Agenda Web Committee Search

The next electronic meeting of the Web committee will be 15 July, 2009.
Results of the previous substantive meeting 15 July 2008 can be found here.

Web committee agenda, Nevada Room, Sunday morning 24 May, 2009, 7:00-8:00 am

Any items to add to agenda? The next electronic meeting (voting on proposals) will be 15 July.

A. Content

1. Getting additional contributors for pages lacking content or which need to be maintained current

(Please see last list of Web pages at the end of this agenda – mostly to Conservation Comm.)

2. ?A page for book exchange, with links to members who have single copies to sell (not commercial)

3. Wish list for the future -- what do we want to provide on the ARARA web site?

B. Beauty of the web site

0. Our current web site uses a single space for many drop-down menus (touch the "+" signs on the left

side to expand them). This is very efficient use of space. Windows with pictures on the left side

can be shifted left to maximize screen space, with pictures off beyond the edge of the window

but scroll bars still present.

1. Comments on some alternative designs already listed at www.ARARA.org/

One has rotating images at the top.

(This can be implemented whenever pictures are present, in any window layout.)

One has images along the top of the window.

(How tall a screen do most users have? This reduces the information visible per page.)

One has very wide windows, 92% of a small screen, larger and 81% of a larger screen, to accomodate a

very wide bar of drop-down menus. (How wide a screen do most users have? How much

of it do they want free for displaying other windows at the same time as the ARARA site?)

One has a map linked to articles about rock art at those locations.

(Will we have enough electronically linked articles to justify developing this? When?)

2. Additional suggestions of web sites layouts or designs we should look at?

C. Revision of authority & responsibilities for contents of particular pages – (any report of Board decisions?)

The ARARA Board is considering members of the Conference Committee & how to formalize them --

this is an issue for the web only for pages with official ARARA information.

(Purely informational pages, reading lists, etc. do not require vetting or authority of a specific officer.)

D. Technical functioning of the web site -- mostly this is to report on progress and prepare for future proposals

1. Google search engine now installed to search ARARA pages, temporarily disabled.

Free, and for non-profits no ads (fantastic search engine, but index not necessarily up to date,

and cannot (?) or do not yet know how to limit searches to exclude particular pages)

2. www.FreeFind.com – Free if under 64MB (it oddly seems to treat our site as within that limit)

but has ads unless we purchase a paid version.

Index now limited so as to exclude pages which should not be reached randomly (agendas)

or which are not intended for specific content but are there only for navigation to others.

It allows us to schedule updates to indexing, for example every month or on request.

We have about 232 web pages (after exclusions). A version without ads permitting up to 250

pages would be $60/year, the next size (500 pages) $108/year.

Or we can accept ads appearing on the pages with results of searches.

3. Any other proposals besides Search facilities but which like those are very easy to

implement? (In the case of Searching, just asking the question netted two very

good suggestions, Google from Bob Edberg and FreeFind from Ken Hedges.)

4. Members' area and password protection? Investigation requested by president Billo

5. For pages on the site which anyone might want to print, change these so that headers and footers

by default do not print. Lloyd Anderson to do during June using CSS.

6. Convert all pages to CSS ("Cascading Style Sheets") so easy to change styles on a general basis,

much cheaper later if we hire someone to style our website for us.

Lloyd Anderson to do this preparatory work during June.

Web pages excluded from the FreeFind indexing

because we don't want people to get there unless they know the page exists and intend to go there.

http://www.ARARA.org/Agenda_Board.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Agenda_Web_Discussion.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Alerts_Successes_Endangered.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Call_for_Papers.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Conference_2008.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Conference_2008_Poster.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Evaluating_This_Web_Design.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Field_Trip_Experiment_2009.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Field_Trip_Form_2008.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Field_Trip_Instructions_2008.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Goals_for_This_Website.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Registration_Form_2008.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Spam.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Web_Committee_Results.html

http://www.ARARA.org/WebCommitteeMembers.pdf

http://www.ARARA.org/WebCommitteeMembers.xls

Web sites excluded from FreeFind indexing

because they are intended only for ease of user navigation, to lead to other pages,

and the Search function supersedes that . (These pages are not intended to include content.)

http://www.ARARA.org/Action_Alerts_Successes_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Awards_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/For_Kids_and_Teachers_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Management_and_Protection_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Member-Run_Organizations_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/PleaseChoose.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Public_Access_Guidelines.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Recording_Image_Enhancement_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Well_Managed_Sites_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Who_We_Are_Index.html

http://www.ARARA.org/Who_When_Why_Index.html

Web pages which do not now have content, or very little content,

but which are intended to have content added (and are being brought to the attention mostly

of the Conservation Committee, where they are being added to the agenda)

http://www.ARARA.org/Dating_Methods.html (--> who?)

