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New ULSU website

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  • 31-03-2009 1:22am
    #1
    Polar Ice
    Registered Users Posts: 857 ✭✭✭


    Just spotted a new ULSU website

    http://www.ulsu.ie/

    I'm not quite sure if it's finished or not. Just as a matter or curiosity, what do people think?


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    #2
    ninty9er
    Registered Users Posts: 9,366 ✭✭✭ninty9er


    I'm still getting the old one.


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    #3
    ninty9er
    Registered Users Posts: 9,366 ✭✭✭ninty9er


    http://ulsu.ie

    It isn't chrome friendly.:(


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    #4
    thattequilagirl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,158 ✭✭✭thattequilagirl


    I think it looks much better. It's much easier to get around and generally a nicer website to use.

    I'm very disappointed that they opted not to go for a forum. This place is great for opinions/news on UL stuff and the su website should be the same. The excuse is that is was to get rid of the spam, but that could have been done without getting rid of the forum.


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    #5
    Robo_Mike
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭Robo_Mike


    Im still only getting the old site, when I click either link....


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    #6
    kingkane
    Registered Users Posts: 49 ✭kingkane


    thattequilagirl wrote: »
    I think it looks much better. It's much easier to get around and generally a nicer website to use.

    I'm very disappointed that they opted not to go for a forum. This place is great for opinions/news on UL stuff and the su website should be the same. The excuse is that is was to get rid of the spam, but that could have been done without getting rid of the forum.

    Interesting that the forum was dropped.


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    #7
    kingkane
    Registered Users Posts: 49 ✭kingkane


    Robo_Mike wrote: »
    Im still only getting the old site, when I click either link....

    It may just take time for the new DNS to resolve where you are coming off.


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    #8
    KerranJast
    Registered Users Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭KerranJast


    It looks god awful tbh. Very bad choice of colours and structure. Looks like its stuck in the 90s. It even has a marquee :rolleyes:


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    #9
    Robo_Mike
    Registered Users Posts: 139 ✭✭Robo_Mike


    kingkane wrote: »
    It may just take time for the new DNS to resolve where you are coming off.
    Connecting in kilmurry to the ul network.......


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    #10
    1huge1
    Registered Users Posts: 6,173 ✭✭✭1huge1


    Looks very poor in firefox, lot of work left to be done I assume


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    #11
    Feyy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 103 ✭✭Feyy


    KerranJast wrote: »
    It looks god awful tbh. Very bad choice of colours and structure. Looks like its stuck in the 90s. It even has a marquee :rolleyes:

    +1 Looks very like a quick job with lack of effort


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    #12
    ninty9er
    Registered Users Posts: 9,366 ✭✭✭ninty9er


    Feyy wrote: »
    +1 Looks very like a quick job with lack of effort

    Definitely not a quick job, I can assure you of that. A lot of effort has also gone into it, but I think the end product lets down the hard work put into getting a new website up and running.

    As for the forum, phpbb is a crap format, and I would advocate scrapping it in favour of a vbulletin format.


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    #13
    rmacm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,039 ✭✭✭rmacm


    ninty9er wrote: »
    As for the forum, phpbb is a crap format, and I would advocate scrapping it in favour of a vbulletin format.

    Most of the Vbulletin forums you see on the web tend to be heavily customised, not an easy task if you want to stay current with the Vb releases e.g. an upgrade could end up breaking a load of custom functionality you have. phpbb isn't half bad, plus the SU forums don't use phpbb, it was Simple Machines Forum last time I looked.


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    #14
    KerranJast
    Registered Users Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭KerranJast


    rmacm wrote: »
    Most of the Vbulletin forums you see on the web tend to be heavily customised, not an easy task if you want to stay current with the Vb releases e.g. an upgrade could end up breaking a load of custom functionality you have. phpbb isn't half bad, plus the SU forums don't use phpbb, it was Simple Machines Forum last time I looked.
    A proper vBulletin deployment uses themes which are not modified by subsequent core code patches. phpBB is a bug filled piece of hacker catnip. Pointless installing it on any kind of busy site.
    ninty9er wrote: »
    Definitely not a quick job, I can assure you of that. A lot of effort has also gone into it, but I think the end product lets down the hard work put into getting a new website up and running.
    It shouldn't be launched if it isn't finished. That's really unprofessional.


