REDESIGN PAGE

This page is meant to be used by everyone participating in the redesign process of OutHistory.org.

OPEN ENTRY: This entry is open to collaborative creation by anyone with evidence, citations, and analysis to share, so no particular, named creator is responsible for the accuracy and cogency of its content. Please use this entry's Comment section at the bottom of the page to suggest improvements about which you are unsure. Thanks.

September 26, 2011

• Search Engine Optimization and how to update it, should be part of the redesign. See Wikipedia on SEO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

• How about considering an OutHistory Store as a separate section of the site, modeled on the New York Times Store. Could this provide the ongoing income that OutHistory needs to sustain itself? Research???

Jonathan has sworn to himself to focus on redesign issues and forget for a while about content creation.

Jonathan's notes on phone talk with John D, September 20, 2011

1. I planned to make notes on our last phone conversation but did not get around to it Still plan to do so.

2. I met with Hugh Ryan, who initiated the Pop Up Museum of Queer History. See their website and the entry on OutHistory.

They were very successful in getting responses from artists interested in using history as inspiration for art works.

I offered my house as a future meeting place for NY based artists interested in talking further. And Hugh wants to do more Pop Ups.

3. Talked on phone with Mark Dilley.

• I said I'd explore and survey all the time related functions of Wikipedia. (Check notes to see what else I said).

*I asked Mark to make the "Summary" at the bottom of an entry NOT disappear when a user goes into EDIT mode on that entry. It did not disappear in the past. 

4. Our main problem is how to let users know what content is on OutHistory. We need a better table of contents and or index.

5. John mentioned Guerilla Queen as an example of a wonderful community created entry. Add this to the list of community created content.

6. Re local LGBT history: we could do more with as a way of stimulating user interest in OutHistory. California, in particular because of the bill to teach gay history in the CA schools. Can OutHistory collaborate with the other websites that document California queer history? Is there some way that OutHistory can respond that would not be redundant with the work of others? A chronology of all that's known about CA LGBT history? Can we work with the Historical Society on a project like this?

7. Redesign, has a visual element, a functional, and a structural.

8. MIT Media Lab -- when we are ready, approach such a place and ask if anyone there is interested in giving technical help. Start with a prestigious place like this. Yale Graphic Design school is another possibility.

9. Jonathan and others should study other history sites for successes and problems.

10. Tags/categories: these help make content accessible in searches. Coding entries is another way (see Mark Dilley's work at: _____________________

11. Social netwoking as part of redesign. It would be great if users of OutHistory could network with each other about mutual research interests.

12. How to increase community participation; ask for memoir of historical events.

13. I'm from Driftwood as example. Asks for coming out stories. Getting lots of responses.

Example of Good Website Design

Look at the New York Times on line as a good example of website design that has similar problem to OutHistory in letting users know what's on the site's different sections.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html?src=hp1-0-P

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From Jonathan, August 30, 2011

OutHistory Maintenance Issues

There's really not that much that's absolutely necessary to do on a daily basis re maintenance.

To make the following type of maintenance changes on OutHistory requires special System Operator privileges on the part of user. Who has those privileges should be limited and kept track of.

1. Daily: check for spam via RECENT CHANGES function on red bar. If spam is found, delete it and block sender.

2. Via RECENT CHANGES, if significant content entries have been added to OutHistory, they should be added to the section on the Main Page titled “What’s NEW on OutHistory.org?”

3. Daily check of email now sent to Project Coordinator at outhistory@gc.cuny.edu. (We need a new email address for this.)

4. Check Comments sections to see if people have asked questions that need to be answered via a new comment by an OutHistory administrator.

5. For a list of Maintenance issues and entries that need to be fixed click on SPECIAL PAGES on red bar and see

6. Tagging (or categorizing) entries that have not been tagged, or not well tagged, will make much more content findable on OutHistory.org. This is probably a major problem on the site, that not enough of the content has been tagged to make it findable via a search. So if a maintenance person has extra time they could work on putting categories at the bottom of entries. For an example of a well-tagged entry see the exhibits in the Colonial Era entries: at The Age of Sodomitical Sin

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From Jonathan. August 29, 2011

OutHistory's Identity as a History Site Focused on Time

OutHistory.org: It’s About Time!

Seems to me that time is the essence of OutHistory.org, the thing that distinguishes it from a sociology site, an encyclopedia, or a museum. The actions of people in classes over time, movement and stasis, seems to me to define what OutHistory is about. This identity of the site needs to be made much clearer aesthetically, in the graphic design, functionally, and in terms of content stressed.

So I argue that figuring out ways to convey time to OutHistory users and content creators should therefore be the major focus of the aesthetic, functional, and structural redesign.

Part of my emphasis on time goes back to the very earliest research I did for Gay American History, between 1973 and 1975. To get a quick overview of what kind of sources and events were then known about homosexual U.S. history I got all the existing bibliographies on the subject, copied them, and cut up the entries and scotch taped them them in chronological order to three by five cards. It was completely revelatory. “Oh, that happened two years before that!” “Oh, that was published just after that!” I know that simple chronology is the most basic form of history, but it does remain, I think, a basic, illuminating starting point.

So I would like OutHistory to provide a REVELATORY time-related experience for its users similar to the experience I had years ago. I’d like them to say “Oh!!!” when they look at the site.

Ways the Site Can Stress Time

VIA GRAPHIC DESIGN (aesthetically):

VIA IMAGES

Visualizing Time

Think of all the ways that time is visualized in movies:

calendar pages turn

clocks of different kinds tell the time

A recent art piece using lots of filmed time images and references to tell the current time might prove inspiring. See: Christian Marclay, The Clock. YouTube.com See also the review of this art piece in The New York Review of Books

VIA WORDS

Slogans:

OutHistory.org: It’s About Time!

OutHistory.org: Making Up For Lost Time!

OutHistory.org: Time is of the Essence!

VIA TIME RELATED FUNCTIONS

OutHistory should include a variety of time-related searches

Search by day month and year (eg, June 28, 1969)

Search by day of the week (e.g. what happened on a Monday?)

Search by month and day (e.g., what happened on February 2?)

Search by century and/or decade (OutHistory is set up for this, but we haven't tagged all the entries, so they don't show up. For those that are tagged click here

Search by time period. When we redesigned the search recently this got lossed somehow. Some of the Time Era categories are viewable here

In the redesign, perhaps all searches can have results that have a time factor stated.

VIA TIME RELATED CONTENT

Chronologies of events should be included

Some are already begun on OutHistory: (eg, Chronology for Out and Elected in the USA, Bloomington, Indiana, LGBT History Chronology 1969-2009, History of the Term "Heterosexual"

Titles should include time in a consistent place

(eg: Alberta Lucille Hart/Alan L. Hart: October 4, 1890-July 1, 1962, Alan Hart: "The Undaunted," 1936 )

Entries should stress time.

(e.g., see the main entry on the life of Alberta Lucille Hart/Alan Hart)

CATEGORIZING/TAGGING (time-related)

If time related searches are to work, all content must be tagged or categorized by time. We have not done this consistently in the past. Maybe it can be made easier to do. The site could provide forms to add time related data.