Do you look at other clubs' websites from time to time? How do you rate them? Do you find features that look like a good idea, and wish your own site had something similar?

Hellie was trying to start up a book review thread - I hope it goes well, but it's not something I am taking part in.

I wondered if some unbiassed comments and criticisms of our club websites might be of mutual benefit. I know that I visit our site so often that finding my way round it is second nature now. But I never really think how it appears to others. There are two ways of looking at a site, if you are not a member.

First, as a member of the public: maybe interested in taking up caving and wanting to get in touch with a club local to them, or you just have a question about a cave or a mine near where you live.

Or you might be another caver:  looking for information, contacts, accommodation, led trips etc etc.

Would it be a good idea to take some club sites and review them? Unlike a book review, the comments might quite possibly end up being taken on board, improving public awareness, improving accessibility of services to other cavers,  and improving the image of the club in question.

Rather than just pick a club at random, perhaps we should offer our own club's sites each in turn, on a first come first served basis. I imagine we could have quite a fast turn around, maybe one every two or three days? We could be quite flexible - it would be obvious, I think, when a discussion had run its course.

Maybe when we have a site to start with, rather than comment on the technical features which would be very geeky, let's just concentrate on how the club comes over - friendly, or specialised, or busy, or a bit armchair? How easy was it to find out how to join? How easy was it to get in touch by email? Did the site layout encourage you to look around more? How much time did you spend poking about before you got bored? Could you find the club journals online? Were they easy to search?

All these things are just examples. There are many more questions that I am sure we could all come up with.


So who would like to start?

Me!

I'll start.

Here's some. My comments are my own. No-one else's. I'm not unpopular for no reason, you know!

Aberystwyth ("that's easy for you to say") Caving Club
http://users.aber.ac.uk/club06/news.php
Looks very inviting; modern, vibrant. Cool!

Airedale Caving Club
http://www.airedalecavingclub.org.uk/
My least favourite font appears for the first time. I bet it?s not the last.

Alternative Derbyshire Caving Club
http://pages.zoom.co.uk/adcc/
Alternateshire?

Axbridge Caving Group
http://www.axbridgecavinggroup.org/
Oh, oh, oh! Moving bat wings!

Bracknell District Caving Club
http://www.bdcc.co.uk/
No BBC links found.

Bradford Pothole Club
http://www.bpc-cave.org.uk/
Nice design. Black background ? seems like a good idea but ruins my eyes.

Bristol Exploration Club
http://www.bec-cave.org.uk/
An amazingly comprehensive website although mildly mausoleic.

Black Rose Caving Club
http://www.brcc.org.uk/
Good.

Black Sheep Diggers
http://www.blacksheepdiggers.co.uk/
Also good.

Brynmawr Caving Group
http://www.btinternet.com/~brynmawrcavingclub/index.html
The chunky pixellated font must have cost pence.

Burnley Caving Club
http://www.burnleycavingclub.org.uk/
That GIF is pass?, IMHO.

The Cambridge Climbing and Caving Club
http://www.thecccc.org.uk/
Very smart.

Cambridge University Caving Club
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/caving/wiki/Main_Page
Understated.

Cardiff University Caving Club
http://muddydragons.co.uk/board/
A very good site ? looks good, vibrant, fun.

Cerberus Speleological Society
http://www.cerberusspeleo.org.uk/
Hard to read, layout fussy; excellent contents overall.

Cheddar Caving Club
http://www.cheddar-caving-club.org.uk/
Everyone knows what?s going on.

Chelsea Speleological Society
http://www.chelseaspelaeo.org.uk/
Business-card-like.

Chesterfield Caving Club
No website, but an online listing via local newspaper.
http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/12576/Chesterfield-Caving-Club.3766856.jp

Combined Services Caving Association
http://www.cs-caving-association.com/
Needs updating by students or anyone with flair.

Craven Pothole Club
http://www.cravenpotholeclub.org/
Reminds me of the 1970s TV series, ?The Tomorrow People?.

Crewe Climbing and Potholing Club
http://www.ccpc.org.uk/
Simple, neat, tidy, uncluttered, but slow to load.

Croydon Caving Club
http://ccc.photoze.net/
Too busy caving to put much on their site, by the looks of things.

Cwmbran Caving Club
http://www.cwmbran-caving-club.org.uk/
?We like animated GIFs and multiple fonts?.

