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Subject: 
CLSotW help wanted
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Fri, 31 Jan 2003 02:58:22 GMT
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Cool LEGO Site of the Week is one of my very favorite online tasks -- because
it is always something new and exciting -- but I haven't been keeping up with
it like I should each week.  Since December, it's been consistently updated a
day or two late, or even a week late.

I think that's extremely unfair to viewers, to the sites being showcased, and
to the community as a whole, and I don't want the feature to suffer again like
it did a year ago.

This is an appeal for assistance.  I'm feeling a bit over my head right now
on LUGNET stuff and I'm going to be increasingly busy with non-LUGNET LEGO
stuff in February.  If someone could help with the text each week, it would
really ease my conscience.

The good news:  Last summer I streamlined the weekly update process of CLSotW
quite a bit, leveraging the then-new member polling mechanism and converting
the update and editing process entirely to FTX pages.  The easy part now each
week is actually updating the server data.  The hard part (and unfortunately
for me, also the fun part!) is writing up a fresh description of the featured
site each week based on exploring it as thoroughly as possible.

The bad news:  Writing the site description usually takes me from one to two
hours.  It's hard work because it's kind of like writing a book report.  Some
sites have hundreds of pages and I don't feel like I'm doing a decent job if
I don't explore the entire site.

Anyway enough babbling.  Here's what I'm looking for:

Each week, sometime on Sunday, I'd like to receive an email from someone
which contains text that I can cut & paste onto the CLSotW web page.  That
would save me a lot of time and make me very happy.  It would be a huge
bonus if the email also included a small JPEG image (exactly 120 pixels wide
and somewhere between about 70 to 140 pixels tall) that I can upload to the
server for the web page and for the LUGNET homepage.

An arrangement like this worked really well a couple of years ago, but there
still wasn't enough automation from the webserver to make it go really
smoothly each week, and eventually it collapsed.  Now with the polling system
and doing everything through FTX pages, it's possible to see the winner right
away as soon as the timer dings, and then cut & paste the review text in as
soon as it's available.  Plus, in the event that I'm unable to keep up with
(or need to delegate more of) the whole process, it's fairly straightforward
to give access to the /cool/ area of the website to another person and let
them update everything directly (presuming the existence of a willing
volunteer, of course).  Part of my agreement with Suzanne when we resurrected
CLSotW last year was that I delegate portions of it if I get in over my head.

Is there someone out there who can do a book-report-style review of the
Cool Brick Movies site for this week and email it to me at todd@lugnet.com?
Feel free to post follow-ups to this message to sort out who or work together
or take turns if there are multiple volunteers.  And same for next week, etc.
I would so appreciate your help!

Finally, a question for anyone:  Is anyone able to access Holger's website?
I haven't been able to get through to it for two weeks.  :-(

Thanks for listening,
--Todd



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: CLSotW help wanted
 
(...) I'm in no way a master of reviews or even English for that matter but if the community is OK with it I'm game! (...) If you refer to Holger Matthes, HoMa it's been working fine (URL) am a little pressed on time right now, but here's a recent (...) (21 years ago, 31-Jan-03, to lugnet.general)

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