[WebContent] let's get started! welcome to webcontent@sharedweight.net !

The adage that begins "be careful what you ask for..." just might apply in this situation, so first let me give a big thank you to Chris Weiler & Seth Seeger, who do such a wonderful job maintaining the SharedWeight web site and mailing lists, for stepping up and creating this new "web content" forum. They've asked that I help coordinate and oversee this new group since the idea was originally mine.  Of course I will, but I'm hoping that little oversight will be necessary. I also make no claims of ownership, other than to help get/keep the ball rolling. My original thinking (see original email below) was about a forum for content creators and managers, with discussion being mostly about form and function, usability, and, for lack a better word, "freshness". However, some of the initial responses also indicate a desire to talk about tools as well, including layout and editing, online registration, payment, and survey packages,  web hosting and CMS systems.   All those topics and more are welcome. I'm hoping this forum will be welcoming and useful to anyone who creates, manages, designs, or is simply interested in the "cyber" side of contra dance, including dance series or festival web sites, facebook groups, meetup groups, YouTube video creators & sharers, podcasters, etc. Callers, choreographers, sound engineers, and musicians/bands with a web presence are also welcome, of course. I'd like to encourage all participants to share ideas, give links to sites or pages we are working on, and ask for and provide constructive feedback. One goal is to help each other make our online presence as useful, vibrant, current, informative, accessible, and welcoming as possible. I'm well aware that the best way to get someone new to try contra dancing is to take them to a dance!, but some people want to be more informed and prepared before they (are convinced to) go, while others may find a dance web site, video or event invite through serendipitous web surfing, and the right kind of information and presentation may be all they need to give dancing a try. Since we are a diverse and distributed community, I'd like to suggest that we all sign our postings with real names and locations. Also, if you are so inclined, I encourage each participant to post a short intro/bio about yourself as it might pertain to this forum (e.g., if you maintain a web site, are on the web committee of some dance group, etc.).  Also, please feel free to spread the word about this group to other people or forums where you think there would be interest! This message is now far too long. I'll post my own bio in a separate thread. Looking forward to wherever this group leads. Andy Shore Ft Lauderdale FL Subscription info at http://sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/webcontent It looks like this list will be archived at http://sharedweight.net/pipermail/webcontent/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Andy Shore &lt;square.a.shore(a)gmail.com&gt; Date: Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 1:44 PM Subject: contra dance webmasters unite! (?) To: callers(a)sharedweight.net I've been wondering if there would be enough interest (and traffic) to form an email list for contra dance website webmasters and other content creators (e.g., people posting videos to youtube) and people maintaining contra dance related "pages" on Facebook to discuss some of the issues and ideas and share links, etc. I created the website http://southfloridacontradance.com/  and I'm always looking for good videos to share (see the "Announcements" page) and links about contra dancing (see the "What is Contra Dance?" and "Dance Links" pages).  I also help maintain the "South Florida Contradance" page on Facebook. In particular, I think that finding, generating, and sharing fresh content is the kind of thing that will keep our web sites looking current and vibrant and will spark interest. I also think it's important to design for both the current dancer (when and where is tonight's dance or next month's festival?) and be informative and welcoming to the uninitiated.  Sharing relevant, high quality links will also help make sure that search results yield the best information about our beloved activity. As for folks posting to YouTube... as a caller, I often want to know the name and author of the dance being done! Respond to this thread and if there's enough interest, perhaps we can convince the kind folks who run SharedWeight.net to start a new mailing list for this. Let me know what you think! /Andy Shore http://andyshore.com/ http://facebook.com/AndyShore.Caller   << like me on Facebook!