Over-information

[Neil]

Hey all.

I know that we have a LOT of pages on the website and a lot of menus for navigation, so I tried to create a sitemap to try and visualise it. The resulting image is 1.) incomplete, and 2.) very large.

Full image

Note that it is incomplete, because it’s impossible to manually navigate all the pages we have but I think I captured enough to show that we have a LOT of content.

I found that some of the navigation was circular and sometimes duplicated.

But I think the point I would like to make is that navigating our site is not easy because our content doesn’t have much structure to it. While having a lot of content is not an issue itself, it becomes an issue when you can’t find anything.

Some examples:

1. From the home page,  you can use the menu to navigate to ‘Publications’ and then to ‘Study Guides’ — which you can also get to if you go to ‘Education’ and then ‘Study Guides’.
2. If you follow the ‘Publications’ menu and click ‘Education’, you end up on the same page is if you just click the ‘Publications’ menu itself.
3. We have an ‘Audio-Visual’ menu section, and a separate ‘Audio-visual’ link on the ‘Publications’ page (which take you to a forum post).
4. We have Pamphlets under Publications, and in the Store (separately)
5. The Education section itself is HUGE.

The SPGB site has been added to and added to for years and years, and I think we would do well to undertake a review of structure of it’s content to try and make it easier for visitors to navigate, find relevant information, and hopefully then click the ‘Join’ link.

Any thoughts?

[robbo203]

Yes it sounds very sensible what you suggest, Neill.  We do need to simplify and streamline the to make it more user friendly but within that simplified structure also additional features.  For instance this forum could benefit from having a PM facility

[alanjjohnstone]

This forum should also have a vote up or vote down application

[Neil]

I’ve been thinking about this and wondered if anyone would be interested in spending some time thinking about our pedagogy. Consider who our audience is — their personas — and then create journeys to aid them from their current mindset to one which makes them want to become members.

Take for example, the average Joe. A family person who ‘does the right thing’. They’re middle-aged, work hard in a good job but prices are rising and wages aren’t. They know that something is wrong. Maybe they have an opinion on what that is, maybe they can’t quite put their finger on it.

Or the liberal millennial who is facing tons of student debt, a lifetime of paying rent because they will never be able to afford a house, but can’t get any job better than a zero-hour contract.

Lets figure out how we help these people down a path of inquiry which we hope leads them to socialism. Wez spoke of ‘insights’ in post #183689 and I was thinking about my journey to socialism. Which started in about 2014 and before then I knew very little about politics, mostly by choice, but I probably would have said I believe in communism in an I-agree-with-the-John-Lennon-Imagine kind of way. Through reading and watching documentaries and having discussions with friends and colleagues, I got to the point where I detested that I was a contributor to the horrors of capitalism. I myself felt personally responsible for my part, however small that percentage might be. But it was slippery slope once it started. It has become an all consuming part of me. The sadness of the world rarely escapes my thoughts much. Some times it’s depressing but it’s mostly energising. The SPGB (website) played a role in that journey; it has a wealth of information.

We could set this up on a separate website, so that we don’t need to completely overhaul the SPGB site, which will be a huge task in itself. So, we use it for the resource that it is and build our pedagogical journeys to socialism separately.

[ZJW]

@alanjjohnstone, your #184082:

*Why* should it have a vote up or vote down application??

[alanjjohnstone]

This is an application I have seen on Libcom  and on many of the comments section on “progressive” websites. It can be in the form of thumbs up/thumbs down, or in likes.

It is a fast poll of the popularity or unpopularity of a post on the forum.

It is feedback by and to members of the forum.

 

[ZJW]

I didn’t ask *what*, I asked *why*.

Since you and I both are familiar with it from libcom, this is precisely the reason why I wonder what you find positive about it.

I think it’s meaningless, and, in fact a terrible, distraction.

Say, the IdPolist and the anti-IdPolists are at polemics (to give just *one* example). Those on the one side will vote down posters from the other side, and vice-versa. And I’m sorry to to say that juvenile as that is, I find myself drawn into doing it as well. Can’t let the side down after all.

That’s my case ‘against’. What’s your case ‘for’?

By the way, off the topic, what book-gift did you finally settle on for the 12-year old niece-or-nephew? (Not the graphic novel about Luxemburg that KAZ had ‘heard good things about’ I hope! It’s a disgrace.)

[alanjjohnstone]

I thought I answered *why* I thought it useful but i’ll make it clearer

Any follower of this forum will notice, either

a) that many posts are not responded to (mostly mine).

b) that many threads have little engagement with few participants (mostly the ones I join in)

Any input from others is useful in judging the pertinence or interest of the various topics. Whether anybody would bother to indicate a preference, I am not so sure. Perhaps when we have a bigger and wider audience, its significance might become more apparent.

When on AlterNet, I am interested in knowing if any contribution I make resonates with others and the identity of who actually up-voted. (It’s not anonymous and they only operate up-votes, to avoid an issue you raised.)

Decided not go with literature but instead a Bluetooth speaker for the mobile phone. Perhaps we should think about featuring wall-posters on our shopping link.

[ZJW]

Ok. Thanks for the further clarification.

If there is no such thing as a down-vote I have nothing against it.

[Author]

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