Far too many Lib Dem Constituency branches are dependent on the ‘Build Your Own Cookie Cutter LD Site’ package made by Prater Raines. It seems extremely popular amongst Consituency Branches, but for the life of me I can’t understand why.
Stuart Sharpe accidently stumbled across one of these sites looking for his local Lib Dem Party and was crushingly disappointed by what he found.
The message is simple: This is worse than doing nothing online at all.
From a design and technology point of view, these sites are woefully out of date and very ’Web 1.0′ – no user generated content, no interactivity – just flat, boring info dump (and sometimes not even that – they don’t even keep them up to date properly)
Where’s the big call to action to get people’s email addresses? Where’s the links to their Facebook profile, or their Twitter feed? Where’s the blog? Where’s the Flikr gallery that shows before and after photographs? Where’s the Youtube channel?
Being ‘online’ isn’t just about having a website. It’s about using whatever means open to you to communicate and engage with whoever wants to listen. The benefits are simple: People who seek you out on the internet are going to be a lot more open to you than people who’ve had a Focus leaflet shoved through their door. Recruitment, fundraising… these are all things made easier by giving people a no-committment way of engaging with you, getting used to you and – if you’re doing it right – be impressed by you.
Remember, people are looking at your online activity to discover what they think about you. They’re also finding out what you think about them.
Consider: Top story on Derby’s website: Public Toilets, posted 15th of December, 2008. What that says is the Derby thinks that people who look at their website aren’t remotely important, and they couldn’t care less. That’s what it says. What is a visitor, like Stuart Sharpe, who might be open to voting Lib Dem in that constituency as an ‘anti Labour’ vote supposed to think? He’s going to (and did) think that the Derby Lib Dems were a bunch of idiots.
It’s not good enough.
Training for good use of online activity should be something every PPC should get. They should also be given help, and resouces and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD will SOMEONE please buy Cowley Street a WordPress MU setup with a standardised Template for Lib Dem Constituency Branches and fund a techie to run it and make central funding of election campaigns dependent on having someone keep their online activities up to date and fresh.
Prater Raines either needs to improve their game or they need some serious competition, because at this point many of these cookie-cutter sites are doing more harm than good.
Jennie said...
3 May 09 at 3:34 pm
* applause and whistling *
Oh, THIS is what I have been trying to say all lunchtime. Thank you. I love you.
Darrell said...
3 May 09 at 3:40 pm
You know I agree with this but the reason why is simple; they take astoundingly little effort…except, of course, when you are trying to do something that the template doesnt allow for, then heaven help you….
Colin Ross said...
3 May 09 at 3:46 pm
Surely it is Derby Lib Dema at fault here not Prater Raines. It is Derby’s responsibility to update the site.
We in Wolverhampton use a Prater Raones site – http://www.wolverhamptonlibdems.org.uk and whilst it may not be fantastic we keep it up to date and are increasing our views and readership.
For a local party like mine, and I assume most local parties, Prater Raines is the best on the market for our limited webskills and our current needs.
Colin
Stu said...
3 May 09 at 3:57 pm
Yep. That just about sums up what I was getting at. “This is worse than doing nothing online at all” is the take away message. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be expensive, or flashy, or even particularly interesting – it just has to look like someone gives a damn about it. And, as you say, it should provide a call to action and some reasonable way to get involved, or at least find out more.
Making it easy for the PPCs would be a good start, but they still need the ‘engaged’ mindset. That’s hard to teach.
Liberal Neil said...
3 May 09 at 3:58 pm
Prater Raines sites are as popular as they are because they provide a reasonabl looking basic website at a very reasonable price.
They are set up so that they are dead easy to use by people with basic IT skills (the vast majority of activists).
They also have a range of interactive tools that can be used by those inclined to use them.
If sites are not being updated, or the Local Party concerned is not using the available tools, that’s their fault, not Prater-Raines.
You are right to suggest that many of our PPCs and activists need better skills in using the world wide interweb thingy for campaigning, but we also have to be realistic that most of them are extremly busy and do not always have time to learn much new stuff.
