Thoughts/opinions please

[Liz Goodyear]

Some of you will know that for the last 10 years I have been maintaining the Herts & Middx BC website. I have no intention of giving up but I would like some ideas.
http://www.hertsmiddx-butterflies.org.uk/index.php

The website has grown, the sightings page has a high visitor rate during the summer months and I believe it's appeal is that most contributions are as submitted, not edited or altered (Yes I do correct punctuation/spelling etc )

I don't have any technical knowledge, so I have learnt as I have gone along and I still work mostly in code. I believe in the eyes of a webdesigner it is quite antique in its presentation but for the type of interest group it works well.

Now I want either advice or thoughts - I JUST CAN'T HANDLE ANY MORE PHOTOS - I have just finished posting the photos sent to me at the end of the season and that took several hours. I just don't have that much spare time and I want to resolve this.

Thoughts are simple for me
1. I just don't accept anymore
2. I set up an online facility that people can just upload their photos but I don't have any experience of flickr or this type of site. Would it be easy to share with others.
3. Or should I direct them to UK Butterflies and put up a direct link
4. Finally just struggle on.

Liz

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi Liz,

I possibly know more than most UKB members just how much work you take on. I don’t know how you fit in being Secretary and chief organiser of the Herts & Middx BC branch, the branch website manager, the PE and WLH research among others, not to mention a family and a career.

Regarding the H&M website, I would not worry that it is considered outdated in appearance. I get the same type of grief (I use FrontPage – yes, I am the one person still using it), especially from my web designer son who thinks the site should be database driven and jokingly suggests that the outdated appearance of my site brings shame on the family. The simple fact is that the H&M site does what it needs to. Nobody (or at least no butterfly people) judges it on its appearance. Complex sites like UKB need the tools to manage and semi-automate the huge amount of content, which it clearly does extremely well.

Regarding the handling of photos: 1) the UK species photos, which can be considered a library-type resource, are covered very well elsewhere, in particular UKB which has a superb library of UK species in all stages. The BC national site has a good library as well. So I would keep the existing library (which is reasonably comprehensive) and just include links, rather than the time-consuming work of creating and maintaining a similar resource. 2) for non-UK species, where you have put in a lot of time building a library of photos, I would again simply provide links to other European sites such as Matt Rowlings’ which is the most comprehensive and is very easy to navigate. My link to Matt’s site asks “where else are you going to see an Agenjo's anomalous blue?”. 3) members UK photos, submitted throughout the season with records of their sightings. People naturally like to see their photos displayed but in truth it does not have much information or aesthetic value for other H&M members. I am sure no one would be disadvantaged if you announced that the site could no longer accept photos (maybe the reason could be given that the site had reached its capacity).

The consequence, and I feel it is more important than the rationale outlined above, is that it frees you up to continue the really important research into key species that has a major impact on conservation. The PE and WLH research (and maybe more in the future) are paramount and will have a lasting legacy.

Roger

[JohnR]

I like the Sussex site because there are signs of life and things change, the Surrey site has all the characteristics of a petrified dodo. All I want on a county butterfly site is a diary of forthcoming events, details of who does what, the county reserves, a good set of links, some guidance on starting out as a butterfly watcher or recorder, photos of the county's butterflies

AND THE SAME FOR THE MOTHS

John

[Pete Eeles]

Hi Liz - sounds like you've become a victim of your own success

First off, the website design looks fine to me and truly believe that most visitors are interested in content above aesthetics.

In terms of photos, I think there are a couple of more options that you might want to consider. These are both made on the assumption that recorders contribute their photos because they want them to be seen. In fact, I believe that this encourages not only the recorder to carry on recording (thanks to the kudos they get by having a photo published), but also encourages others to do the same. The inclusion of photos makes quite a difference, I believe, to the appeal of a sightings page, even though (as Roger rightly states) the image doesn't usually provide valuable information.

We had a similar problem in the Hampshire and IOW branch since it would take an age to resize photos, create both thumbnails as well as main images, and then incorporate these onto the sightings page. And so I sat down with Robin Turner (the webmaster) and eventually came up with a mechanism whereby:

a) recorders can submit their sightings in a form that results in the records going straight into a database.
b) recorders can add up to 3 photos to go along with their sighting, and these automatically get resized and thumbnails created.
c) the HTML code required by the sightings page is automatically created (including links to the images).
d) the information in the database can be automatically exported as a spreadsheet that can then be brought into MapMate.

