NEW HOL FRONT PAGE DESIGN

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on March 15, 2010 at 22:20

Thank you so much Hugh for restoring HoL to the old familiar face. Do you know who it might have been who hacked our front page?

I'm not saying the current layout could never be improved, but not all change is for the better and we don't have to "get used to it".

The thing is, people do become familiar with a particular layout and not least, regular posters/supporters. Have to agree with OAE about member's birthdays; I was shocked to see that. HoL now has more than 2,500 members: I will not know (or care) about knowing of the birthdays of more than 99% of them. Although of course in a community spirit, I hope everyone, even non-HoL members, have happy ones.

And please let there be no astrology on the front page!

FWIW, I believe that HoL should resist attempting to look more like a generalised internet portal (eg. AOL/Yahoo) and should concentrate on events and issues of local and Borough interest. So for example, hosting advertising for distant food retail outlets, as we have seen in the past, is IMO questionable.

Home-page real-estate is precious.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 15, 2010 at 22:39

I too felt happy to see the familiar face restored, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right face. My goal is to make the site more welcoming to people other than regular contributors. I'd been reading how getting focus of a churning LA panel can help with that.

I agree about birthday too and it's now gone. Astrology; nah, Birdy was just tripping out.

What's this with hosting, advertising for distant food retail outlets? Surely you can't mean Fairdeal?

Let's not be too scared of innovation. Remember this site itself was an innovation just under three years ago.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on March 15, 2010 at 23:03

I think its mostly the right face. The site is welcoming. You are welcoming. It is inevitable that 90% of members will lurk: that is their choice. That HoL has more than 2,500 members is testimony that the basic formula is right.

With regard to encouraging non-regular contributors, some folk, especially council tenants, may be afraid of criticising the council due to fear of recrimination. Although I have not witnessed it myself, I have seen the council in a number of places accused of vindictiveness towards critics.

Re. hosting (unpaid) advertising for distant food retail: if you do a search on HoL with keywords "Essex Farmers Market" you will see blatant copywriter's prose. If material of this nature was permitted, I did wonder just how distant and how blatantly commercial would advertising be allowed? If Essex, why not Lincolnshire? How green would it be to drive a polluting car up to Lincolnshire, just to pay over the odds for vegetables? Even if this was paid-for advertising, I would question it on sustainability grounds. Shop local, but questioningly!

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Permalink Reply by John D on March 15, 2010 at 22:16

Too many symbols, too busy, too cluttered. Messy.
Sorry :-)

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on March 15, 2010 at 22:44

No, that's fine. Thanks for the feedback.

Alot of the bitiness is because we are limited with navigation options and so end up putting lots of links on the front. Ideally we have a neat navigation tool available. But we don't. Them's the limitations of working on someone else's platform.

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