Why do we have two web sites? Surely this site can and should be incorporated into the official web site, or is there a good reason it isn’t?
WHS.
WHS wrote:
[quote]Why do we have two web sites? Surely this site can and should be incorporated into the official web site, or is there a good reason it isn’t?
WHS.[/quote]
Most of the time, one site would be sufficient. However, there are times when the Official view of Witton Albion could differ from the fans view. For instance, the official site could/would not be allowed to have some of the personal threads that sometimes appear on here (e.g. some of what was said during the end to the 2008 season, especially some of the dialog between our fans and Cod & Frickley fans).
Thanks for your prompt and sensible reply Thatched Tavern.
WHS.
Popular debate this one, WHS.
I personally believe that a club our size needs one good official site. There are insufficient people with the time available to keep one site updated properly and frankly there is insufficient content to maintain two sites. It is not like a league club with several stories generated every day and our fan base is relatively small.
The official site had 7,500 visitors in August (its first month proper), which is around 250 visits a day. This is very good in the whole scheme of things. Our Facebook site has proved to be extremely popular, with 320 pictures posted by fans and another 230 taken from the games so far this season. Our Twitter pages are being followed by other clubs around the country (although take up by Wittoners is still slow).
When the new site was developed over the summer it took around 150 hours of time, since then we have benefitted from ongoing great contributions from Derek Buckley (with his excellent match previews), Phil Chadwick (with his essential match reports) and Mark Lyon (providing great pictures). Without these three people the official site would not be kept up to date the way it is.
My personal opinion is that the only thing that should remain on this .co.uk fan site is the forum, which is better residing in a separate place to the club site to retain independence. I don’t believe there is sufficient news to offer any alternative through this site than the official site, I don’t think the online games are useful, the predictions league only has a few taking part, the fixtures don’t include next week’s cup game on Tuesday. None of this is criticism of the effort that has gone into creating this but I think it is reflective of the size of the club and the time it takes to keep on top of a website. Rather than trying to run two sites the efforts would be better focused on updating one main site.
The official site belongs to ‘the club’ and can be updated by an increasing number of people. Ultimately if we drive the traffic through ‘one front door’ then we can build greater commercial opportunity out of the official site, such as online merchandise sales and promotion of other events. So far the new website helped generate a few extra season ticket sales, we have received applications from players and new volunteers and the overall communication with the club has improved.
There are plenty of things that still need to happen on the official site to improve it but I think we are in better shape than seasons past, there are match reports from every game, including pre-season and many current stories generated this season. The fixtures and results are kept up to date and overall the links to content, etc are all operational.
As always feedback on what people want to see and also additional volunteers are always sought.
OK, my take on this. This site has always been, and will always be, ‘unofficial’. There are two very good reasons for this.
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The Football Club does not have editorial control. The vast majority of the time this would make not one iota of difference, but there is always the faint possibility that at some point in the future the fans could perceive those with a controlling interest in the club as less than benign. I stress that this is certainly not the case at the moment, but there will inevitably be changes in personnel over time and should the club ever fall into eg. a similar situation to that which our neighbours have found themselves in recently then the fans would still have an independent online presence.
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Any ‘official’ site has to kowtow to the league, and all opinions expressed on the forum would be deemed to be the responsibility of the Football Club. This would inevitably lead to much heavier moderation being necessary.
When I revamped the site in the summer my intention was to produce a site that needed little routine upkeep, essentially to make the content ‘user-generated’. Initially I had also intended to include a news section on here as the then official site was so poor, but when I saw that Simon had produced the new official site then this was clearly not necessary so it has been not been carried on. As Simon rightly says there is no need for duplication of this function. (Incidentally, I don’t know why Simon says in his post that next week’s cup fixture is not included, it is and was actually on here before it was on the official site 
). This site is based around the forum, with a limited number of other features, and takes very little time to keep up to date.
Simon is quite right to mention the possibilities of making use of the commercial opportunities afforded by having a good official site, and I’ve done my best to direct traffic to that site from here; there are two prominent links at the top of every page and the home page has a further endorsement that is pretty ‘in yer face’! This site is certainly not in competition with the official site, and in my opinion the two complement each other well.
Let’s keep it the way its guys.
Nothing wrong with having an independent unofficial forum where we can laugh,bawl,shout,be cross,be happy make risque near the knuckle remarks or whatever as long as what we say here is within the realm of some decency.
Nowt wrong with that,is there? 
Well said chaps - we just need more fans coming on here - where have they all gone ?
Mike’s comments on independence are very valid and I have always agreed with him that the forum should remain independent as it gives fans a place to voice their opinions without them being moderated by the club (which inevitably would need to happen more if it were part of the official site). This forum is a great part of the Witton fan base for which Mike personally deserves the credit.
I would however strip the .co.uk site of everything other than the forum and prefer that Mike’s technical skills, passion for the web and enthusiasm were used on the main site as his contribution would be an enormous benefit to the official site. The .co.uk would never go away and can be resurrected should he ever feel the need.
My personal impression is that the only use of the .co.uk site is for the forum and everything else is superfluous. Why have any repeated content such as league tables and fixtures, this just means two people are updating the same data on two sites. There is no ‘independence or opinion’ when it comes to the fixture list! I can’t find anything about the fan site other than the forum that has a cause to be independent.
As I say the official site would benefit from increased traffic by dropping the other content but just as important would benefit massively from Mike’s input as he has the knowledge and skills to manage that site.
The problem I have is lack of time to update. I am more than happy to help out on an ad-hoc basis with the official site but I cannot commit to any regular work on it. I know from experience just how much time keeping a wide-ranging site up to date takes, and it is great that there are people taking responsibility for different areas of the official site as posted above.
Quite deliberately, the design of this site means it only takes a few minutes each week to update the scores and fixtures, which use a dedicated component, other than that there is no work required. The component that runs this is capable of a lot more than it is being used for at the moment (just league fixtures, table and opposition club information, click on a team name on the league table to access more info about that club). This is something I would be happy to look at adding to the official site next season but I could not undertake to keep anything other than a basic system up to date.
The official site is very good and well done to all involved. People I know from around the country always want to see how we have got on even those that have never even been to a match. Mike has always done a great job with the unoficial site. Long may both continue and flurrish (is this spelt right?).
Close enough!!!
WHS.