Web site redesign - read me first

[saint]

Well, I am semi-officially giving up on doing the web site redesign... myself. Content just isn't my big hurdle, design is.  My job and family life just consume too much of my time these days to do the job that's needed.

Accordingly, I'm throwing in the towel and calling for volunteers. Many people have offered their services, and I thank you all heartedly. One of my hesitations has been that I'm fairly picky -- this is my baby and it doesn't matter how talented anyone is, it's virtually impossible for someone else to get into my head and come up with my perfect ideal.  I'm reluctant to see someone put in time and effort in coming up with a design -- if it ends up being something I'm not happy with I either feel guilty for looking a gift horse in the mouth and turning their design down, or feeling obligated to accept it even if I don't like it.

However, the site's languishing waiting for me, so...

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Calling for volunteers:

I'm looking for volunteers to come up with a new look for BYOAC. I'll start one or more threads following this one to talk about it and see if anyone wants to weigh in.  If you're interested, please take a look at the thread about "menu design,"  "technologies used," and "WIP" before you start.

How anyone interested comes up with a design is up to them, but I suggest  doing a mockup of a couple of pages without necessarily actually containing a bunch of content.

Once a design is chosen, we'll look at updating all the dusty pages.

Thanks for anyone interested, it's much appreciated!

--- saint

[SirPoonga]

I'd volunteer.

However I think what planetjay said before might be a good route for BYOAC to take.  Use something like mambo to run the main page.  You can customize the look and it makes it pretty easy to maintain and modify the data of a site.

[danny_galaga]

haven't looked here before. do i take it you mean redign the look of this forum? this is one of the best set out forums already, will be hard to top!!

[GGKoul]

I'm in too...  check out two sites I built for friends of mine.

www.boxjboys.ca

www.alexandersteel.com

[WakingJohn]

I'd like to help too.  I'm *not horrible* in design, and I also program in/for php, mysql, html, and css (among other things.)

I agree about mambo.  Maybe also a wiki-ish encyclopedia? I know I for one would have liked one *many* times while searching through this site.

Anyways, design wise here are a few things I've for  mostly myself:
http://john.apocryphagaming.com/websites/

Programming wise... well...  I've done mostly simple  archiving stuff - like for webcomics or articles.   I can do anything else really though - just haven't had any reason to yet =-).

Let me know if I can be of any use.

-John

EDIT: I can procure more from my archives too if ya want.  

[AlanS17]

We use Wiki here at the office, and it's quite handy. It's great for people sharing & contributing their own stuff. I could see where it could come in handy for a How-To section.

However, it works well on the intranet here, but how well would it work with everybody tossing in their own stuff, re-arranging things, etc? If there were a submission system, I think that would work much more. That way things could be proofed/accepted before entering them. Otherwise, I fear the site would be out of control within a week.

[WakingJohn]

Sounds like a good idea.  I'm sure theres a wiki engine out there (it being open source and all) that does just that.  Or just an option to throw.

[Jakobud]

Any news on the website redesign, saint?