How not to make an impression
Being involved (as an admin user mind you) in the redevelopment of
49er.org and 29er.org from the outset… I think I’m in a position
to be brutally honest about the success or otherwise of the
project.
It’s safe to say its been a case of “otherwise” for a while… and
the litany of stuff-ups just keeps coming.
Now 29er.org has gone offline, along with the thousands of bits of
content built up over the years, and over 11000 messages in the
discussion. Not only could nobody work out where the admin details
for the domain were, but there was no meaningful way to import
content into the new - and featureless - content management system.
No useful help from the CMS developers (even though its a
commercial product), no ftp access to the server, no ability to
update templates and no ability to add content through the CMS (no
suprise its a bit empty then).
Oh and then we have no used-boats functionality. We have nice
broken links on framed old forums (which can’t run in our
featureless CMS by the way).
We do have some shady deals with affiliates selling gear - those
affiliates who make competing products to the 49er - talk about
good politics.
But then I must say, the CMS does have some great workflow
functionality built in for document publishing and approval. How
useful that will be with all 4 editors managing the site!
All in all, it’s been a complete stuff-up from the beginning. If
we’re building a site with information for sailors - then give them
information. If you’re trying to impress people with pretty colours
and fancy picture-buttons, then you’re wasting everyone’s
time.
Function over form please!
Update #1: The forum is back online for 29er.org, but seems to have
been pretty well killed off by the outages. Something that usually
gets posted to several times daily hasn’t moved in several
days…