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    #15
    kingkane
    Registered Users Posts: 49 ✭kingkane


    Robo_Mike wrote: »
    Connecting in kilmurry to the ul network.......

    Could be that the proxy you are going through has the old IP as a sort of sticky.


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    #16
    rmacm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,039 ✭✭✭rmacm


    KerranJast wrote: »
    A proper vBulletin deployment uses themes which are not modified by subsequent core code patches. phpBB is a bug filled piece of hacker catnip. Pointless installing it on any kind of busy site.

    Actually phpbb3 is pretty secure and it went through a security audit before release. I keep an eye on a variety of security mailing lists too and I don't have many memories of phpbb vulnerabilities showing up (a search on the SANS website throws up one reference to a vulnerability).

    Of course a trawl across SANS/Security Focus isn't necessarily a rigorous test but it's a bit more substantive than throwing out an opinion without any backup.

    I was referring to modification of the code to add extra functionality, correct me if I'm wrong but themes only cover the presentation/ui end of the application. Sure your themes mightn't break but if you have patched code/added extra functionality that's not part of the Vbulletin standard build then there's a chance an upgrade will break something.


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    #17
    KerranJast
    Registered Users Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭KerranJast


    rmacm wrote: »
    Actually phpbb3 is pretty secure and it went through a security audit before release. I keep an eye on a variety of security mailing lists too and I don't have many memories of phpbb vulnerabilities showing up (a search on the SANS website throws up one reference to a vulnerability).

    Of course a trawl across SANS/Security Focus isn't necessarily a rigorous test but it's a bit more substantive than throwing out an opinion without any backup.

    I was referring to modification of the code to add extra functionality, correct me if I'm wrong but themes only cover the presentation/ui end of the application. Sure your themes mightn't break but if you have patched code/added extra functionality that's not part of the Vbulletin standard build then there's a chance an upgrade will break something.
    There are plugins and modules to add extra functionality or you can write your own modules/plugins/components. Hacking at the core files of any big software project like vBulletin is a last resort. vB is the industry leader and I highly doubt there's anything phpBB does that it can't dont out of the box.


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    #18
    bluedolphin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,421 ✭✭✭bluedolphin


    The website isn't completely up as of yet - it will take another day or so before it's completed.

    Re: how it looks...with a CMS, the appearance of a site is very limited as the content is taking priority.

    Re: the forum...having monitored it for a while, the actual number of real members (as opposed to spammers) was quite few, the regular posters even fewer and the number of people double-posting was ridiculous. It was an in-house cliquey group that really posed more of a problem (in terms of spam and monitoring for libel) than benefit. There will be a guestbook on the final site where users can leave comments once approved by admin.


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    #19
    thattequilagirl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,158 ✭✭✭thattequilagirl


    bluedolphin wrote: »
    Re: the forum...having monitored it for a while, the actual number of real members (as opposed to spammers) was quite few, the regular posters even fewer and the number of people double-posting was ridiculous. It was an in-house cliquey group that really posed more of a problem (in terms of spam and monitoring for libel) than benefit. There will be a guestbook on the final site where users can leave comments once approved by admin.

    Another option would have been to get rid of the spammers and promote the website/forum heavily so that a greater variety of students use it.

    They use this one like...


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    #20
    Oisín Collins
    Registered Users Posts: 152 ✭✭Oisín Collins


    This is one of the ugliest website's I have ever seen. It's pretty embarrassing to think that this is the "great new website" that the ULSU Sabbats have been bragging about since the first semester (and then failed to deliver until almost April!)

    The content is only better because the old website was locked out and in comparison, having news that isn't months old is like a breath of oxygen. The layout is mediocre and certainly no improvement on the old site.

    The removal of the forum is a shame, but the reasons purported here are frankly concerning!
    bluedolphin wrote:
    Re: the forum...having monitored it for a while, the actual number of real members (as opposed to spammers) was quite few, the regular posters even fewer and the number of people double-posting was ridiculous. It was an in-house cliquey group that really posed more of a problem (in terms of spam and monitoring for libel) than benefit. There will be a guestbook on the final site where users can leave comments once approved by admin.

    I agree with the other poster that encouraging it's use would be better, but even if it is just a cliquey group of people, it should be no surprise that they're the ones who are engaged with the Union, and may have something to contribute.

