Re: National's Web Site (LONG)
(no name) ((no email))
Thu, 11 Jul 1996 13:39:50 -0500
Ron Fox wrote:
>Can anyone supply specifics about this litigation?
The BSA are parties into three pending cases all dealing with female
youth membership. They are trying to get all three cases dealt with
out-of-court.
>>>No recognition that few males over the age of
>>>about 12 care to be referred to as a "boy".
>
>No one responded to this.
I started to, but I turned around. I'll have to response to this
in a future posting.
With regard to the content:
>1) Where has the BSA informed it's members of this? Or, has it only
> told this to the Councils, and not to it's own members?
I don't believe that the BSA has really publicized the new website to
our membership *officially*, so I don't have a official answer.
Unofficially however, the website is designed to be a "demonstration"
for local Council executives and their volunteers (actually, to "shut
us all up" for a while).
>2) Regardless of BSA's intent, the site is open to the public and will
> be viewed by a number of potential members, both youth and adults.
> The site should be structured with that in mind.
Agreed. It is structured with that in mind. It gives information about
the programs of the BSA, how to join and what to expect. No
"razzle-dazzle", no high-tech stuff...just the "facts" (even if they omit
part of the factual information to keep some parties calm).
>Chaplain Morrison agreed with me here. Cheryl Singhal wrote:
>
>>These pages I rather think of as flyers in the library: here's the basic
>>info and a contact point.
>
>>Of course, if I were putting up a page purporting to be, say, a calendar
>>of coming events, or if I were sharing time-sensitive or even timely
>>material, that's a different question. As is the link that says "For the
>>Latest on this, _click here_" and the "click here" was last updated a
>>year ago. <G>
>
>The latter paragraph is my point. If you've got a link marked,
>"What's New", it ought to be something new. Scouting has enough
>of an image problem with being boring, etc., without adding to
>it on the fastest moving and most "with it" environment on the
>planet.
Again, I agree with you as well here, Ron. It should be updated on a
more often timeframe, but again, the emphasis has been on getting
the page OUT THERE first, and then to come back to work it better
later.
Kinda like those "under contruction" signs on lots of pages.
>True, you will find that in "Scouting" and "Boys' Life". However,
>non-members generally don't get these.
Sure they do. They get them in the public libraries or in the
school library. This has been a great additional recruiting tool for
the BSA!!
> Regardless of what National's
>purpose for this site is, it's available to the public and should
>present an appropriate face to the public.
I can say the same thing for a lot of X-rated web pages and some
pages with what I feel are "questionable content". But that's up
to the "publisher" of the pages, isn't it? Lots of college students
developing their first pages don't really care about "the public"
reading their pages once they find it.....the only people he or she
developed the pages for are for their friends.
About typos:
>Sorry Mike, but I disagree with you here. This is a corporate site,
>not a personal one, and was crafted by a professional service for
>the BSA (or so I understand, anyway, I don't know this first hand).
>It should be both literally and figuratively letter-perfect, or we
>didn't get our money's worth (note the use of WE and OUR, not "the
>BSA's").
It was a professional service that crafted the pages, and no we didn't
get our money's worth with it, I agree!!
About numbers of online Scouters:
>True, the number is small, but they're distributed. If a large number
>of units have one or two people with access to the net, many more than
>5% or 8% of units will benefit, much as many units benefit because
>each one seems to have a guy with a truck, and one adult who is a
>carpenter, and another who can teach the Scouts to fish, etc., etc.,
>and will help out other units who don't have someone like this.
But there will definately be a new "us-them" perception: the ones with
the computer(s) will be the "haves" and will have access to the BSA
information and may not be willing to share it with the "nots" that don't.
We see this now with PRINTED materials, which in part has brought many
of us here to this forum.
>What you do, is answer the question that came up that caused you to
>download the document to begin with, and then keep it around until
>the next question comes up. Now, you're right, having the printed
>document around is great, and has many advantages, but having the
>document on my hard disk is much better than having neither hard-copy
>nor disk copy.
>
>I'm not naive regarding the "control" issue, but there's a lot of
>basic information that could be placed out there.
Like?
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