Web site update - suggestions and input?

[smilodon]

At long last we've found someone stupid enough to take on the project of redefining and redesigning the web site. Yes we have a web site too

With that in mind and before said stupid person begins the task, I'm looking for some input as to what we think the community wants and needs from the web site. Obviously most of the activity happens here in the forums. However most new visitors come to the dMw index page not this forum. So I think we do need some sort of web presence. So I'm keen to get as many ideas and thoughts about what we could do with the site, what purpose it might serve and how we can use it to grow the community?

My initial idea, and this is just to get the ball rolling, is that there is a lot of factual information about the community that currently sits within various forum posts that might better be located on the web site. The forums are where we communicate and share information but the web site might be the place where we keep our static information? At the moment some of the web site links on the left lead to static web pages, some to forum posts and some to information not even hosted within dMw at all. A bit of a mix! Also some information is out of date and needs updating. Like wise so information will change fairly regularly and need some folks to keep it up to date. So I'm thinking that a redesign that retains the basic idea of what we have at the moment would be good i.e a web site and forum that appear as a single entity with navigation down one (the left) side.

However we could also implement a Content Management System idea, with any number of authors able to add and update information on any range of topics. Game reviews, movie reviews, blogs you name it. We could create an improved photo gallery, allow hosted mini web sites. It's up to you

So please feel free to chip in with any thoughts etc.

Depending on what we ultimately decide to do I may well be on the hunt for web guru's, coders and writers to make the ideas reality.

Cheers

[sulky_uk]

some other clans that i am a member of have posted in game videos on their main index pages deplicting the games they play, so on ours maybe a cod4, l4d, cs:s, lfs and .......wow:blink:. let then see the dMw way of playing and how "cough" mature we are (edited of course) it may influence them more into joining

[Zootoxin]

Imho I think this forum does pretty much everything needed so the actual site needs to really wow the surfer.

I think a very stylish and Hi-res flash site (now broadband is so fast) which details all the server information i.e locations, Players online etc.

Maybe a short testimonal from each of the games admins saying a little about what we do and what we are looking for  in each game.

I really think WOW! should be the reaction we are looking for.

[Gone_Away]

can we send a live feed from CSS?

[Gaara]

I just like to disagree with Zootoxin on the flash website idea.

Full flash websites are horribly slow, hard to navigate, hard to update, and are indexed very poorly by search engines.

A.k.a. not user friendly.

Naturally Flash can be used to enhance some parts of the site but full Flash is a major no no.

What I would like to see:
W3C valid code
Good search engine indexation (being the SEO boy I am)
A modern design
Possibly a blog
A forum skin (running into blue forums a little to often on the net)

Ermm thats basically a few things I can think of now.

If you guys need front-end development or design help let me know, as I am a front-end webdeveloper myself

[DogMeat]

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[Jabbs]

I like the idea of videos because people just love to click and watch them!  We could host the videos on youtube (why waste developer time coding for flash and stuff when we have youtube and the likes of Screencast and so on?)

One point to consider on the video side of things is that some effort will be required from the video makers and players if you are going show in game footage of how Pr0 we are

Another couple of ideas on the video side of things would be to have:

1) footage from LANS and,
2) maybe an interview or two of players/admins?  I know this would require a bit of work but if you wanted to do this, then you could set some time up at the LAN to do the 'interview' - make it short and sweet like 2 minutes and questions like "How did you come across dMw?" and "What made you stay this long?" etc

As for the look and feel, I would definitely like to see some more modern and funky, change the colour scheme (of both the front page(s) and the forums so that there is some consistency from one to the other) to a nice modern (but stylish) look using perhaps two colours working together and a third to compliment etc etc.

I like the idea of Wiki's, I nearly had to set one up for a company down here in Plymouth (not happened yet), though if the sticky content is away from the main forum content then it would defeat the purpose of having stickies wouldn't it?  

Anyway tis all for now! :woot2:

[Zootoxin]

I just like to disagree with Zootoxin on the flash website idea.

Full flash websites are horribly slow, hard to navigate, hard to update, and are indexed very poorly by search engines.

A.k.a. not user friendly.

Naturally Flash can be used to enhance some parts of the site but full Flash is a major no no.