    The claims of "having to monitor for libel" are insane by the way, I've been on the boards for years and there's been virtually nothing of the sort. You'd think it was like the Daily Mail's website the way bluedolphin is going on!

    This new guestbook idea, where all ideas and opinions are carefully monitored and approved by the all-seeing eye of the ULSU, is crap to put it bluntly. Smacks of more protectionist rubbish where the SU refuses to allow self-critique in the media channels it controls.

    That's all, in summary, crap job, took too long.


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    #21
    tyRion
    Registered Users Posts: 18 ✭tyRion


    Long time lurker, infrequent poster, yadda yadda.

    To copy and paste a few things from the Facebook Group.
    • Validation results for the index page from www.w3.org (144 errors). Without proper validation blind users viewing the site through screen readers or Google bots, scraping the site for listings will fail to render the site correctly. Validation Matters.
    • DNS broke in the move. E-Mail is gone: I tried to mail president@ulsu.ie and campaigns@ulsu.ie earlier, both mails bounced with 550 errors (Permanent Failure).
    • The forum was removed, citing Spam problems. G-Soc, MBUL, Kayak, Softball and DebU to name a few, have no problems maintaining their forums.
    Looking at other sites that Molehill Solutions (Mick Phelan) have designed, the "new" ULSU site is an off-the shelf CMS that's been used several times before.

    Having worked in a web design firm I imagine there was about 4-5 hours of Photoshop work done, tops 10 hours of customisation to the CMS, and a further 2-3 hours of content propagation (there's very little content on the site at the moment, no back catalog and most content was copied and pasted from Word docs.). We're talking 20 hours here, max (most likely less, as there was no bug checking, proven by the 144 errors on the site).

    Standard rate for a web designer is €30 an hour. That puts the job at ~€500. Rumor has it that the site cost over €4k... as a student I personally would like an exact breakdown on how much this site cost and where the money went. Also, why was this outsourced when we have hundreds of students with similar skills in the university (and the SU could have been keeping students money in Students' pockets)?

    Why didn't the SU model the site on other SU sites which actually work for their students; e.g. the NUIG site, SIN.ie?

    The old forum is still up on Skynet. However all the links are hard links, not relative links and so the forum is completely unusable.

    No .htaccess files have been implemented, and no re-directs are in place. Any old links to the SU site are now broken. All the old archives of An Focal have disappeared.

    Not only has the site been re-designed, but it's been moved to a different hosting provider. I would like to pose the question: Why are the SU paying a yearly fee to Webhost.ie for only web hosting when Skynet provided web, mail, forum, mailing list, streaming radio, and chatrooms for free?

    Hopefully our incumbent Communications Officer will make good on her election promises and fix this site, so that it's actually a useful and usable for students come September.


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    #22
    redlane
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19 ✭redlane


    God this new website is truly awful. Firstly, while the last website was never great, this one is a step back visually. It looks like a free geocities template from 1998 - I'm not trying to be funny. The content is poor - not just because it's not finished yet, but because there is no imagination as to what content could be there. At very least, why isn't there a blog from each of the sabbats or even all of the sabbats? To set up a new website aimed at 17-25 (or so) year olds in 2009 and have no form of interaction or social networking is just utterly ridiculous. There is nothing new added to this website that wasn't on the old one. There is nothing on this that would attract students to check it at all, certainly not regularly, so why bother having a website? The most shocking part of all is that a professional company designed this. The portfolio of this company is very poor so really there was no excuse for going with them.

    In relation to the forum, I never signed up to it but as it was the most up to date part of the site, I regularly checked it to see what was going on in UL - at least it kept the old site somewhat fresh. Now when I visit the site it just feels dead - just an on screen version of a student handbook or An Focal. Utterly pointless.

    As a former student, I'm not up to the minute on the goings-on, so could someone tell me if that horrific logo on the site is a new official ULSU logo or was it just stuck in there by the designer?


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    #23
    karlonio
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3 ✭karlonio


    pretty bad over all


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    #24
    Zeouterlimits
    Registered Users Posts: 988 ✭✭✭Zeouterlimits


    redlane wrote: »
    As a former student, I'm not up to the minute on the goings-on, so could someone tell me if that horrific logo on the site is a new official ULSU logo or was it just stuck in there by the designer?

