Greetings to all!

There's a lot to be covered here; perhaps it would work best to print it
out and read it over the weekend at your leisure.

I still don't know what the exact issue is supposed to be; I just know
it's not at my end of things.


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1. Introduction

The Minnesota Mensa website began back on March 14, 1998, when I sent an
e-mail to Ray Voet, noting that MN Mensa did not have a website link on
the AML local group links page. He and I exchanged a couple of
responses, then Ray forwarded my message(s) to Bill Conlan, and the
process started. By April 4 I had a demo site available for
critiquing. At the April 28, 1998 Board meeting, the website was
approved and I was appointed MN Mensa Webmaster.


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2. My background

In case any of you don't know (or have forgotten -- I don't trumpet it),
I earn my living (meager though it sometimes is) by being a contract
Webmaster. Currently, the most extensive site I do is for the Institute
for Psychological Therapies -- as of today, it has 1,128 linked files
and 28,555 hyperlinks.

(Our website currently has 286 linked files and 3,373 hyperlinks.)

Those interested can review my background and qualifications at
http://www.millcityrecords.com/webwork/cv.htm.

It's entirely possible that I first got this gig because I volunteered,
and actually had some acceptable web pages to preview.

I hope I have retained the position because I've continued to do my job
well and do it right.

I've enjoyed a great degree of autonomy in my position. The original
content was based on the monthly resources of Mensagenda, such as the
calendar. This is still a primary source of material to be published on
the Web. Suggestions have been gratefully accepted, such as formalizing
a puzzle of the month (with archive).

One of the things I've regularly added to our website are links -- for a
good example, see http://www.mnmensa.org/archives/f9909.htm. Another is
the updated map links included with each monthly calendar. (I have a
library of 57 maps so far, of various places where MN Mensa activities
are held.)

I have hoped, over these 4+ years, to meet other MN Mensa members who
are also Webmasters of equal or (preferably) greater skill levels or
qualifications. So far I haven't been introduced to any. If that makes
me the "resident expert" in webmastering, it's more a situation of
loneliness rather than something to brag about.

I have, however, carried out requests quickly and accurately, I handle
calendar changes immediately, I've received e-mails complimenting my
work, and there are also some favorable comments on the guestbook at
http://www.mnmensa.org/guestlog.htm.

I would really appreciate your taking the little time to read those
comments there.

Also note that, after four good years and at Jane's urging, I am doing a
redesign of the entire site, based partly on Jason's design that he
showed at the January 29 Board Meeting.

I know what I'm doing, and when I come across something that I don't
know, I take the time to learn it.


-----------------------------

3. Ignoring available expertise

I think an important principle has been ignored here. One doesn't need
to think at Mensa levels to know that when one starts a project, one of
the first things to do is assess what relevant expertise is available to
be tapped into.

So when the AG Committee decides it needs some web pages, you'd think it
would be a no-brainer to know that the MN Mensa Webmaster should be
asked to serve as an occasional consultant, advisor, and reference
source.

It's a mind-boggler that apparently the opposite tack was taken -- don't
ask the Webmaster anything, don't tell him anything, don't even let him
look over and evaluate the project as it's being developed.

A lot of serious mistakes were made, all of which could have been
avoided by simply using an available resource.

An organization's Webmaster is (or certainly should be) ultimately
responsible for the technical quality of ALL of the organization's
official presence on the Internet. That's an inherent part of his/her
job.


-----------------------------

4. If I hadn't been treated like I didn't exist, I would have been
delighted to provide input into the project.

At the January 29 Board Meeting when this was discussed, I was one of
those who was encouraging that Jason do the design work for the AG, as I
wasn't interested and had no good ideas for it myself. I naturally
assumed that whatever he'd be doing would end up on our website and/or
the slot reserved for AGs on the AML website.


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5. Why a separate website?

I can think of only two trains of thought on this. One is the notion
that anyone designing a handful of web pages is therefore a webmaster.
This is not true. "Webmaster" is often thought of as a title or a
position, but it has to be a lot more than that. It's a skill-set
level. Knowing how to type up a page of html code is only a small part
of being a real Webmaster.

Anyway, if somebody is creating web pages and calling himself a
webmaster, well, then, naturally he needs a separate website to be the
webmaster of, right? This is also wrong. Someone creating web pages
without webmastering skills is a "Web Page Creator" and should submit
his work to a Webmaster for final vetting and site placement.

The other thought is that a group working on a admittedly big project
needs their own website for feeling good about their project, or for
validation. Totally understandable, but hardly Mensa-level thinking.

If anyone had run the question past me at the start, I would have at
least done a little research. To the extent that Annual Gatherings are
an AML function (hosting it is the MN Mensa function), has AML seen any
reason for a separate AG website?

