myohha.org is back in a different form
Scott Peterson
Micki Sparr
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> <HTML><BODY style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; =
> -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>The myohha.org page has =
> been down for some time now due to factors beyond anyone's control.=A0 =
> Unless and until we decide as a group to do something different, I've =
> set up some things that will get us back online.</DIV><DIV><BR =
> class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>I registered our old myohha.org =
> domain name, and redirected it to a page I whipped up on =
> pages.google.com.=A0 This will at least keep the domain name available =
> to us.=A0=A0We may find that we can publish the content we need using =
> only free resources like google pages, and whatever web publishing our =
> ISPs give us.<DIV><BR class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV><DIV>If you =
> have information about a specific topic (rec center, swim team, sports, =
> clubs, organizations, etc.) you'd like to make available to the =
> neighborhood via the web page, the best way is for you to create a page =
> somewhere it's convenient for you to maintain (and where we can all see =
> it), and let me know where it is so I can link to it from the main =
> page.=A0 That way you who provide the information can update it when it =
> needs to be updated.=A0=A0</DIV><DIV><BR =
> class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you can't make the page =
> yourself, I'd be happy to do it for you.=A0 Just email me what you want =
> to publish (or change) and I'll make a page somewhere for it.=A0 Changes =
> will necessarily be a little slower that way.</DIV><DIV><BR =
> class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We'll see how this =
> works.</DIV><DIV><DIV><SPAN class=3D"Apple-style-span" =
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> class=3D"khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>--- sdp</DIV><DIV><BR =
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> --Apple-Mail-9--296194407--
Micki Sparr
Have you communicated with any OHHA board members? The board may well
be willing to fund a dedicated web page if someone (like yourself?)
would be willing to be webmaster. It's much easier for timid or casual
computer users to find www.OakHills, for example, rather than navigate
the Google groups. An official site could have general info on the
neighborhood, amenities, pool and tennis hours, yard debris drop box
rules, ability to access CC&R's, contact emails and phone numbers for
board members, maintenance and rec center, etc. A self-created Google
site is unlikely to get any more hits than this email list.
Micki Sparr
Scott Peterson
On Jul 6, 2006, at 10:02 AM, Micki Sparr wrote:
>
> Have you communicated with any OHHA board members?
Only the ones that read this group.
> The board may well
> be willing to fund a dedicated web page if someone (like yourself?)
> would be willing to be webmaster. It's much easier for timid or casual
> computer users to find www.OakHills, for example, rather than navigate
> the Google groups.
You can either find a site by name, by link from somewhere else, or
by search.
Clearly names must be short enough to be remembered. The name of the
Google page I created isn't short, but that doesn't matter because
http://myohha.org/ is short, and will take you to the google page
that for the moment has our content. Nobody really needs to know the
URL for the google page (it isn't secret, it's just hidden in the
redirection process because it isn't useful to humans). If we move
the content later http://myohha.org/ gets changed to point there, and
users can remain blissfully ignorant of the implementation details.
Search is a problem for us because there are so many neighborhoods
named oak hills out there. I don't think our little site is ever
going to be the top hit in any search. The name myohha.org actually
helps a little here because it isn't a word in any language, and is
only used by us.
The name myohha.org may or may not be the best choice. We were
already using it, so I restored it to operation so people who found
it in old publications would eventually find what they were looking
for. If we find a better name is available (a quick search indicates
all the good names are taken, as usual), we can certainly use it (we
can use as many simultaneously as we need to).
> An official site could have general info on the
> neighborhood, amenities, pool and tennis hours, yard debris drop box
> rules, ability to access CC&R's, contact emails and phone numbers for
> board members, maintenance and rec center, etc.
There are at least two issues there:
1) Is the OHHA related info present in a form that lets people find
what they're looking for? Once the information is collected, making
it findable is a matter of organization. That's pretty simple.
2) Is it "official"? That is, if some random guy posts a PDF of the
CC&R's, how do you know it's accurate before you bring in the backhoe
or the paint sprayer? AFAIK, this was never explicitly stated in the
previous incarnation of myohha.org, but the online copy of any of
this is not going to be anything like legally binding.
> A self-created Google
> site is unlikely to get any more hits than this email list.
Right, those pages have long complicated addresses that are
impossible to remember. That's why http://myohha.org/ takes you
there and hides the long complicated URL.
It may be important to note our goal here is not to generate traffic,
but to serve the neighborhood by making the information they need
about the neighborhood available to them. If we have a lot of
traffic, it may or may not be from the people we're trying to serve.
The only way I know to find out if the neighborhood is being served
is with feedback. This group is one place to get the feedback, but I
suppose it's kind of a self-selected sample of our population.
The approach of knitting together pages in random places may seem
hopelessly ad-hoc and random, but I think it can work well enough for
our purposes. If not, we're out nothing and can move the content to
some paid space somewhere we have more control (i.e. move away from
the $0 extreme of the cost-control curve).
This list has 18 subscribers as of today. All but two of these
people get the group messages via email (though we have no idea if
they actually read them). I think one or two people found it by
searching (IIRC, since that's not recorded), and everyone else saw it
in the Oracle.
--- sdp