Forest BB

HEY! Doodle says so far EVERYONE can do friday at 2. Ooh boy. So shall we? Let's bring cake. x

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Milk has confirmed yes. Yes to meet and yes to cake, but no to meat. Got that? Bring knives.


xxxxx

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

cool,

To help make this meeting run smoothly, i think we're going to need a facilitator, and an agenda.

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

I agree. I have some thoughts about an agenda. The meeting has the potential to get sidetracked and to be a long debate with no resolution at the end. Therefore, I propose (hopefully without reopening a can of worms here) to head off certain potential discussions before-hand:

1. I don't think we should get into a debate about the relative pros and cons of drupal vs tumblr. It will be useless to debate about this, both have their pros and cons, all the points have been made on the bb, both sides are repeating themselves now, to the non-technical people who have an interest in this it's a largely meaningless discussion anyway, but mostly, it seems clear that neither side has much hope of convincing the other. If we (as a group) choose one site or the other then we might want to talk about what changes we'd like to see on that site in short order, but I think we should avoid trying to come to a decision by having a debate about the sites because I don't think there will be a consensus on it.

2. I don't think we should talk about what our vision or design for the website is. There has been some calls in the now-closed thread for a discussion about this. This could be a very long discussion with no resolution anytime soon, and again we may have two camps that won't agree. I'm not trying to censor such discussion in meetings or on the bb, but I don't think we should talk about it in this particular meeting. The tumblr camp already has a clear vision and has had it for some time, this has been spelled out already, there is even a working implementation of it. From our point of view going back to square one and trying to come up with a new vision would be a big step backwards. Of course the group may reject our vision. It may be that the drupal camp doesn't yet have a clear vision for the future of the drupal site, but in my opinion the right place to discuss that is in a meeting about the drupal site, discussions among the drupal camp, bb threads about the drupal site, etc.

What I think we should talk about in this meeting is:

1. Stay with the drupal site, for as long as it takes.
2. Stay with the drupal site but set a deadline for it.
3. Go to tumblr now, reconsider drupal in the future when work has been done on it.
etc.

I think that if we keep the meeting focus on possible compromises, as in courses of action of this type, there's a good chance that it won't take too long to agree on a path that will get us a good forest site one way or another before too long.

There is one kind of compromise that I think probably won't work: asking the tumblr people to join the drupal people and work on drupal, or vice-versa. The groups have different visions and I think we've seen that they're unlikely to want to work with eachother.

How is that for a plan? Are there any objections? Do feel free to object to this plan, but if you do please try to propose an alternative agenda, cause I think this meeting does need an agenda. If we go into it without a plan we might get nowhere.

There is another possibility. First thing we could do at the meeting before discussing anything is come up with a plan/agenda together. But if we can fix one on the bb before-hand that would save time.

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Hey, I think there might be another type of compromise worth discussing. While none of us are interested in compromising on website visions and doing design by committee etc., it may not need to be a binary choice between tumblr and drupal. For example there's discussion in another thread about making a barred persons website with drupal. This is certainly something that you can't do with tumblr (unless we signed for a second tumblr blog, the forest barred persons blog!*). Could we not have tumblr handling the forest blog at forest.org.uk/blog, give it to Chris and Jane or whoever to curate, at other forest.org.uk URLs you could have other pages powered by drupal (or something else) and give that to the drupal team's project. At the root page forest.org.uk you could have an awesome static HTML page. At the same time, you could leave the door open for drupal to also take over the blogging and the front page functions at some point in the future, when we're all happy that it's ready to do it. Possibly we could all have our way.

Anyway, I'm prempting the meeting, I'll shut up.

* I think this is an excellent idea!

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

What a splendid compromise!
I agree

splendid idea!

furthermore, i suggest scout or ryan as facilitators, if either are available...

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

fuck yeah chombee!

I have a good friend Peter Gerard who, not only works with websites daily and has a good understanding of these things, has agreed to my suggestion that he facilitate this meeting.

If you guys are up for doing it with a stranger?

I'll ask him if he is free on said Friday.


cool. yes?

.

er? could be a good idea? is he an experienced facilitator?

understanding of forest may be more important than knowledge of websites, to be facilitator for this.

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

> Could we not have tumblr handling the forest blog at forest.org.uk/blog, give it to Chris and Jane or whoever to curate, at other forest.org.uk URLs you could have other pages powered by drupal

Sorry, but that's ridiculous. Why give ourselves two sites to admin instead of one?

