Web site specificity: opinions?
From: Greg Nelson (ghnmercury.pgt.com)
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 11:28:51 -0800 (PST)
There has been a perennial debate in our community.  Drawn in the most
extreme terms: some want a minimal web site which just gives people
contact information and gets them to talk to us in person; others want
a maximal web site with pages about everything anyone could ever want
to know about us.

We have brought up a new web site for our community that everyone
agrees looks lovely, but it moves toward the minimal in content.  At
the most recent meeting, a visitor who might be interested in
membership observed that she had seen both the old and the new web
sites.  The old web site had lots of detailed information about
policies; the new web site has much less of this.  In her opinion, she
wouldn't have even bothered contacting us if she didn't already have
some information about our policies.  (Hearing this, two other
prospective members jumped in and agreed.)

Our web committee has mixed feelings now.  Keeping more information on
the web makes it harder to maintain (as policies or other information
changes) and potentially makes the site harder to navigate, less
streamlined, less "pretty", etc.  On the other hand, if we fail to
reach out to interested parties because they can't find out enough
from our web site, then is the web site really doing its job?

Can anyone offer their own experiences of either (a) what has worked
best for your community or (b) what you would be looking for as a
prospective resident?

Thank you,
Greg Nelson                     email:  terramantra [at] gmail.com
White Hawk Ecovillage           phone:  607-273-2576
Ithaca, NY 14850                web:    www.whitehawk.org

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