[GPSCC-chat] "my" agenda item & some website ramblings

[Valerie D. Face]

Hi folks,

In the last agenda I saw on this list there was an item, with my name on it, about posting our positions on the propositions on the GPSCC website.  I did not request that agenda item.  I don't even know if I will be at the meeting.  I'll try to make it, but I must emphasize that it looks unlikely.

I did suggest posting our positions on the website in an earlier email to this list (http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss/2012-September/013701.html).  I think that's just a good thing to do in an election year, and the earlier the better.  Since it looked like our county took positions during the August meeting, but they were not on our the website, and I didn't know where things stood, I wanted to mention it in case there had been an oversight.  In my opinion, if the website will say something in addition to Yes/No/No Position for each proposition, that additional text would best be written by some of the folks who attended the meeting where the positions were taken.

In another email I volunteered to fill out paper and online endorsement forms for the propositions that it appeared we unanimously supported (http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss/2012-September/013700.html).  That offer still stands.  I won't do anything without authorization.

Drew has sent emails to the list about getting a new website started using Drupal and CiviCRM.  I'm interested in volunteering as part of a team that works on that new system and am waiting to hear more about what's happening, who might be involved, etc.

In the past I've been part of teams that worked on our current website.  I'm not interested in doing that anymore, but I hope that the information on our website will be reasonably current and accurate.  A while ago I sent some ideas for content updates to Jim Doyle because he asked me off-list.  I realize that implementing any suggestions is work for someone, and at the time it sounded like there were plans to hire a student to work on the website.  That was the context of the discussion.  My suggestions were just about making the content current and accurate and not about using any particular new technology or feature.

That being said, I think that one of the reasons our web teams have stayed small is that in the end the responsibility tends to fall on a very small group of people who (at least) know some basic HTML and UNIX file manipulation (or perhaps know a great deal more) and have the time and inclination to do some of the work.  To post very basic content on a Drupal website you don't have to learn HTML and UNIX file manipulation, and that ease of use might be how we could get more people to help with a new website.

If more people got comfortable adding basic content (and took the responsibility to add it), the more technically-inclined members of our group might have more time and energy to dig into the details of adding new features or changing the overall design.  Tasks that might be more interesting to them but that the rest of the group wouldn't want to take on.  Such tasks require more time for study and planning and become hard to do if you are also the only person who has to keep up with making all of the basic content updates.

So maybe a new system could help us by getting more people involved -- or maybe not.  You never know what folks will end up doing, but you can't know until you try, so that's why I told Drew that I thought the potential use of Drupal and CiviCRM was a step in the right direction.  We get to see if we can create something more interesting with more people involved.

Anyway, I didn't intend for any of my recent suggestions to mean simply dumping a whole lot of work on Spencer.  I wasn't sure if he was still the only person working on the website and was very busy, or if there was a process or content issue that I wasn't aware of, or something else.  I just hoped that folks would see the need to have content that is current and relevant to the election that's rapidly approaching.

As for what we'll do in the future, I look forward to that discussion.  Having more people involved is key, whether we stick with the old system or move to a new one.

Best wishes,
Valerie


~*~*~*~
Jill Stein for President -- A Green New Deal for America
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