As it happens, some of the best training I have been to is that run by Tim Prater on how to get more out of his sites. Good basic ideas put over in plain English.
The websites used in my patch are not brilliant, but they do the baic job, and in recent months we have been getting a regular trickle of offers of help through them. So something must be working.
Charlotte Gore said...
3 May 09 at 4:07 pm
Hi Colin,
You’re not wrong – they could at least have kept it up to date.
This is why I said Prater Raines needs competition, because either someone will produce a better service for Lib Dems to run online sites, or Prater Raines will be forced to pick up their game a bit.
I think I need to go investigate this in a bit more depth.. see if I can’t offer something better for less myself
Charlotte Gore said...
3 May 09 at 4:19 pm
Hmm I should stress that there are two issues here: Derby not really ‘getting’ online engagement and the quality of the site-in-a-box sites. They look 10 years out of date – not as important as the lack of updating – but in many respects they’re making it more difficult for those who’ve got the Prater Raines package to broaden their online activities.
ayld said...
3 May 09 at 5:01 pm
The fact that each one of these excuses for sites gobbles up the equivalent of 2 people’s annual subscriptions per month every year sickens me.
At least there is some movement in providers like http://www.lib-dems.net, who sadly use Prater Raines as an excuse to increase the prices of their (cheaper to run and syndicate) joomla-based cms sites. But until the training is there then PR will remain the default option…
Costigan Quist said...
3 May 09 at 5:55 pm
As Neil says, there are two totally different issues.
The Prater-Raines sites are good at what they do: they allow activists with limited IT skills to produce decent political sites.
Why is Prater-Raines better than, say, Joomla for that purpose? Because the modules and add-ons are politically oriented so, with a couple of clicks, you can pull in a feed of national Lib Dem stories, or any of a hundred or so other pre-defined political feeds. You can add a petition, an email sign-up, even a bulletin board, without much trouble. You can link into petitions and campaigns, or liberty research polls. You can link into Facebook.
But that’s totally different from the other issue: whether sites are kept up to date.
Now I actually disagree with you a bit on this one: a straight-forward news site without the Web 2.0 interactivity stuff is much better than no website at all if it’s kept up to date.
And Web 2.0 bells and whistles are terrible if they’re just up to look cool and don’t contribute to the campaigning.
Should you, Charlotte, be setting up Prater-Raines sites? No, of course not. You develop iPhone apps. You want something more complicated, with more flexibility.
Should local parties with less IT expertise be using Prater-Raines? As long as they can update it on a regular basis, yes definitely.
Charlotte Gore said...
3 May 09 at 6:04 pm
Hmm you’re not disagreeing with me there. I completely agree with that! But kept up to date is crucial.
Costigan Quist said...
3 May 09 at 6:08 pm
Damn. Going to have to find something else to disagree about, then. Um….what’s your opinion on the use of divs rather than tables? Are tables ever OK these days?
Paul Ankers said...
3 May 09 at 6:13 pm
Frankly MPs offices and local parties with organisers should have someone with some IT knowledge nowadays.
Keeping content up to date is crucial and also it needs to be varied. Take Manchester, 33 Councillors but do we really get stories throughout the city? Admittedly, I must be culpable in some way for this. That we run Derby and arent crowing about our achievements online is a worry.
Charlotte Gore said...
3 May 09 at 6:14 pm
Tables are good for data and actual tables, but from an accessibility point of view – using content on different browsers, screen readers, mobile – semantic CSS markup is the absolute only way to go. Table based layouts are evil to maintain and update and are supposed to have died out 5 years ago.
This is one of the problems I have with the PR websites as they are – the design is a function of their table based layouts. Better than nothing if kept up to date, but could be *significantly* better.
Darrell said...
3 May 09 at 6:17 pm
Paul,
I really could not agree more!!! Lmao! (spokesperson for ‘pay the Hyde Park one’)
Stu said...
