I slightly clench my teeth whenever change something at the site, because experience shows that there will be no shortage of outrage and disgust. People get used to what has been here before and those who don’t like a change sometimes seem to think it has just been done to annoy them.
Moreover, experience also shows something puzzling: if people realise that certain parameters are flexible, they get *really* annoyed. Much better to present an out-of-the-box solution with no rough edges and no changes.
That’s not how it works at LongeCity. This website has always been a work in progress, under construction, unpolished and unfinished. This reflects the fact that this is a volunteer effort not a slick marketing operation. Also, our mission is certainly not finished and we don’t have a clear roadmap that leads us to the finishing line. We want to live forever, and living means to learn and change and try things out.
So the site will remain a building site, certainly this year while we slowly transition from ‘ImmInst’ to LongeCity and all that this entails. The current technical changes are just one aspect of that, and they don’t exist in isolation but need to integrate with our evolving brand (such as the new design) and strategic objectives (such as the science initiative).
Well then, if after this preamble, you are still reading, we could really use your help:
1) Bugs: what is broken?
2) Feedback: what works well?
3) Speed: we were quite concerned about site speed recently – has this improved?
4) Keywords: the new system allows for member-generated keywords. This should finally allow for better linking of content. The system is a ‘fee for all’ at this point, but it might work better with a set of intelligent pre-defined keywords- anyone who wants to work on that is very welcome
5) Design: We are still thinking about the general navigation interface to incorporate a stronger ‘city’ theme. Any suggestions gratefully received.
Thanks.
