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benj1290

benj1290

Member
​
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Hey Guys, This is Benj1290 giving a shout out... and i was wondering....

Do we need a Website?

The reason why i ask this is because im a professional web-application designer and im really bored right now with gaming and such... so i ask the question.

As a web-application designer i design,create and work on website and database structures.

let me know what you guys think. if you would like me to make the website, i will need contact info from the person who is in charge of this thing.

just a FYI i will not make other websites for anyone else. so please don't pm me.
 
we already have a team site (link @ sig.), the current issue is finding members to keep it up/posting.

anyone who would like to be a contributors (who could post up folding news, useful thread that you found from this forum, etc.), please feel free to PM me.
 
LandShark said:
we already have a team site (link @ sig.)
Click to expand...

that's a blog (wordpress) & not a real website, if the benj1290 wants to design something cool (not a blog) why not see what benj1290 comes up with first before shooting him/her down. It may just help with recruiting, you never know.
 
LandShark said:
we already have a team site (link @ sig.), the current issue is finding members to keep it up/posting.

anyone who would like to be a contributors (who could post up folding news, useful thread that you found from this forum, etc.), please feel free to PM me.
Click to expand...

No use having a website that has time sensitive material if nobody is available to update it on a regular basis....the lead story is from May! It reflects badly on our team when the site isn't kept up to date. The site also has visual flaws like overlapping text.
 
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not trying to shut benj1290 down or anything at all! if we can have a new fancy team site, great! however, I was just trying to point it out that (as orion456 complain 'bout the current one too), it's having someone to keep it alive the hardest part! no matter how nice and fancy a web site it is, if it's not "alive", nobody will pay attention to it! if a site is alive, up to date, and helpful/interesting to others (e.g. posting a link back to a thread in here about folding tips, benchmark result, etc.), it will draw traffic, and those traffic would discover this helpful/friendly forum and the team, and hopefully they will join us! (during those 8 months period that I was in charge of the team site, we average have anywhere from 30~100+ visitors/day! and we were high in the google search ranking too! I can post up more stats if needed.)

and I made it as a blog is trying to make any member who would like to contribute to the team site or if someone want to take over it could easily fit right in w/out any web/html/programming knowledge. it's the easiest way to have anyone to join in to contribute to the team site!!

I (and other members) tried to keep the team site up and running as much as possible. however, due to other issue (mainly RL), the site is seriously lacking behind on updates. I know, and I'm sorry! if the team likes, I could take it down first so it doesn't "reflect badly to the team"! but just sitting in front of the monitor complaining, doing all the talk the talk while nobody actually step up to walk the walk (maintain) isn't gonna help at all!

again, having a nice, fancy, kick@ss web site for the team is great! but it's actually finding people to keep it up, to maintain it, the real issue!!

at the end, it's the "team"'s decision of what to do and how to do w/ the site. whatever you guys like to do, it's fine w/ me too. :cool:
 
well that's where i come in... as a database programmer i can make a thing like a blog or pull the most current (i think, haven't tried it xD) post... the problem I'm now thinking is that i work with asp coding, and i don't have a asp server. so, kind of a problem. And if there wouldn't be anybody to look over the website i can go and update it myself. but like i said i deal with asp code and we would need asp hosting, which i don't know if you guys have it or not. but... i can make a template so just in case we would like to move forward we can.

And I understand what you are saying as well LandShark.
 
LandShark said:
not trying to shut benj1290 down or anything at all! if we can have a new fancy team site, great! however, I was just trying to point it out that (as orion456 complain 'bout the current one too), it's having someone to keep it alive the hardest part! no matter how nice and fancy a web site it is, if it's not "alive", nobody will pay attention to it! if a site is alive, up to date, and helpful/interesting to others (e.g. posting a link back to a thread in here about folding tips, benchmark result, etc.), it will draw traffic, and those traffic would discover this helpful/friendly forum and the team, and hopefully they will join us! (during those 8 months period that I was in charge of the team site, we average have anywhere from 30~100+ visitors/day! and we were high in the google search ranking too! I can post up more stats if needed.)

and I made it as a blog is trying to make any member who would like to contribute to the team site or if someone want to take over it could easily fit right in w/out any web/html/programming knowledge. it's the easiest way to have anyone to join in to contribute to the team site!!