3 May 09 at 6:24 pm
Careful Charlotte, you don’t want to become a CSS Troll…
Costigan, you seem to be fairly damning about Web 2.0, but it’s there that the solution lies, surely. The number of services you can have for free – for FREE nowadays is amazing and blows anything on that Derby site out of the water. Between WordPress, YouTube, Twitter, Flikr and Facebook you’ve got 90% of what’s needed without paying a penny. What PPCs need is some help and instruction on what’s out there, and a change in attitude towards actually using it. Yeah, it has to be kept up to date, but in order for that to happen it has to be really easy and really cheap to keep it up to date.
It also wouldn’t hurt for Lib Dem HQ to actually, you know, provide some materials and help to get them started, of course…
Charlotte Gore said...
3 May 09 at 6:32 pm
Pfft, never. But, seriously, doing anything to a site that’s been built in full tables is complete hell – especially if some of those tables and rows are generated in the back end.
And To be honest as a Javascript programmer who manipulates page layout on the fly using CSS, and who finds herself rendered helpless and powerless by table based layouts, I have a special issue with tables.
Other than that though, tables are great!
Jeremy Hargreaves said...
3 May 09 at 6:35 pm
I think you’re wrong about this. PR aim to provide a good basic site to local parties and others who simply don’t want to spend very much time and effort on their website. They got a lot of local parties using them because they do do that, and are good at knowing what they want, and providing support to them. They do do more advanced sites too, but that simply isn’t what many local parties want. I’m not saying they can’t be improved, but I do get the impression that PR are usually pretty open to responding to requests for new functionality (though I don’t use them for my own site).
But hey, if you think you can do better, good luck to you! I do think that providing this kind of product to these customers is more tricky than it looks, though.
Kieran Leach said...
3 May 09 at 6:37 pm
I’ve been wondering why Prater Raines still rules for a while now, but I’d disagree about the need for any truly centralised system. A few good wordpress templates, twenty quid a year at most for domain and CSS control and a website is instantly in hand. A pdf tutorial or screencast could demonstrate how to set such a thing up easily to all but the least tech savvy in the party, and if a local party can’t find anyone to do it I’d be amazed.
MatGB said...
3 May 09 at 6:40 pm
I’ve done most of the investigation, but I’ve never got around to trying to set up. There’s demand (I have an MP interested already), but I think I need to work with someone.
But I agree completely. And Neil’s defence of PRAI is straight out of the standard response to criticism of them that was true 5 years ago but isn’t now.
Wordpress and Joomla would both be better options today, but neither really existed when PRAI set up. Lack of knowledge is an issue, and lack of promotion of the alternatives. There are many in the party who think like this, but no one has actually done something. Yet.
I mean, I would, but I’m good at frontend and training but crap at the more technical side—give me a template to install and I can do it, but build a decent looking template? Not something I’m any good at.
Stu said...
3 May 09 at 6:54 pm
“doing anything to a site that’s been built in full tables is complete hell – especially if some of those tables and rows are generated in the back end.”
++! Don’t imagine for a second that I’m not a CSS Troll
I have to write email newsletters a lot and GMail can’t seem to cope with CSS positioning so I’m a bit stuck with updating a table-based layout and it sucks 
Jeremy Hargreaves, theres two key sentences in your post – the first is “I don’t use them for my own site”. Ask yourself why.
The second is “to local parties and others who simply don’t want to spend very much time and effort on their website.” For this, I read ‘those who simply don’t care about being elected’. It’s a bit like trying to sell a product but not wanting to put any time, effort or funding into marketing it. Nobody will sympathise if you don’t get any sales.
MatGB said...
3 May 09 at 7:03 pm
I agree with Stu completely on his last point. Maybe five/ten years ago it didn’t really matter whether you have an online presence that’s worth it, but now it really really does.
Stu, the problem really is that the Lib Dems are very much a party of volunteers. Most of those volunteers have been doing so for, well, years. Leafletting works, it’s a good campaigning technique, it’s what they know.
