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Website management

PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 2:17 pm
by kelvink
I'm somewhat concerned about the club's website, principally given how it keeps going offline for quite long periods of time recently. I've got a number of technical concerns and I know I'm not the only one who's aired them. I do have one simple question though.....

Who is the webmaster these days, does anyone know?

Hosting a website involves maintaining the ownership of the domain name/names, maintaining the hosting package, maintaining the web content, and in the case of the club the site has both a bulletin board (discussion forum, phpBB) and a news blog (WordPress) There's also a back end which provides some email facilities and newsletters. There's a variety of control panels for each of these and I'm pretty certain that not all the people who do help out with some of the website's content across these different platforms have access to all these sections which is fine and in many ways a good thing. However is there anyone that actually has control and who is doing the back office admin and tidying. An example is backups and optimisation of content such as images. Some of the photos people are posting are huge files which will eventually overload the hosting package limits simply because files are not web optimised.

I think given that the site has been offline quite a bit lately and no one seems to know what is going on and who's fixing it or indeed why it's gone offline I think it ought to be a priority for the club to get it sorted and under some sort of control.

I'm not having a go at anyone or group of people I'm simply worried that sooner or later we'll all lose what is a superb resource of information and knowledge if there's no one who is doing this.

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:13 pm
by Hans Efde
I was given rights for membership control by David, but that's it. David ran it for a while but at a certain point the forum was transferred to the club site. I suppose he must have arranged with someone in the club to deal with the forum, but don't know who it is.

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 8:24 pm
by Rich
I've also got a degree of Admin access, so can approve new members and so on, I usually run a back up on the forum when I log into the back end.

I did offer to host the forum on my server space but didn't really hear much back. The last person I think was running that end was James wasn't it?

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:42 pm
by Jin
Would a hosted platform not be better?

This is my forum hosted by proboards, runs like clockwork

http://quantumforum.proboards.com/

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:43 am
by moss
hi i will do my best to explain
Michael Horsley has been dealing with this video host has been paid for this and due to an error on the part of them the wrong site was credited with the cash This now has been corrected and we hope to have no more
trouble
Alistair has been helping with this also
tony moss

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:42 pm
by ACourtney
As Tony said above, the problem was created by the hosting company, Vidahost. When they renewed the hosting they used an out of date IP for the forwarding server. Evidently this was an old server being withdrawn and it was up and down a few times during the last few weeks. The IP address has now been corrected so we should be okay for the next 12 months.

This problem has highlighted a few issues with the club's management of the forum and website. However, I don't think having a single webmaster is the answer. The problem we have just had was prolonged by only having one person able to report it to Vidahost. In this instance Michael Horsley was out of contact until Saturday evening, So we had nearly 48 hours of outage, but most of that was due to the delay in raising the support ticket. No one person can be expected to keep a watch on the forum and website all day, everyday. What we really need to have is a small group of members who are all able to raise support tickets.

The other issue that this has highlighted is a lack of communication between those who do have admin rights on the forum and website. There are around half a dozen members with admin rights on the forum, but reading the comments here and on Facebook it is clear that they haven't been talking to one another about who does the backups, maintenance etc. I've recently discovered that I have admin rights on the forum, but I don't know when I got them, or who gave them to me. In fact I only discovered it by accident and I suspect that some of the other members of the forum team are unaware of the rights they have been given. It is a similar story on the website, where five club members have access to post news and events. It appears that I am the only one who has posted anything on it for more than a year now.

I am sure that we have several members with enough IT knowledge to help keep an eye on the website and forum. So if some of the existing forum and website teams have lost interest, or simply found that they cannot spare the time, then perhaps we should be letting in some new blood to help run things.

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 9:29 pm
by Rich
ACourtney wrote:The other issue that this has highlighted is a lack of communication between those who do have admin rights on the forum and website. There are around half a dozen members with admin rights on the forum, but reading the comments here and on Facebook it is clear that they haven't been talking to one another about who does the backups, maintenance etc. I've recently discovered that I have admin rights on the forum, but I don't know when I got them, or who gave them to me. In fact I only discovered it by accident and I suspect that some of the other members of the forum team are unaware of the rights they have been given. It is a similar story on the website, where five club members have access to post news and events. It appears that I am the only one who has posted anything on it for more than a year now.


Most forums get around the communication issue by having a small section where the Admins and Mods can communicate without cluttering up the main board.

Rich

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:14 pm
by Jin
Anyone got a link to the Facebook we speak of?

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:16 pm
by Stuart
Jin wrote:Anyone got a link to the Facebook we speak of?


https://www.facebook.com/groups/midasca ... =bookmarks

Re: Website management

PostPosted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:19 pm
by Jin
Nice one, I searched before but didn't find that
Cheer's