How far to take interactivity?

[mossj]

I've started the redesign of the schools site got the template done got the menus working, etc.

 

But now i've been giving free reign over the content of the site and how it develops, I've already decided on a few things but how far would you take interactivity.....

 

so far I've decided on...

- Full commenting on news items (yes, even unregistered)

 

- Shared area type thing for logged in (staff/students), I know its limited to space but seems like a good idea.

 

- E-areas small limited folders hosted internally that can feature a website or some files just like the area i had at uni (limited to yr10+ due to copyright)

 

Features i've wrote off...

- Chat too bandwidth and server heavy, and just not needed at all.

 

Was wondering if you guys have considered any other features or wrote off anything?

[fernt]

Full commenting on news items (yes, even unregistered)

This is something that we're keen on having on our new website, but I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning behind allowing unregistered commenting. Will you be approving comments before they're published?

[mossj]

Reson behind it is that the currently the website has no users and we want to involve the community & parents without forcing them to register.

 

Commenting/rating is rarely abused as people think it will be, and I think showing this trust in even in unregistered users will result in a larger community using the site.

 

I will be keeping a close eye on it, as will other members of staff but i won't be checking every post.

 

DMU did a study last last year on a simular principle....

DMU started a project allowing anyone (registered or not) to edit a story type article on there website (edit, as in do anything include wipe the thing), everyone thought it would just go drasticly wrong when some immature person deletes it all at the last minute. Yet nothing was abused, it wasn't deleted, it was a suprising success. So im hoping to apply the same here.

[fernt]

Just coming back to this one after a while...

 

What extension are you using for the commenting? I've not been too impressed with the free ones I've come across so far, so I was wondering what people's experiences were with the commercial Jom Comment.

 

Any other ideas for interactivity mossj? I'm going to try and persuade the school to enter the world of Twitter and YouTube, both of which I can integrate into the website, but I'm not too optimistic that the governors will say yes...

[Hacksawbob]

we use radiowaves for the blog like stuff everything get approved first. class | Radiowaves

SMT were twitchy about letting staff edit the website. You must have some pretty forward thinking employers!!

[mossj]

I choose chrono comments for the commenting with a bit of hacking its add free and you can change the avatar image (ninja msn people not really good for a school site)

 

Most teachers in the school now use wordpress for blogging and they really love it (most are addicts), and they all have RSS feeds so you can use there posts (and a rss feed extention) to generate news for there departments/subjects. Thus not kicking them off a technology they are already used to.

Edited March 19, 2009 by mossj

[mossj]

we use radiowaves for the blog like stuff everything get approved first. class | Radiowaves

SMT were twitchy about letting staff edit the website. You must have some pretty forward thinking employers!!

 

With Joomla giving staff Author accounts lets them submit articles that you/a publisher then have to approve before they go 'live'

 

Editors is a author but they can edit any article (spelling mistakes mostly), it then has to go back to you for approval *again*

 

Publishers like editors but they can see unpublished items and then publish them, they can also create articles without approval (when you log in to the front end you are a publisher)

Edited March 19, 2009 by mossj