Trying to persuade them that you need more than that is, at times, terrible. Both our local PPCs (I live in the next town to Charlotte) are on board with the idea of a web presence. But one of them (who lives down the road from Charlotte) can barely manage to attach a picture to an email.
The other works part time, has a family to look after, is a town Cllr and has to squeeze in being a PPC with a lot of other stuff. So she sends me her press releases and letters and, theoretically, I put them online fairly quickly.
She’s the only one in the local party that actually sends me stuff to do. Because most are still stuck in the mindset of the time before the web became mainstream. Which, let’s face it, wasn’t that long ago.
So I understand why and how it is like it is. But I also want to try and change it. But doing so is very hard work, because most of the volunteers are retirees or similar, well meaning, but completely out of touch.
Maybe I should get them to talk to the grand-kids about where they get their information from.
(Oh, how much would a reseller need to be paying your lot for a server that supports WordPress MU?)
Liberal Neil said...
3 May 09 at 7:16 pm
I don’t disagree that it would be a good thing for there to be some competition.
In fact if it is as easy as some of you suggest to provide cheap, more effective, more easily useable local party websites, then get on with it!
The reson the ‘standard response’ in defence of PR sites remains the same is because, well, it remains the same …
Anton Howes said...
3 May 09 at 8:03 pm
Good points made in the post.
Why not just use WordPress for free? Hec, I just made one right now and I love the thing… it’ll be replacing our blogger one and probably even our forum – perhaps most importantly, it looks very professional.
It astounds me how much organisations, political parties included waste money on this kind of thing when there’s so much free stuff to use!
It literally took me less than half an hour to pick a design, set up links, etc. and then sorted! Now just a matter of inviting people to contribute posts.
(have linked to it in my name).
Chris Black said...
3 May 09 at 8:08 pm
We update ours every day…. we certainly find it worthwhile.
Ed said...
3 May 09 at 9:32 pm
What Liberal Neil says is 100% correct. It would be great if local parties all had the time and the technical resources to have a whizzy interactive web site but Prater Raines are not the right target to attack if they dont.
There is a calculation to be made by all campaigns about the return (in terms of votes) on every hour of effort put in to any activity.
It is also fair to say that a basic web site will satisfy the needs of 95% of campaigns since 99.9% of the population will not be looking for anything more complicated (and only 5% of local parties need to be chasing that last 1% of the electorate…)
There is one other point that is worth mentioning – Prater Raines’ fantastic customer relations. If I have a question about my web site, I email Tim and he answers it quickly and clearly and without patronising me no matter how inane the question is (or how many times Ive asked it before and forgotten the answer). Oh yes and I know him personally. I dont know Mr WordPress or Mr Blogger or Mr Microsoft…
(My Prater Raines web site has a link to my facebook page, video and google maps.)
Colin Ross said...
3 May 09 at 10:15 pm
Wow I am impressed at the number of responses not least because it’s been a nice day ad instead of talking about how websites can win votes I have been out campaigning and winning votes!
Prater Raines may need competition but using Derby’s lack of updating is the wrong argument, would a different website provider actually have had Derby Lib Dems update their website any better or more frequently? No of course not.
If someone can produce something that we in Wolverhampton could update without the webskills that some of the people commenting clearly have and think many local parties have then we would look at it – but no one has come up with another a product have they?
Colin
Matt Wardman said...
3 May 09 at 10:22 pm
How does the model work?
There are political providers out there who could do e.g., WordPress Multi User very competitively.
Laurence Boyce said...
4 May 09 at 1:57 am
Does no-one use Drupal any more? (I don’t know what I’m talking about, by the way.)
Hywel said...
4 May 09 at 10:28 pm
The flaw in this article is – as many have pointed out – that it references the Derby site. Frankly if you don’t update it for months then it doesn’t matter what package your using.
If you look at http://www.joswinson.com or http://www.prater.org.uk/index.html
and compare it to the checklist:
Where’s the big call to action to get people’s email addresses?
It’s there – could be more prominent
Where’s the links to their Facebook profile, or their Twitter feed? FB present on both, Twitter on Tims
Where’s the blog?