    It is the new official logo.


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    #25
    onedoubleo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 48 ✭onedoubleo


    I would also like to voice my disappointment at the site, wow a guestbook I remember having one of those on the site i made with homestead when I was 15. Bring back the forums it was the only place that had up to date news.
    The old sites most up to date press release had quotes attributed to its president St.John, this will happen again and at least the forums kept up to date even if it was just a few people on them.


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    #26
    Peteee
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 2,432 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peteee


    Woah, just had a look at it there.

    Hello 90s webdesign!


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    #27
    DJCR
    Registered Users Posts: 986 ✭✭✭DJCR


    You know what ..... I say its grand for what its there for...

    It gives info to those that want it....

    It doesn't give the opportunity to discuss issues through a forum but if you want to buy 100 condoms for a €1 go right ahead!! .... God knows you may turn a profit with the social welfare... at least before the budget comes out!!!

    At the end of the day we have boards... not ideal to a lot of you but hey.... your all discussing it here so why not keep it here...

    Get your info from the website and discuss it here.. big deal?? I think not!!

    As to the design.... Who cares so long as we are kept up to date on the issues that matter... right now... does the design of the website matter??

    With cut backs occuring all over the place, a 6 million euro debt to be settled (€8 million if you include Don Barry's pledge to sort out the sports fields)!!

    Come on ..... yes I realise we've waited for ages for this new site ..... yes I'm sure you probably expected more... but for the number of students that use it, keep An Focal to the core.... I'm sorry but the numbers related to the site just don't add up to the bitchin that is being done.

    (ps. if your looking for figures just ask around the University as to who uses the site and who doesn't..... I'm afraid we are in the minority)!!


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    #28
    Peteee
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 2,432 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peteee


    DJCR wrote: »
    As to the design.... Who cares so long as we are kept up to date on the issues that matter... right now... does the design of the website matter??

    The fact that it cost a lot of money and to be quite honest a number of people here could have whipped up a much better design in a few hours is what is getting people.

    The final design does not reflect the amount of money put into it.

    I've seen sites made in irony that look better then it.


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    #29
    redlane
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19 ✭redlane


    Zeouterlimits wrote: »
    It is the new official logo.

    Why? Firstly, it's a rip-off of the old GAA logo, secondly, it is utterly meaningless.

    DJCR wrote: »
    You know what ..... I say its grand for what its there for...

    It gives info to those that want it....
    What do you want? Generic welfare/education info that's been copies from officer to officer over the years? Why would you bother checking this website more than once?
    DJCR wrote: »

    Get your info from the website and discuss it here.. big deal?? I think not!!
    Surely the fact that boards.ie exists isn't an excuse for every Irish website to be bland and lifeless
    DJCR wrote: »
    As to the design.... Who cares so long as we are kept up to date on the issues that matter... right now... does the design of the website matter??
    It's not that the design isn't totally cutting edge, it's that it is so very dated - ridiculously so


    DJCR wrote: »
    With cut backs occuring all over the place, a 6 million euro debt to be settled (€8 million if you include Don Barry's pledge to sort out the sports fields)!!


    Is this a UL debt? Well then, it doesn't affect the SU surely, so that's not an excuse.


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    #30
    Polar Ice
    Registered Users Posts: 857 ✭✭✭Polar Ice


    DJCR wrote: »
    As to the design.... Who cares so long as we are kept up to date on the issues that matter... right now... does the design of the website matter??

    Some people I know in UCD asked was the website an April fools joke. It reflects poorly from an external point of view on the SU.
    DJCR wrote: »
    With cut backs occuring all over the place, a 6 million euro debt to be settled (€8 million if you include Don Barry's pledge to sort out the sports fields)!!

    The communications officer has claimed that she doesn't know how much the site cost (even though it falls under her responsibility). The rumoured figure of ~4k is obscene (for the product) regardless, but especially when you start mentioning cutbacks.


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    #31
    thattequilagirl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,158 ✭✭✭thattequilagirl


    While I agree with many of the criticisms I think you're being a tad harsh...

    If they brought back the forum, ideally added a blog and stopped the stuff moving different directions on the screen cos that really wrecks my head I'd be happy enough.

    Outdated as it may be, I still think it looks better than the previous one.


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