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

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, 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.

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

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/