CTYI Website?

Mogwai

Ok, so introductions first since I'm quite sure none of you have any clue who I am:

Caroline Lukens, 15 years old, second year at CTYI (third at the CTY program in general) so don't pull the OMG NEWBIE LOL bs on me. Not that I'm pointing out any names, I've just heard a lot of negative comments about the attitudes on this forum, but I'm an optimist and therefore I'm hoping that they'll be proven wrong.

I'm wearing a spoon around my wrist as I type this.

Anyways, I've noticed a distinct lack of a proper website for CTYIers. I've heard about lots of people who have attempted to set up websites and failed due to lack of interest, which is disappointing, to say the least.

I'm experienced with web design (approx. 2 years' experience with PHP/MySQL) and I've taken the computer applications course here. I can get domain names for $3 a pop (Can't convert to euros in my head but it's probably like €2.25) and a particularly generous friend of mine offers free hosting on his server. So basically, I'm quite equipped to actually make a website.

The site would be a subsite on a larger community site I plan on creating, but for the time being it would receive the highest priority on my to-do list.

It would be a private site, which means when you register, your application has to be approved, otherwise you don't have full privileges. When applying, you provide the year(s) and sessions you went to CTYI, your full name, and other information to help verify who you are. Admins first view the application, and if they can't identify the person, their application is posted to the community so that everyone can look at it and see if they know the person. If it still can't be confirmed, then the admins contact the applicant and ask them questions that only a CTYIzen would know the answer to.

So, once you are signed up...

I have a relatively small number of features planned so far, but there are probably more that could be used on the site. So far, these are the ideas:

Forums
These, of course, are a given... there will be various divisions, and within them categories, and then threads + posts. There will be a session 1 and session 2 division, and then a variety of divisions which aren't specific to each session, generally for things that aren't related to CTYI like discussion/debate or whatever.

People will be able to choose avatars/upload their own avatars, and set various preferences like whether or not to show signatures/BBCode and so on. There'll probably be some other cool stuff that I haven't thought of yet too. But. I'll think about that when I'm actually programming it.

Photo Gallery
Another cool feature will be a special photo gallery. People will be able to upload photos, specifying the year and session, and a title/description as well. They can also specify whether the photo is public or private - I'll explain the difference between public and private later. People can leave comments on these photos as well. I can use PHP's GD library to check these images and control their dimensions/filesize and stuff.

Friendlist
I'm hoping to avoid elitism/"segregation" on my site, but there's no way that one person could get to know everyone who has ever been to CTYI, and sometimes they only want things visible to their close friends. That's the purose of the friendlist - you can add people to your friendlist, and by doing so, you enable them to see things like your private-specified photos, blog entries, and so on.

Blogs/Journals
I haven't decided exactly what to call them yet, but each CTYI user will be able to keep their own little blog where they can post about their lives and keep in touch with friends, or whatever they want.

Skins
The site will be skinnable, though I don't think I'll let users upload their own custom skins. I'm enlisting the help of Danny Riordan in making the layouts, though I can also make layouts pretty well.

We might also have some other random things like an American-Irish dictionary (for terms like "scanger" in Ireland, and "hella" in America) and video recordings of events like the talent show.

I'm lost on names at the moment, but I'm thinking CTYI Community (CTYIC for short). I'm getting a lot of help/cooperation from people here, but I'm worried about the fact that pretty much all other CTYI sites have met failure. I think the key is to get people to know about it, and I'm going to be collecting as many contacts as I can so that I can tell these people about the site once it's underway, and ask them to refer their friends.

So, in the end, my point is: What do you think? Do you think it's going to die like all the other sites? Would you sign up? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,
- Caroline

carlowboy

So, in other words, something like this?
http://87.192.213.38/ctyi/board/index.php
It has a decent photo gallery of both sessions:
http://marclar.be/ctyi/photo/main.php
Set up by Jeff (who else?)

Thursday*

Mogwai wrote:

Ok, so introductions first since I'm quite sure none of you have any clue who I am:

Caroline Lukens, 15 years old, second year at CTYI (third at the CTY program in general) so don't pull the OMG NEWBIE LOL bs on me. Not that I'm pointing out any names, I've just heard a lot of negative comments about the attitudes on this forum, but I'm an optimist and therefore I'm hoping that they'll be proven wrong.

