Issues / Comments regarding creating a separate website for "community" aspects of the WittenbergTrail

There's quite a discussion going on as to why people left the original trail.

Things that I've heard:

The comments to discussions are hard to follow and confusing.

* I've changed the discussion reply format to "flat" rather than "threaded" and have lots of good comments about how it is much clearer now.

It is hard to find new things on the Trail

The Trail lost its original focus and there is a lot of non-lutheran information on it now

I published information on the trail, but it was only visible to members of the trail

* I've changed the pages on the trail from "private" to "public" .. google will now find information on the trail; you can provide links to your friends to items you have posted here; there is an RSS feed for each person's blog on the trail.

Jim Pierce did a LOT of work to attempt to make the Trail easier to understand, and simpler to follow. We all owe Jim Pierce a big Thank You for his efforts in this regard. I think the basic problem with the trail was that it had lost its original focus. As with any community site, the community started building itself, and all kinds of groups were created that had people getting together with other lutherans talking about their interests. This is all well and good, but it didn't help people who were following the trail and perhaps posting here but just got frustrated by their postings being lost among all the other "stuff" appearing on the Trail.

One idea floated among the group of people who have joined the WT Steering group to help discuss the future of the trail is to create an alternate site where all the "community" stuff can reside.

A few problems with this:

1. It splits the site into two .. will people follow two sites? Are there enough people who will support both sites? It's great for a few people to talk among themselves, but if they don't gather people from around the web the site will just naturally die.

2. It may confuse people with "what do I post on which site".

3. NING provides for one login across all NING sites, so you would be able to use the same login for both sites, but ..

4. There would be a "My Page" page on each site .. what do you post on each site?

More? I will continue to develop this blog .. feel free to comment on it with your thoughts.

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Comment by Norm Fisher on March 15, 2010 at 10:14am: I've received a few comments from people regarding the idea of creating a separate site. Please feel free to add comments here as to why you left the trail -- it may help us figure out what to do to help bring you and others back to the Trail:

Here is one comment:

I just noticed your post about emphasizing "good Lutheran content" instead of all the other things that overran the site.

This would be a good start because I'm one of those who quite coming to the site because of all the other "stuff." Might consider checking in once in awhile again now, but for awhile some of the people posting at the site seemed to have lost sight of the purpose. To be honest, I even hesitated to refer anyone to the site because of all the "off-topic" material.

Best wishes on the changes and God's blessings on your efforts.

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Here is another comment from a user:

I'm a Reformed pastor exploring the Lutheran faith. I think separating the social aspects of WT would be wise. It's great for Lutherans to connect, "hang out" and have fun. But it does create a lot of "clutter" on the site from the perspective of someone like me, and perhaps for those Lutherans who are interested in theological discussion. It seems, however, that some of the most active participants engage in both the fun stuff and the serious stuff.

Is it possible to have a homepage, where one can choose to enter one of two sub-sites - i.e., "fun stuff" or "serious stuff"? One side of the site would be more social / personal. The other would be more focused on confessional discussions, trail guides answering inquiries from folks like me, on-line Lutheran resources, etc.

Thanks for all your work in getting the WT back on-line.

Comment by Rik Eischen on March 15, 2010 at 10:26am: I think the two-site idea could work if its done well.

Comment by Jen on March 15, 2010 at 10:56am: What about having the URL go to a splash page? This is something that photographers do because many of us have flash templates that don't get indexed. The splash page is like a portal where you can go into the flash template, go to the online proof gallery software, go the the blog, sign up for a mailing list and/or twitter and stuff like that. It also has a little bit of keyword stuffing for the indexing. If you're going to go two-sites, it would be good to have a portal/splash page so that people know what is available to them. WT would be the "exploring" side and maybe "Lutheran Connect" would be the "social" side .

Comment by E. Grubbe on March 15, 2010 at 12:22pm: I am not savy about the technical details of organizing and simplifying the forum, but two separate places would be even more confusing. Where to post what and why is already a problem that will just be compounded with two places. For me, in a well functioning forum the first thing you see when you log in would be a organized and well defined overall picture of the forum. The different categories with underlying threads should be clear and concise since words of wisdom are buried the strangest places, which is my major problem with WT as is. JMHO.

Comment by Kathrine on March 15, 2010 at 1:17pm: Would it be possible to just keep the social stuff from appearing on the front page/recently updated? I remember when I came to the old site I would scroll through the left hand column of the front page to see what conversations had been recently added/updated. Most days the column would be FILLED with the God-whisperers discussion. Nothing against the God whisperers, but conversations like those were always pushing out all the other content. It would be nice if groups like that could still stay here but just with an "off" button when it came to updating on the front page. :)

Comment by P. Rapp on March 15, 2010 at 5:33pm: I think one thing that would be helpful would be to place prominent links to the "substance" areas of the Trail on the home page. Having that stuff buried it in the "site index" has long bothered me. Bury the social links there if need be, but get stuff like Lutheran Confessions, Theology Topics, Trail Guides, and Trail Tales out where they can be seen. Seems like at least a couple of those used to be at the top of the home page at one time.

I guess the "splash page" idea of navigating either to atheological section or a community section sounds like it could be helpful, and keeping the social stuff off the Recent Activity display seems helpful also. Members of groups can get emails when their groups have activity, so it doesn't really need to be on the home page.

Comment by Rik Eischen on March 16, 2010 at 7:03am: I agree with P. Rapp.

Comment by Monte Harrington on March 17, 2010 at 9:16am: Can you divide the forum on the front page? Top forum could be for "serious discussion" bottom forum for the "not serious" You could also reserve the blog posts for serious discussion and for those who are theologically and confessionally creditialed, but leave them open for comment from us who are part of the "masses".

Comment by Norm Fisher on March 17, 2010 at 9:25am: Unfortunately NING does not provide for two forum listings on the front page nor does it provide for any way to separate "serious" from "not serious".

Comment by Dr. George C. Adams on March 17, 2010 at 4:06pm: We need to have two sites. As I asked before, could the social site be made accessible through the "serious" site, so that we wouldn't be dividing our traffic, AND also offering the opportunity for those visiting to "social" site to look at serious topics confronting the Lutheran denominations?

I agree with Katherine and P. Rapp. The God Whisperers threw up so much clutter that it drove me nuts and made me less inclined to visit WT.