What would the ideal FIRST Website be?

[xxlshortys]

I am currently rennovating Sigma Squared's Website, and although i have many good ideas i know that there are many uncharted areas that i could reach.

I would like to know what everyone's preferences on an ideal website is.

Reasons being I am attempting to pass of a legacy of good websites to Sigma and offer not only a resource to our team, but to the entire FIRST community much like the great guys at this website have.

Anyways, let me know, Christmas break will be devoted to modifying what i can to tweak it to peak performance.

If your interested in viewing the website, please visit http://www.whitelakerobotics.org and i am sorry if it is not up when you visit, i run several ideas through my head (aka i put something up, delete it and start over) Sounds rather annoying but it helps me see differences.

But PLEASE give me some feedback on the ideal website.

Thanks

[GregTheGreat]

Originally Posted by xxlshortys

I am currently rennovating Sigma Squared's Website, and although i have many good ideas i know that there are many uncharted areas that i could reach.

I would like to know what everyone's preferences on an ideal website is.

Reasons being I am attempting to pass of a legacy of good websites to Sigma and offer not only a resource to our team, but to the entire FIRST community much like the great guys at this website have.

Anyways, let me know, Christmas break will be devoted to modifying what i can to tweak it to peak performance.

If your interested in viewing the website, please visit http://www.whitelakerobotics.org and i am sorry if it is not up when you visit, i run several ideas through my head (aka i put something up, delete it and start over) Sounds rather annoying but it helps me see differences.

But PLEASE give me some feedback on the ideal website.

Thanks

Well.. As a new website creator for 71 I have made a story board of what I want to accomplish.... Start simple... get the basic functions

Make an easily editable code that can be run in and out of an editor (DreamWeaver is nice). Forums are nice but they are nearly pointless unless you go all the way. ChiefDelphi is the forum site of robotics but that does not mean you can try to build an empire. I am a member of all the main sites... like IF and some other big team sites. If your going to do a forum.... get it right before throwing it on the server for use. Run some tests also.... nothing is worst then when a server crashes... (It happened to me... I run the forums for our local PLTW site)

I will be more then happy to get you a write-up of ideas if you want.. or Dreamweaver if you don't have it. (I have a few extra lisences)

-Greg The Great

[GregTheGreat]

Have some fun if you are going to use PHP BB... They can be made nice if you do some custom scripting... I have a book around my house on coding for it... if you need some help send me an e-mail. I have never been a friend of PHP BB forums... when you can write your own custom coding. (Its boring and takes a long time but is worth it) CD has done a good job with VB and the performance and output of ideas on the site shows that... I mean they have nearly 5,000 membes. I can get you some coding examples from what I remember from my intro to VB and that fun stuff.

Drop me a line if you run into problems.... Programmers always love helping people

-Greg The Great

[Stefan]

What should it have?
Since your website is redirecting me to intsall MX portal (mx_install.php), I cannot view the website.

[Raven_Writer]

I remember seeing it before you re-installed the MX portal...and I found it decent.

I hope you fixed that calendar (problem). The design overall though was pretty sweet.

[xxlshortys]

I have to reinstall the MX-portal system, im going to do that in class in the moring. if you want to go to the forums,

http://www.whitelakerobotics.org/forums/ right now.

Nothing really there except some Sigma Squared Team members who signed up. No ones really posted yet.

[Duke 13370]

Nothing really there except some Sigma Squared Team members who signed up. No ones really posted yet.

If I were you, I wouldn't really expect more than your team members, when you have as good of a resource as CD, you don't have to try to make your own version of it. Our team's site isn't really looking for members out of other teams, it's only for inter-team communication, and it works great.

If that's all you really expect, your site is great.

Back to the original thing - the ideal site. I think the ideal site is one that is inseperably linked to the team, where one wouldn't funtion without the other. One that any user could pop on and learn all the information they needed without dragging through the posts, and one that has every function that would ever be needed by the team.
-- ours (IMHO) is getting there (I hope)

PS: On a minor note, i think your site would be better if you used your team's logo, not the standard phpBB or MX one.

[xxlshortys]

I added a logo today, let me know what you think about that as well.

And on a side note I KNOW THAT I SHOULD MAKE IT LOOK LIKE SIGMA SQUARED'S WEBSITE. Thats a given, currently until christmas break i am only working on it during my digital design class in school, so thats roughly about an hour a day, and i am focusing more on modifying the code currently than working on the astetics of the site.

when i said ideal also i guess i meant like what features would you put in your FIRST website. I know some sites specialize in having scouting reports, some sites specialize in communication accrossed the country between teams, and others just specialize in inter-team communication.

I guess what i am asking is what features do you think the ideal first website contains.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Duke 13370

Our team's site isn't really looking for members out of other teams, it's only for inter-team communication, and it works great.

I believe you mean intra-team.

[xxlshortys]

Originally Posted by Duke 13370

If I were you, I wouldn't really expect more than your team members.

What i meant by that was that the only thing of interest was the memberlist at the current time.