Tuscan Challenge Official Website

[TVRSH]

Owen - the official website, apart from an up-date on 2010 races, is badly out-dated in many respects. With less than 4 weeks to go to our first 2010 race, can you advise how we may at least up-date driver profiles to reflect the reality of who will be racing in 2010 - i.e. driver profiles!

[Phil Dicky]

Richard, Nick is you man for the web site.

[forgeracing]

Guys, Owen PAID for the site and does not have direct contact with the people who run it as far as I know, your questions would be better directed to JR!!
Regards
Sam

[Phil Dicky]

forgeracing said:

better directed to JR!!

Don't think JR is the man to contact about the web site etc , as i said Nick is your man.

Hows tricks Sam, you out at Cadwell?

Edited by Phil Dicky on Thursday 18th March 20:30

[450Nick]

No I'm not your man! I have no access of any kind to the website. My job was supposed to be providing updates which I did until the web designer stopped doing anything about putting them online. I have since had nothing to do with it.. I said I'm happy to help out with any new efforts but thus far nothing has come together. Bit of a pain in the arse but it needs quite a bit of work..

[TVRSH]

Oh dear - looks like we have a sleeping web-site! So who put the 2010 race dates and venues on it?

[450Nick]

As far as I know, the only person with any access to the site is the web designer. And last time I heard he wasn't responding to emails so it all ground to a hault. I think he knows JR though somehow so JR must have asked him to at least stick the new race dates up there.

Really the current web guy needs to be shown the door and his website needs a complete re-write. This time sticking to the original design brief which was to give access and some degree of control to a small group of people who can update it. I know Graham has a plan to make a new site, and as I said previously I am happy to help out and help maintain the site, but its a lot of work, and I think with a job, a life and building a race car in any spare time it leaves little spare time to dedicate to the website - even though one really is needed. Original talk was to get a least a holding page up before the start of the season with the 2010 dates and promise of a new website but I don't think the web address has been recovered yet from current web guy. Its a right PITA!

Edited by 450Nick on Friday 19th March 09:24

[Graham]

Its got to be the chap JR got to host it, He's the only one with access.

I do have some plans, but they require a reasonable amount of setup time, which i don't have at the moment. Once that setup was done we could have multiple people with update rights. leaving it to one person is never very fair or conducive to regular updates.

I could get something simple setup which at least has the correct dates, and some upto date info, but thats probably it until may, when i could sort a cms version... which for now isnt much improvement, although I could stick it somewhere that a few of us could hand code changes.


What do folks want to see on the site..

Im assuming


Calendar
Results
Driver/ team profiles
regulations
circuit guides
car guides
sales section
race reports
photo galleries
fastest laps
etc
etc

[grumpy bear]

I know George Carter and I are happy to provide images and I along with maybe others can provide fairly simple race reports as I have done a couple for Sprint.

We discussed a driver profile improvement and a static car and mugshot at the early part of last year. This should be easy to achieve if we had a full list of who is entered in the series. We could even add a few driver interviews. The many hands approach has got to be the way to go, it's sad to see an inactive site.

Can we at least wrestle the domain name from the current holder?

A freewebs site would be better than what's on there now.

Mal

Edited by grumpy bear on Friday 19th March 14:41

[Graham]

hosting is no problem, im sure i can find a spare server

the name is registered to Owen, so that can be sorted.

Its just some time needed, and a clear idea of what we want to put up there..

[GeorgeC]

I am happy to help out with the website. Having done one or two before I know that the struggle is always getting content. When I was looking after a regional site I would get words and sometimes pictures sent which always required formatting and resizing. The problem is it is only a few that contribute and a load of others that complain when its not up to date. Like any voluntary enterprise a lack of support saps the will to carry on. The best way is to have a few people with responsibility for small parts of the site within an agreed 'corporate' look and feel. It can be set up so that it only requires basic word processing skills to post things like news and calendar entries.

[Obiwonkeyblokey]

Hi Guys

as mentioned above. I only paid for the site and have been pulling my hair out since trying to get the thing updated. Nicks points are correct about the web guy not letting nick update it. you need to address your concerns to JR, as at the end of the day its his series and frankly he should be chasing on your behalf. i own the domain so will comply with whatever needs to be done.

best of luck for the season.

[Graham]

hi, owen


how did you get on with the marcos

[TVRSH]

Graham: as TVRCC Competition Secretary, could you perhaps suggest to John Reid that he "kicks ass" to release the official Challenge website to those who are willing to resurrect it - I include myself as someone who is prepared to become a regular contributor?
Richard

[Obiwonkeyblokey]

Graham said:

hi, owen


how did you get on with the marcos

hi graham. we got 3rd in class, 26 secs off first and we had to stop for a puncture so we could have won.

[Graham]

richard hi, getting the url isn't the major issue, there are a number of ways to do that.

im more concerned we have a proper plan of what we want to put up, and then a sustainable framework to keep it uptodate.

[TVRSH]

Graham - understood, but "from little acorns....." I just think it would be good to resume the website in its current, or even more basic, form sooner rather than later, but as you say have an agreed plan as to where we want to take it. Your list above looks good, but how realistic would it be to create it before say the second race at Snett? I suspect that maintaining it thereafter by an approved group would be relatively straightforward.

[Phil Dicky]

450Nick said:

No I'm not your man!

Opps sorry Nick

[TVRleigh_BBWR]

Any new on this.

[grumpy bear]

George is working with John R to get the code from the current website organisation. He holds and pays for the domain and the hosting so we are a little in his hands as far as this is concerned. Most of the images and profile information is ready to go so it should be soonish.I will keep you all posted when we have something ready to go.