Volunteers Needed: Apply Within!

Greetings again,

As some of you may know, at present the whole of this website has been a solitary effort (with some help here and there). This was out of choice because I wanted to see how things went before I started to import other brains.

The site is growing at a steady pace and I am considering taking some people on board who are willing to give up their time and expertise to help develop the site. At present there are people who help me moderate the forums but their ‘job’ isn’t clearly defined. What I need is volunteers who are able to give up a healthy amount of their time to the website.

The things that need looking (there maybe some i’ve missed):

  1. Articles Section
    At present, this part of the website is being neglected because no-one is sending any articles in. This is probably because I never really said what sort of thing I was looking for and what would be acceptable. The whole structure needs to be rethought and I need someone or some people to work with me in deciding a new way of showcasing people’s scholarly work.

  2. Website Design/Maintenance
    A new design has been made by Ian Hamilton (kjeevah) and I will put that up as soon as my exams are over. However, I need some people who are able to touch things up every now and again, not necessarily a redesign just a team who are looking after the look of the site. What would also be nice is someone/people with PHP/MySQL knowledge. The site uses databases currently and I would like to integrate it even more into a database to save on work. The web team would also suggest new designs and ideas for the site.

  3. Links/Chat/Newsletter/Ideas
    The links section is pretty dead aswell but I’m not sure anyone would have the patience to constantly review other sites and books. Perhaps that could be a joint effort of everyone involved in the site? With regards to Live Chat, the last one we had was a shambles because hardly anyone turned up. I really would like to have a live discussion but if there is no interest in it then it seems like a waste of time. Am i holding it at the wrong time? on the wrong day? I would like someone to help me with co-ordinating the Live Chats if we carry on with them.

The monthly Newsletter is a good way of letting people know what’s going on with the website. It would be nice to have someone looking after that, obviously with my input and anyone else on the team. Also general ideas for the website are always welcome.

So there you have it. I don’t want to sound harsh but please don’t put yourself forward for this unless you truly want to help. I know it sounds tempting to sign yourself up because you like the site, but this isn’t going to be everyons cup of tea. I need dedicated workers, don’t worry this won’t be a slave driving thing, but I do want people who enjoy a challenge and can provide something to the development of the website.

I will set up a mailing list once a team has been chosen. If you are interested in joining up, please either reply here or via e-mail saying what part you are interested in helping with in as much detail as possible.

Cheers
Ben

this is possibly irrelevant for the other members, but the applet wouldn’t load on my computer.

I think i could help with 1 and 3, but sadly my programming knowledge is, well, non-existent.

Well I could help with 1) and 3) as well, no problems.

I know HTML and some Java so I’m not sure if I’m going to be of any use for number 2), but sure, I’ll volunteer if I can be of any sort of help.

Also, with regards to live chat, it’s going to be difficult to organise with barely 100 members. I’m part of a music forum with about 9,300 members, and even then they’re struggling to get 15-20 people in the chat room at any given time. Some people don’t have time for live chat and others just don’t particularly like it (myself included).

Anyway, that aside, let me know if I can be of assistance.

I could and would be willing to do any php/mysql type stuff that you wanted doing

swat