Replace VHSs Wordpress blog

In the past year there has been 52 posts (I made ~30 of them) on VHS’s blog. Almost all of them have been about events and photos posts from the events. We barely use the blog for anything but notifications about events.

I suggest that we convert all the current posts to static pages and archive them (or merge them into TALK as locked posts). Then remove the WordPress blog and replace it with a about and “call to action” website similar to http://www.hackerdojo.com/ or http://www.makerlabs.com/

The website could still have several pages. (about, events, membership, contact, gallery, etc)

The events page would be converted into something like this http://events.hackerdojo.com/ automatically updated (via java-script) from VHS’s meetup.com events page or we could keep using google calendar.

The gallery page could be an embedded gallery from flickr, or google photos, or instagram or any of the many other social photos sites.

If we still want a place for news. We can create a category on TALK that is ordered by posting date and put all the news posts in there instead. Then link to it from the front page.

The goal is to make the front page more of a “call to action” and to remove the technological debt that WordPress has. We don’t have news, we only have events so lets just focus on what we actually want to tell people.

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I think you are on to something.

Our front page is really, really bad. I trust you and anything you do will
be an improvement. Almost all of the content can be (and usually is)
duplicated as a post in the Events category on Talk. Removing (the links
to) wordpress entirely would be okay by me. We could keep it as a
historical oddity, only accessible through lore, word of mouth, and the
wiki.

A small sidebar on the right that shows the titles of the latest 5 Talk
threads or something would be a cool and neat thing to do to draw in more
people.

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This weekend I’m going to take a stab at designing a Jekyll site that we can use for VHS instead of Wordpress. If I manage to come up with something awesome, I’ll write up a bunch of awesome documentation on how to use it.

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If we’re looking for an improved first impression of VHS, what I think we need is a
redesigned homepage rather than a completely redesigned site that some people will hesitate
to edit because it’s in a less commonly used CMS.

@seanhagen I like Jekyll and I appreciate your effort to try stuff out.

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I agree with @Janet - while the main page of our site is essentially just a list of what’s happening soon or has recently happened at the space… I think that’s a very good thing. It shows that we’re active, try to share knowledge, and have fun. Personally I really dislike going to hackspace/makerspace pages that are just a sales page, as that’s not why I’m there. I want to see what they’re up to, and how they act.

So my vote is leaving our main site as a WP blog that everyone who cares about knows how to use. The design could definitely use a revamp/overhaul as it’s pretty plain (though I do love the clean white background and using purple as an accent colour) however, and seems it could be a good bang for the buck?

I didn’t know what Jekyll was.
This looks great:

Also this looks great:

Also this has a fantastic comic that succinctly tells newcomers what
they’re all about and is full of whimsy and inviting:

This looks terrible and is unredeemable:

http://vanhack.ca/wp/

To put in my bikeshedding:
@rsim the problem with our blog on the front page is that it does nothing
to educate people on what we’re all about. There’s no immediately obvious
information about how VHS works, what it looks like inside, etc. We should be
marketing towards Vancouverites that have never been to a hackspace before
and don’t know what to expect.

Our very front page needs to be a good-looking (because we’re a technology
space), and it needs to intrigue people enough to want to come check it
out. Unless the first couple posts on the blog are always super
interesting to every prospective member, we have failed in that mission.

So yeah, I don’t care whether or not the WordPress goes away completely,
but if it stays, I’d rather it not be the first thing newcomers see. The
second thing they see would be fine by me.

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Vivo is using this theme
http://themeforest.net/item/anchorra-multipurpose-wordpress-theme/6265613
which is now a bit old. Lots of clean/responsive themes out there if we
continue to use wordpress.

The technology that we use doesn’t matter. I want the front page to convey the following information, something that it completely fails at right now.

  • Who/What is the Vancouver Hackspace, Maybe a video introduction to the space, or some photos, or a text blurb about what we do.
  • How can this benefit me - A list of tools, workshops, and events.
  • How do I become a member, and support the space - This is how we keep the doors open, there should be no barrier to getting people to give us money.
  • What do I do next. - This can be as simple as telling them when the next event is or inviting them down to the open house.

If the only thing I knew about the hackspace was what i saw on the front page of our website I wouldn’t be interested. This is the first interaction that most people have with us.

The problem is that even the people that know how to use it, don’t post anything interesting. No one posts about their projects on the wordpress blog, they post about them in TALK. No amount of begging (I have tried hard) will get people to write posts for VHS’s blog. Its just not going to happen.

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I really like the idea of updating the main entry point to http://vanhack.ca/ so it has the information that @funvill suggested, it should be more of a brochure site that guides a user on who/what we are and how they can become a member.

I also think we should keep the existing blog just to retain a lot of the SEO value that is there however I don’t think it should be the main entry point to the site, instead it should just be blog content. We should update the wordpress theme to match whatever we come up with for our main entry point or if it’s a jekyll site port the blog content there. I’m a huge fan of static sites.

Lastly we should also consider moving talk.vanhack.ca → Talk.hackspace.ca - New VHS forum - Vancouver Hack Space if it’s easily done just so all of the content can keep building up the vancouver.vanhack.ca domain.

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But it’s horrible for our page ranking!!

Who am I kidding… who cares about that…

Also, yeah, friend of mine is a member of the Dallas Makerspace. That stuff looks good!
I feel that accessibility of information is something we should focus on. How we make new content is secondary to that. (Bottomline: Yes, more new content is good, but if it still looks horrible or is inaccessible, then all the new content isn’t going to do anything. Except for maybe improve our page ranks…)

Just some thoughts.

Another thought:
If the platform can incorporate content from the wiki, it becomes easier to update?

Continuing discussion:

LOL page ranking. Does that even matter anymore? Plenty o’ good themes out there if we just want to re-skin it and update the home page. I’d be happy to help…but wp is still locked down isn’t it?

We can also automate wiki content to display in various places I’m sure.

All the people I showed around the space during tuesday open night on Nov 3rd indicated that they heard about VHS from searching the web. I know it is a small sample size but it is reassuring that we are being found this way.

All the more reason to revamp the site!

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What a great initiative!

+1 what @garthomite said.

I would also ask anyone interested in tweaking the blog to share interesting A/B split testing results.

Was taking a peek around other hackspace’s websites. I really liked Helios’ in Montreal.
http://heliosmakerspace.ca/

It is a pretty intuitive design which quickly allows you to find all the essential information about their space. Something like this would be great for VHS’s front page.

They’ve got a bow-tied workshop mentor, too!

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