[lug] Website work for BLUG

[Chris Riddoch]

Hi, folks.

I'm beginning to think that the website is a bit of an embarassment to
me; I don't update it regularly enough.  I realized, though, that
there are a number of things that could be done to make it work
better, in the way of automating things.  I've got some ideas of my
own, but I'd like to see what you might like to do differently on the
site as well.

First, I don't want our site to be too redundant.  If there's already
a website out there that already does something similar to what we'd
*want* to do, I'd suggest a prominent link instead of reinventing the
wheel.

Most of my own ideas have to do with simplifying management of
information about speakers and talks, so that the front page and
meetings page could be generated from a simple database.  I've
basically taken care of that.

Most of what I want is: a volunteer to spend a little time on the
appearance of the site.  The basic feel of the site hasn't changed in
most of a decade.  Nothing too fancy, I like subtlety and
functionality above much else.

I'd *love* to have a better Wiki engine that can do merges when
multiple people are trying to edit at the same time -- this has been a
problem at hacking society.  The existing Wiki's interface takes up
far more screen space than it needs to; I think it's ugly anyway.

I'm thinking some simple document management could work for book
reviews: people could paste a review into a big form, and I (or
others) could approve or delete them appropriately.

Other ideas?

Oh, and a technical decision: Perl, HTML::Mason, and PostgreSQL.  Yes,
I know there are A Zillion Ways To Do It, but this combination is what
I've become very familiar with, and it works quite well.  Mason is
worth it, trust me.

-- 
epistemological humility
   - Chris Riddoch -