Website Committee Meeting
Tuesday 6 August 2002 Present:
Jim Knox; Jim McNally, Bernard Thompson
Apologies: Rory MacLeod, Colette Magee The
outcome of the last website committee meeting was as follows:- The
issue of statistics for the website was raised. It was agreed that some measurement
of the number of site users is desirable although there are difficulties in establishing
figures with sufficient accuracy to draw supportable conclusions. It
was confirmed that statistical reports are included as part of the current hosting
package, after the first month of use. Bernard Thompson agreed to make enquiries
into the issue as no report had yet been available.* It
was noted that the transfer of the site to a permanent web address allowed more
active promotion of the site than had previously been practical. To that end,
Bernard Thompson had made up an advertisement.** This has been placed in The Journalist
and should appear in the next issue. Thanks go to Tim Gopsill and The Journalist
for agreeing to place the advertisement free of charge. It
was agreed that we should request that the advert be placed on a regular basis,
when space allows. There
was some discussion regarding the content of the site. The Jobs section was said
to be especially useful. One suggestion was that pages might be made available
for chapel announcements. However, the desirability of arranging to train chapel
officers to set up independent sites was also discussed as was the possibility
of creating templates, and some form of web pack that could be shared with other
NUJ bodies, should they be requested. It
was revealed that Thompson's solicitors are in the process of producing pro forma
contracts for freelances and it was hoped that these could be made available via
the site. More advice
for freelances, generally, was considered to be desirable. One suggestion was
to create a "pool" of experienced freelances who would be asked to agree
to check the site occasionally to answer any requests for advice from less experienced
members. This will be discussed at greater length in future. The
inclusion of more "provocative" stories to stimulate discussion was
also put forward as an idea. By doing so, members would be encouraged to contact
the website editor in order to relay their experiences. In doing so, the member
would be assured of absolute confidentiality and care would be taken to protect
the branch from any possible liability. It
was also confirmed that the site remains at the disposal of the Scottish Office,
should the staff wish to use it as a communications tool. However, it is understood
that there are substantial practical demands on the time of Scottish Office staff
and that NUJ member, Mike Wilson, plans to include regular Scottish Office updates
in an online project, which he is developing. Bernard Thompson was asked to contact
Mike to ask about the progress of his site.*** Generally,
the committee expressed a willingness to receive suggestions from members and
to be open to making any enhancements that will increase the site's appeal. There
was some discussion about the value of offering a number of tailored opt-in e-mail
lists to advise members of specific matters of interest. Such a facility exists
through Poptel but would incur additional costs. Another option is to use a free,
advertising supported service such as that offered by Topica. There
had been some confusion and concern expressed by members regarding the first branch
website mailing list, which was set up. It was agreed that there was a lack of
clarity in the wording of the initial invitation e-mail. However, it was also
noted that creating such a mailing list, rather than sending e-mails to numerous
members' addresses, can be preferable with regard to privacy, the protection of
members e-mail addresses and limiting the proliferation of viruses. It
was noted that eight of the ten e-mail addresses that came with the package had
been allocated. These are respectively, chair, vicechair, secretary, treasurer,
equality, welfare++, membership and website with the suffix, @nujglasgow.org.uk.
The membership and website addresses are in use but, as yet, none of the other
officers had responded to the test e-mail, sent to these addresses, to confirm
that the addresses were active (the equality address details had not yet been
posted). It is
likely that this is due to technical difficulty in adjusting e-mail settings,
although there have been no requests for further information. However, it was
generally considered that branch officers should be free to continue to use their
own personal e-mail addresses if they preferred. The
remaining two addresses can be allocated in the future. At the July branch meeting,
it was suggested that support@nujglasgow.org.uk be created but there had been
no decision as to who would access the address and to what end. With
regard to the visual design of the site, Jim Knox stated that he preferred the
original design and Jim McNally expressed a preference for the traditional NUJ
logo. Bernard Thompson pointed out that a change to the design to achieve a degree
of similarity with the national site was agreed at the first branch website committee
meeting. He also indicated that it was his understanding that there was concern
that the official logo might be misused and that this was why it did not appear
on the national site. Abuse of official trademarks taken from websites has been
an issue for a number of organisations. Since
the last meeting, additional text-only pages had been added meaning that virtually
all of the site content had been made available in this form. Bernard Thompson
was asked if the time spent on maintaining the site was considerably in excess
of the notional figure of eight hours agreed between himself and the branch. He
confirmed that this was the case and pointed out that updating information in
text-only and standard pages necessarily increased maintenance time. It remains
to be seen whether or not attempts to promote the site will result in any further
major increases. The
committee expressed general satisfaction with the progress to date relating to
the site. The date
for the next meeting will be decided near to or after the September branch meeting
when a report will be made. *
Bernard Thompson telephoned Poptel support on Wednesday 7 August to report that
the site statistics had been unavailable and that attempting to access the report
resulted in an error report being produced. Poptel support promised to pass the
matter on to their technical staff and to respond. No response was received by
the end of the day. +
Poptel responded on Thursday 8 August to confirm that the site stats problem had
been resolved. **
The advertisement can be downloaded for view at the following link:
http://www.nujglasgow.org.uk/glasgowadvert.tif ***
An e-mail was sent to Mike on Tuesday night (7th August). Mike has responded saying
that he hopes www.allmediascotland.com will be launched around the end of September
or beginning of October. | 
