Website open discussion!

[anathema]

Hey everyone, hope I'm not stepping on anyones toes here, but I wanted to throw out some topics for discussion.

As some of you know, I am helping out with building a new BARE website. I wanted to open a thread for people to discuss what they would use the site for. Currently, it seems like our site gets used for these purposes:

1. inform new members about the club
2. provide directions and times for meetings
3. showcase projects
4. showcase member tanks
5. provide information about club events past and future
6. provide general reef information

Some things I have heard suggested are:

1. frag tracking from the prop meetings
2. highlight local resources
3. a member roster
4. membership form

I am sure I am missing many more, and that is the point of my posting here.

What would you like to see added or even removed from the site plan?

I also wanted to throw this in front of people, simply because it is a pretty site:

http://www.sfaquarium.org/

especially this page:

http://www.sfaquarium.org/resources.html

I think something similar would be great, a listing of local stores, with address and contact info, anything similar. It wouldn't really take much to put together the information if you all help.

If you guys would grab a card whenever you go into a store, post the info and maybe a short opinion, we could have a lot of information really fast.

Let me know if you have any ideas that you consider helpful, or if you know of any resources. Link any sites you like if possible, and maybe even tell me why you like them.

Gusty

[dsb1829]

Gusty,

Check this site out for great LFS reviews in the Bay Area. I have written several revies and written the author. You may be interested in contacting him and seing if we can link to it from the BARE page. This is a far more thurough review than we could offer.

http://www.geocities.com/LFSinSFO/Lfs.html

[dsb1829]

Oh, and try not to mind my typos. sometimes my hands get away from me:D

[anathema]

I am familiar with that site, and was thinking of including it in the resources page. The problem I have with it is that it includes FW fish and non reef stores. I think it would be valuable to have short reviews and a listing of stores that cater to reefers or have pertinent supplies.

Linking that is a great idea, but including even a basic list of stores on our site maybe listing them in order of quality, or ranking them in some way (maybe use the reefcentral poll feature for a quick and dirty order to start with) would be useful to new people.

This could give people an idea of what stores are not only great fish stores, but great reef stores.

We could work this in later also, I just want this thread to be a sort of group brainstorming session. Throw any and all crazy ideas out there, and we'll see how it shakes out.

So that's my crazy idea! :)

[Red Leader]

I'm the webmaster of that site that Doug posted. I'll just add my two cents worth regarding getting people to review. I've found that it takes an arm and a leg to get people to start reviewing fish stores, for some strange reason. Your best bet would be to get several people together and have them write reviews. After that try to tell as many people as you can about the site and the reviews should start to steadily trickle in.

I'm having trouble w/ the submission page right now. The reviews that people are writing are simply not getting to me. Anyone care to comment on what's wrong w/ it?

BTW, if you could change something about that LFS Review page, what would you change?

[RustySnail]

I hate to be 'mr. negativity' here, but we need to be careful about putting 'reviews' on the club web page. There is a really big lawsuit that was slapped on people who were complaining about an aquarium store on the east coast (will not mention name, because it is similar to a good MO company). Anyway, just something to think about, since if you are going to honestly critique stores, the bad must go with the good.

On a more positive note... I think that it would be good to give mention to local stores that we find as 'responsibile, pillars of the aquarium community'. That way, nothing bad is being said... you get the picture.

I would like to see a section that talks about species to avoid for various reasons (corals that are non-photosynthetic, species that have low survivablility, etc.) This way, new members and others that look at the site will quickly learn what corals to avoid, and thus lower the demand for their collection.

(sorry for the long post)

Russ

[anathema]

Maybe simply list our "club favorites" then? That might be simpler than reviews.

That is a great suggestion on the species to avoid also. Would you be interested in writing some of the content?

Red Leader: Great site, I have used it many times, it's set up very well, and it's super convenient to get directions, contact info, etc.

The only thing I would possibly change is to somehow denote whether the store is mainly freshwater, saltwater, or if they have reef animals on the main page. One easy way I see to do this is to have symbols, one for FW fish, one for SW, one for reef, maybe some others for planted aquaria/cichlids etc. Then you could put a key at the top, and after the stores name simply include the appropriate symbols (maybe where the "new" image goes currently). Or you could simply add a line of smaller text saying what they stock.