I'm wearing a spoon around my wrist as I type this.

Anyways, I've noticed a distinct lack of a proper website for CTYIers. I've heard about lots of people who have attempted to set up websites and failed due to lack of interest, which is disappointing, to say the least.

I'm experienced with web design (approx. 2 years' experience with PHP/MySQL) and I've taken the computer applications course here. I can get domain names for $3 a pop (Can't convert to euros in my head but it's probably like €2.25) and a particularly generous friend of mine offers free hosting on his server. So basically, I'm quite equipped to actually make a website.

The site would be a subsite on a larger community site I plan on creating, but for the time being it would receive the highest priority on my to-do list.

It would be a private site, which means when you register, your application has to be approved, otherwise you don't have full privileges. When applying, you provide the year(s) and sessions you went to CTYI, your full name, and other information to help verify who you are. Admins first view the application, and if they can't identify the person, their application is posted to the community so that everyone can look at it and see if they know the person. If it still can't be confirmed, then the admins contact the applicant and ask them questions that only a CTYIzen would know the answer to.

So, once you are signed up...

I have a relatively small number of features planned so far, but there are probably more that could be used on the site. So far, these are the ideas:

Forums
These, of course, are a given... there will be various divisions, and within them categories, and then threads + posts. There will be a session 1 and session 2 division, and then a variety of divisions which aren't specific to each session, generally for things that aren't related to CTYI like discussion/debate or whatever.

People will be able to choose avatars/upload their own avatars, and set various preferences like whether or not to show signatures/BBCode and so on. There'll probably be some other cool stuff that I haven't thought of yet too. But. I'll think about that when I'm actually programming it.

Photo Gallery
Another cool feature will be a special photo gallery. People will be able to upload photos, specifying the year and session, and a title/description as well. They can also specify whether the photo is public or private - I'll explain the difference between public and private later. People can leave comments on these photos as well. I can use PHP's GD library to check these images and control their dimensions/filesize and stuff.

Friendlist
I'm hoping to avoid elitism/"segregation" on my site, but there's no way that one person could get to know everyone who has ever been to CTYI, and sometimes they only want things visible to their close friends. That's the purose of the friendlist - you can add people to your friendlist, and by doing so, you enable them to see things like your private-specified photos, blog entries, and so on.

Blogs/Journals
I haven't decided exactly what to call them yet, but each CTYI user will be able to keep their own little blog where they can post about their lives and keep in touch with friends, or whatever they want.

Skins
The site will be skinnable, though I don't think I'll let users upload their own custom skins. I'm enlisting the help of Danny Riordan in making the layouts, though I can also make layouts pretty well.

We might also have some other random things like an American-Irish dictionary (for terms like "scanger" in Ireland, and "hella" in America) and video recordings of events like the talent show.

I'm lost on names at the moment, but I'm thinking CTYI Community (CTYIC for short). I'm getting a lot of help/cooperation from people here, but I'm worried about the fact that pretty much all other CTYI sites have met failure. I think the key is to get people to know about it, and I'm going to be collecting as many contacts as I can so that I can tell these people about the site once it's underway, and ask them to refer their friends.

So, in the end, my point is: What do you think? Do you think it's going to die like all the other sites? Would you sign up? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,
- Caroline

That'd be absolutely fantastic, I'd love it and I wouldn't say I'd be the only one. There is kind of scattered CTYI stuff on the internet, like the official site, the boards forum, the photosites Carlowboy pointed out, eh...the Wikipedia entry....but a good community website with everything in one place and more would be great. And maybe links to CTY stuff and other CTYI things, or things relevant to CTYI or that individual CTYIzens were involved in? And actually I'd love to see a Wiki as I personally prefer them to boards. Be nice if the website had a sort of online-CTYI atmosphere. How about art and music and writing by CTYIzens, particularly from CTYI itself? I'm running away with myself now....

