State of the Site - An Open Discussion

Site Discussion Team Discussion
41

Chris here…

Mark, first of all can I say I’m really glad that no one so far is offended by my comments above - I’m talking about myself as much as I am about any of the rest of the team. I just see things on this site as having ground to an almost complete halt, and think, like yourself, that we owe it to the site to look seriously at this.

Now, I do believe that there are members of the team who are completely committed to the site but where real life stuff has gotten in the way, and I believe that those folks should be secure in their position here (and don’t misunderstand me here, I know you’re not advocating anything different) - however, I just wonder whether, whilst real life is interfering so much with so many team members all at once, there’s work that they could delegate to others (and I’d include myself in this). :slight_smile:

I don’t know whether this subject deserves its own independant thread where this issue could be chatted about (perhaps PMing all the rest of the team asking them to chip in?) - I didn’t initially because I felt it fitted in well with the discussions we’d been having in this thread, but am happy to go along with what you think would generate the most discussion/debate. :slight_smile:

Just as one note - I think part of the problem with finding new team members/contributors is that we have actually set a very high standard for ourselves - the site is the best-looking TCats site online (although maybe I’m slightly biased, LOL!), whilst I’m a bit of a perfectionist I am nonetheless very proud of the writing I’ve done for the site, and we are all united in that we like to present our content in a very professional-looking way, which (with apols to my good friend Angie) is something I think sets us apart from 99.9% of the other TCats sites out there. So, because of that high standard, it’s harder to find new blood - so that’s something we need to talk about IMO and see if a way forward presents itself… :slight_smile:

Two areas, Merchandise and Mini-Figures - unfortunately Matt prepared all this material just as Neil and MannyC started getting busy and with Kyle & myself busy with the work on the Cartoon and Comics sections, the material never made it online. There’s TONS of stuff, check out Matt’s staff folder: http://www.thundercatslair.org/staff/matt/

I also have tons of scans and other material prepared for the site - the barriers to getting them online are lack of time both to write stuff to accompany them, and to work on the HTML side. :frowning:

Take care… :slight_smile:

42

Well guys, as we don’t seem to have many other thoughts on the matter I’m going to start trying to recruit some help for the site. In considering the good points that Chris makes about the high standard of quality that we’ve come to enjoy as part of our brand, I’ll be asking for volunteers and then will ask for samples of their work before agreeing to bring any new help on board.

My preference will be to bring people on as temporary or satellite team members and provided that each site area manager wants to retain their role on the site we should be able to accommodate that. As somebody who took a yearlong unannounced hiatus from the site I would be the last to begrudge anybody who is taking an extended break at the moment. I do hope that everybody is able to come back to some minimal level of activity though. I think it would be great to get an update from those who’ve been absent for a while. Please let us know how you guys are doing…

I’ll be posting for two satellite team member roles. One will be somebody with decent html skills to help get Matt’s content on-line and the other will be an associate writer to do articles related to the ThunderCats franchise

If anybody has other ideas on this please post here, I’ll start up the effort to bring on more help probably mid next week, which leaves plenty of time to discuss further.

Cheers,
Mark

43

Chris here…

Just to say I agree with the entire content of this 100%, and think this is the best way forward. :slight_smile:

For myself personally I’d feel more comfortable moving ahead with this having had some more input from the rest of the team, but in the absence of that, this is the way I personally would move forward and so I agree completely with your thinking Mark. :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

44

I know I’m no longer in charge, but I just wanted to add my two cents and say that while we’ve had very little new content aside from Nick’s great interviews, I don’t think it means we’ve given up working on the site, including myself.

And although new content should always be a major priority for the team, I’d like to emphasize that what we currently have on the website is pretty amazing. I’m not saying that we should be satisfied with what we have and don’t need to add anything further, but at this point, I think it’s safe to assume that many of us need some sort of motivational factor to keep up with fresh updates. And I think the last several months is kind of an indication of that.

That being said, I agree that getting some new team members would definitely help pick up where we all left off.

Sorry if I don’t make too much sense, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that after working on the site for three years, the team is due for a break. :slight_smile:

45

Chris here…

Makes perfect sense to me, Manny my friend, and I think you make a lot of good points - although we may feel like no new content is being added at the present time, there is a HECK of a lot of really awesome content on the site already (literally hundreds of pages) and so there’s plenty of stuff here for visitors to get their teeth into! :slight_smile:

I guess in my case, I just look at everything that still needs doing and that I know is there to be added and that preys on my mind - it’s good to get another perspective on that! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

46

How is everybody going with their redesign pages?

Could we each set a goal for what we’d like to see done by the end of September in terms of setting up some key content in the redesign section of the site?

For me I aim to have all the statue pages setup in the redesign by the end of September.

47

Chris here…

I’d actually like to see a “site relaunch status” thread, specifically where people can post up links to their completed pages, as well as ask questions (technical / otherwise) and ask for assistance where needed. At the moment we have a number of disconnected threads about the site relaunch / redesign and it would be great to see that concentrated in one thread that people can look at and look up! :slight_smile:

As to my own status, I’m still trying to figure out how to get optimum use out of the WordPress interface, and have in fact PM’ed MannyF a couple of questions. I can definitely make it work, I’m just trying to figure out the best and most time-efficient way of making it work - once I have this under my belt, I’ll be able to get cracking transferring pages over to the new format, and adding new pages too! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile: