[Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub

Cookieboy

Here we can discuss maybe a site re-design and a move to pages.github.com

Cookieboy

The Forum appears to be working good. But, the website itself needs a facelift in my humble opinion. I was looking at maybe getting my designer friend to overhaul the website. I would pay him in FTC I own, so that would be covered. What is everyone’s opinion of this? Would that be something OK to pursue? I was thinking of making the site with pages.github.com so using - Jekyll - as the static site generator, allowing anyone with commit access to the repository the ability to update and change the site. Just a thought, and hope it’s something we can look at.

Cookieboy

I think the real advantage of moving the static main site to GitHub pages, is that with pull requests anyone can make suggestions and changes to the site, and then managers with commit access can approve, and then it’s auto deployed. Open source, and changes with PRs.

AcidD

I tend to agree with @Cookieboy

I know personally what a pile of shit wordpress is - I do understand a lot of work went into the new website…but I think moving to something like Gitpages makes sense if we are pushing for an opensource community.

I personally really like the idea, I’d love to be able to submit changes to the site and I think as a team we could start getting a lot more done.

Wellenreiter

@Cookieboy said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

I think the real advantage of moving the static main site to GitHub pages, is that with pull requests anyone can make suggestions and changes to the site, and then managers with commit access can approve, and then it’s auto deployed. Open source, and changes with PRs.

Well, Wordpress is not really static, and we can grant write access to some willing users to maintain the site.

Also I think whatever we do, there will be someone complaining about the layout, look and feel, usability and more…

AcidD

@Wellenreiter said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

@Cookieboy said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

Well, Wordpress is not really static, and we can grant write access to some willing users to maintain the site.

Also I think whatever we do, there will be someone complaining about the layout, look and feel, usability and more…

In our case with Feathercoin.com - that’s nothing more than a static site…unless it’s doing some fun stuff in the background that no one can see :-D ?

It’s 7 pages that I count, with not a lot of content.

I also wasn’t complaining, I know a lot of work went into the site…I just really don’t like wordpress. Even professionally my company has moved away from wordpress for a multitude of reasons…security, usability…etc

pages.github.com would invite more contributors which we do need…inviting people to maintain a private wordpress instance …in my humble opinion doesn’t promote the kind of opensource community I thought Feathercoin was.

My Two Pence :)

Cookieboy

OK, at the end of the day a better site as @Wellenreiter mentioned is only feasible if someone maintains it, and helps it with new content. I agree that Wordpress would continue to work. But, by moving it to pages.github.com, we negate the need for server hosting, as well as managing one more server (which I suspect @Wellenreiter is running). We obviously would keep the forums how they are.

So, I propose then that I and @joshvdavis take on the challenge of redesigning and setting up the pages on my personal GitHub pages site. We will get some new content, as well as a new design, that mimics the older one, but adds some imagery. Then once we get that running, then we can make plans to move the DNS over to the feathercoin repo.

wrapper

@Cookieboy Thanks for that very interesting and forward looking idea, to make the web site open source.

I need to look into more but : first thought.

We need to “self host”, to ensure (a minimum level) security, because of minimizing potential responsibility issues (like with software build security policy).

FTC Web site Admin overview currently
Hardware - Self host - Admin / Member
Server Operating System - Admin Member
Forum Admin - Forum Members
Forum Moderators / Contributers / Forum Members

We could have both, for the time being and I would certainly propose that as a mirror / backup solution to ensure 99.99% availability of web site?

I think the web services API, ABE, stats etc are the more interesting things to expand and wouldn’t be available.

Wellenreiter

@Cookieboy said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

But, by moving it to pages.github.com, we negate the need for server hosting, as well as managing one more server (which I suspect @Wellenreiter is running)

The servers are leased by Uncle_muddy and operated by muddy, MrWrym, Wrapper myself and some others.

We use the server for several other tasks, so moving the web site to pages.github.com would not change the number of servers we need to operate.

Nevertheless I’m open to anything, but can’t really drive that move due to other tasks.

The website is lacking continuous maintenance and if you find 7 pages only, the site is not really intuitive, as we have at least 20 older newsletters stored and available there.

My fear is, that even if we move the site, we will face the maintenance/content update problem again and end up in a similar situation again.

RIPPEDDRAGON

@Wellenreiter I know I would contribute if it was easier for me to access. Would probably depend on how rotten my brain feels after working all day for a startup’s website.

hal

@Wellenreiter said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

@Cookieboy said in [Dev] Website Maintenance / Design / GitHub:

But, by moving it to pages.github.com, we negate the need for server hosting, as well as managing one more server (which I suspect @Wellenreiter is running)

The servers are leased by Uncle_muddy and operated by muddy, MrWrym, Wrapper myself and some others.

We use the server for several other tasks, so moving the web site to pages.github.com would not change the number of servers we need to operate.

Nevertheless I’m open to anything, but can’t really drive that move due to other tasks.

The website is lacking continuous maintenance and if you find 7 pages only, the site is not really intuitive, as we have at least 20 older newsletters stored and available there.

My fear is, that even if we move the site, we will face the maintenance/content update problem again and end up in a similar situation again.

FTC has a newsletter? Where can i sign up?

Wellenreiter

It had.
Unfortunately the guy maintaining it left the community and we don’t have it anymore. When I mentioned the newsletters, I was referring to the archived ones only.

hal

Is the “infrastructure” so to speak still in place? For someone to pick up from where the guy left off?

Wellenreiter

@hal
Well, the infrastructure is just the website and the templates for the newsletter, so If someone would pick up the newsletter creation, we just need to grant write access to the site.

hal

So the newsletter is created through the website and not through someother 3rd party service like mailchimp? I think it be a good idea to send out a newsletter sometime soon to drum up a bit of interest of people who are on the list but havent posted in a while especially since we are approaching halving etc. In a week when im back off hols I can help get one out, however would need the help of someone to write it to make sure everything is covered etc and spelt correctly.

Cheers.

Wellenreiter

The newsletter actually was not sent out as email, as we didn’t want to spam peoples inboxes.
Instead, we placed the newsletters on the website and posted the link on twitter and facebook

hal

I understand about not wanting to spam people however if we were to use double opt in and send out a mail once every two weeks / month I dont think that would be considered spamming. There would always be the option to unsubscribe easily too. I bet there are a number of users who are intrested in FTC but life just gets in the way etc. A friendly reminder that it still exists and upcoming exciting things might help drive more people to the site and get people wanting to contribute or even start convos with friends etc just in the way that social media do too. Just a thought though. Either way I recon we need to put out a news letter (via email or just on the website) about halving! :D

wrapper

We’re reviewing the links on the FTC graphics page.
https://www.feathercoin.com/feathercoin-graphic-resources/

I note @iawgoM was maintaining the old site, we need to update that link,
I’m suggesting to @AmDD temporarily as he’s doing some maintenance currently and can change it later …

We’ve been discussing ways forward on possibly auto directing such to a support ticket.
Then work towards - Support address to “FTC Web Site template” Github site issues page? On FTC official github site?

wrapper

There is a newbie question about alternative languages on the web site. What is the website programmed in and does it it have a standard way of doing alternate language text?

Cookieboy

@wrapper Yes, we are exploring re-writing the site using a markdown editor called Jekyll, and if we use it, then multiple languages is a complete possibility. Members of the community can translate the markdown pages and we can have various languages as needed.