(there is an article on RC dating by Marvin Rowe; need content on other methods)

http://www.ARARA.org/EndangeredRockArt.html (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/Field_Trips_for_Youngsters.html (--> Educ. Comm. will determine)

http://www.ARARA.org/For_Younger_Scholars.html (--> who? Terry Moody?)

http://www.ARARA.org/Intro_Reading_List.html (--> who?)
http://www.ARARA.org/Natural_Fading_and_Spalling.html (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/New_Site_Report_Form.html (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/Photo_Galleries_World.html (--> who?)

http://www.ARARA.org/Press_Releases.html (--> when Board wants to use it)

http://www.ARARA.org/Recording_Projects.html (--> who to keep up to date?)

http://www.ARARA.org/Setting_the_Tone.html (--> Lloyd Anderson?)
http://www.ARARA.org/Treatments_Damage_Rock_Art.html (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/Vandalism_Reports_and_Outcomes (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/When_Was_It_Made.html (--> Conservation)

http://www.ARARA.org/Who_Made_It.html (--> extend to mention other best-case examples

where makers can plausibly be identified... Lloyd Anderson?)

No items were developed in form ready to take up at the 15 October, 15 January, or 15 April meeting dates, so no meeting was held then. See the introductory discussion below, and item 5 below (esp. 5d) for the beginnings of ideas towards further enhancing of our web site. We still (May 2009) have only two suggestions of web sites with particularly elegant features which we might want to consider imitating (see 5d).

Regarding Conference materials for 2009, many thanks to all involved for supplying these, and especially to Ken Hedges for doing so quickly and for creating smaller files of issues of La Pintura for the convenience of all interested. Your web chair was instructed by our President to accept new material from any of those committee chairs with responsibility for preparing the conference. The Board will be asked if any modification in the formal procedures is needed, or if this should be treated as a temporary exception each year. One committee chair wanting something posted on the Conference 2009 page was referred to the Conference Co-ordinator to get agreement first.

We need a third member for our vetting committee, to replace Leigh Marymor, who has resigned from that position. Thanks to Leigh for some rapid checking of new material when that was needed.

Two new proposals here, to be discussed along with any other matters at our face-to-face meeting in Bakersfield, and then decided at our electronic meeting on 15 July:
1. A search facility for our web site.
2. Links to off-site lists of rock-art books available for exchange, limited to private dealings in which ARARA plays no role, and to individuals acting in private capacity, not as book dealers.

Various improvements have been ongoing, including an experimental Field Trip form and an experimental Publications Order form. The presence of a "submit form" button invited spammers, who copied the web page information and continued spamming even after the "submit" button is removed, so investigations are ongoing on handling that. The approach being used in 2009 is a Field Trip applications form which can be cut and pasted into an email. The Publications Order form is treated similarly. Asistance will again be requested from WestHost in dealing with this Spam problem (a previous request received no response).

All pages (except one) have (April 2009) been formatted so links involve no underlining except when the cursor passes over them, following a principal recommendation of specialists in beautiful web page design. During the summer all pages will have their formatting converted to "Cascading Style Sheets" so that we or a web designer can easily implement any new design, and can easily change it. That should allow our members to evaluate any new design we may try as an experiment.

A Search utility has been installed (May, 2009), and will hopefully be implemented shortly.

Here is a very rough beginning sketch of other items to be worked on. Text is carried over with little change. Some of these were action items earlier, or were mentioned in the report to the Board or in the report of the previous Web Committee meeting. Items here are not necessarily in order of priority. Modifications after the ARARA Board meeting are paragraphs 0 and 5, and the answers in brackets within paragraph 1.

0. Actions at ARARA Board meeting of 2 November, 2008.
(a) Agreed to slightly disguise emails of members to mostly deter spam (mostly done)
(b) Requested regarding Conference pages that links to 2008 procedures be removed, but the poster for the 35th meeting be kept accessible. (done)
(c) Requested that information on officers be removed from the Manual of General Operating Procedures, and that some other sections might be best removed. Triage is in process, to make a proposal to the President on these choices.
(d) Allocated $500 to the Web committee, with the expectation that it will be spent very frugally, to make small incremental improvements to the web site functioning. This may include hiring programming help for a very few hours, and other choices at the discretion of the committee. (No request had actually been made to the Board for funds, since no such request had been considered by the Web Committee.) [None of this has yet been spent, but a request to spend some of it may be presented to the web committee shortly.]

1. Any actions by the ARARA Board on 2 November 2008 which require Web Committee to take notice? First, any Board reactions to what the Web Committee approved for our electronic meetings, for the vetting committee, and for allocation of pages to responsible committees etc.? Other items:
     (a) who can send official ARARA documents to the Web Committee for posting? [Answer: President or person to whom the President delegates this] (b) Is there a goal for how soon after each year's annual conference the logo for the next year should be available and posted? [No decision attempted.] (c) Does the Board wish to take action already on methods of securing the www.ARARA.org web site? [Not discussed. Still for Web committee to do.] (d) Does the Board approve having officers' and committee chairs' emails given on the web site in the form the individual may choose (including not there at all), for the time being either "individual@domain.com" or "individual [at] domain.com"? [The latter chosen.] (e) Does the Board approve eliminating all personal identifying information from the Manual of Operational Procedures? [Yes, in process. Further, some other parts of that Manual need not be online. Web chair will make a proposal to the President on specifics. Done?]

