SPJ chapter website

Three of you, Joe, Minal and Andrew, have individually expressed interest in the website and how it can be improved to better serve the chapter. Maggi, after a particularly frustrating day several months ago trying to put out the newsletter, has expressed interest in switching to WordPress, which many people are familiar with and find to be an easy platform to use. We are going to have this discussion at the September board meeting. But it appears that Joe will be away for a week before then and I will be away for nearly 2 weeks (the SPJ convention, then a week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks). So I hope we can start the discussion before he and I leave. As I see it, the issues are the following: 1. Which platform should we use? 2. If we decide to switch to WordPress, what are the benefits and detriments of doing so?   a. Will we migrate all current content or scrap the existing site containing content since 2008, and start from scratch?
  b. If we are going to migrate the content, who will perform that task?
  c. What are the associated costs?
3. Who will supervise the switch/migration?
4. Who will have responsibility for maintaining the site on a day-to-day basis after the switch/migration?
5. Whether we switch or stay with Drupal, what do we want the site to look like?
  a. Who will produce a design?
  b. Who will implement the design?
  c. What will it cost?
6. If we are going to remain with Drupal, how can we reorganize the content to make it more easily accessible?
7. Regardless of which platform we use, who is going to be responsible for producing fresh content on a regular basis?
8. Going forward, who is going to be responsible for editing and keeping the site organized?
 
The current state of the website is as follows:
  www.spjdc.org is a Drupal 6 site.
  www.spjdc.net is a Drupal 7 site that includes most of the content of the live site. Not all features of the live site are turned on and ready for use. There are a couple of glitches in the theme and some menu items don't point to content. But you can wander around and create content.

The test site is in maintenance mode, meaning that you will see only a brief message if you go there. But, if you go to www.spjdc.net/user you will be taken to the login page.
Username = admin
PW = dcpro-2013.

Once you are logged in the site will operate as it normally would. You will have the ability to make major changes to the site's functionality. Please don't.

Because this is a test site don't worry about breaking anything. All of the content will be purged and migrated again if we continue to use Drupal.

You have undoubtedly visited many sites built with Drupal, i.e. whitehouse.gov, worldbank.org, nfoic.org, examiner.com. But if you've never created content on one the link below will take you to some documentation our web hosting company published.

http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/drupal-7/working-with-content

I have set up a group on the website that will keep a record of our discussion. To create a new thread send an email to [email protected]. A short time later the message will create a node on the site and send emails to all of us. To respond to a new thread or to a comment made by a member of the group click Reply to sender. That should send a message to [email protected]. Once the message is retrieved from the mailbox it will be appended to the thread and an email will be sent to the group. If you want to reply off-list to the sender his/her email address is at the top of the message. Those responses will not become part of the thread.

To read the discussion on the website you must be logged in. This is a private group and only group members can read the messages for now. I have copied Elizabeth on this message so she will be aware of what is going on. If she wants to receive copies of all messages I will add her to the group. For the time being other board members are not included. If any of you think specific board members or the board generally should participate I can add them.

Bob