Expo 2008/Web presence

Decisions that have been made

At the pub on Tuesday 6 May 08, it was decided that the 2008 page on cucc.survex.com will NOT be the main website for Expo 2008. Instead, the main website for Expo 2008 will be this wiki, and the 2008 page on cucc.survex.com will link to http://www.srcf.ucam.org/caving/wiki/Expo_2008/

History of the situation

Since time beyond mind, the expo website has been at http://cucc.survex.com/expo/, and contains a huge amount of information. It is hosted on a server living in London, administered (owned?) by Mark Shinwell (and others?).

The workings of the website are detailed at Expo_website_manual. At the moment, user:Aaron appears to be the only current Cambridge member who can edit it, and he would really like other people to get accounts as well and help him out!

There is a general feeling that "something needs to be done" about the expo website. Please comment below with opinions, it would be nice if we can make a decision about what to do!

What's good about the current website

• It's under version control (SVN). This means that any changes can be reverted, and comments are made with changes which can later be reviewed.
• It does a lot of things automatically. This includes generating all of the cave pages, with lengths and depths calculated from survey files, the prospecting map, (a few other things, someone fill them in).
• It has a password protected section for things we don't have permission (copyright or otherwise) to put on the web.

What more we could want from the website

• Something that's more presentable to sponsors and the public. Maybe a little bit flashy.
• Ease of editing. This has two components. Firstly, improve the general understandability of the scripts which automatically generate the html. Secondly, allow account signup and editing through a web browser.

Possible futures for the website

• We could start a separate expo publicity website and keep the current one as is.
• We could move the whole thing to a wiki.
• We could restructure the whole thing using Django. This would be a good framework for easy editing and automatic scripts.