Status of PRA.ORG

[jcarleto]

I was fumbling around today on www.pra.org looking for information worthy of linking to and instead found a fair number of broken links and unorganized "stuff" in various stages of disarray. I've been out of the loop of late, so I have to ask;

What is the current status of www.pra.org? Is it being actively developed or just managed on an "as needed" basis?

It is true that changes I requested for the Chapter 56 contact information were made promptly and correctly. However, even that section (About PRA->Chapters) could use a good cleanup from a font, organization and content-verification (broken links) standpoint.

There have been significant issues in the recent past. I am not trying to rehash those. I am merely curious about the present state of the site.

[barnstorm2]

Originally Posted by jcarleto

What is the current status of www.pra.org? Is it being actively developed or just managed on an "as needed" basis?

As Needed.

Originally Posted by jcarleto

It is true that changes I requested for the Chapter 56 contact information were made promptly and correctly. However, even that section (About PRA->Chapters) could use a good cleanup from a font, organization and content-verification (broken links) standpoint.

There have been significant issues in the recent past. I am not trying to rehash those. I am merely curious about the present state of the site.

Currently we have a web SERVER admin (me) and web site help-desk (Jane and I ), however we have no web DEVELOPER ( interface / navigation / content ).

In the past we have had a number of developers but the volunteers tend to burn-out, get board, or become frustrated with the fact you just can not make a 'look and feel' that makes everyone happy.

We would LOVE to have a volunteer step up to do web-site content and or look and feel / navigation updates but we have to be sure the person has BOTH appropriate skills and the dedication to start the job AND finish it. Too many times we have had people start a web site upgrade "get busy" with some other project and leave the web site in worse shape then they started with.

The best answer is to HIRE a developer so that if they do a bad job or start slacking off we can fire them with no membership hard feelings or social ramifications. However, we don't have the budget for that presently.


Any bad links, suggestions, and content should be sent to the web server support email address on the web page.

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[jcarleto]

Thank you. Should the situation change, I hope it will be well-publicized. There is a lot of good information on the site that would be a valuable link asset for chapter sites and others if it could be relied upon. I recognize that the budget has other larger issues.

[Mike484]

Hopefully this will be resolved some day as the website is probably one of our best resources to send newbies and wannabies to. The old website needed an update but it was much easier to navigate through and much easier to find information than what this new one has become. I was very excited to see that it was going to be updated but have found it is very cumbersome and confusing to use.

[molemoore]

What skills are you looking for as a developer?

[Steve_UK]

Maybe go for something far simpler and easier to maintain / amend. Accuracy of content is key.

Blogspot.com is a freebie and might well meet your needs.


Steve

[barnstorm2]

Originally Posted by molemoore

What skills are you looking for as a developer?

1. Someone that will work for free (volunteer), be available to make regular updates, have a thick enough skin to understand that no matter how perfect you make a site someone somewhere won't like it, and be able to commit to at least 2-3 years of service before becoming 'busy' with another project and dropping out.

Of course you will need the skills to work with the basic HTML editor that the PRA web server has in place. You will need to communicate with the server admin (me) when you plan to make changes so a backup can be made before the changes are applied.

Lastly, (this is the hard part) you will need to be able to design a navigation and look-n-feel that is usable buy at least 80% of the users. (making a web site that 8 of 10 people think is good is harder then most people think)

Originally Posted by Steve_UK

Maybe go for something far simpler and easier to maintain / amend. Accuracy of content is key.
Blogspot.com is a freebie and might well meet your needs.
Steve

The PRA can not make a 100% publicly available website. We have to have a members-only section to provide members-only benefits such as webinars, classes, how-to videos AND server side software to give non-downloadable access to the magazine archives.

Free-bee web hosting does not support these features.

Also, the PRA needs to be able to backup/copy of the content off site and retain full ownership of the material and personal information of our members.


Again, not possible because of the fine-print in the free-hosting sites.

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