They have not. In fact, according to the AML Webmaster, "I have no idea
who owns(ed) things like www.ag2002.org or www.ag2003.com, and we use
ag.us.mensa.org to link from our server."

I had mnmensa.org/ag2003/ set up months ago, just waiting for content,
because that is an appropriate place to put it.


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6. Domain naming:

Granted that the questionable decision was made anyway to have an
independent site, there are three areas of utter ignorance that could
have been avoided if someone had had the courtesy to e-mail the MN Mensa
Webmaster saying, "We've decided to have a separate website for the AG,
any recommendations or suggestions for naming it?"

6.1. Top-level domain:

Who goofed here? Mensa is not a COMmercial entity; it is an
ORGanization. It should never have gotten a .COM URL. This is not just
me ranting a personal opinion -- please go to http://www.mensa.com/ and
read what it says.

We have violated Mensa usage if not outright policy.

(ag2003.org is (and presumably was) available. Check the link:

http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=ag2003.org&SearchType=do&STRING2.x=16&STRING2.y=9
)


6.2. Domain name:

AG2003? That's just what we need -- a bunch of farmers and 4-Hers going
to the site expecting (reasonably) that it contains information about
agriculture in the coming year. The thought must have been that since
"we" refer to it as AG2003, the rest of the world shares that
association.

You'd think Mensa-level minds could have thought of something more (a
lot more) appropriate. Like mnmensa-ag2003.org -- that one's available.


6.3. Registration:

Did you know? Jason registered that domain name, and he did NOT do so
as a "webmaster" or as an agent of Minnesota Mensa, he did it as an
agent for himself.

Check the link:

http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=ag2003.com&SearchType=do&STRING2.x=31&STRING2.y=2

Now check ours:

http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=mnmensa.org&SearchType=do&STRING2.x=24&STRING2.y=13

So what we have here is NOT a Minnesota Mensa website, but rather a
member's personal website -- which carries a LOT less weight in my book.

For legal as well as ethical reasons, *official* MN Mensa business
should be on MN Mensa-registered websites. (This should be a
no-brainer, especially at the Mensan level.)


6.4. So, is all of this stuff trivial? Not to an experienced Webmaster.

For one thing, if what's there is such a great domain name, let's
suppose a Mensan (or prospective member) finds it, assumes that Mensans
are consistent, and tries checking out the 2002 Annual Gathering by
typing in http://www.ag2002.com/. Oh, my -- it's the AIRBUS ONLINE
MAGAZINE!

http://www.ag2001.com/? No one had the misfortune to use that, at
least.

http://www.ag2000.com/? Whee, we're at Alliance Group 2000, Inc.

Why didn't anyone check this sort of thing out first?

(A good example of why a real Webmaster isn't just someone who can crank
out the html pages.)


For another thing, did anyone consider this --

Mensa is a not-for-profit organization, and presumably is registered
that way with the tax boys. There's a mention on the AG pages that
registration may in future be done on the web. So what we'd have is
Mensa taking in money on a .COM website registered to a private
individual. I don't know whether that could jeopardize our non-profit
tax status or not, but I wouldn't want to take the chance.


-----------------------------

7. Errors and problems on ag2003.com (since it unfortunately exists):


7.1. Standard disclaimer.

AML does not currently have any information at
http://www.us.mensa.org/member_resources/members/webpolicies.php3 but
you will find "the official Mensa International website checklist" at
http://www.mensa.org/checklist/.

The first rule under "content" defines the standardized copyright notice
and disclaimer which must be at the bottom of every page.

Every one of Jason's ag2003 pages continues to violate this policy -- no
disclaimer.

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to anyone that on mnmensa.org, all MN
Mensa pages (including the AG2003 ones) are in full compliance with this
requirement.


7.2. Content rating.

Fire up a reasonably current version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Select Tools | Internet Options and click on the Content tab. Click on
"Enable..." for Content Advisor. Click OK or select any levels of
protection against Language, Nudity, Sex, and Violence that you wish.
Click OK, select a Password, click OK to save the settings.

Now, close IE, then fire it up again and try going to
http://www.ag2003.com/ -- "Sorry! Content Advisor will not allow you to
see this site."

Those pages should have been set up to allow access. A Webmaster knows
how and sets the site up appropriately.

Note: Going to http://www.mnmensa.org/ will work just fine. However,
going to http://www.mnmensa.org/archives/f9903.htm will give a "Level 1
- mild expletives" because that's what on that page.

If you change the IE Content Advisor Language rating to allow mild
expletives, you'll see that page, too.


7.3. Privacy policy.

Since (again) there's mention of taking in registration information, a
privacy policy is very important. And these days, just having a page
called privacy.htm doesn't cut it anymore.