An important thing in making sure it lived I think would be getting CTYIzens who aren't on boards onto the website. CTYI has a tiny representation on boards, and there are plenty of internet-adept people who go to CTYI - this is nerd camp - and have never heard of boards. One thing would be to email people I suppose and have people tell their mates' mates, etc., but another idea would be to make a presentation of some sort at the next session and get a wishlist and ask for people to register and contribute.

I like the idea of CTYIzens debating things not directly related to CTYI. Or at all related. Although CTYI being the Ultimate.....

And thanks for acting on this, it'll be a lot of work I imagine if it happens and fair play for taking it on.

halenger

I'm just gonna say good luck.

I can't imagine what negative attitudes there are on these boards as noone posts here anymore. *shrugs*

Oh and if you're thinking of writing your own photo gallery and your own forum then seriously, forget about it. Do you have any idea how complicated they are? It's just a very very bad idea. Splitting session 1 and 2 is a bad thing also, in my opinion. There's no harm in having an 'in session' section but sure this place isn't hopping even - but maybe that's because it's so 'negative' (who exactly is negative and 'killing' this place?).....

PurpleFistMixer

Gotta say, I don't like the idea. I don't think we need a website.
We have a board here.. nothing wrong with it at all.
Personally I wouldn't bother signing up with another board simply to talk about CTYI...

I think the CTYIers have a bad enough name as a bunch of cliquey, elitist teenagers without complicating issues by having an excluse website.
I mean, sure, we make friends at CTYI, but ultimately friends are just friends, it seems silly to separate people into CTYIers, and thus only those people are allowed post on the boards and whatnot. And asking special questions to see who's a CTYIer or not? I mean... god, it's like it's a secret cult or something.

I don't like this attitude at all, you might have guessed.

I think the board here is perfectly functional, and sure if people don't know about boards then why are they any more likely to know about a far more obscure website? And for photos... well, there's photobucket and flickr or even bebo, and there are plenty of blogging communities around...

I can see where you're coming from wanting to have everything together, I just think it's horribly exclusive to have it being CTYI only...
Maybe it's because it's my last year here and I've made my peace with the place that I no longer feel so attached, but I don't like the idea of a community of solely CTYI people, wherein every little aspect of what they do is under the umbrella of CTYI.


I think it'd just be easier to direct all the CTYIers to this forum here, since it's already established, and it's getting pretty quiet anyway.



I wonder does this post count as a negative attitude. : p

JenLorigan

Thursday* wrote:

...the Wikipedia entry....

My God that entry should be burnt to the ground.

I'm with Steph, to be quite honest I don't really think it's necessary. It'd end up being used by you and a group of your friends, most likely. That sounds like I'm trying to put you down, which I'm not, it is a nice gesture, and appreciated. I just don't feel it necessary.

Your call though.

Kitsune

Ban sigs.
Unsigned posts can't be negative.

*Hangs head in shame*

Thursday*

JenLorigan wrote:

My God that entry should be burnt to the ground.

I'm with you there!

And on the exclusivity subject - well there's a camp in America for unschoolers called NBTSC that have a community website with a Wiki. I've never been to the camp, of course, but since it's hard to find unschoolers in Ireland, or certainly online communities of them, I was keen on joining their Wiki, and I checked if that was okay and it was. So there's no reason why we should exclude non-CTYIzens - it'd just be geared towards CTYI folks and if anyone else found us an interesting, nice bunch they'd be free to join in.

Garret

the wiki entry had been cut down alot

PurpleFistMixer

Do you think a non CTYIer would want to try and get into a community like that, though? I'd say they'd feel like a complete alien... I mean, sure, a couple very adamant people would try, but I don't think it'd give off a particularly... inviting atmosphere to anyone who doesn't get the myriad of injokes, or who wouldn't understand well.. anything about CTYI.
As people say, you can't understand CTYI unless you've been there, so people like that would be on an automatic foreign ground...


Also, what is an "unschooler"? Never heard of it before.

Raphael

"Unschooling (also sometimes referred to as "natural learning", "child-led learning", "discovery learning", "autodidactic learning", or "child-directed learning") refers to individual self-education. Under unschooling education, parents may act as "facilitators" and may provide a wide-range of resources to their children."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

And wouldn't it be impossible to find "unschoolers" in Ireland, seeing as up to the age of 16 you're legally obliged to be in school?

