Dear all,
I would like to add a few things to the discussion, mostly based on our current
experiences with the launch of the TAO project website
(http://www.thirdageonline.eu/), for which many requirements were the same as
for the future Wikimedia CH website.
1) I can confirm that the cooperation with Sehsinn (Sami Kaddoura) has been
very positive and straightforward. There are a few basic things, like the main
structure, the multilingual functioning, and the identification of static vs.
dynamic contents of the site that take quite some time to be sorted out at
the beginning, before the site design can start. It may be possible to speed up
the process if you take the TAO project website as a reference from where to
define the requirements for the Wikimedia CH site (working with the same web
designer would help in this case).
2) Choice of the CMS: Compared to the TAO website, there seems to be one big
difference concerning the requirements for the wikimedia.ch CMS - the future
contributors of the Wikimedia CH website are already familiar with MediaWiki,
which is not necessariliy the case for TAO, and the ease of copying content
from an internal Wiki to the public website may be a strong argument in favor
of MediaWiki. In case someone wants to get a feel of Wordpress, I can offer you
an account on the TAO-Website and, depending on your availability, I could also
provide you with some real tasks, which is probably the best way to get to
know a CMS.
3) Interactivity: One aspect I am missing on your requirements list is the
degree of interactivity you want for your site - do you want to get feedback to
your posts and allow for n:n communication (blog with the possibility of
posting comments or discussion forum)? In developping the TAO website, we
decided not to allow for interaction in a first step (but to leave the
possibility open in the future, which would not be very costly from a
development point of view). There are several reasons for this decision: (1)
From our point of view, interaction about TAO activities should first and
foremost take place on the community partners' platforms - we do not want to
create an additional community platform; (2) Allowing for interactivity means
more work: you need to be ready to police contributions in order to fight
SPAM or disruptive behaviour, and you need to have people and time to actively
participate in the interaction; (3) In the start version of the website, we
have translated some of the blog posts, meaning that you would expect a
discussion about a post to take place on several language versions in parallel
- this does not make much sense. (4) In order to avoid some of the
aforementioned problems, we have set up a Facebook group for the project
(discussions are presently going on about transforming it into a Facebook page
instead). On Facebook, several languages could coexist in one setting, and
policing for SPAM and disruptive behavior would probably be less of an issue,
as it does not happen on the official Website. On the other hand, it allows
for an open feedback culture with n:n communication (which I think would be
valuable); if we can get this going on Facebook, there may be no need to have
any interactivity on the project Website itself.
4) On the content side, I would also expect a description of concrete
possibilities for participation in the association's activities. It might be
helpful to show the visitors in which areas the various working groups need a
hand and which are the additional competencies required.
Best,
Beat Estermann
From: wikimediach-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
[wikimediach-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Manuel Schneider
[manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch]
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2011 10:53 AM
To: Mailing list for Wikimedia CH
Subject: Re: [Wikimediach-l] [Executive] Web site, proposals
Dear all,
today I approach you in my position as CIO of Wikimedia CH. In the past
we had several discussions about a relaunch of the current website.
We have asked for input on content / features as well as ideas for a
swiss design:
* http://www.wikimedia.ch/Site_web
* http://www.wikimedia.ch/Website_2011
The list of features more or less is equal with that what the webteam
has came up with in 2008 and that has been implemented in the current
website. On the other hand we all agree that the current website needs a
graphical relaunch - at the moment it doesn't have any graphical concept
and neither Wikimedia CH in general has.
Ludovic and I have collected proposals for the relaunch. After a
analysis of what we have received I have compiled a list and ask you for
feedback:
* http://www.wikimedia.ch/Website_2011#Evaluation_of_Offers
As announced by our president, the website topic will be on the agenda
at the General Assembly on April 30th
* http://www.wikimedia.ch/General_Assembly_2011
Thanks for your attention and input,
/Manuel
