TOPIC:

Our club's past FTH webmasters have been accountants, lawyers, architects, and one lone "website developer", so most of us had little or no prior website experience to my knowledge. (I'm a EE by training with some computer programming background (C++, Unit, Fortran/PL-1, micro-assembler, and classes in SQL), and more recently Quality Assurance tested programs and website relational databases.) Our club's past FTH webmasters primarily added new members, moved departed members to ex-member status, maybe added photos onto web pages (like each year's officers on the home page) didn't update web pages much each month. (I don't recall any of them using the Dues Management emails until 2017 when I sent out messages for the first time.) Personally I find the website tools very easy to use - I just haven't devoted enough time weekly to expand my knowledge further of FTH, to be creative with web pages, or to decide which obsolete pages to delete. What's everyone else's experience level?

I wrote this because I was getting totally "lost" by Steve's discussion regarding HTTP to HTTPS, because I am a "lightweight" and know nothing about "iFrames", how to change URLs for photos from HTTP to HTTPS (I just upload photos into FTH), or fixing non-FTH websites.

Your points are very good and worth exploring in the context of the overall FTH system design.

The system can keep things pretty easy for users so long as we do not require user's content to address overly technical considerations or have to be modified to comply with new "standards". If users can just put whatever content they want in the system forms and manipulate it like a word processor, then we keep it simple for everyone.

However, keep in mind that the websites you see are the result of merging our templates (and their static content) with user content. In reality, the websites are really dependent on both. This is the hard reality that I have been trying to diplomatically point out for some time to those users who insist that we update our technology in such ways that I know will not work without also touching user content.

As long as we can keep the technical stuff limited to our templates and associated code and not impact user content, then all is well. This is how it has been for a long time.

Essentially, what you are now seeing are the consequences of what I have been warning about...

Specifically:

1. You really cannot have a website run as HTTPS if some of the underlying user content is not also HTTPS. It creates what are known as mixed content issues.

2. You really cannot have a website employ responsive design if the underlying content does not also support that.

So, what to do, then? Well, my current thinking is that we need to allow users to "dip their toes" into these technologies and provide tools to enable them to become more effective as they get up the learning curve. Thus, a sort of "on/off" switch for HTTPS, and a content checker that would find/flag content that is not HTTPS. (sort of like the link checker that I implemented) We could also start altering user content on the fly to enforce standards, but I find that to be a slippery slope (we become accountable for user content)--we could maybe have an "opt-in" for that though.

Hi Ralph !!!

I think you'll find that the level of webmaster expertise here follows about as wide a range as you can imagine. My own technical background is remarkably similiar to yours, only somewhat heavier on the programming side.

As engineers, we've occasionally bumped into the kind of problem that we're dealing with now in the "HTTP to HTTPS" issue. It's unpleasant enough when we have to make a change that ripples back and causes a lot of further changes in the existing design. The "nightmare scenario" is when the change affects a base of established user installations and the users have to also make updates.

Our good friend SteveTheTechie is weathering that storm admirably right now, and he's guiding us through it pretty well. (I suppose we'd call it "pretty well" if he were getting paid for it; since he's doing it all as a volunteer, it's probably something closer to $%#& fantastic...)

But it's one of those Really Important changes that just has to be done. You can be sure that almost all of us have been scrambling to understand all the consequences just as you are, and that those with no programming experience at all, are probably scrambling even harder. We'll get there.

Some (probably a small minority) of the posters here are very enthusiastic about using all of the web programming options available to them, and they'll be the ones providing the most coherent posts here. That may give the illusion that everyone else here really knows what they're doing, but I suspect that most of us are all making it up as we go along, and yet still manage to produce some interesting club websites, thanks to the very kind and helpful support we're getting here.

Since you're also mulling over what to change on your website, here's a thought. You've already had a number of previous webmasters, and as an engineer, you've seen the headaches of having to maintain the design of someone who's long gone. While our sites have an obvious audience, one un-obvious audience is future webmasters.

There are a number of FTH sites that do fun and interesting things with embedded HTML, and they're fun to visit. But those webmasters will undoubtedly be making preparations for other technically-savvy people to take over for them, just in case. You've had a past webmaster mix of all kinds of people, and might want to make sure that all kinds will be able to maintain your site in the future.

I've added cute effects in the past, then looked at the average makeup of the Toastmasters clubs in my area, and then backed-out all the special effects, so as not to hobble my club in the future with a site that people might hesitate to maintain.

I've founbd that I can make an interesting site by going heavy on content, which is easy to maintain, interests the visitors with tangible material, and which incidentally improves the site's positioning on a Google search.

Not everyone would agree with this strategy, and that helps make for an interesting variety in FTH sites, but it's worth considering.

Take care,

Wes B.