I (and other members) tried to keep the team site up and running as much as possible. however, due to other issue (mainly RL), the site is seriously lacking behind on updates. I know, and I'm sorry! if the team likes, I could take it down first so it doesn't "reflect badly to the team"! but just sitting in front of the monitor complaining, doing all the talk the talk while nobody actually step up to walk the walk (maintain) isn't gonna help at all!

again, having a nice, fancy, kick@ss web site for the team is great! but it's actually finding people to keep it up, to maintain it, the real issue!!

at the end, it's the "team"'s decision of what to do and how to do w/ the site. whatever you guys like to do, it's fine w/ me too. :cool:
Click to expand...

Amen.

I`d love to have the nice fancy website too, but like LS is strongly pointing out, its going to take more than backend design and frontend flair to make people go to it. It needs content.

I`m more of a java developer myself, but i know my way around php quite well, and i`d be willing to help on the coding side of things. One piece of web portal software i worked with lately is called Drupal. Its a great platform, has tons of mods that you can install, and it makes it quite easy to add your own.

The first thing we need to sort out is hosting. At a minimum we would need something that allows us to install website software like Drupal, and provides a MySQL database. This would also probably require ssh access, or at least some sort of filesystem level access to allow the Drupal install.

Benj: If you have some time, i've got some ideas for features. A couple of things i had in mind were a live milestone tracker, would make it much simpler to find/track people as they cross milestones. Another was a threat meter that shows how much a given person is being threatened by those below, and how much they are threatening those above them. I've got a few more ideas like this that are going to take some fancy math and coding design to make happen, if your interested.

Edit: I just took a look at the costs for the web hosting provider im using for my Ventrillo server. Their web site hosting has php/mysql/ftp and cpanel. Its within my budget to add it to my account, and im willing to do so if theres the interest in maintaining content within it.
 
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The main thing is not to have time sensitive material on the site if it isn't maintained frequently. You can still have information and links but to have an expired contest from May just screams nobody's here.
 
It would make more sense to me to have a team site thats not dependent upon current content. A blog format probably isn't appropriate, as is reflected by the perpetual state of the site being out of date.

If it should exist at all, it should point back to this forum. The content there should be general, express our mission, explain the project, and so forth. It should stand on its own, and not require new content to still appear useful.

If someone can do a nice professional and custom site, I think that would be great. Or thats just my 2 cents.

Before I was really interested in having an individual do this however, I'd want to see some past work history. I've seen professional web design mean a lot of different things, and it doesn't always mean good results - some past work examples show what a designer is capable of.
 
I.M.O.G. said:
It would make more sense to me to have a team site thats not dependent upon current content. A blog format probably isn't appropriate, as is reflected by the perpetual state of the site being out of date.

If it should exist at all, it should point back to this forum. The content there should be general, express our mission, explain the project, and so forth. It should stand on its own, and not require new content to still appear useful.

If someone can do a nice professional and custom site, I think that would be great. Or thats just my 2 cents.

Before I was really interested in having an individual do this however, I'd want to see some past work history. I've seen professional web design mean a lot of different things, and it doesn't always mean good results - some past work examples show what a designer is capable of.
Click to expand...

I'm going to +1 that.
Since we have pretty much all the information necessary to explain who we are here on the forum a web site should just be a front-end gateway to the forum. Include mission statement (of sorts), basic information about Folding, and links to the main OC website and Stanford's site.
 
www.jnode.org

Here's one example of a Drupal site that i did. The color scheme/logo were largely ported from another site, though it took some work to make it look decent. Drupal has alot of options and is quite easy to configure. Its also very simplified when it comes to adding 'modules' like those in the side bars. They can be html (menus/links) or php, to access databases and provide up to date content.

I have a couple of little projects to tend to today and probably tomorrow. But i'll see if i can get a drupal install on my hosting service setup by the weekend.
 
I think we need a main site full of links and F@H tutorials, guides, etc. GPU Folding guides, what folding is all about, what hardware works best. This is better than a blog for the main site, then we can build in wordpress so members can update the content.
 