Again use MS IE and go to http://www.ag2003.com/ (remember to disable
the Content Advisor, or type in the password!).

Select View | Privacy Report... and click the top line (which is the
home page), then click Summary -- Oops! "Could not find a privacy
policy ..."

Now go to ANY page at http://mnmensa.org/ and do the same. You'll see
quite a difference.

(This, by the way, is a work in progress. I seem to recall that there
is one form somewhere in an archives article. When I find it, I'll be
accounting for that in the browser-readable privacy files by adding the
info to the main xml and p3p files and putting a custom link on the
specific page.)


7.4 Errors & Mistakes on pages:

Aside from the serious and important omissions above, I found several
other things that make those pages not ready for prime time --


7.4.1. Filename extensions.

Oddly, all of Jason's files have the php extension, although I don't see
any php-dependent code in them. I can think of only a couple of reasons
for this. One is that the pages were originally lifted off the AML
website, which does use php pages. If so, that's OK, one has to start
somewhere, but it sort of shoots the theory that there's a great deal of
creativity involved it what we got.

(Actually, I was expecting him to start his AG2003 page design with that
attractive sample he showed us at the January 29 meeting. That page
looked a lot more attractive than what he tossed together for the AG.)

The other reason is that Jason was developing the pages for submission
to be located at ag.us.mensa.org, which is one of the two pre-existing
locations where these pages rationally belong.

Apparently the server Jason is using for his personal AG2003 website can
serve up php pages just fine; ours cannot. I changed the extensions to
.htm and they all work just fine.


7.4.2. Photographs.

My personal preference would be to have twice as many photos, so
different pages wouldn't have to share the same picture.

However, the "problem" is that the overlaid text on the ones there
aren't consistently aligned. Thus the text "jumps" around a bit in the
upper right of the graphic, which is distracting. How hard could it
have been to do it right? Also, the "home" and "contact" pages have a
gratuitous extra blue stripe between the links bar and the graphic that
the other pages lack, so the whole graphic is jumping around as one goes
from page to page.

This can be most obviously shown if you repeatedly click on any AG2003
photo in the AG2003 section of our official mnmensa.org website.


7.4.3. Very bad link.

The downloadable file AG2003_Regis_Form7.doc has the following graphic
link embedded in it:

"file:///C:/Documents and
Settings/marjanen.kathy/Desktop/AG/AG2003logos/AG2003 Logo B-W no text
from Jane 8Jun02.tif"

This is a link to a file on Jason's own hard drive. This is "Amateur
City."

(Some NotePad purists may knock web design/management packages such as
FrontPage, but FP easily found and reported this bad link on the
first-pass analysis. One of the reasons that our website looks and
works as well as it does is that FrontPage is maintaining sophisticated
internal databases of every page, every file, and every hyperlink.)


7.4.4. Cascading Style Sheets.

All pages refer to the file style.css, which defines fonts, font color,
and link colors. Unfortunately, this idea was not tested in Netscape,
which essentially ignores the information the way it's presented.

Table alignments and borders are also being rendered differently in
Netscape from MS IE.

Good Webmasters expecting a diverse audience design for all potential
reasonable browsers.

The most unfortunate result of the .css file is that links for these
pages don't look like standard links (in MS IE). Why confuse the
visitor?


7.4.5. Bad spelling.

On Jason's originally published attractions.php (a copy of which is
still on my hard drive), "Museum" was misspelled not just once or twice,
but three times. To be a Mensan and not be able to spell "Museum" is
merely unfortunate -- to fail to run a spellchecker on one's pages
before letting the public view them is less than ept.


7.4.6. Sloppy HTML.

The "Lodging" page looked like 80% attribute values in FrontPage's html
view. Turns out there was a missing quote mark in a href
specification. Might work in all browsers, might not.

Also the Links page had a bunch of 'target="_new"' tags that didn't
refer to any files. My outside links in this section use the
standardized 'target="_blank"' tags.

Many links did not have the trailing "/" after a pure domain name URL.
This is very minor, but a courtesy to the server, as it knows when to
stop parsing and go for the default page.

The "Home" link was active on the Home page, the "Lodging" link was
active on the Lodging page, etc. Good design is to display the text in
its usual place (if needed to maintain positioning) but to remove the
hyperlink property for it on the page to which the link self-refers.

The "Register Here" at the bottom of the pages is a link (you'd think an
important one) but it doesn't look like one (unless you happen to
accidentally mouse over it). It doesn't even change color in Netscape.

We shouldn't play "Mensa games" with our visitors. Links should look
like links, for cryin' in the grog.


7.4.7. Flags.

Each page's top graphic shows a Mensa logo on the left and a Canadian
flag on the right. You'd think using the Mensa logo by itself and
placing an American flag on the left (to balance the Canadian one) would
have been painfully obvious, even to non-Mensans.