At any rate, if the meeting is going to be about STILL debating which technology to use, then what is the point in me being there?

Lets discuss it at the meeting.

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Hello.

I am siting with Scoutt,

she says she will Faclitate. Friday from 2 till 4. she says make it snappy.

cool

awesome.

i have also arranged to have an x-ray scanner delivered in time for the meeting. And we will need someone to frisk everyone who comes in for concealed weapons.

cheers!

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Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

we can make Drupal have a blog as easy to use a tumblr and have multiple personages posting content to it.



to firstly help explain that Drupal is a system worth keeping and then to help guide us on our collaborative process to actualise various requirements for what the site should do, that is beyond the limitations of a system such as tumblr!

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

what would be great would be to use and modify drupal so it can have a lovely front page designed by some good artist and then a backside CMS which is totally easy to use for all non-webheads, like the wordpress one attached. Is this possible? If so, ideal!

D xx

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Our big brother's got no heart,
when I get my chance I'm going to punch him in the nose, in the nose, in the nose

funnily enough, the Drupal page to create news content is actually less cluttered and confusing than the WordPress dashboard, though the aim is to make it even less cluttered, to the level of tumblr, removing any extranious sections that don't apply to the lay content poster.

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

excellent!

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Our big brother's got no heart,
when I get my chance I'm going to punch him in the nose, in the nose, in the nose

Right on guys!

My personal approach has changed slightly. I'm sorry for my earlier attitude/behaviour. I was just worried that the sudden appearance of the tumblr site would steamroller over everything without there being a proper chance for us to work together on improving the existing site.

Drupal *is* complex in parts, but that can be limited to the parts the "techies" use. I would like to make the user experience of the site, specifically for people adding content, to be simple like tumblr, but with the amazing power of Drupal behind it.

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Mike

Dawnsio 'mlaen i'r gwres prynhawn a rwy'n addo erbyn yfori byddai wedi mynd, hwyl fawr i pawb, hwyl fawr i pawb...

I know, you've been saying this. Frankly, prove it. The drupal camp can go away and implement these promises now, when it's working just right and looking cool then come back and show it. Convince people and they will use it. But the way to convince people is to implement it and show it to them. We'd all be delighted. In the meantime, I would like to have a good blog right now with tumblr.

I understand that there are things that drupal can potentially do that tumblr can't. By all means, go and implement those things and if they are good then people will be happy and will use them. This doesn't mean we won't be using tumblr for what tumblr does. Please consider the compromise that I suggested, I think it's a good one.

I hope that the drupalists will come to this consensus-based meeting with an attitude that is open to compromise. You may not be able to have everything the drupal way all of the time, at least not until you've made drupal better and other people like it too. At times it is beginning to sound like drupal has become an end in itself, rather than a means. Like, for example, when it is suggested to use a website content management system to make printed posters, which is bonkers. Or when it seems that only drupal all of the way will be accepted, and the suggestion to use tumblr for what it does best and drupal for what only it can do is ignored or ridiculed.

Mike, the tumblr site won't steamroller anything. Really, it won't. I mean, tumblr is a one-trick pony, so it cannot possibly take over all of the functions that drupal could be doing, yes? Even if we did put the tumblr site live, this wouldn't prevent anyone from working together to make drupal better so that it can replace tumblr as soon as it does the job better. If drupal really will be better, then you should not be worried.

But, drupalists, I question the logic of working on getting drupal to do what tumblr does as well or better than tumblr does it. Tumblr is indeed a one trick pony, and it does its trick very well. Why not let it do its trick? It seems to make more sense for drupal work to concentrate on what can be done with drupal that can't be done without it. The barred persons page, and I'm sure any number of other projects that could be imagined. If you make great and useful things in drupal then people will welcome them.

I don't understand the objection to letting tumblr do that part of it. Why does it have to be all drupal all the way? Remember, we aim to say yes. We can say yes to both tumblr's one trick and drupal's many potential tricks, I think.

That said, if you want to make drupal do tumblr then go ahead. And when it does it, then come back and show it to us.

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

Before we get any more ensconced in discussion pro/anti tumblr/drupal and this becomes the same as the locked thread, may I suggest setting out an agenda and agreeing to stick to that and leaving any more chat to the meeting?

