don't see a real case for it otherwise.
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Re:

Postby Dickie on Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:44 pm

Quoting Kizzy from 16:06, 2nd Oct 2007
perhaps people who think there are problems with the website...


Page 6002: With the exception of 5th Dec, there are no correct **Links.

Page 6006: Convenor is STILL R.E.W.

Page 6006: MailTo link to crh24 is not a Mailto.

Page 6006: Jassel is unfortunately no longer the steward.

Page 6007: Mr James Boulter's name takes you to page 6000 not MailTo.

Page 6007: BOW TIES ARE NOW AVAILABLE.

Page 6001: is just a mess.

Page 5995: is GREAT.

Page 6000: Lauren Cahill is a Javascript:void(0);/*1183377835755 what ever that is!

Page 6000: there is a MailTo '@st-andrews.ac.uk'

Page 6711: Perhaps a link to britishdebate.com/universities/
Rather than calendar for the TAB and rankings

Page 6027: out of date.

Page 5997: is Istanbul still to happen?

Page 5998: is Public speaking still happen on Mon Nights?

Thats all I have time for now but just a few pionters in the right direction I hope.




[hr]

http://facebook.com/p.php?id=37106107&l=217e435e0a

Spelling errors
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Re:

Postby exnihilo on Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:34 pm

I thought moving to your-union.net was a mistake. It's not your union if you're anywhere else. It's hard to maintain and it lacks the cachet of www.st-and.ac.uk/debates.

And nobody's bashing anyone.
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Re:

Postby Jessica on Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:35 am

Hello,

Just so that you all know, I am reading this thread and taking criticism on board. So first off, thanks for all your feedback (DULY noted!)

We do need a website, but the question is, how much do we want people to rely on it anyway? I've found that for IV's people really need to be coming to training anyway (we're not just going to send someone who emails us) and they can get the schedule there. People who want to buy hoodies and things have to wait until the serjeant sets it all up anyhow. The social aspect changes too quickly, we can't sell social tickets online.

I'd say the website's biggest uses are:
-Term card
-Schools info
-Sponsorship
-Training times (the ones that are set for the entire year)

I can promise you that I'm slowly but surely trying to update the website as much as I can (this week has been a bit of an academic snaggle for me, but at least it's Friday!)

BUT if we want a new website entirely then there's no point in me updating anything.

What do people think?

PS I would need serious help designing a new website. Seeeerious help. (but I'm quite willing to work with someone on it)
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Re:

Postby Mr Comedy on Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:46 pm

Quoting Jessica from 09:35, 5th Oct 2007
Hello,

Just so that you all know, I am reading this thread and taking criticism on board. So first off, thanks for all your feedback (DULY noted!)

We do need a website, but the question is, how much do we want people to rely on it anyway? I've found that for IV's people really need to be coming to training anyway (we're not just going to send someone who emails us) and they can get the schedule there. People who want to buy hoodies and things have to wait until the serjeant sets it all up anyhow. The social aspect changes too quickly, we can't sell social tickets online.

I'd say the website's biggest uses are:
-Term card
-Schools info
-Sponsorship
-Training times (the ones that are set for the entire year)

I can promise you that I'm slowly but surely trying to update the website as much as I can (this week has been a bit of an academic snaggle for me, but at least it's Friday!)

BUT if we want a new website entirely then there's no point in me updating anything.

What do people think?

PS I would need serious help designing a new website. Seeeerious help. (but I'm quite willing to work with someone on it)


The other thing that the website does (or should do) is inform people who don't spend all their lives in LPH about the society.

These include:
1. People from other universities looking for contact details so they can attend IVs etc
2. Students who don't currently debate, but would like to
3. Students who don't want to go to LPH, but are interested in public speaking and debating training
4. Alumni (who you want to get money from, right?) who want to know what is going on in their beloved society, particularly with reference to minutes, term cards that have some reference to a non-academic calendar, IV results etc.

Oh, and I'm looking forward enormously to my Alumni newsletters this year - I've not had one yet in 2 years since leaving, so the anticipation is palpable.

[hr]

"I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea. " -Lu Tung
"I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea. " -Lu Tung
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Sorry to bring it up AGAIN

Postby Dickie on Tue Nov 06, 2007 9:32 pm

I am not sorry I am doing it but sorry it has to be done at all....

I was going through bits of the site and managed to get to the old site by mistake. I had forgotten how much better it looks and I recomend some feed back.

Forget content just the usability and layout.

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~debates/indexold.html


[hr]

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Re:

Postby Frank George on Wed Nov 07, 2007 12:51 am

I agree.

Anything associated with the Union's completely useless website makes me vomit. After a futile attempt to find any information about the recent elections on (notice that the results are not published yet, although that's a content issue that has nothing to do with its navigability), I have declared war on that unholy being.

The fact is that the usability of the UDS website is practically nonexistent. It was stated that it needed to use the Union layout to maintain continuity. I love continuity, but in this case the UDS website is practically useless because of it. Ideally the UDS website could be hosted on yourunion.net (although that domain name, ideally, should also be changed) and fit in with the design of the rest of the site. Unfortunately, it is run by the CMS From Hell.

I think the UDS website really must break free of its yourunion.net Cocytus and either go back to st-andrews.ac.uk/~debates (or wherever it was) or to its own domain like the Mermaids and Broadcasting subcommittees.

Wow. That rant felt good. I see why people do that here on The Sinner!
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Re:

Postby David Bean on Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:07 am

I also think the old site (i.e. the one linked to by Dickie rather than the one I used to work on) was better than the one we have now. I can't fathom why it was changed; I certainly can't remember any formal decision by the BoT that a new site was needed - it just seems to have happened on somebody's whim, without anyone bothering to ask any serious questions about whether the decision was actually the right one.

Also, if it was really the promise of future improvements to the CMS that prompted the decision then you guys really should have done your homework, because if you had you'd have found out that the student body has been lied to for years about that web site. We're constantly being told that it'll be better in six months, but all that happened was that we got a half-assed overhaul that was a big improvement in itself but didn't address the structural problems (including those stupid ads that we keep being assured provide a revenue stream for the Association, despite nobody having been able to show me evidence of a single penny we've ever made from it) and left reams of pages incomplete or with no text.

This isn't going to change - it's time people just accepted that, and moved on. And moving the web site back to that previous version, keeping it updated using a system (HTML) that doesn't make you assume it was designed by mentally incapacitated monkeys or require hours worth of training in the most useless 'skill' you'll ever encounter and having it actually look decent is about the best decision the UDS can take right now.

[hr]

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