I am in the process of writing a guide for the Members Area on how to go about creating your own website. In order to do this it would be a good idea to find out what interactive features people have on their sites?

I am trying to find out the following:
1) Do you have a Guestbook on your site? If so, is it self installed or hosted elsewhere?
2) Do you have a Discussion Board? If so, is it self installed or hosted elsewhere?
3) Do you have any other interactive features such as News that members can update or booking facilities?
4) Do you want to add a script to your site and don't know how to?

PLEASE KEEP THIS DISCUSSION RELEVANT TO THE QUESTIONS ABOVE!, IF YOU HAVE OTHER ISSUES YOU WANT TO RAISE, CREATE A NEW TOPIC!

Discussion Board: I've been using BoardHost for 18 months, and it's free, simple, reliable and easy to use. The downside is that you get popup ads and it doesn't integrate with the rest of the site. A couple of months ago I switched to 'paid for' hosting, which gives me ASP, so I've written my own message board, which has just gone up.

The old one is at members5.boardhost.com/NewburyTheatre/ and the new one is at www.newburytheatre.co.uk/board/roll.asp.

Our webmaster could give you more details on specs (webmaster@southlondontheatre.co.uk) but we started with a guestbook which never really took off, but when we added a discussion board, the hits went through the roof.

We have not only found it a very useful way for regular members to keep in touch with each other on a day-to-day basis, but also to have serious discussions about improvements to the way we run things, new ideas for workshops, getting like-minded people together.

We have gained a lot of new members from the website in general (almost all new members say they have come down and joined from information they found on the website rather than any other route), and a few have said they specifically came down after reading our (sometimes very lively!) discussion board.

If anyone would like to have a look, this should link directly to it:
www.southlondontheatre.co.uk/phpBB

Helen

we started off with email discussion lists (sort of like YahooGroups) which have proved popular. I added a guestbook from MattScripts but noone used it. I installed a blogger (GreyMatter) but we lost that when the ISP's hard drive crashed, so we don't do that anymore.

We have a guestbook from Bravenet which isn't exactly swamped, and Bravenet's pop-ups are getting a bit heavy.

Email is our best tool and most popular, it's probably the one we'll be staying with and developing.

hth

Ged
Liverpool Network Theatre Group
http://www.networktheatre.org.uk/

We have a php mail script written by me that allows people to email us direct from the website. That's proven to be very effective.

Ged

It used to be interactive. We had a discussion forum in a restrricted area for members and friends of CMP (the idea being for them to keep coming back and generate some debate) but they never used it. I've been told a "Guestbook" is tacky and unprofessional so ahve avoided it - you also have to moderate it because this is your shop window. Have experimented with having news content, quotes of the day, and online games to increase interactivity but with little impact and the content/quotes pulled in from remote sites actually slowed my pages down.

*quick tip*
Netscape loads a whole table before it displays it on the screen - if your page includes off-site stuff and their server's slow it may never display at all.

I think the guestbook / tacky thing is a matter of taste and mine is for interaction. having said that the one I'm using (bravenet) is getting a bit too intrusive with the adverts. If you've got any cgi though then guestbooks are a doddle, but email remains the tool of choice for people wanting to contact us from the website.

I think a Guestbook is a great idea!

We have had loads of messages, I did get sabotaged once but have since taken extra security precautions!

I downloaded the initial script but I admit I have to redesign quite a bit of the PHP and I am still not 100% happy with it.

Interactivity is very important, I would tend to suggest you stay away from Bravenet etc and try and get something hosted on your own site.

I will be writing up some more when I get these guides together. Thanks for the comments!

Check out my Guestbook

If you are a good webmaster or whatever then you will check your e-mails at least once a day therefore you can check and moderate your discussion board at the same time.

There should not be too much worry about abuse!

> If you are a good webmaster or whatever then you will check your e-mails at least once a day


If you're a good webmaster your phone bill's delivered by parcel post....

Or, as in my case, you pay for 24/7 access, I couldn't run this site on pay per time!!

I spend more time on this site than anything else!!

My husband recognises me by the back of my head now.

Jane

Well all I can say is it's worth it!!

Absolutely Jane - I don't think our website would still be going if I hadn't gone over to a 24/7 ADSL line! The price has come down enormously in the last year or so - I only pay ?19.99 a month for mine through Pipex and (touches wood) it has been pretty reliable ...

Jane,

You could always invest in a laptop. Then you could work on this site in bed too!
OK, maybe that's not funny...

M

Ummm ... actually I did invest in a lap top, so now I can work on the site in the living in the evening as well!!!

At the moment (after major problems with my desktop) I have my laptop wired up to my desktop monitor with a proper keyboard attached.

I went to Germany in October and took the laptop with me and carried on running the site and answering emails while on holiday!

Jane

As Flange says is it definately worth it.. and appreciated!!

Quite right their GED!

It's alright for these broadbanders but me, I am stuck here in 56k hell!

Before you say.............

NOBODY and I mean NOBODY provides broadband in my area!

Oh well!

hmmm I keep promising myself broadband, but then I'd have no life at all...

I got broadband on Monday

Boy is it good!!!!

Jane

And as I'm doing this from work, THEIR broadband is fab too! Heh heh!

Not only do I have broad band But I went wireless with my laptop so I can now us it in the garden and pub too!! (not because I'm a sad sac there are good reasons)

oh stop showing off

one of our directors is talking about how nice it would be to have a "production diary" up on the website. I'm thinking about just throwing up a guestbook (Matt scripts do an adequate one)

what do you think? good idea? rod for my own back? install proper blogger and teach him to use it?

that last one is a last resort....

Ged,

I always test my abilities, if you know of a good diary script then try it!

You will never know unless you try it!, I can see that you are fairly comfortable with the idea of a gustebook but if you have the time why not write something yourself or test your abilities at configuring someone elses script.

At the end of the day, I guess it depends on how much time you have and what the final article is to look like.

I would test yourself though! (hope this makes sense!)

As it happens, I know an EXCELLENT diary/calendar script and am using it the CMP site. Very easy to install and customise to fit your site ...

Our calendar is here although it's currently empty as I accidentally deleted the flat file holding the events and need to re-enter them.

You can visit the website of the creators of the script here.

Cheers
Kenny

Can I just add that you can post text in each event but html is supported in the posts so that means you can include links. When we were using it, it had rehearsal details, show dates/times etc and links to streetmap for venue.