I have found your site extremely helpful, but it would have been easier if I knew whether the store was going to have the type of stock I wanted without reading the review.

Yeah, I know... I'm lazy. :D

[anathema]

took a look at the script for your site, it seems correct, are you sure you email address listed there is correct?


FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="/cgi-bin/homestead/mail.pl?lfsinsfo"


lfsinfo@?????????.com maybe? Just a guess, I am not that familiar with CGI. Maybe the page was updated and the email address only partially entered? Maybe it's a variable though, I don't know.

HTH

[lori344]

anathema,
I agree with Rustynail in keeping the negitive comments about LFS out. There are some pretty sad stories out there, we don't need to share them.



Also, I was wondering if it is possible to use the BARE logo for a link to our website here in our RC sig? I've noticed the logo the WI reefers have and I think it would be nice for us as well.
~lori

[anathema]

about the logo, it should be ok.

If you are going to do that, though, I would suggest either making a standard smaller logo we all use, or at least keeping it under 40px high. I think it's rude to post tall images in every post, it's ok to go as wide as you want(within reason), but tall ones suck.

I think the forum has rules about this, a mod edited my last sig at some point. For width even... :confused: don't know why width matters, but I guess it does.

[lori344]

Here's the size of JohnL's... would this size work for us?? Are you willing to scale it down so we ALL can use a "standard" size to link to our website????? :D I agree it would be rude to make it too big, and yes there are RC rules in regards to size.
~lori

[lori344]

And here's the Wisconsin Reef Society's logo... for size comparison

[anathema]

They seem too tall to me, especially that wisconsin one. Get 4 members to post on the same thread and how much do you have to scroll? This forum seems to have an odd size rule for sigs.

Anyways, I think we were working on a new logo also, if not I can make a sig for members using the current one. My problem is I still haven't heard from sony about getting my computer back :( so I have only the bare minimum here at work as far as programs are concerned. That's a great idea for promoting the club though.

I played around just now with resizing our current logo, but couldn't get it to come out clear, I'll have to put more time into it later.

[lori344]

anathema,
Really? That's too tall? Oh well, I think they look just fine. The WI is a tad to big, but for my tastes somewhere in between JohnL's & Dougs (attached) is perfect. Let me know if there is any grunt work I can do for you to help on the website. I'm off work for another month (surgery on my knee). So I have some time on my hands.
~lori

[anathema]

to have it higher than a few lines of text. I'll make one when we get more organized on the site.

GOOD NEWS!!!!

I just now got a call from sony, my computer isn't a total piece of *$&#. Well, according to them anyway. I should have it back monday, and since I am very far behind on a paying project, I need to get that done, but I will be able to start cranking on the BARE site again in about a week.

Yay! I do have a computer.

oh, and in case you guys haven't seen this:

http://www.uninked.com/bare

let me know what you think.

[dsb1829]

Gusty,
The site has a good look to it. Nice to see it coming along. Hope all turns out well with your PC.

All good points on the reviews. I like the favorites idea. But have to make sure to point out that we have no affiliation with any of them.

[anathema]

My computer arrived yesterday at the business downstairs. :eek2: (yes, the address on the box says "suite 300", but they delivered it to 200) :confused:

Fortunately they didn't know what it was, but they brought it over to ask if there was a "Gusty" here. Whew! There sure as heck is!

My computer is fixed, and they were nice enough to not reformat my HD so I still have everything. I will be using this weekend to catch up on a clients project that is behind schedule, and sometime next week I hope to be wrapping it up.

Then I can really start work here, but i need to finish the other project first. It was supposed to be done by this sunday, but it's not going to happen. :(

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions, right now I think I am leaning towards having our resources be links to helpful sites such as:

myfishtank.com
cautiouscoral.com
geocities/lfsamajigwhatevertheurlis (see above)

etc.

So, maybe the thing to do is to collect links in this thread also.

What sites do you guys visit?

[anathema]

bump, just to keep it on your minds.