I don’t think either run one
Where’s the Flikr gallery that shows before and after photographs?
Not obviously present – but there is quite a bit of good functionality in PR sites that gives you access to stock images.
Where’s the Youtube channel?
YouTube videos on Jo’s website
So all the things you suggest can be handled on a PR site.
I have much the same view towards P-R as I do towards EARS. Perfect it isn’t, however it does a job an in particular avoids the “website run by the techie person which all falls apart when they move” problem.
PR sites were launched when CMS systems were in their infancy so I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t now an alternative solution.
Nothing is stopping someone from setting up a business offering such services to people – after all that’s what Tim did a few years ago. But if it was as easy as some people suggest I think, like alternatives to EARS, it would have happened before now.
Charlotte Gore said...
4 May 09 at 11:19 pm
Well the problem is running such a business in a way that’s profitable but also affordable for the branches – bearing in mind that P-R already has a large part of the ‘market’ such as it is.
And again, nothing you can offer other than a very very expensive service will fix the problem of unengaged branches that don’t care about the internet.
… Which I can understand. I live in such an area, where resources taken away from traditional street campaigning are viewed as a waste of time, and someone like me who doesn’t do anything except online stuff are worse than armchair members, apparently.
It’s just not in the campaigning playbook and they just think, “what’s the point, no-one ever looks at it anyway.”
What’s required is more than just a site in a box – it’s about integrating a web strategy into the operations of every single branch and committing to it.
I just don’t see that happening yet.
MatGB said...
4 May 09 at 11:39 pm
The other thing about the “why isn’t there a business doing this” thing is that it never occured to me that there should be.
Wordpress is free. Hosting shouldn’t cost more’n £5 per month outside of election time, and I doubt it’d trigger a bandwidth limit even then. Loads of free templates out there, JohnBM chose a nice one for us before I took over in Calderdale.
One of the Dorset LPs has a brilliant WordPress install with some very nifty tricks that I’m going to copy across to the local sites ASAP.
The idea that there should be a business out there to hold the hands of local parties that simply don’t bother to look to see if there is competition hadn’t occurred to me.
It should have. It appears that it’s possible to make money by simply pointing out to LPs what other options they have and helping them setup. Good good.
That has, fortunately, now changed. As Hywel can confirm, web campaigning strategy is specifically written into the job description for the new organiser.
That’s an attitude that older members will frequently still have, but the people in charge of strategy no longer think that. Fortunately.
It’s taken a bit of effort in some cases though. More than it should have as well.
Hywel said...
5 May 09 at 12:40 am
“What’s required is more than just a site in a box – it’s about integrating a web strategy into the operations of every single branch and committing to it.”
I agree – with the proviso that whilst you can win elections without a web strategy you can’t do the reverse.
It’s never a zero-sum game though – if I have a notional 100 hours of activist campaigning time over a month then the problem isn’t finding things to do with that time but balancing leafleting, voter ID, capacity building, fundraising etc etc. That might mean saying YouTube etc don’t rate a high enough priority in terms of net gain for the amount of work put in.
On the more practical level, I couldn’t really give a rats bottom what system is used – the bigger concern is getting good material and that means having a system that as many (activist) people can access as possible so it needs to be accessible by people who’s techie skills go no further than putting an attachment on an email.
If there is a fundamental problem with PR sites it is that they are predominantly built around being news-focussed sites rather than message-focussed sites.
However there fundamental strength is that they are run by a Lib Dem who understands campaigning and is therefore quite amendable to making adaptations.
Costigan Quist said...
5 May 09 at 10:57 am
Have posted my own dubious opinions in more detail at http://tinyurl.com/ctpwb2
Tim Prater said...
5 May 09 at 10:10 pm
Tried to post a reply to this thread, but it seems not to have been accepted
Interesting thread, and I’d like to add some thoughts on this…
Firstly: content. Our sites try to make it as easy as possible to update sites with new content. Working from a news story or press release provided, you can get a story onto your site in a little under 60 seconds, including a photo (either your own or from a shared gallery) that is optimised and sized to be quick to download.