Thursday*

Indeed it's not impossible. One of them is typing this post.

Raphael

So how is it that you're allowed to sit at home all day and learn, instead of going to school. Are you under 16? Do you still sit the Cert exams? If so, how does covering the requisite material fit with unschooling. If not, how do you go through the CAO?

Nevyn

Unschooling or home school is permissible in this state as long as the parents ensure that the child sits and passes a mandatory set of tests each year.
Attending a school was not a persecute to sitting the jr cert and leaving cert exams until two years ago for the jr cert and last year for the leaving cert due to the introduction of continuous assements into grading of the exams which requires a education dept teacher to sign off on the assements.
It is still possible to be home schooled or unschooled and sit the O and A levels if the parents are willing to sort out arrangements with a private school where the child can sit the exams.

The constitution of the Republic of Ireland enshrines that the parents as the first and primary teachers of children and the continuous assements sections are going to be challenged in court.
Failure to have a child sit the dept of education's assements exams results in parents being taken to court and fined.

So Raphael is it possible.

Mogwai your suggest seems ambitious and could provide a 'safe space',
but is it needed?

The forum here is one of many differing communities and many of the current and former CYTIers have moved beyond this forum to their and the other communities benefit.

CYTI fosters the belief that none of you should limit yourself or you possibilities; surely a closed forum will do just that?

/me buggers of other far flung forums.

Matthewthebig

Site will fail

not trying to be mean, but it will.

Thursday*

Thaedydal wrote:

Unschooling or home school is permissible in this state as long as the parents ensure that the child sits and passes a mandatory set of tests each year.
Attending a school was not a persecute to sitting the jr cert and leaving cert exams until two years ago for the jr cert and last year for the leaving cert due to the introduction of continuous assements into grading of the exams which requires a education dept teacher to sign off on the assements.
It is still possible to be home schooled or unschooled and sit the O and A levels if the parents are willing to sort out arrangements with a private school where the child can sit the exams.

The constitution of the Republic of Ireland enshrines that the parents as the first and primary teachers of children and the continuous assements sections are going to be challenged in court.
Failure to have a child sit the dept of education's assements exams results in parents being taken to court and fined.

.

No, actually you don't even have to do any of that.

You don't have to do tests at primary level because primary school children don't have state tests so it would be discrimination. You don't have to take the JC or the LC or any equivalents either.
Your parents just have to satisfy the National Education Welfare Board that you're getting a 'certain minimum education.'
This is quite easy. They come to your house and talk to your folks. They aren't trying to catch you out, and they work with the national irish homeschooling association (that's not its name, hence small letters) to make things easy for conscientious people to home educate their children.

For my own part I only stopped going to school the Easter just gone. Wheeee!

I plan to do the LC - home study and take the exam in a school, and as it becomes more project-based they're going to have to make provisions for homeschoolers to be able to do it - cause I want to go to college before I'm twenty-three. But I'm not going to do the JC.

Nevyn

Thursday* I have looked into this for my own children and know other's who are doing just that you may not be aware of all the hoops your parents have had to jump through.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA22Y2000S14.html

Piste

I think it'd be horrible to be educated at home, especially for all of primary and secondary education. Where would you make friends and learn top be social? So much stuff is learned in school that isn't taught, it is learned from experience. School is one of the most important and shaping experiences in a child's life, it would be horrible to deny them that unless there were some very special circumstances.

Also Caroline, good luck with the website, if you're really committed to it by all means go ahead and make it, but I'd say before putting too much effort into it see how many people will use it, there's no point putting in all the good features only for them not to be used, also I don't think the idea of it being private will work, people would like to view it but not be registered, maybe to even find out a little about CTYI, or to visit the site to see if it's worth joining. But if you think it'll be successful, go for it

Liz

Mogwai

halenger wrote:

I'm just gonna say good luck.

I can't imagine what negative attitudes there are on these boards as noone posts here anymore. *shrugs*

Oh and if you're thinking of writing your own photo gallery and your own forum then seriously, forget about it. Do you have any idea how complicated they are? It's just a very very bad idea. Splitting session 1 and 2 is a bad thing also, in my opinion. There's no harm in having an 'in session' section but sure this place isn't hopping even - but maybe that's because it's so 'negative' (who exactly is negative and 'killing' this place?).....