I'll put what I would personally like to see and then anyone else can respond and change things as they see fit:

1. those with concerns about the current website state
a. what problems they have with the current site
b. what their vision for a website is
c. how they would implement this/timescale

2. those who run the current website state
a. whether they can fix those problems
b. whether they agree with that vision (and, if not, whether they have an alternative vision)
c. if they do agree with the vision and criticisms, how they could be implemented in drupal, and what the timescale of this is
d. if they have an alternative vision, what the timescale for implementing that is
e. what drupal can do that other websites can't and why we should use it

3. both
a. agree what we prioritise in our website (e.g. visually attractive/good archiving system/ease of uploading/strong coding/interesting copy/ease of navigation/etc)
b. agree whether we would like to set a deadline for change in drupal/stay with drupal for as long as it takes/switch temporarily to tumblr with a front page until we have the drupal of our dreams/go with sean's non-binary approach/switch entirely to tumblr forever/go back to our beloved joomla/change the forest website to something like this what alex suggested

this may seem like a lot but a bunch of it is yes/no/numbers, and a bunch of the rest we've already mostly covered.

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Hello Web Heads,

I probably won't make the meeting. good luck, have fun.

After talking with the many Forest Project Bottomliners, there are some things they would like to see on a new site:

a dedicated workshops page that links from the static front page. Lukas (the EVS Workshops Coordinator) likes this one, but he wants to be able to click on each workshop and be able to see the image for it and read the description.

and a facilities page with the same features, so that you could read a page about why we have Facilities and what they are, and each one with its own page containing loads of sexy images showing how great are project rooms are!

--
thanks!

--



here also is an extract from recent webchat with Peter, methinks pertinent.

sorrk im tierd,

there was meant to be thin link in it.

a dedicated workshops page that links from the static front page. Lukas (the EVS Workshops Coordinator)likes this one, but he wants to be able to click on each workshop and be able to see the image for it and read the description.

\goodnight\

Yup, I was just suggesting that to Milk the other week.



GAH. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
Can I even CONVEY my frustration with this obsession with Tumblr?

You want to be able to post shiny shit and have a long reverse-chronological order list of it? We've already said we can do it in Drupal and save yet another mashup.

Seriously. Fed up with this.

Hey! Can we try and just stick to agenda discussion and save the rest for the face-to-face for now?! I *know* how hard it is to resist the allure of typey-type and soup-stirring still (oh boy, I know it, I want to respond to that *so* bad, but I'm being good).

But yes, agenda points now, discussion later. xx

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

i'd like to discuss what features or way of doing things, specifically and exactly, makes tumbr better than the current blog within drupal. i know a lot has been said before in various threads, but this needs to be distilled down to something we can action asap. lets have a mini UX session and run through what clicks are required to post or edit blog entries so we're all on the same page.

issues i'd also like to touch on;

anon posting - making it easier for folk to submit content would be nice, but i'd like this to be moderated by coordinators/curators/whatnot.

how can we tie together elements of the site which, while handy to some, are seen as extraneous dead ends to others. specifically, the subpages of the About section - instead of having a static Workshops page, make it display what workshops are currently running, easier to access, editable by the workshop coordinators to alleviate the bottleneck of getting Lukas to change things, etc. similarly, instead of having a static Action Room subpage, display a calendar and contact form for external community groups to contact lukas regarding booking it from (or have an anon event submission form, similar to the previously cafe event submission form. or have it in the same form?).



why is it bonkers? i'm coming from a perspective where the web is not just an ad billboard or soapbox - it's a tool. we can provide online applications for our volunteers to use (asp, saas, etc). it's to help reduce the workload of people, help lower information asymmetry and promote open communication/community. yes, we can do the simple 'blog' things well, but there's more to consider about the functions of our web system beyond the basics, things that we can focus on after we agree on what approach to take for the basics.

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

I've reeeeeally been trying to stay out of this as I didn't want to get involved, and I don't feel that I'm informed enough to contribute.

BUT...in my humble opinion, I agree with what Sean and Ryan say and I like what Nix just suggested for the tumblr site (as well as Chris and Gareth's suggestions).

As soon as I read all the reasons from the techie people as to why we should use drupal my head goes to mush and I feel bogged down by lots of extraneous, needless details - is this not what we are trying to get away from?!

(sorry guys, I don't mean this personally AT ALL).

I think it would be lovely to keep the site and it's functions as simple as is humanly possible.

Techie guys - please compromise!

I have been trying to channel the discussion to non-technical stuff that everyone can brings ideas on, and the non-techies keep moving it back to technical stuff.