2. Securing the www.ARARA.org web site against incapacity of site owner or administrators (of any kinds)?
     The highest-level password has been deposited with our president Evelyn Billo for safekeeping (April 2009).
     The most relevant experience has been in Colorado (CRAA) where the death of the site owner led to the web site being offline for a few weeks. Jan Gorski has some suggestions relevant to this. We could well copy these. Although the Web Committee has not yet discussed these in detail (your chair's omission), the ARARA Board may wish to give us a go-ahead along these lines. [insert Jan's comments here]
     From Jan Gorski 17 July, 2008: ... I guess I would suggest you have at least two people that have access to the domain username, account number and password information. We were eventually able to get it from Suzi's son but it took a long time due to computer issues and the obvious need for him to deal with her death before getting to admin kinds of things. Note that for our URL we have an account name & passoword and we have an admin account for the webmaster to use - not the same passwords ... Jan

3. Division of labor in maintenance of web site. One item resolved: Frank Cox indicates he can update the web site without the need for an up-to-date version of Dreamweaver or similar software. One item on hold pending ARARA Board decision: The chair proposes to begin with Frank carrying responsibility for updating the Operational Procedures Manual, as soon as the ARARA Board certifies which officer(s) can supply these documents to the Web Committee. (By decision of the ARARA Board in Farmington NM in 2008, only the President can supply these documents to the Web Committee, but none have been supplied in that way.)
     When more than one individual has responsibility for managing the web site, there is an important goal of maintaining consistency across individuals, so one does not insert a modification into an older version of a file, thereby nullifying the work of another. The Web Committee chair here proposes that we approach this slowly and carefully, at first with an abundance of caution and safeguards, so individuals have responsibilities for updating distinct web pages or files. With such walls between areas, the problems just mentioned cannot easily arise. There do exist quite elaborate content management systems, but we have as yet no obviousl need for that level of complexity. The chair has experience with WestHost's "FormMail" utility, the incompleteness of its documentation and both incompleteness and self-contradictory advice from technical support personnel. With this experience, it seems doubly wise to avoid complexity unless we clearly need it. Complexity brings with it much greater costs for any changes and for keeping things up to date.

4. Developing gradually a proposal that a professional web designer may suggest to us a snazzy or elegant or (?) look and feel for the www.ARARA.org site. It is most important that ARARA members retain the role of choosing the look and feel they prefer, that this not simply be handed over to some professional whose goals may be quite incompatible with those of ARARA. Some parts of this task follow, in a first approximation to order in which they can be accomplished:
(a) Has the ARARA membership had adequate time to think whether any of the logic of the tree structure or paths to finding parts of web site content should be changed? If so, we can treat this as fixed and approved unless a web designer wishes to suggest changes via a very small example, which would need to be made accessible to the membership to evaluate before being approved across the board.
(b) The host company Westhost can provide some web site programming services at $59/hour, which is probably preferable to an expensive contract in getting some features to full functionality, if Web Committee members do not have the knowledge or skills.
(c) LINKS -- The look and feel of links are in process of modification, and this can be completed before the end of this year. [Essentially completed April 2009] This is the look recommended in "Beautiful Web Design". In this style, links do not have underlining, so that descenders (gjpqy) are not obscured. Underlining appears when the cursor hovers over the link, reinforcing the user's awareness. The standard color scheme is otherwise maintained (blue for links not yet visited; magenta when already visited).
(d) Order form, Field trip form -- these are in development, hopefully can be implemented before the end of the year if the Publication and Conference committees approve them. [Spring 2009: Spam problems have delayed this.]
(e) Procedures for getting samples of work by one or more web designers; letting ARARA members know how to view these and comment on them; choosing a web designer; experimenting with an initial small contract; making the first results accessible to ARARA members; points at which ARARA can suggest modifications (built into the contract); how to make decisions whether the work is satisfactory enough to adopt pilot results and proceed to further work. At all points, ARARA members remain in control of choices and decisions. Those wise in these sorts of contracts will surely be able to suggest additional safeguards and methods of development.

5. In pursuance of 4. just above, two new pages have been added to the web site to accumulate suggestions and thinking relative to the long-term graphic improvement of the web site: Links to these are in 5d. and 5f. below.
(a) Graphic improvements currently in process (incremental).
(b) Goals we may have for an eventual design (navigation; page layouts; graphic look and feel; fonts; others?)
(c) How might graphic presentation of an ARARA web site be particularly appropriate to the subject of rock art? (currently only Chris Gralapp's design of the "sandstone" background of the home page). [and the sets of pictures down the left margin and at the bottoms of many pages, giving a sense of distinct rock art cultures or styles]
(d) What web sites do we like for their graphic impression, which would work for the kinds of content and presentation we want? Examples for ARARA members to think about. It may be that no currently existing rock art web sites are the best role model for what we want to aim for. We can find good ideas from web sites anywhere.
     Suggestions received so far can be seen here.
(e) What web designers have a portfolio which overall we like? (with links to their portfolio and/or to various web sites they have designed). These web designers of course need not have any particular knowledge of rock art in advance.
(f) Technical standards and "beautiful web design" -- a summary of some information from a book on this subject, as relevant to our work. This is already accessible here. www.ARARA.org/Beautiful_Web_Design.html