I have written forum scripts before, and I know how to use PHP's gd library. And I never said I'd split session 1 and 2. I said there would be separate forum sections for each session - that doesn't mean that the other session is blocked from that section, it's just that generally you only know people from your own session.

As for the CTYI-only thing, why would a non-CTYIer care about the website? Also (not sure if I mentioned this before but I'm not bothering to check) the site is meant to be a small part of a larger website that I will also be working on, and when you register an account on the CTYI "subsite", it also becomes an account on the larger website, the only difference being that it has access to the CTYI subsite.

In the end, even if the site does fail, the scripts can be salvaged for other purposes, they're not that "exclusive". Hell, they can just be sold individually if it's necessary.
must go now. laters.

PurpleFistMixer

Mogwai wrote:

As for the CTYI-only thing, why would a non-CTYIer care about the website? Also (not sure if I mentioned this before but I'm not bothering to check) the site is meant to be a small part of a larger website that I will also be working on, and when you register an account on the CTYI "subsite", it also becomes an account on the larger website, the only difference being that it has access to the CTYI subsite.

The CTYI being a part of the entire site thing could work, but.. um... that's exactly what we have here on boards.

And, well, maybe a CTYIer might care about the boards because they have a lot of friends in CTYI, but as they never went, they'd feel excluded. Of course it's not your obligation to make sure it's open to every person, I just.. like that kind of attribute in a community.
When I first went to CTYI one of the reasons I loved it so much was that everyone is so accepting, but, that's in CTYI itself. When not actually in DCU and whatnot, we can come across as a very exclusive bunch of people. I think a website like this could add to that idea.

Then again, maybe nobody will care except for me. Maybe it'll be a great idea and a wonderful success, and whatnot.

And now back to class with me. ¬.¬

the evil lime

Best of luck with it, but my guess is it won't work. I've seen attempts at this sort of thing fail in the past.

Raphael

the evil lime wrote:

Best of luck with it, but my guess is it won't work. I've seen attempts at this sort of thing fail in the past.

You mean yours?

Zounds

mine too

Crash

And mine, at one point. and Bobs...hrmm actually I think my entire RA group seperately gave it a shot when I was a student.. :P

It wasn't me!

Ah, the good old days of ctyizens.com


I had a less retarded screen-name.

Asuka

Good luck Sounds like you'll need it ^^;

I have no idea why this one worked (to the degree that it did) tbh. Early death may have been the more merciful option

Jack Lynch

halenger wrote:

I can't imagine what negative attitudes there are on these boards as noone posts here anymore. *shrugs*

But im back now, so it's all going to be alright.

There was one called ctyiers.com that also crashed and/or burned. And speaking of CTYI on the internet, when did we get bumped back a category. Since when are we a society?

the evil lime

Actually I'd forgottten that I'd had a site with some CTYI based stuff on it. I was taliking about ctyizens.com, one of the more successful attempts (especially in comparason to mine).

M&M part two!

Sounds great, good luck.

Mogwai

I don't see an edit button, so forgive me.

Anyways, progress report. After I finished moping around about being back in America (that took like two weeks), I started working on the site. I haven't bought domains or anything, and I haven't started work on the actual subsite (still working on a system to identify when a user is browsing a subsite, to change the navigation bar links accordingly), but you can register as a CTYI user. The site is here. If you register, please be sure to use the right form, I'm too lazy to be manually adding people to the CTYI tables.

Anyways, everything you see on the site was made myself, with a few exceptions (HTML Safe, Smarty). You can log in and all that, though none of the links apart from login and register work currently.

I need some suggestions on what to name the subsite, though - names that have to be available as .com and .net domains. I'm going to try to get the ctyi.com domain, though I have no idea what price they're asking for it. Hopefully it won't be exorbitant. Still, other ideas are welcome.

Jack Lynch

You could make it something a little more random, like drshiela.com, or diediediedie.com (maybe not that one, now that I see it), or towelsonthursdays.com, or ctyiseeyou.com. Okay, im done