What I would like to see:
W3C valid code
Good search engine indexation (being the SEO boy I am)
A modern design
Possibly a blog
A forum skin (running into blue forums a little to often on the net)

Ermm thats basically a few things I can think of now.

If you guys need front-end development or design help let me know, as I am a front-end webdeveloper myself

There are alot of flash sites that work fine its all about how its setup, but anyway where it be flash or xhtml or a combination of both it needs to be

WOW!!!

Totally agree on the W3C point.

And boy does the forum need a face lift

The stickies Idea is also a good one

[Dewey]

Great idea guys!

Building the site in a CMS would be a good idea so your not reliant on just one of two people to update - and if they leave or get bored then you have others who can continue. With a CMS and a large number of authors your likely to keep the content and the site regularly updated which will encourage people to come back. Currently the site looks dead as content very rarely changes on it - this will put some pontential users off.

W3C - agreed the webpages produced by a decent CMS should be able to output to xhtml 1.0 strict and be well formed -same goes  for the CSS. Unfortunately will need a seperate CSS for IE6 *the bane of web designers everywhere!* - still approximately 10% of users on my sites using it.

Accessibility - a decent CMS should be able to offer more in the way of accessibility features - and allow us to meet WAI priority 1 or 2 - it may be that some of our current members who have visual or physical impairments would benefit from a more accessible website.

I'd like to see a FAQ that can easily be added too as new players often ask the same questions time and time again? ie what comms do we use in certain games, how do you join? what are membership options? etc.

I'd like to dMw making use of RSS feeds both reading and creating our own that could be used throughout the site and spread dMw news on other sites. Perhaps some of these may simply be threads from the forum that populate some areas of the website - the forum is the heart of the dMw community so we should tap into it where possible.

Podcasts - would be an excellent idea - but they do involve a lot of work and planning and decent equipment to do a good job - though you could start of with just one - perhaps a welcome podcast that tells people about our community, how its run, membership benefits, games we play currently and how new games are chosen, our ethos and USP (unique selling points like the two lans we run each year (I'm guessing not many communities/clans do this!).

Video - like podcasts involve a lot of work and would need someone who creates this type of media regularly to do a good job - it could be used to showcase the various games we play as someone else already suggested - introduced by the admins who run those games, soundbites from those who regularly play those games - giving people a flavour of the mature attitude to gaming we enjoy here and the diversity - Racing, shooting, WOW etc.

To ensure maximum exposure of the new site and dMw the RSS feeds/podcasts and videos should ideally be placed in the obvious places, youtube, iTunes, wikis, gaming websites etc.

Facebook - should link to the website and could also showcase the above new media.

We could identify where new players hang out - beebo, myspace, facebook, youtube, which websites etc and target them by having some sort of presence there.

Blogs would be an excellent idea (again someone already suggested this) - these could be diarys of new games as they are released (Ranger is excellent at this if you want to see a good example of how its done), LAN blogs, etc.

Other useful web tools like Tag Clouds, an image library, news and events, a diary (like we have on the forum) this would pubbies to see when we play certain games so they can plan for it and join us.

Any CMS using CSS/xhtml should be fairly easy to change the design and should really be updated every 12 months to keep it fresh.

The website content should be written for the target audience/s and should be really edited down where possible - often they are far too long and waffly on websites.

Totally agree on Flash, it should be used sparingly for impact.

I'd like to see peer to peer reviews of dMw as a community and on particular games we play - users love reading and trust other users reviews on all things (which is why Amazon is so popular for finding out about products) - so why not let our current members sell dMw to others?

[Benny]

http://www.tacticalgamer.com is a nice start.

[DogMeat]

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[Dewey]

Dogmeat what do you reckon to Joomla - I've used the previous version to the current version and it wasn't the easist CMS I've ever used to be honest - but I guess whatever we use needs to be free.

[Gaara]

What about wordpress? I know it's mainly known for its blog, but its a very handy CMS aswell, with tons of free plugins.

I also worked with DotNetNuke, which is pretty easy to use aswell, but probably a bit more tricky to get running.

[DogMeat]

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[smilodon]

Thanks for the ideas I think I've unleashed a beast

What's nice is that I'm sure we have the talent here to build anything we want. Please keep it coming. Excellent stuff.