Suggestions for theshortspan front page

[Dave Flanagan]

I accidently overwrote the front page of theshortspan so am going to redo it, does anyone have any suggestions on what should do? Is embedding the blog a good idea, does anyone know a neater way to do this?
Should I include a list of the most recents posts on here?

[Barry]

Hey Dave,

Blog roll is good, particularly when you use it for your new finds, videos and the sort but all this might be better as news. In that way, others can also contribute items which would be moderated and also new/newsworthy, e.g second ascents and grade confirmation. Also there are a loads of videos coming through, possibly some kind of link in there, bit like ukclimbing, and again moderated.  You could just link to them and not have to worry about storage.

Few ideas, take them or leave them but well done on the refit, it's looking good.
Barry

[diarmuid smyth]

Probably obvious but I reckon at this stage the guide doesn't need to have such a dominant a position on the page.

[Stephen McMullan]

Dave, I think the content on your main page is great. Unfortunately the layout makes my eyes bleed. I know I'm not exactly winning any design awards myself. The two column thing doesn't do it for me. If I were tasked with the job I'd look into what Wordpress would give me out of the box so to speak. Never used Wordpress myself but from what I've read it could suit the "theme" of TheShortSpan. I've seen some very nice sites produced with it. Hopefully that doesn't cause any offence cos really none is intended. All the best and keep up the good work.

S

[trish fox]

I reckon a link to your blog is a better look for the page, embedding it on the homepage makes everything look over-cluttered.

If there are any outstanding finds/videos/posts, then a direct link to them would be good, but feeding your blog into the shortspan homepage looks messy.

Your blog is a major asset to the bouldering scene, so too is the Shortspan - I think both will still be visited and therefore need not be fed into each other. A good method of ensuring hits and traffic is to link both sites (when updated) to Facebook - G'wan Dave - you know you have to open an account!!!

Trish

[Dave Flanagan]

Thanks for the feedback all.

Barry. Defo have a blogroll for irish bouldering bloggers. When are you getting one?

Diarmuid. That index I uploaded was an old one from when the guide was new, that's why it was so prominent. Nearly all sold anyway.

Stephen. Yeah it's a mess. Will look into Wordpress. The crux is I want to be able to news post nice and quickly and I want to be able to do my own, more personal blog post but I don't want to do two blogs. No offence taken don't worry.

Trish. Not sure about facebook, I think it has jumped the shark anway.

[Kevin K]

Personally I think your blog is great. Loads of content, both international and local. Layout is nice and simple.
I don't like the layout of the Short Span because of the two columns as Stephen mentioned.

[trish fox]

Yeah, loads of people say Facebook has dropped in popularity and people say they don't check it anymore and so on - but they do and for my money, the Irish climbing scene thrives on Facebook. Almost 100% of the climbing news/photos/events that I come across is through Facebook.

That's just the reality.

Maybe I'll make myself in charge of posting your interesting blog posts up on FB!!!!

And yeah Barry!, When are we gonna see a Cork based blog!!!!!!!

[Dave Flanagan]

... the Irish climbing scene thrives on Facebook. Almost 100% of the climbing news/photos/events that I come across is through Facebook.

I must be missing out on a lot of stuff then. The problem with FB is that you have to opt in/be friends with the person posting something.  It's not very inclusive the way reading a normal page is. Well I would ask that if someone comes across anything interesting bouldering ireland related that they post up here as well.

[diarmuid smyth]

Facebook works as a platform for everything going on in irish climbing to all come together in one stream along with all the other social crap in your life. With regards bouldering it's generally just links to events, blog articles and videos, all of which you will already have linked to on your blog (or upcoming blog roll) or site anyway.

Where you might be losing out is the easy casual commentary that goes on (also the easy uploading of images). Personally I'm principally seeing this on Steve's Irish climbers facebook group which would be both boulderers and climbers but it also goes on between climber Friends on facebook. Hopefully the new forum will enable a similar level of casual commentary to flourish on theshortspan. To that end ukb's video and pic threads are probably pretty effective.

[Dave Flanagan]

I have updated the index page if people could comment on it.
Does anyone know a neat way to do the latest post blog and most recents post thing? Ahem Stephen?

[Stephen McMullan]

Email on its way 

[Kevin_Griffin]

Hi Dave,
Good job can you change message board link from old board to www.theshortspan.com/smf.
I prefer your blog on front, no need to check two different sites and the main page can be static for quite a while if nothing is going on at least the blog keeps it fresh.
Kev.

[Dave Flanagan]

Fixed that I think Kev.

I have updated the front page again.

It shows the 5 most recents post from this forum and the 5 most recently updated Irish bouldering blogs. I have the following blogs added

thatguythateatsstuff
ricky bell
richardcreagh
Pedronaut
No Feet Climbing
Neal's Blog
Motivated Squirrel
Dave
Damien O Sullivan
Colm Land
Bouldering Ireland
Bouldering

Trish wins the award for most vague name. If anyone else knows of any blogs that should (I think we should be a bit flexible about subject matter ie. Peds) be added post up.

The way I'm going to work is that the newsy stuff that used to go on my blog will go there and I will create a thread for each post so people can comment. And my blog will stick to the more personal stuff.

[Stephen McMullan]

Steve's Irish climbers facebook group

Jesus. I'm so wishing its not seen as that. Unfortunately someone had to set it up. I was hoping it was the antidote to climbing.ie. No ads, no moderation etc. Just a collection of climbers. Hoping they would forget or not even think about its origin. Friends inviting/adding friends. And the great thing is that anything posted becomes the problem of Facebook and the poster and not me