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Southampton Gull wrote:So the Clubs Webmaster has asked you to relay this onto our forum has he?

Yes.

Southampton Gull wrote: Perhaps it might have been more professional for him to have done it in person but then how often does our Club do anything correctly when it comes to the use of the internet? It's been a shambles for years and it's actually a huge loss of revenue to the club so you'll have to excuse me for a total lack of sympathy.

I always liked the old site under Tim. It was updated indecently expediently after matches, always had relevant content, was amusing when it was appropriate and timely with the majority of its information.
Tim knows I come here a lot and it made sense for him to ask me to put out this information rather than do it himself, I don't really see your gripe.

Matt.

My worry is what the mobile site will be like! (There better be one!) ...the app is suffering with having to load the full site at the moment...

Don't be a plonker, Matt. Even you aren't THAT dim.

Once again a thread on this site turns into a slanging match between certain members. It's supposed to be "banter". :slap:
It's not TUFc's or Tim's fault that the OS is, at the moment, pants. If you want to blame somebody then surely it must be the fault of the FL for rolling out this new template and forcing the clubs to use it. Tim can only work with what he has been given. To be fair, I have had a look at it, this morning, and it's much improved on yesterday. Hopefully, that improvement will continue and we will end up with an OS that meets our needs, as fans of the club.

I, for one, am cautiously optimistic with regards to the coming season. Lets get behind TUFC and the boys, and support what they do in the name of Torquay United FC.

Just my opinions, you understand.

ferrarilover wrote: Yes.
I always liked the old site under Tim. It was updated indecently expediently after matches, always had relevant content, was amusing when it was appropriate and timely with the majority of its information.
Tim knows I come here a lot and it made sense for him to ask me to put out this information rather than do it himself, I don't really see your gripe.

Matt.

Whether Tim Herbert provides an explanation himself on this site or passes a message via a site member for publication on this site, to me, is much the same thing and I don't see the difference. He has provided an explanation - one he didn't have to provide - and that is perfectly reasonable of him.

The worry is the site is even less worth looking at than before and people will stop bothering with it completely.

Does anyone know how long this website contract runs for and how much it is costing the club?
I can understand 10 years ago it looked like a good idea to outsource web development. The web was still a relatively new idea and expertise was hard to come by and expensive. But now? Web Developers are two-a-penny. If I were on the board I would already have the lawyers going over the contract with a view to termination for breach by the other side with compensation sought and then bring it in house.

Oh, and one other thing, why is the website the responsibility of the media department? The man, Tim? confesses above he lacks the skills. Surely we could bring in someone with the appropriate skills, even on a part-time basis?

I agree Phil, the only trouble is that it seems our backroom staff is run to the budget of a multipack of Snickers and some Mars bars. A web developer would probably cost us another 3 Double Deckers and a couple Dime Bars, far outreaching anything we can afford right now.

Ordinarily, Tim is perfectly qualified to do the job of keeping the OS up and running well, its when the developers decide to fix something that simply wasn't broken and to make it needlessly complicated to boot that it all seems to go to rat shit.

Matt.

Yes of course, the OS has always had a reputation for being totally up to date and a mine of information that us fans wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. It's actually acutely embarrassing just how bad our OS is and that's without matters beyond the control of those employed by the club to run it.

There are plenty of people on here with obviously more expertise and enthusiasm than that displayed by the current Webmaster, you only have to read this thread for that to become glaringly obvious.

Phil/Cambgull,

I think you will find this is nothing to do with the club! They have not out sourced the website to any company. FLTV have the sole rights to all football league websites, it is not a case of opt in or out. This was forced upon all league clubs as part of a football league contract. Hence why it is out of Tim's hands. As a person who has designed by hand many websites and now works with a variety of CMS sites, I can understand Tim's frustration, some are appallingly designed and this huge reliance on FLTV templates on widgets and third party site content feeding in is a pure case of advertisement and revenue driven cr*p that you would expect from anything related to football!!!

I agree there are many people with the skills to design, market and maintain the clubs website to our needs, but Tim, i am sure is more than competent at most CMS template driven sites, as he has been for some time. What is obvious is that the competence of the designers and software of the new CMS is extremely questionable.

Southampton Gull wrote:Yes of course, the OS has always had a reputation for being totally up to date and a mine of information that us fans wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. It's actually acutely embarrassing just how bad our OS is and that's without matters beyond the control of those employed by the club to run it.

There are plenty of people on here with obviously more expertise and enthusiasm than that displayed by the current Webmaster, you only have to read this thread for that to become glaringly obvious.

Did you read Tim's post or were you still busy grinding your own personal axe? He referred to the other aspects of his job that mean he is much more than a webmaster. You appear to have something personal against he bloke. And if I am wrong you are doing a pretty good impression of someone who has.

Yawn....

Tim didn't make any post, he sent an email to a member of this site and asked them to pass it on. That's just plain laziness and unprofessional. Perhaps it's you who is too busy grinding your own personal axe to notice and not me, just a thought

The main cause of my dissatisfaction is with the OS itself and how shambolic the Club appears to anyone that views it, this opinion is irrespective of the new software being worked with and is hardly shocking news to anyone that ever looks at it.

Try being an exile and purchasing anything through that site, there are endless examples of how amateurish the whole online setup is at the club.

slay1373 wrote:Phil/Cambgull,

I think you will find this is nothing to do with the club! They have not out sourced the website to any company. FLTV have the sole rights to all football league websites, it is not a case of opt in or out. This was forced upon all league clubs as part of a football league contract. Hence why it is out of Tim's hands. As a person who has designed by hand many websites and now works with a variety of CMS sites, I can understand Tim's frustration, some are appallingly designed and this huge reliance on FLTV templates on widgets and third party site content feeding in is a pure case of advertisement and revenue driven cr*p that you would expect from anything related to football!!!

I agree there are many people with the skills to design, market and maintain the clubs website to our needs, but Tim, i am sure is more than competent at most CMS template driven sites, as he has been for some time. What is obvious is that the competence of the designers and software of the new CMS is extremely questionable.

Actually it does. Tim has admitted that he came from a journalistic side, not from a Web Developer side. He understands some of what he needs to know but not to an advanced standard and clearly suggests that some problems could be sorted by someone who knows website development in detail. This is in no way Tim's fault but it is the club's fault for not having someone who can do that. Someone who can take the online side of the club to the next level, who can sort out the online shop and perhaps ticketing too. I'm sure Tim is a lovely bloke and he seems to be working 3 jobs at once so wouldn't have time to do these things.

To me, it's just another example to show that the online side of things has been ignored for too long and it's about time that we had someone who could improve what would be a highly valuable asset to the club.

Hallelujah, someone else gets the point.

I have offered my help but not needed. Couldn't think of anything worse than putting in a request for every change needed, which is then prioritised by club size and how much they pay them - hence our delays as we're little Torquay. I'd rather own it all myself and update it instantly if I were Tim. Don't get me wrong nothing against Tim, he's a top bloke and heart is in the club. Roll on contract end date.