7.4.8. Ignore our co-hosts?

Nowhere on any of those pages was there even one link to Mensa Canada.


-----------------------------

8. So is all this stuff really that important?

It certainly is, to a professional Webmaster, and to Internet-savvy
visitors who would notice these things and think less of us.

A poorly and improperly named domain, not even registered to us,
containing a myriad of errors and omissions -- this is an embarrassment
to Minnesota Mensa and ultimately AML.

Please, any apologists, don't bother telling me that many of the
problems are minor and/or can be easily fixed. The cumulative weight is
significant, and they should have been fixed before the pages were
published.

(And I've noticed that the AML website page http://ag.us.mensa.org has
some really bad problems -- try viewing it in Netscape, and look at the
page title in any browser. Do a View | Source and you'll see even
worse!)


-----------------------------

9. Board Action.

A lot of these issues would never arisen if a few simple official
policies had been in effect.

There's a Board Meeting coming up on Tuesday. I would respectfully
request that the Board consider and adopt the following policies:


9.1. Minnesota Mensa will have one designated Webmaster who will be
responsible for all official MN Mensa material published to the
Internet.

9.2. All official MN Mensa material published to the Internet shall be
placed on websites registered to Minnesota Mensa (or other officially
Mensa-registered websites).

9.3. The Board or a Committee may designate any qualified member(s) to
create web pages; said person(s) will be expected to consult with the
Webmaster during the design process.

9.4. The Webmaster will be expected to review all proposed official MN
Mensa web pages, ensure that they meet generally accepted technical
standards, and assist in determining their appropriate website
placement.

9.5. The Webmaster will produce, and keep updated, a handbook containing
guidelines for Minnesota Mensa web pages in terms of technical
requirements, stylistic coherency, and other standards of excellence.
This handbook will be provided to all persons asked (or volunteering) to
create MN Mensa web pages. Any MN Mensa member may suggest material for
inclusion in this handbook.


-----------------------------

10. Your Webmaster is alive and well.

I finally joined Mensa a little over 10 years ago. Early on, I drove up
from Northfield to a First Friday -- I had a wonderful time, met a lot
of interesting people, and wished that Northfield was a lot closer to
the Twin Cities.

Soon after that came some domestic problems, culminating in a vicious
custody battle that almost got me killed (spray-painted death threats
and an actual cut brake line, among other things). I eventually won, of
course, but that made me a single custodial father of a now-9-year-old
daughter.

My point is that I haven't been able to get back to First Friday yet,
and I tend to make Board Meetings rarely, with difficulty, and when
website issues are at stake and I'm directly invited to attend. Believe
me, it's not for lack of interest.

There is little doubt in my mind that if I were a regular socializer at
First Friday, attended Board Meetings often, and could participate in
more of the events, most of you would know me a lot better, and as a
friend, and none of this AG2003 hooey would have happened.

But my seeming somewhat "isolated" in Northfield doesn't really make me
any less of a friend, and certainly no less of a loyal Minnesota Mensan.

I note that I was first listed as Webmaster in the June 1998
Mensagenda. That's over four years of continuous, unbroken service,
giving a lot of consistency and a unified vision to our Internet
presence.

This message has been a lot of talking the talk, but I'm sure that you
all know that the fact is that I've also been walking the walk for over
four years -- designing, creating, and expanding our website.

I would hate to even guess how many hundreds of hours I've donated to
our website. I certainly appreciate the Certificates I have gotten, but
would also appreciate a more tangible expression in the form of support
when issues like this unfortunately arise.

I expect to be treated with respect, and some deference to the skills
and experience I've accumulated over more than half a decade.

In technical matters, it seems intelligent to go with who's most
qualified, not just by position ("might makes right" is very
non-Mensan).

I don't expect to be criticized for doing my usual, normal, quality job
just as I've always done, especially since (to this date) nobody has
communicated with me that I should, for some bizarre reason, do less
than my best.

Back on May 1st of this year, at 1:23 p.m., DeDe phoned me, presumably
on behalf of the Board, asking if I would be willing to serve another
year as MN Mensa Webmaster. I agreed, and she indicated she was pleased
about this.

I don't renege on my commitments, and I don't expect anyone else to,
either.

I assume that whatever's been going on with this AG2003 fiasco is just
the result of inexperience, not malice. I've got a 4-year record of
doing my job well and doing it right, and I expect the Board's support
in my continuing to do so.


I've been laid low for the last couple of weeks with a very nasty kidney
stone, but I think I'm on the mend at last. The new August material is
all ready to go up on the website, several days in advance, and I'm
about half done with the demo redesign of the website, too.


Regards,

Al

Webmaster