The sites even have the ability to take news content directly (automatically or in a couple of clicks) from other Prater Raines Lib Dem sites and selected other sites, including the Federal Lib Dem site. What we DON’T do is update them with local content for users – because its THEIR site, and therefore their decision. Should a site be updated regularly? Of course. Can they be forced to do so? No.
Equally, as mentioned by others, the sites have a lot of features built directly for political campaigning – and specifically Lib Dem political campaigning. The sites have opinion polls, petitions, discussion forums, photo galleries, forthcoming events, shared photo libraries, automatic email digests, ability to email registered users, members / supporter extranet areas (and more) built in.
The sites integrate with Federal Lib Dem functionality (so for example, you can set the site registration to take details to check, each time the user logs in, whether they are a current party member and offer those users additional content – perhaps members newsletters, members discussion forums, members only events – a fair amount of stuff). Equally, and probably fairly uniquely, they can automatically add Flocktogether events from your local party to your site, the social networking buttons include LibDig, when you add the Party campaign buttons they are designed to do the Party maximum link favours (rather than being a javascript include as most use). Can a site take Youtube / Google videos, Twitter feeds, blog badges, Flickr slideshows? Yes, it can.
Not all sites use all functionality though – it’s there for all users, we tell people about it, but it is ultimately their decision to run their site their way. Do I wish / hope / encourage more sites would use more things? Yes. Do we do training (at Federal and Regional conferences and elsewhere)? Yes. Can we force people to use features? Fraid not. But therefore when you look at a Prater Raines site, you only see the users selected sub-set of features – and how they have chosen to use them. No site uses everything – almost certainly wisely (do some things, well).
Prater Raines didn’t start as a big supplier of Lib Dem sites: in fact, in 2002 the original site was built by me for my Local Party at the time as a volunteer. A couple of other Local Parties approached me to develop a site based on the same model for them. In Autumn 2002, we had 4 Lib Dem sites. We now have over 500 – and there have, throughout all of that time, been other people selling Lib Dem web sites.
We have continued to develop and add new features to the sites throughout the time we’ve been providing them (we’re currently on release 120!), listening to users requests and adding new functionality, and revising existing functionality. We will continue to do so, but fully recognise that due to the current site design (as you mentioned which include tables, because, at the time, it was written to allow the site to work well on older browsers) there is certainly more we could do – much more.
Equally, we’re thinking and working on new ways to ENGAGE people with the Lib Dems online. As an example, the current “must have” donations buttons on their site. No problem with that – the sites support it fine – but without a WHY to donate, and information on how it will help, you’ll get no donations (and indeed, not help your reputation). We are looking building in more “expert knowledge” to allow people to do things just as quickly as now – but ensure it is even more effective too.
We also want to build in better integration – if people want to use it – with other sites (such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr) making it simpler to get that content live onto sites (and indeed the sites contents onto those sites too). We are working on ways of improving the “calls to action” throughout the site so that visitors are offered a range of ways to engage, get involved, offer support, become a part of it. We’ve got some good experience in that, and we’ll be listening to others too.
In terms of cost, we were charging £15 per month per site in 2002, and £17 + VAT (sorry – blame Gordon Brown for the VAT) for a much more fully featured site now. That doesn’t just include the domain name, hosting and use of the service, but also full support – I work pretty well full time supporting our users, on a massive range of questions each day. We also spend a lot of time on the sort of developments mentioned above. We need to eat too.
So are our sites a one stop solution for every web need? No. They are specifically designed to support Lib Dem campaigning (and I speak as a reasonably long standing Lib Dem campaigner).
Are we working on some big changes over the next few months to our sites, including that discussed above, and going to a fully CSS design and allow users to develop their own designs to implement over the site if they wish? Watch this space.
Will the sites suit all Lib Dem campaigners? Nope. If they have more than average technical expertise, can commit more time to it, and more money, you can build something different. Lots of people have – brilliantly. Some – less so.