I suggested such a mechanism to BC HQ over a year ago (that UKB would be happy to host) - for general purpose use by all branches, but it seems that there are aspirations for a nationwide recording mechanism (along the lines of Dutch BC) - although these have not yet come to fruition (and I'm not sure what plans there are) - and HQ didn't want to confuse recorders with an interim mechanism. I brought it up because I was frustrated at wandering around a certain patch on the Hants / Berks / Wiltshire border and having to visit 3 websites to send in my sightings!

Another option, if you have photoshop, is to use its facilities to take a bunch of photos and automatically create a "web photo gallery" that can then be posted on your website.

Another option, if you want it, is for me to create a county-specific gallery on UK Butterflies that recorders can upload their photos to (much as they would upload to Flickr). You then simply have to include a link to any image or gallery page.

Hope this helps! Happy to discuss on the phone if that's easier.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Liz Goodyear]

Thanks Peter et al for your thorough responses.

There is a lot to digest and I have forwarded the links to the person responsible for branch data entry for his thoughts. We were talking about this last night after a committee meeting so it is something we are looking into.

Incidentally I just noticed that the branch has only had one Mountain Ringlet photo submitted and that was by the great Nick Sampford nearly 10 years ago!

I will probably send a PM to you Pete but probably not until after the weekend. You will note that on some days I will be busy commenting /sending posts and then there is a break of a few days - work gets in the way!

Liz

[Jack Harrison]

Liz

Step 1 - does not involve webmaster. Photos could be uploaded by individuals to Photobucket (or Flickr or similar but I’m only familiar with Photobucket).

Photobucket: http://photobucket.com/

Step 2 - When they submit reports to you, if they wish to add a photo, then they simply include the link(s) to their masterpiece(s) as in this example:

http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac85 ... 1279900979

(sadly, not taken in Herts)

Jack

[millerd]

Not being clever enough (or perhaps just too lazy) to master the techniques of web-based photo galleries, I thought I'd comment on what attracts me to the various BC county webpages.

Firstly, I am a Herts/Middx member, and as Liz knows I am a regular contributor, both of text and photos relating to sightings in the area. I enjoy the other contributions, preferring the relaxed anecdotal style over bald lists of numbers and locations. If these tales are illustrated with photos of the heroes of the piece, so much the better.

I am consequentlyly attracted to similar sites: Sussex, Upper Thames and Hampshire come top, followed by Beds/Northants and Essex/Cambs. Many other county sites are just lists, or just there to facilitate on-line recording.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of a member: I am interested in identifying new locations to visit, and in seeing how things are doing in the ones I already know. Maybe I don't strictly need to see the photos (unless it is something out of the ordinary), but they enhance the appearance of the site no end.

(As an aside, on UKB I rarely click the links to web-based photos, and find myself skimming the text with them - in complete contrast to the posts with photos on the page. Very superficial, I know...)

But I think we should look at the attractiveness of a site to non-member visitors, the casual browser, the people whose search engine has thrown up the page. Liz says that visitor numbers understandably peak in the summer, and that they are becoming gratifyingly large. I would guess that most "hits" come into the casual category. I suspect that many, however, will be repeat visitors, attracted back by the quality and feel of a site that has the combination described above - a mix of informative but readable text and good photos to match. Lose that, and I bet the visitor numbers would drop.

Dave

[Paul Wetton]

Hi Liz

If your web host provides a php web gallery it should give instructions on how to set it up then trusted members can have a login name and password and add photos as thet do on UKB. Your webmaster would have administrative rights and be able to select who is allowed to add photos etc. Not sure if this is any help but one such php utility is called coppermine photo gallery which I've used in the past.

These type of galleries are simple to use once set up as all you are required to do is add the photos to a folder almost like drag and drop.

Good luck.

[Charles Nicol]

Hi Liz

I have tried photobucket & flickr & have found flickr much easier to work with... it is easy to set up groups for your butterfly pics:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/405621@N25/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/456299@N23/

which can then be linked to from your website

Charles