Deep Down Under Caving Club
http://www.deepdownunder.co.uk/
Jolly nice, modern, looks reassuringly expensive.

Derbyshire Caving Club
http://www.derbyscc.org.uk/
Jolly not nice, thoroughly homemade and done by a twelve year old; hate that font big time.

Devon Speleological Society
http://www.devonss.org.uk/
Neat, simple, but nasty font.

Dudley Caving Club
http://www.dudleycavingclub.org.uk/
Messy. But modern. Modern and messy.

Durham University Speleological Association
http://www.dur.ac.uk/speleological.association/
Hilarious meerkat-type photograph

Eldon Pothole Club
http://www.eldon.org.uk/
Neat, modern, stylish, simple.

Essex County Scout Caving Team
http://www.ecsct.org/
It won a badge, apparently.

Exeter University Speleology Society
http://au.ex.ac.uk/~speleology/
If the logo was updated by someone over 3 then this site would look fab.

Frome Caving Group
Wot, no website?

Gagendor
Another strong club surprisingly without a website

Glasgow University Potholing Association
http://www.gla.ac.uk/clubs/potholing/
Looks good

http://www.gloucester-speleo.org/
Hmm. Is that it?

Grampian Speleological Group
http://www.gsg.org.uk/
Carved in mud with sticks

Great Orme Exploration Society PLC
http://www.goes.org.uk/
Modern and simple. Unlike me.

Grwp Ogofeydd Garimpeiros
No website

Hades Caving Club
http://members.aol.com/sosprey94/
Colour photos on my colour screen would make it look less dated.

Hereford Caving Club
http://www.herefordcavingclub.org.uk/
Nice site.

Imperial College Caving Club
http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/caving/
Shame it?s on a black background ? murders my eyes.

Inkpen Martyrs Caving Club
http://www.geocities.com/inkpen_martyrs/
A new benchmark. Russell, whatever possessed you? I bet your click counter goes up from 187 now!

Isca Caving Club
http://freespace.virgin.net/isca/
Come home, Russell; all is forgiven!

Kent University Caving Club
http://kucc.org.uk/kucc/modules/myHome/
The Ferrari of University Caving Clubs, eh?

Keyhole Caving Club
http://www.caving.uk.com/Resources/Pages/frame.html
Nice.

Lancaster University Speleological Society
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/socs/speleolo/
A higher resolution picture would be wise, now broadband exists.

Liverpool University Potholing Club
http://www.lupc.chrishaigh.co.uk/
Very good indeed.

Manchester Underground Society
http://www.mugs-caving.org.uk/
Neat, simple, smart, good.

Manchester University Speleology Club
http://orgs.man.ac.uk/musc/
Wot, no piccies?

Masson Caving Group
http://massoncave.tripod.com/massoncavinggroup/
WTF? A new low has been reached.

Mendip Caving Group
http://www.m-c-g.org.uk/
Pretty bad. Font choice, animated GIF, 1970s styling. Fabulous cave, though!

Mendip Nature Research Committee
http://www.mnrc.org.uk/
Clearly the product of a committee. Logotastic!

Morley Potholing Club
http://www.morleycavers.org.uk/
Primary School pupil?s 2nd prize.

Northern Pennine Club
http://www.northernpennineclub.org.uk/
Understated, neat. Reassuringly professional.

North Wales Caving Club
http://www.northwalescavingclub.org.uk/
The Dark Ages have returned. Etched entirely on slate.

Nottingham University Caving Club
http://www.su-web.nottingham.ac.uk/~caving/
?Just include everything, dammit!?

Orpheus Caving Club
http://www.palydon.demon.co.uk/
Winner of the Arthur Negus Seal of Approval.

Oxford University Cave Club
http://www.oucc.org.uk/
Underwhelming, given the reputation of this august body.

Pendle Caving Club
http://www.pendlecc.org.uk/
Hmm.

Peterborough Potholing Club
http://peterboroughpotholingclub.co.uk/clubhut.htm
My favourite so far. Humour is good.

Plymouth Caving Group
http://www.plymouthcavinggroup.org.uk/
Bad website. Must have been designed by Chaffagraffix, link here: http://www.chaffagraffix.co.uk/

Quaking Quakers Caving Club
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scott.heyden/
Timid Tim, a Quaker, thought it wrong to fight. Roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it was all right.