Non-techie guys: either FOCUS or leave the techie stuff to the techies.

what kind of details are you referring to? i mean, as has been said, it's a complicated topic in that there are various concepts to link together when you're trying to talk about things in a holistic sense, but i think these things need to be said so that we all understand each other's perspective.

when you follow it with "is this not what we are trying to get away from?!", it sounds like you're conflating the idea of the site being 'easy to use', the 'what people want' and the 'how we can get there' issues, which, while overlapping, are things that need to be deconstructed so people can understand the big picture.

analogy; think about the BB. it's moderately largish and complex piece of web software in it's own right with all it's bells and whistles for managing users, threads, subforums, groups, etc, but it's fairly simple for people to create posts, reply to existing ones, etc.

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

^^^^ This.

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Mike

Dawnsio 'mlaen i'r gwres prynhawn a rwy'n addo erbyn yfori byddai wedi mynd, hwyl fawr i pawb, hwyl fawr i pawb...

Yup.

And with Drupal we're actually deciding on the bells and whistles we want and building them.

Oh fuck, forget it!!!

This is why I didn't want to get involved

On you's go guys, I won't be saying another thing!

heh, this is why we have real life meetings

srsly; please do come to the meet tomorrow - it would be great to get a perspective from an admin

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

I don't wanna, I'm scared!

I should have said where I was coming from, i.e., I'm trying to see things from outside both sides' arguments. To me, each side seems to be arguing from a totally different perspective and that is resulting in a stalemate.

(But I think Sean already said that, and Jane already unpacked all the options involved in sorting this out)

I really don't think you need me to complicate the issue, and I should've held back from putting my two cents worth in!

I'm happy with whatever you decide - as long as it's easy to find the hall hire info

I propose a poll, who thinks the forest website should be like the bb? Or, who thinks the bb is simple and easy to use? This bb has approximately 40 subforums arranged into a dozen or so groups, if you want to get back to some post you read before it's impossible to find it, and if you want to post something and you don't already know your way around it's impossible to know where to post it! I've no doubt that this complexity scares plenty of people away from being involved on the bb. Even the search page is way over-complicated. I propose that anyone who thinks this bb is a good model for a simple and easy to use website should be locked up before they do any more harm to themselves or others.

P.S. my paragraph to Mike in my last post looks snarky but it wasn't intended to be, can't edit, sorry Mike.

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

well, the BB is better than nowt. it's certainly better than people having to access the web space via ftp, download text files, edit them, reupload, organise, avoid file change conflicts, etc - you get the point - to communicate

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hey, if you don't like it, post on the BB (so you can ask about participating for better) | MilkMiruku

wow.

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Well, I'm glad everyone's sticking to just posting agenda points and not getting back into arguments. Well done us. Maybe we should just lock the entire bb and be done with it...
x

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Gee. That's constructive. I'm pretty sure I've said more concrete things like talking about what pieces of the site we want on the front page.

This might well be clearer in person where I can see blank looks and then explain. The thing is though, if you initiate a technical discussion, expect technical in return.

@Lynne:

I build websites for my dayjob. There are 3 types of clients:
- those who know. Great!
- those who don't know. Not a problem: I can take time to explain things.
- those who don't know they don't know. These are the numpties.

I doff my hat at your wisdom in knowing you do not know

> as long as it's easy to find the hall hire info

See, that is USEFUL input. I did post on the other thread to say people should come to the meeting with ideas about what people should be able to do on the site, and this is the sort of thing I meant. "Find hall hire info" is a thing we'd like people to be able to do with the site. It gives the techies like myself something to aim for -- otherwise we just make it up

More please! Though I have to warn you that it's impossible to accommodate every one of those in a site (for example, you end up with a front page that's totally overloaded and nothing has prominence). I read a very good book on website design once which said 'make a list of what you want your site to do and then cut 90% of it'. So part of tomorrow's agenda should be prioritizing these.

No, you shouldn't have held back your points Lynn. Thank you for posting.





Well, how about this for a start:





















And, this is pretty rich:



You think you're frustrated? The obsession with Drupal has been going on for a long time now, and look what there is to show for it... A website that no one is happy with, not even its creators.

And that is the crux of the matter for me. No one is obsessed with Tumblr per se, but they're sick of having a website that has unlimited POWER and POTENTIAL but is a dismal failure in terms of appearance and usability. And it will only get worse if we stick with Drupal and then the Drupal geeks (who as far as I can tell are a small contingent) move on and leave us.

