Project: Website Content Review
The number of articles on the main website is approaching 500, so I felt it was time to review the situation. Here are some results, with particular focus on adverts and articles for/by members…
Summary
There's a significant amount of material on the website that could be deemed to be stale, or of historical interest only.
In particular:
- Only a small proportion of competition articles are still current,
- Most events articles refer to those in the past.
- A high proportion (74%) of adverts have expired and show a message that's only of interest to those who might potentially re-advertise.
Members' Articles & Adverts
Here's a breakdown of articles that represent information from:
- Our membership, or
- Paying advertisers.
Articles produced by the committee and other staff are not included here.
| Type | All | Active | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total: | 153 | 53 (35%) | All member and third-party related articles. |
| Adverts: | 50 | 13 (26%) | Paying customers; not freebies for members. |
| Competitions: | 40 | 3 ( 8%) | Non-NAWG organised. Not including adverts. |
| Events: | 24 | 2 ( 8%) | Non-NAWG organised. Not including adverts. |
| Books: | 32 | 29 (91%) | Non-NAWG published. Not including adverts. |
| Services: | 7 | 5 (71%) | Non-NAWG organised. Not including adverts. |
Active articles are ones that are deemed to be of current interest.
Inactive articles are things like:
- Adverts past their expiry date,
- Competitions that are now closed,
- Events that are now in the past,
- Services that have been discontinued,
- Articles from individuals or groups that are no longer members.
Article Retention Policy
To date, the article retention policy has been simply: never delete anything. In the light of this review, it may need to be reconsidered.
What do others think about this?
Bear in mind that deleting any article may have knock-on and side effects, such as:
-
Breaking links to the article:
- In other parts of our site,
- From other websites and social media,
- In correspondence, such as emails and letters,
- Invalidating printed material, both ours and others',
- Also deleting any comments associated with that article.
Other questions and things to consider:
- What should happen to a member's articles (and comments) when they leave NAWG?
-
Given the minimal usefulness of expired adverts, should we remove them?
- Perhaps after an agreed grace period?
- Should other kinds of articles have a finite lifetime?
- The staleness of articles may not be due only to their posting dates, but also as a consequence of newer material appearing too slowly. Should we be posting things more often?
-
If so, what kind of articles do we need more of?
- News?
- Regular things, e.g. putting our groups or individuals in the spotlight one-by-one?
- More writing resources, tips, etc?
- Other?
Ideas
- Introduce new categories, such as "competitions archive". Older articles can be moved to the archives so as not to clutter up the more current categories. This would retain information for historical interest, but hopefully not divert people's attention from current events.