Hi,
Andrew Brown wrote:
Well, I think that the real flaw is in the mechanism. What you are wrestling with is a site designed by a committee, all of whom feel they know what needs to be there. The alternate proposal is designed by one professional. No wonder it's better.
I agree. I must acknowledge that this whole thing was a complete new learning curve for me too. The ideal however to design a website through input with the many eyeballs concept just seems not to work very well... or at least not very efficient, as I find the work not yet finnished.
There is in the current arrangement an essential asymmetry. The various project leads would not and do not submit their work to detailed consideration by everyone else. They don't allow the web site project a veto on their priorities. Their work is better done as a result.
You might be right about this indeed. As a relative newcomer I tried to be open to everyones suggestions... but I have been taken different opinions too literary maybe, or ... whatever, the mechanism was indeed wrong.
Right back at the beginning of this round of frustrating silliness, in January, I argued that the review committee, which was then only this group, should only be accept or reject proposals, not to modify them. Nothing that has happened since then has change my opinion that this is the only way to get things done. The review committee has been enlarged to include all the project leads and the result -- as anyone could have predicted -- is uglier and less useful than the original proposal. (I don't want to be wholly negative. I love the silly winged box graphic. It's too big, and it should be thrown away, but it is pretty and memorable. Making anything worthwhile involves throwing away really good things that just don't fit.)
You're right about this, and the box was never intended to stay there, however functioned as a place holder for alternative images... again this was upon request... some even bothered that it required already too much of styling in a particular style...
If I sound snarky -- and if, god forbid, occasionally I am snarky -- this is becasue I have been on this list since god knows when. the oldest discussions on rebuilding the site I can find on my disk date from December 2002, but I know there had been a round of proposals before then. And the same things always happens. Someone comes in, bursting with energy, knowledge, and suggestions for improvement. A committee immediately forms to second guess them. After two months they give up in disgust or exhaustion. Four months after that, something happens which pleases no one very much. Then everything goes quiet for another year.
Do not mind, Dutch people (I'm one of them) seem to be born snarky (if i've understood the word correctly) ... I really take this reply valuable. I would even have liked it if you had warned me more often! :)
g.,
Maarten
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