Web Development

[smiley]

Hello all. I hope to interest you in cooperative development of some space-oriented web content. I'll be posting some of my own ideas here, and hope to hear from anyone with similar interests.

[bradbeiter]

I would like to see the seds.org site become a site for seds members and chapters, and not a general space site.

the space resources should be at seds.org/space or something along those lines.

The seds.org/seds stuff needs to be at seds.org

Thoughts?

Brad

[SEDShead]

Originally posted by bradbeiter
I would like to see the seds.org site become a site for seds members and chapters, and not a general space site.

I disagree with this statement, but perhaps just with the way the sentence was formed. I would be more agreeable with "... a site for SEDS members and chapters, in addition to a general space site.


the space resources should be at seds.org/space or something along those lines.
The seds.org/seds stuff needs to be at seds.org


Fair - we've been wanting to move the seds.org/seds stuff to the main page for some time, but have just lacked the active involvement to maintain the pages to do so... (Volunteers?)

[smiley]

Well that certainly makes sense. And it sure is due for a make-over. But whatever happens to it is independent and largely irrelevant to what new space content is created. Except in one aspect, and that is its huge power as a 'hit making machine' driving surfers to check out any new content.

It'd be cool to have some sort of design competition between the chapters to spur a new seds.org page.

Guy

[bradbeiter]

i have always wanted to do a monthly review of a space book.

there is some new content.

Brad

[smiley]

uh, Chris I think got a post in while I was composing. I was saying that Brad's comment that seds.org should be (primarily) a page about seds and for members/chapters does seem logical to me ;)

But, to be candid--that's to be decided by others, not me, so I say "whatever!"

Guy

[SEDShead]

I do agree that it'd be ideal to have the http://www.seds.org/ URL start directly with info about the organization (like http://www.seds.org/seds/). However, I do think we should continue to promote and develop and sponsor space related content on the net as we are doing now...

On the monthly book review column, excellent idea (weren't we going to do this for some unnamed internet site Brad? :)

Anyway, perhaps you should start a new thread to discuss this concept. I think others might be interested in getting in on the "review" action, and perhaps we can sometimes offer multiple reviews on an individual book, or perhaps multiple books/articles per month.

Another note from memory - we were once in discussion to get all SEDS chapters monthly (free) deliveries of said books that were reviewed, giving us a potentially interesting sponsorship source of goods... Anyway, this is for another thread.

[smiley]

Doing book reviews is a great idea. And also space-related movies, albums, etc?
Perhaps cross-posted on Amazon or others? It also may make good use of this BBS-style foruming (tho perhaps not as main interface--it cries out for a more "portal-like" frontend). The content could be re-used in other areas like newsletters.

[JohnWright]

Hi Guys,

You might want to grab some syndicated content from old SEDS people and SEDS-friendly people doing the same kind of stuff right now and who would like the cross-marketing:

Jeff Foust has been doing space book and other reviews for several years...adding his content along with SEDS member movie, CD, and software reviews would be great.

Right now Jeff's doing http://www.spacetoday.net and will soon launch http://www.thespacereview.com ...

John

[bradbeiter]

i will talk to jeff....

[SEDShead]

Going to Jeff is a fair idea, but then there's the old SEDS addage of "by students for students" that we might want to heed... Perhaps you can just get some ideas from him as far as what to write about, how to decide on a book, etc...

I think the content should be coming from "real live students" though (like Brad!)

[JohnWright]

> Going to Jeff is a fair idea, but then there's the old SEDS
> addage of "by students for students" that we might want to
> heed... Perhaps you can just get some ideas from him as far as
> what to write about, how to decide on a book, etc...

I don't see anything wrong with non-students contributing to SEDS projects...even contributing in significant ways. SEDS will always be led by students - but, as we found out over the years, that doesn't necessarily mean students have to lick every stamp.

SEDS has been on life-support for nearly all of its 21 years. I don't think it's a good idea to turn people away or to not ask people to contribute on the sole basis of their student status.

I don't want to bring anyone down...I've just seen too many people discouraged from executing ideas simply to aim for some student-only ideal of SEDS.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone knows this and I'm sure Chris just wanted to make sure that SEDS just doesn't farm out everything to non-students without getting their hands dirty (which is more than half the fun=)

Whatever...I've typed way more than I was planning to...I just wanted to point out that no artificial barriers need to be put up when you're trying to get a project off the ground. It's hard enough to execute and I definitely don't want to see current SEDS people shoot themselves in the foot like those of us who have gone before...

John

[Daniel]

Originally posted by smiley

It'd be cool to have some sort of design competition between the chapters to spur a new seds.org page.

Guy [/B]

Well my site will be the best !!!:D but its mainly in hebrew so...:rolleyes:

anyway we plan to have a section of the site covering the local space scene, but we are in a different spot...
maybe you should go for somekind of a niche coverage - stuff that don't appear so much on the big sites but are still interesting, like university research or projects that students can take part in....

[jeff]

Originally posted by SEDShead
Going to Jeff is a fair idea, but then there's the old SEDS addage of "by students for students" that we might want to heed...

I think the content should be coming from "real live students" though (like Brad!)

I agree with this sentiment. I think there is a role alums and other non-students can play in projects on seds.org, but the people running those projects -- and making the decisions whether to solicit or accept advice or other contributions from outsiders -- should be students. I know I would be willing to help on a project if asked (and if I had the time!), but for the benefit of the organization I think students should be making those decisions.

Jeff Foust
jfoust@alum.mit.edu