But equally, a number of those have, over time, then come to use our service because the person who set it up / ran it / understood how it worked moved away / gave up. With our support, we try to remove the “single point of failure” which remains a problem for many Local Parties.
I do appreciate the feedback, and especially specific examples of issues to be tackled. If you would like to get in touch directly and have your say on what you would see in our sites in the future, please do drop me an email or call.
Tim Prater
Prater Raines Ltd
http://www.praterraines.co.uk/foci/
Tim Prater said...
6 May 09 at 9:19 am
I tried posting a reply to this thread twice, at around 6.30 and then 10pm last night, but it is still not displaying here.
I added posted my thoughts at Costigan Quist’s thread http://tinyurl.com/ctpwb2 last night instead. Unsure why my post didn’t make it here, even 15 hours after first posting – I’m assuming I haven’t been moderated out of existence…
Tim Prater
Prater Raines Ltd
Charlotte Gore said...
6 May 09 at 10:11 am
Tim thanks for the reply. The system automatically catches comments with more than 2 links on it and I had no idea it was there until I saw your comment just now
Stu said...
6 May 09 at 10:38 am
You should raise that Charlotte. I set mine to 5, it seems to work better that way.
Tim, I’m glad to hear you’re working on it – to be honest, as I said in my later post, I don’t think the problem lies with your service, per se, but rather with the fact that having a website handed to the local party can easily give the impression that this is all they needed to do. That’s really what Charlotte’s getting at, too.
I hadn’t heard of your service until I read this post (not a Lib Dem activist myself) but I have been impressed by the loyalty your customers have shown sticking up for your service in the comments and explaining your excellent support. That kind of satisfaction is hard won and if I were you I’d be extremely proud of that
It’s the attitude of the local parties which must change and you say you’re working on that, so I say good luck! There’s so many talented activists expressing frustration that they aren’t being allowed to step in and help out with these things, and that’s a real shame. The parties evidently need lots more help formulating a decent internet strategy – and even just in understanding why it’s important to have one, and that it isn’t simply a gimmick. I’m not sure whether that would come from you, or whether it would need to be more strategically co-ordinated by the central party, or that it would be better if it sprung up through internet activism, but if the Libs are to compete with the Tories online it’s got to happen soon, because frankly they’re leaving you guys in the dark ages.
I’ll be interested to see what happens with all these things in the future. Thanks for providing such an in-depth response.
Charlotte Gore said...
6 May 09 at 10:50 am
Done! Well time for a cup of tea now.
Matt Wardman said...
6 May 09 at 1:56 pm
>You should raise that Charlotte. I set mine to 5, it seems to work better that way.
Mine’s set to 1 for spam reasons.
>A couple of other Local Parties approached me to develop a site based on the same model for them. In Autumn 2002, we had 4 Lib Dem sites. We now have over 500 – and there have, throughout all of that time, been other people selling Lib Dem web sites.
That’s a good critical mass.
M.
Tim Prater said...
11 Aug 09 at 2:48 pm
Just to come back to this thread, we have now “publically” announced the development of “Foci2″ – a complete, from the ground, rewrite of our Lib Dem web site platform.
We’re aware of some of the weaknesses of our service – but overall, proud of its many strengths. However, we’re clear that there are many things we could improve now – and that it what the rewrite is about.
What would be really useful is if those people who dislike elements (or all!) of our service could email foci2@praterraines.co.uk to give us your views on what the site should do better – the views in this thread are important, and we want to take them into account during this rebuild. We can’t promise to include them all in the first release of the new site, but we can promise to listen.
Regards,
Tim Prater
Prater Raines Ltd
Charlotte Gore said...
11 Aug 09 at 3:03 pm
Hi Tim, that’s great news
John Ball said...
8 Dec 09 at 5:20 pm
A possible competitor – oa5. They offer Mambo for web page design or you can do it yourself with CSS and PHP.
Costs only £50 p.a. +VAT