Red Rose Potholing Club
http://www.rrcpc.org.uk/
Looks like the English Heritage website. Professional.

Reading University Caving Club
http://www.rucavers.co.uk/
A very good site. Looks supercool.

Royal Forest of Dean Caving Club
http://www.rfdcc.org.uk/
Excellent.

Sheffield University Speleological Society
http://suss.union.shef.ac.uk/suss/
Another class act from a University club.

Shepton Mallet Caving Club
http://www.shepton.org.uk/
Very good indeed. Surprisingly good.

Shropshire Caving and Mining Club
http://www.serve.com/scmc/

South Bristol Speleological Society
http://www.sbss.info/
Nicely done.

South Ribble Caving Club
http://members.lycos.co.uk/SRCC/index.html
For ?their first website? this is very good!

Southampton University Caving Club
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~succ/SUCCWebsite/index.html
Students definitely have better looking websites!

South Wales Caving Club
http://www.swcc.org.uk/
Not bad. Quite good actually. OK, fawn fawn, it?s very good. Considering.

Swaledale Outdoor Club
http://www.swaledaleoutdoorclub.org.uk/
Looks posh and professional. And generic.

Technical Speleogical Group
http://www.tsgcaving.co.uk/
I was expecting something good. I was right.

The Queen?s University Belfast Caving Club
http://quis.qub.ac.uk/caving/
The best design yet.

Tunnel Research and Exploration Group
http://www.secret-bottletop.com/Pwll-Du/Group.html

Dublin City University Caving Club
http://jakarta.redbrick.dcu.ie/~caving/index.jsp
No love expended here.

University of Huddersfield Caving Club
http://www.uhucc.org.uk/

University of London Caving Club
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/UL_CAVING/
I personally dislike that font immensely.

University of Leeds Speleological Association
http://www.ulsa.org.uk/
Makes the Oxford University Caving Club website look over-complex.

University of Newcastle Caving Club
http://www.societies.ncl.ac.uk/uncc/
Very good indeed. Great cover photo!

University of Wales College of Medicine Caving and Canyoning Club
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/uwcmccc/
Page isn?t wide enough for their acronym.

Wealden Cave and Mine Society
http://www.wcms.org.uk/index.shtml
Information overload alert! Mind you, cuntplaces is worse.

Wessex Cave Club
http://www.wessex-cave-club.org/
Designing websites since 1934. Actually that was their old one. This is much better and it?s got wifi!

West Midlands Cave Exploration Group
http://wmceg.cjb.net/
Won it in a cracker.

Westminster Speleological Group
http://www.wsg.org.uk/
Far more up to date than their Mendip hut, thankfully.

White Rose Pothole Club
http://www.white-rose.org.uk/
Gert posh!

William Pengelly Cave Studies Trust
http://www.pengellytrust.org/
Corporatelogotastic.

Wirral Caving Group
http://www.wirralcavinggroup.org.uk/
Lawks-a-lordy colourblindess.

York University Cave and Pothole Club
http://www.yucpc.org.uk/
They do caving and potholing. Cool!

Yorkshire Subterranean Society
http://www.yssuk.com/
Very posh.

Didn't mention your own club, Chris?

You noticed.

It is a good idea in theory, but I imagine people would be uncomfortable to put forward their club's website unless they are the webmaster. Volunteers usually make the websites in their own time, and are not usually professionals: so it is a bit unfair to criticise them.

Maybe instead, people could look at club websites and give examples of ones we think are good, and why.

Oh dear.  :-[ I obviously didn't make myself clear enough. I wanted you to post something like this.

"Please feel free to review our website."

www.ourclub.org.uk

ie one at a time, and it would be your invite to look at your site.

Oh well, never mind.

And, Andy, I would expect the person to be responsible enough to get an OK from the club, but as they are all in the public domain, I can't see this is strictly necessary. If a club is ashamed of its site, why did they write it in the first place?

You missed out The Cotham
highly uninformative
http://www.muircom.demon.co.uk/ccg/

Didn't realise I was supposed to track down every club in the country.

Here's an idea; why not give us your appraisal of Cotham's website? - after all, this is a forum and anyone can post stuff.

