[AC-Admins] Website requests/thoughts

[Scott 'Simba' Garron]

Sean McElroy wrote:
> Sorry about that, when I hit reply to all for some reason my webmail
>  client puts admins at lists.anthrochat.net in twice.

      Between making it difficult to follow quoting standards and 
doubling up the "To:" field, I think it's time to find another webmail 
client.  If you'd like, I can hook you up with Squirrelmail on my 
server.  If your e-mail server provides IMAP, it'd be a simple setting 
in my Squirrelmail's virtual host configuration to have it use your IMAP 
server.

> 1. I think we need some more photos on our site, especially the home
>  page, that are relevant and emphasize a positive image of our 
> community... maybe a group of smiling people at a con or something...

      I totally agree.  The first picture that Inaki had put on our site
was, by far, the embodiment of this request.  It was an overhead, group
shot of a bunch of us at Pleasure Island around St. Patrick's day.  We
had one of the guys walking around on stilts take a picture from up
there.  I wonder if we still have that one.

      I'm also thinking of either asking for a favor or commissioning an 
artist to do fun, little drawings of furry characters doing chat-related 
things.  That'd bring an element of light-hearted theme to the site. 
While I'm a big fan of the sleek, professional look and feel that we 
have right now, I also remind myself who our audience is.

> 2. The 'Chat Now' link at the top is kind of lost on bigger 
> screens... perhaps we need to make it stand out with size/color 
> differences?

      I think maybe not make that particular link any different (just 
for style sake), but definitely make another, prominently highlighted 
link, somewhere on the main page, which states something like "without 
further ado, come chat with us!".  Then again, I think we can keep the 
style and make the link stand out somehow.  Maybe put it in a bright 
yellow starburst-looking thing or something.  I dunno.  :)

      Having just the mission statement on the main page seems like a 
lot of text with no real reason for being there.  It kinda describes the 
philosophy behind who we are and why we exist, but it doesn't really say 
what we are or what IRC is/how it works.  I'll try to come up with more 
details on how I think the main page should flow a little later.

      I think that it's imperitive that we add links to other IRC client 
web sites somewhere to offer alternatives to the CGI:IRC interface. 
Maybe some mention of them on the main page, and definitely some right 
on the login page for CGI:IRC.

      In the CGI:IRC login page, I'm thinking that we should include 
some prominent verbiage stating that the default channel, #AnthroChat, 
isn't the only channel that the network has to offer.  Also include a 
brief instruction as to some basic commands, like /list, /nick, and 
/join right on that page.

      Somewhere, maybe the main page or maybe the CGI:IRC login page, it 
would be cool to have a list of the top 5 or 10 most populated channels. 
  The information is already being harvested by SearchIRC.  I don't see 
why we couldn't include that same information on our own site.  The 
current status page on our site doesn't mention anything about channels.

      The site, as a whole, _needs_ an FAQ, instructions, and 
explanations of basic IRC and services commands.  It should be made 
clear how IRC commands and services commands are separate things.  Just 
copying the documenation for user commands, modes, and channel modes out 
of the UnrealIRCd docs would be a great start for this.  Anope has a 
whole, interactive instruction set for the services package at 
http://anope.zero.org/docgen/en_us/ .  Explaining what it is and linking 
to that would be useful to our users as well.

      Having a "contact us" or "contact the admins" section of the site 
would be a great addition.  Having each of our individual e-mail 
addresses listed in the admins section is okay (after obfuscating, that 
is), but providing users a way to send messages to the admin list would 
be much better.  I'm thinking that the best way to implement it would be 
to have a web-to-email form.  So it doesn't end up being used by 
automated spambots, it should include one of those images with random 
alphanumerics for the person to repeat back into the form (anyone know 
what the terminology is for those?).  Right now, a lot of things mention 
sending e-mail to the list's address.  That _does_ work, but posts from 
non-members get moderated.  If we had a standard interface to it, I 
could have the mailing list automatically accept messages coming from there.

      There's also a users' mailing list.  Mentioning that somewhere on 
the site would be cool, too.  Users can sign up to it by going to 
http://lists.anthrochat.net/mailman/listinfo/users .

      Down the road, I'd like to see forums be re-implemented.  Each 
channel having their own little bulletin board lent well to the "we're 
here for the community" approach and image.  It was a fantastic idea, 
and I was sad to see crackable code ruin it for us indefinitely.  Using 
a Livejournal community for it is okay, but lacks the flexibility of 
real forums.  Tying posts made to the announcements forum to an 
automated posting gateway for the users' mailing list is another idea.

      It would be _very cool_ if at least some of these changes are made 
before AnthroCon because I bought AnthroChat a 1/4 page advertisement in 
the con book.  If any traffic is generated by that, it'd be nice to have 
a web site that is easy to follow and increases the chances that new 
users will not only connect to the network, but actually explore it.

      Wheeee brainstorm!  Excellent job on the site so far!  Thank you 
for diving into it.  :)

--
Scott 'Simba' Garron