The Forest is chaos - whether people care to admit it or not. The chaos makes us brilliant, but it also means that we need to keep some things simple so they don't spiral out of control... Can't we learn from our mistakes? The old Joomla site was great so long as Pogo was around to keep it going. But as soon as he left, we were stuck with a souped-up-tweaked-out content management system that was very difficult for others to step into and keep using. This was a source of frustration for ages.

Then eventually some new folks came along and wanted to give us a new brilliant website, powered by Drupal. Chombee warned at the time that we were in danger of repeating the same old mistakes, but was drowned out. Now here we are, literally years later, and we're in the same situation with Drupal as we were with Joomla. And now, some guy who has been involved with the website for a week or two is frustrated by THE OBSESSION WITH TUMBLR!

It's very nice that Drupal could be so much more, but frankly, who cares? Do we need it? Probably not. At least nothing that has been said so far has convinced me that it's worth the time, effort, frustration and infuriation that it has caused.

The thing is, Chris was able to do spend one day working with Tumblr and come up with something better than the current site - and Chris is an amateur when it comes to this stuff.

I understand that geeks like to geek out -- I live with chombee for christ's sake, of course I know. But in this case, it seems like the obsession with tweaking and fixing, shaping and molding the back end into exactly what you want, has gotten in the way of common sense about what is needed and wanted.

Once upon a time a lot of different people were posting on the Joomla site. As far as I can tell, the only people left posting on the current site are its creators and those who are paid to do so (ie: admins and EVS). Five projects have gone off and made their own websites. I would urge 'the techies' to seriously consider why this might be.

With all that said, I acknowledge and appreciate the time, work and effort that has gone into the current Forest site, and that Milk and Mike have persevered with it so long.

[quote="Shannon"]It's very nice that Drupal could be so much more, but frankly, who cares? Do we need it?/quote]

I really think you do. If you want to have anything approaching that design pic Chris posted earlier, I would say you do.

Please decide before tomorrow's meeting if this is going to be Drupal-bashing. I understand I am a newbie and you guys have been struggling with Drupal for a while. But I came along because I got wind that Milk needed a hand with it, and I am here to lend it, and instead I got dragged into this soul-sapping quagmire. Like I said, Drupal is my dayjob. If you guys are still arguing about whether to ditch or not then I am really wasting my time here. There are plenty more fun things I can be doing with my life.

wow. i hate you guys already!
i have no idea what you're talking about. hopefully this means i will be able to facilitate without being biased

tomorrow is gonna run something like this:

1.45pm: everyone shows up and gets a cup of tea, comes to the action room
2pm we sit down, write agenda out together (with approx times for guidance), work out what the meeting is aiming to actually do, (agree on what we are aiming for consensus on), and how long the meeting will take (i want out by 4pm!)
4pm we are all happy and hug and smile together, everyone buys me cake.

please be on time!

ok?

x scoutt

we hate you too! xx

agenda sounds great, can we also have cake at the beginning though to aid sugar-rush energy? nom nom nom.

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

Don't run away just yet jaochim,

I think all we need to talk about is what do want from a website, how it will work and what is the best way to implement those ideas.

This is my lay out for an easy to navigate website that looks good.

"""""""""""""""""FRONTPAGE"""""""""""""""""
links: Forest Pub
Forest Records
Total Kunst
old hat books
Events/workshops/Artists Facillites
About
Forum

So the first four are sorted! great


E/w/af goes to a news feed page with todays event being the first thing you see, linked from events calender.
At the top menus with drop down sub sections for each, these should stay there no matter what page you are on

Events Workshops Facilities
puting on events Hosting CAVE
DARKROOM )these contain booking forms about sections etc
Screen Print
Hall


ABOUT

You know some writing, where we are who we are, how to volunteer, photo archives, how to grow a forest etc

well maybe i'll see you all tomorrow for cake.

damn and id formatted it so nice,
well i may bring a picture tomorrow. today if your reading this over breakfast.

don't eat too much breakfast. remember to leave room for cake.

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"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

the issue is not so much about software . its about the forest mindset in regards to the web and how projects function within the forest . I could get into the history of it but i wont . But lets just say it has fundamentally changed last year, breaking away from a monolithic web site (joomla , drupal) with proliferation of individual web sites for projects .whist not everyone likes what has happened . it has and i doubt it is going to change . This has now led us to point that the present monolithic web site approach is becoming increasingly irrelevant as most of the forest projects have moved out of it . a continuation of trying to fix the forest back into a monolithic web site will only bring us grieve . Its never been a good thing .


martin

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Heaven is a disaster

Lambchop , The Saturday option .

Minutes are up: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7433

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!