[Imc-web] [IMC] ucimc.org website updates

Tue Oct 5 17:12:56 CDT 2010

Thanks for your input Austin. I agree that we need a restructuring of
content and definitely a facelift.

I think that what would be helpful is to get others involved in this.
Danielle, you replied that the web group had done some work on ideas for a
redesign.  Can you and/or Austin work with me to reconvene this group or at
least re-summarize the ideas that were generated from this past discussion?

We can get an intern or whomever involved if we have someone with the right
skills. We need a person with both coding and design skills if possible, and
someone who is willing to both learn and work independently.

I'm all for more color and better functionality. My tech work in the past 2
months has been focused on trying to pick up where JOsh left off and
maintain, which isn't always an easy task. I'm glad he's still involved
remotely. Anyway, here's one theme I was working on. Let me know what you
think..

-Chris

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Austin McCann <austinmccann at ucimc.org>wrote:

> Hi Chris et al,
>
> I'm happy to hear that we're working on revising the website. I was going
> to snoop around town to find somebody willing to donate that service to us.
> I really want to be a part of this conversation, but I occupied Tuesdays at
> that time. So here are my thoughts:
>
>    - I think that the our relationship to the IndyMedia "movement" (or
>    what is left of it) is overstated by our website, which currently functions
>    as (essentially) a leftist news feed, with some sub-pages about the rest of
>    our work. I think any organization's website needs to *reflect* the
>    work done by the organization; right now, the website is itself one of our
>    projects, i.e. a news feed. When I tell someone I work at the IMC and send
>    the website to them, they have no clue that we run a diverse 30,000 sq. ft.
>    Community Media & Arts Center.
>    - I would personally advocate making what is now our main interface
>    (i.e. [again] news feed) a separate sub-page, and have the new main
>    interface represent our various projects. Our news feed is *not *more
>    important than, say, Books to Prisoners, or our tech work, or ODDmusic.
>    - We're a *colorful *organization. We need *color*. Maybe some photos
>    of kids making art or something, but definitely not the dreary aesthetic of
>    the 1990s IMC movement.
>
> What do you think? Does that make sense?
>
> Thanks,
> Austin
>
> On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Chris Ritzo <chris.ritzo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Tech group is moving forward with some great changes to the UCIMC
>> website and this email is both an update and a call for contribution!
>> Please reply if you have any questions or comments.
>> *
>> Calendars, Events, etc.*
>> Last spring we completely re-worked our calendar of events and have just
>> implemented some additions to the site re: calendars.
>>
>> *Separate "Community Calendar" and "UCIMC Calendar" Events
>> *
>>
>>    - With so many events happening at UCIMC, and interest in promoting
>>    other community events, we've separated our events and community events into
>>    two separate calendars.
>>    - Under the *Publish*! menu, you'll see two new menu items: *Submit a
>>    UCIMC Event  *and *Submit a Community Event*. This is pretty
>>    straightforward, but basically a UCIMC Event is happening at UCIMC and a
>>    Community Event is happening somewhere else.
>>    - UCIMC Events are not published immediately, but are reviewed by the
>>    Shows group who confirms availability, contracts, and deposits with the
>>    requesting person or group prior to publishing.
>>    - Community Events can be published by anyone, but a CAPTCHA (those
>>    little boxes that make you type in the letters in an image..) is required
>>    before publishing.
>>
>> *What about publishing a news story with the Date/Time of Event "scope"?*
>>
>>    - Community Events effectively replace the way we used to submit
>>    one-off news stories with "event" information
>>    - The vast majority of news stories are not associated with future
>>    events, and it's advantageous to separate these events from regular news
>>    stories too.
>>       - Community members can now submit an event and see it on our
>>       community calendar, and it's not lost in a list of news stories.
>>       - We can list "Upcoming Events" in true chronological order,
>>       provide an RSS feed of events, and in the future (next steps) bring in
>>       events from other organizations via RSS feeds, creating a robust collection
>>       of events happening in this region from a number of organizations in the
>>       community.
>>
>>
>>    - Lastly, the *Upcoming Events* on the top of the front page, and in
>>    the right sidebar on interior pages, *now lists both upcoming UCIMC
>>    events and Community Events in chronological order.*
>>
>> *Site redesign*
>> We're getting ready to start a new theme design for the UCIMC.org site. If
>> you have input into this, reply to this email or come to a tech group
>> meeting, Tuesdays at 6pm.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> IMC mailing list
>> IMC at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/imc
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Austin McCann, Development Adviser
> Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
> Digital Arts Service Corps <http://www.digitalartscorps.org>
> 202 S. Broadway Ave.
> Urbana, IL 61801
> austinmccann[at]ucimc[dot]org
>
>
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