Archive : About this site: How to be a web minister

o you want to be a web minister?

Part 1: The Required Stuff

There are only two things required by the SCA for your website to be ‘official’. The first is that it contains this disclaimer:

This website is an online publication of the Barony of the Cleftlands. The content is edited by <Web Minister’s Legal Name, and preferably email address as a link>. This website is not a corporate publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism and does not delineate SCA policy. In cases of conflict with printed versions of material presented on this page or its links, the dispute will be decided in favor of the printed version unless otherwise indicated.

Usually placed at the bottom of the first page of the website… you have to make sure it’s in a place where any visitor to the site can see it.

The second is you must not sell ads on the site… you can have banner ads or pop-ups if they are required by your web hosting company (such as Geocities), but you cannot run ads of your own in the body of the page.

Now, while there is no official rule against putting your web site on a host that puts ads over and around your page, the unofficial sentiment is that most everyone would prefer their group web page not to have banner ads or pop-ups. You can get rid of the banners on Geocities sites, see a vetern Geocities user for details.

Also it is strongly advised that you police your content for offensive language or inappropriateness… no one is going to shut down your website for a bad word, but you are representing both your group and the SCA in general, and children are likely to visit the site as well as adults. Keep it clean.

You will of course want to clear the website with your group officers, webministering falls vaguely under the Chronicler’s purview, so if you have a chronicler, make sure they know about your site.

Part 2: Content

The most important part of your web site is its content. You don’t need pictures, you don’t need color, even… it’s the text that matters. So make sure you put that content where your readers can get at it quickly. Think to yourself, “Why would someone come to this website?” In the case of an SCA group, the most likely answers are:

1. To find out where/when an event or meeting is.
2. To find out how to get there.
3. To find someone in the group, or how to contact them.
4. To find out just what this group is about, and what they do.

That’s it. You can get away with just having one and two… any other content is just icing on the cake. Now, if you just list everything in one big block, no one is going to be able to find what they’re looking for, so I strongly recommend breaking things into logical separations, with a menu list to start from.

Now, even though people will want contact information for individuals, it is tantamount that you do not put anyone’s personal contact information online unless they give you express permission to do so, and even then, only put up the contact info they want. Respect your members’ privacy, even if they are Seneschal…

Things people are not looking for on your web site:

1. Blink Tags – by whatever diety you believe in, do not use blinking text, it is of the devil and must be stopped at all costs!
2. Under Construction banners and markings –they can figure that out for themselves. Every web site on earth is ‘under construction’.
3. Animation – this increases download time a great deal, and the movement can be an eye strain if they are reading the page for a long time.
4. Personal stories of the webmaster’s life- it’s tempting to use your website as a soapbox, but remember, it’s not yours, it’s the groups… be professional.

A word on “Medievalish” content- using forsoothly language in your text, speaking in persona and such: All I can say is use your judgement. You can do whatever you like to add a medieval ‘feel’ to the web site, but be wary of confusing people. I recommend being as stodgy as can be on directions, dates, and contact information- data, things people have to know. Your prose can be worded however you want, but be aware that some people might either find it hard to follow, or know more about medieval speech and laugh at you…

Overall, when it comes to content, don’t put it on the webpage if you wouldn’t put it in your group newsletter. Watch closely for typos and spelling errors, of course, and always, always keep your audience in mind first.

Oh, and don’t expect anyone to give you content- it’ll be like pulling teeth, like finding needles in haystacks, like getting articles for the baronial newsletter… what I’m saying is, be prepared to write all of it yourself, if necessary, so that additional content is an unexpected bonus, not a sorely missed feature.

Part 3: Style

For me, the most important item in page design is to make certain the page can be viewed with a reasonable level of atractiveness in all browsers. Not an easy goal. At the very least, limit graphics to a size that will not completely fill a 640 X 480 window… I use tileable backgrounds to make certain a 1024 x 768 screen isn’t completely empty with the small graphics. Also, make sure you use alt tags on all your images for people who may turn off images to increase their download speed, or, as unlikely as it is these days, do not have graphical browsers.

A word on frames: people seem to hate frames. I love them, but there are only two reasons to use them: to keep a menu available on every page without copying it multiple times, and to store a large graphic to display on every page without having to download it multiple times. Don’t use frames if you don’t need them, and if you do use them, use them well- keep window resizings in mind, and set scroll=no for frames that aren’t supposed to scroll. Also be sure to use the <noframes> tag to provide a link to a frames-free version of the webpage for people who do not have frames-capable browsers.

A word on Javascript, Perlscript, Flash, Macromedia things: Everyone wants fireworks, for certain, but keep in mind two important points:
1. Does this animation/applet add to the content of the page, or is it just frufru?
2. Does it considerably increase the page download time? Also, don’t put anything on your first page that will prevent some browsers from seeing the page at all. A simple script isn’t going to be a problem, but a fully flash/java enabled page isn’t going to load in Lynx or Internet Explorer 2.0 at all.

A word on “Intro Pages”- if I can convince just one more person on earth not to use an intro page, I will die fulfilled. They waste time and space. Remember, your audience might not have the fastest network connection, and a spash screen with a neat logo and an ‘enter’ link does not add anything to your content- it doesn’t say anything.

Background images- keep them low-resolution, low-contrast… the prettiest background on earth is only another hassle if you can’t read the text! Remember, the person reading your site might have a different default text color than you do… I recommend setting the text color, even if you intend to leave it black, to avoid that kind of problem.

Okay, some web sites to look at:

http://cleftlands.cwru.edu
(Shameless of me- this is our website, but it shows pretty much what I look for in an SCA web site.)

http://sca.org/officers/epm/
We have a society Electronic Publications Manager now, this is his site, and probably a good place to keep abreast of any policy changes.

http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/
An online Web Design textbook from Yale- very informative, lots of pictures to show you what not to do as well as what to do.