[UK-CONTEST] RSGB Websites (changed subject line)

[Peter Bowyer]

On 26/06/2009, Dave Sergeant <dave at davesergeant.com> wrote:
> On 26 Jun 2009 at 9:43, Callum m0mcx wrote:
>
> > Can I ask a serious question though. Honestly - why do we have all these
> > daft websites and various domain names kicking about when RSGB.org.uk
> > seems pretty good to me..? The ARRL somehow manage to do this with a
> > much larger problem that we have. There must be enough technical
> > know-how knocking around the RSGB to get a decent Content Management
> > System running with relevant log-ins and security for the relevant
> > parties so that each flag-waver can have their own sub-site?
>
> Well I remember that that was ground to death a few months ago....
>
> For whatever reason the individual committee websites are run away from
> the main RSGB site. Most of these are in fact very professional sites
> and serve their purpose very well. The only connection with rsgb.org.uk
> is that they are linked from it.

Indeed. Many of the sub-sites pre-date the main RSGB site - the first
VHF contest results were published on the internet (by me) in (I
think) 1994, a couple of years before the Society had any usable web
presence.

And since then, sub-sites have developed using technologies not
supported by the HQ site - the Contest Committee's robots and claimed
scores system, for example, or the RMC (now ETCC) repeater database.

>
> There is a slight issue in that the domain name servers for
> rsgbhfcc.org are not set up to point correctly to the vhfcc.org/hfcc
> subdirectory where it is hosted - this COULD be corrected by the owner
> of rsgbhfcc.org but there may of course be reasons why this has not
> been done. Other than that, I have no complaints.

http://www.rsgbhfcc.org redirects to the correct place on www.vhfcc.org...

>
> The RSGB site of course is run by HQ. As a site I have some
> reservations and feel it could be better, but that is an HQ issue. I
> have personally never been that impressed by Content Management systems
> - they are probably the thing for very active sites like newspapers and
> the like, but not for our sorts of sites where the updates are
> relatively rare. And a content management system  would restrict the
> appearance of the sub site as to how the main site owner wanted it to
> look - I am not convinced this is good, the committee sites can and
> should take on an appearance totally under control of the appropriate
> webmaster.

Couldn't agree more. As long as everything is available and easy to
find, the domain name it's hosted under is irrelevant.

Peter G4MJS
-- 
Peter Bowyer
Email: peter at bowyer.org
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