On second thoughts, having now visited it, it's hardly a website, really. More a sentence with two pictures.

cap 'n chris said:

Didn't realise I was supposed to track down every club in the country.

Click to expand...

I thought that's exactly what you had tried to do, mistakenly.

Peter, why should we review the Belgrave (Jungle) F.C. site?

Well, Graham, as you are clearly a member of it, you tell me.

OK

I am a member of the ACG and 'run??' the website, when I say run, I pop stuff up and fiddle when the sun and moon meet and the shadow of the furrless rat dances off the moonlit window.

Axbridge Caving Group
http://www.axbridgecavinggroup.org/
Oh, oh, oh! Moving bat wings! - Says... "Cap 'n Chris - website developer and bash code god"

I went for the simple, easy on the eye, informative approach as I feel most of the action takes place here. I would treasure your comments and maybe make adjustments as required.

Thank you, darkplaces. The voice of sanity (at last).

Axbridge Caving Group
http://www.axbridgecavinggroup.org/

A brief look (no time for much more at the mo)

Public focussed, basic key information there.

I suspect I would need to poke about a lot more to see if I could decide if it was the club for me.

I asked myself these two questions.

"How do I join?"

The answer didn't leap out of the page. But I guess the only way is to email the chairman for more details.

"I want to visit Shute Shelve Cavern" - likewise, not much info (I found a few pictures quite quickly). No immediately obvious details on the cave like when I could arrange a visit, what party limitations etc. Answer? I'll have to email the chairman and wait for a reply.

Impression - I hope you can find time to work on it - It's a bit skeletal at the moment.

Note: I was not commenting on the look and feel of the site, but on what information I could glean from it, and how useful the site is. You can use 'sticks in mud' for the purposes of this exercise, for all I care.

Peter Burgess said:

Well, Graham, as you are clearly a member of it, you tell me.

Click to expand...

Look at the link in your previous post!

cap 'n chris said:

Manchester University Speleology Club
http://orgs.man.ac.uk/musc/
Wot, no piccies?

Click to expand...

This is out of date.

It's now at:

www.musc.org.uk

With lots of piccies!

cap 'n chris said:

Mendip Caving Group
http://www.m-c-g.org.uk/
Pretty bad. Font choice, animated GIF, 1970s styling. Fabulous cave, though!

Click to expand...

Thats a link to the old website. Try this instead:

http://mendipcavinggroup.org.uk/

Once the new website is fully operational, m-c-g.org.uk will redirect you.

You are welcome to review our club website, maintained by myself. Constructive critisism is always helpful.
www.issa.org.uk.
(oh what have I let myself in to?!)

graham said:

Peter Burgess said:

Well, Graham, as you are clearly a member of it, you tell me.

Click to expand...

Look at the link in your previous post!

Click to expand...

I must be more careful when I make up a fictitious url!

Most people seem too embarassed to comment on the Axbridge site.

Or not bothered, I suppose.

I would have thought that for a relatively small social community such as cavers, the more we could help each other with our public image, the better. There has been too much stupid arguing and bickering in recent days. It doesn't give a good message as far as I can tell. Whereas our own websites are entirely under our own control, and if we can make constructive comments about them, and suggest what might be lacking, then it benefits not only the specific clubs but all of us in the longer term. We focus a lot on how the media present caving to the wider world. Where do you think they get their impressions from, apart from their own prejudices? From the internet I expect because it is easy and free. If we have chosen to present a rag-bag of badly-presented information to them, then don't expect them to represent us as a responsible, and well-organised discipline. We love it when we get the good publicity, so let's try to encourage more, in our own small way. And maybe when we post anything onto this site, we should be a bit more conscious of who might be reading it, either now or in the future.

Christopher!!

Me!

I'll start.

Here's some. My comments are my own. No-one else's.

Click to expand...

If I'd known you had so much time on your hands this morning to browse through all the caving websites in the country, I'd have given you a list of useful things that need doing around my place...  :ras:  Failing that i'm sure Hughie and Elaine could put you to good use...(shovelling something around)   :tease:


Any how, back on topic, I like that the Axbridge have the ability to download theyre latest journal as a pdf....I'd like to recieve the wessex/craven journal/record this way as i'm not a hordy book wormy type but do like to read whats been happening...
Would save clubs heaps in postage for those that are like me..... (poor them)