New SPGB website??
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Sorry, but I hope this is a “work in progress” because as it currently stands the website’s an embarrassment. It’s arguably one of the worst websites I’ve seen in years. YEARS.
If anyone thinks I’m out of order for my comment, please take into account that I spent hundreds of hours keeping the Socialist Standard Past and Present blog updated whilst the Party website was down. I am incredibly frustrated by this.
I have mixed views on this matter. Some aspects of the new website are good, some bad.
Since it is still a work in progress can I suggest people start compiling a list of practical suggestions to help improve the site rather than (just) make generalised statements. We need to help and encourage the people putting in all the hard graft to make this site better.
Ill start the ball rolling with some suggestions myself
– Make the log-in and registration procedure much more user friendly and obvious for us technophobes
– the text on this page under ‘upcoming events’ and the ‘latest from socialism or your money back blog’ is so faint it is barely legible. Could it not be put in bold or enlarged?
– wasn’t there talk earlier of introducing a like/dislike button for comments on the forum?
– I prefer the old way of presenting the SS in the format of separate articles. This allows you to post links on Facebook etc which refer exclusively to the article in question
Any other suggestions?
I am not accustomed to having to do html to use bold or italics or whatever. Was bad enough having to quote/unquote on the old forum to copy and paste.
That is one priority to improve.
The colour of the font, a light grey on a light grey is not amenable to my eye-sight and shared by Robbo
I understand it will take time so comrades involved in the redesign don’t feel aggrieved by criticism. As Kenny Everett would say “It’s all done in the best possible taste”
It will also take time for the forum to become as active as previously.
But truth be told i am not at all sure members do seek to engage in debate and exchange views if the experience of the scant use our Yahoo discussion lists during the Form’s absence is anything to go by.
Many of your concerns, Robbo, were discussed by the Party’s Executive Committee yesterday and Comrade K, who is both a member of the EC and the Internet Committee, made a list of tasks to be addressed and actioned. There will doubtless be many others that come to light over the next few days and weeks.
That’s good to hear, Dave. I’m sure we will get there in the end. Having a really first class website and very user-friendly forum will encourage more and more people to join in the discussion. We should aim to make this the Number One socialist forum anywhere. So its important to get it right and to bear in mind that a lot of us, myself included, are not very computer-literate. The computer geeks need to make things really easy for us techno-simpletons….
One other thing – how does one go about quoting sections of text from a previous text? This facility no longer seems to exist. Ditto putting text in bold and italics etc etc or editing one’s own posts (important to me given my atrocious spelling)
IMposs “Sorry, but I hope this is a “work in progress” because as it currently stands the website’s an embarrassment. It’s arguably one of the worst websites I’ve seen in years. YEARS.”
DITTOAbsolutely horrendous. Unless this is some form of ‘draft’ then the Party has been robbed.
I suggest members look at other sites for examples; there are loads of good user friendly designs to choose from.
A random one.
Hi Pat
(Hope all is well with you and yours)
Whilst I agree that the site doesn’t look fantastic at the moment, since it has been up and running their have been incremental improvements. I would hope comrades would allow a bit of tie to make improvements before being overly critical.For my two penn’orth I would like to see a return of the PM function, quote options, preview before posting options, as we used to have.
Something I would like to have which wasn’t in the old forum would be to have the facility to save draft contributions, so it is possible to return and complete contributions.
Yes I would echo Bijou’s sentiment. Yes there are masses of room for improvement for the site in general and this forum in particular which is unsatisfactory for all sorts of reasons. But its very early days yet. We need to be patient and keep on compiling a list of suggested improvements . Admin has said this is a “work in progress”. Lets treat it as such and not be too judgemental. The end result I am sure is going be one with which everyone will be more than happy – one of the best political websites around and a vigorous and expanding forum drawing in more and more workers
Hi Bijou
I am keeping fine and thanks for asking. Hope life is treating you OK.
With regard to the forum there is too much wrong with it to be brought up to standard by increments. I should make it clear that I am not criticising the hard work of those involved. I am assuming the design of the forum was ‘outsourced’. There are many ready made examples -templates – of well designed and user friendly forums and I can only suggest members check them out. The design of this forum is far from user friendly or pleasing to look at.
Anyway keep well
Also I’m not keen on the “Howdy” at the top right hand side, we can loose that straight away, bloody Americanisms!!!!
Can i suggest we delete the reading group section of the forum.
Simply has not been a success as have all the other online reading groups i have encountered. Simply not the best medium for such a venture.
IMHO they have to be face to face as in book clubs
The “Howdy” has now been replaced with “Hi” and other Americanisms have been dispensed with, such as “favorite”.
The Socialist Party website ( 2018 ) is pretty nice, but at the SPGB forum, we continue using the same old format which is not very attractive and practical. We should have had something similar to Yahoo forum software. I don’t understand why most members like to post in this forum but they do not post messengers at the WSM forum
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