This discussion usually comes back to people contributing content. This is not a technical or other kind of website problem. There are no technical barriers to getting content up on the main site. That part is easy.

The difficult part is managing it. If you create an article, when will it expire or be updated? Who is going to do it? If we had a framework to make sure that was done on a consistent basis, our current site would be fine. That never has happened, and the site has never been well maintained or contributed to on an ongoing consistent basis. It gets fleeting interest, then whoever was doing all the work either gets tired of the effort, or moves onto the next shiny thing.
 
Ben333 said:
I think we need a main site full of links and F@H tutorials, guides, etc. GPU Folding guides, what folding is all about, what hardware works best. This is better than a blog for the main site, then we can build in wordpress so members can update the content.
Click to expand...

I believe just the opposite! :)

We need a "friendly" page for those investigating our folding team and FAH in general.

Instead of being packed with tutorials and guides, and all kind of FAH info, it should be packed with just a *little* info on FAH, just a *little* info about our team, and *tons* of good design and that touch of character that makes investigators, want more.

IMO people don't fold because they know the details about FAH, or protein folding. They fold because they 1) want to help medical research, and 2) want to be a member of a group to interact with, while doing it. Folding is still a pretty cool project to be a part of. People want to share that experience.

Our website needs to reflect that, imo. I also don't believe most members write well enough to be adding content to the site, directly. Were lable to git in putt your don't want. :D
 
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Ben333 said:
I think we need a main site full of links and F@H tutorials, guides, etc. GPU Folding guides, what folding is all about, what hardware works best. This is better than a blog for the main site, then we can build in wordpress so members can update the content.
Click to expand...
I like the idea and that's what I was trying to do, posting useful info/thread from the forum (benchmark data, installation guide, contest, etc.). so when other folding people found the team site, they will be directed to the forum, and hopefully in the end, they will decided to join (or jump ship to) our team due to the activity, knowledge, helpfulness, and friendliness of this team!!

I.M.O.G. said:
This discussion usually comes back to people contributing content. This is not a technical or other kind of website problem. There are no technical barriers to getting content up on the main site. That part is easy.

The difficult part is managing it. If you create an article, when will it expire or be updated? Who is going to do it? If we had a framework to make sure that was done on a consistent basis, our current site would be fine. That never has happened, and the site has never been well maintained or contributed to on an ongoing consistent basis. It gets fleeting interest, then whoever was doing all the work either gets tired of the effort, or moves onto the next shiny thing.
Click to expand...
very well said and that's exactly the problem imho!
 
The thing with guides, and 'what works best' falls under the same category as articles about contests and such, they're still time sensitive. Hardware changes often, and things need to be updated.

Some of the things im suggesting, coding that whips together little unique stats and such, manage themselves. Updates are only needed to make new charts/graphs/stats. Best of all, i can get xml dumps from EOC. I'll talk to Jason to see if there's any issue.

Other than that, like Adak said, it needs to be something with some style and flair, and keep the content to a minimum. At least at first. Once people start going there and using it, there will be more people interested in it, and you'll start to get more people willing to contribute. But for the most part, this forum is our chat area, and the website shouldn't try to replace that.

The only usefull content i could see being put onto the website would be advanced install guides, i dont think we need to keep rewriting the dozens of guides that are out there, plus we have our stickies here (which need updating!). It would be nice for someone to keep tabs on whats happening over at foldingforum.org, beta clients usually hit there first, and as i've witnessed myself, generally have fixes for some of the long standing bugs (linux hangs!) that are abundant.

As far as incorporating a blog, well, drupal comes with something like that built into it, as you can see on the jnode site that i linked.
 
bump... :)

I need to re-read everything before adding my thoughts... hopefully I'll have time for that later this evening.
 
harlam357 said:
bump... :)

I need to re-read everything before adding my thoughts... hopefully I'll have time for that later this evening.
Click to expand...

same. I'm currently at work. and I'm sorry for not being here i just got done helping a friend with some computer problems, plus i got my college finals here so I've been pretty busy.
 
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