Thank you - I stand reminded,
Observer Article: "Defunct WonderCafe site is reborn"
- Thread starter AaronMcGallegos
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Welcome to Wondercafe2!
A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!
Thank you - I stand reminded,
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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That was one of our goals when we were selecting software to run the board. There were many of us who had issues with the design and capabilities of the old WC so we sought to do better. Thanks for letting us know that you came because of the article. I was wondering whether it would send any new faces our way.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Like PBS, we are member supported 
.
A number of us made financial or in-kind donations (e.g. I paid for the first year of the software license) to get it started. There are financials in a post in Council News & Business if you want to look at them.
Our web hosting and software are annual or longer terms so we don't have that many ongoing costs, just some annual renewals to be dealt with in the spring. The admins (there are three of us, two of whom work in IT in their day jobs) all donate their time so there are no personnel costs.
.A number of us made financial or in-kind donations (e.g. I paid for the first year of the software license) to get it started. There are financials in a post in Council News & Business if you want to look at them.
Our web hosting and software are annual or longer terms so we don't have that many ongoing costs, just some annual renewals to be dealt with in the spring. The admins (there are three of us, two of whom work in IT in their day jobs) all donate their time so there are no personnel costs.
Hermann
Well-Known Member
ChemGal
One with keen eye
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Welcome back!
Well, they just couldn't acknowledge the fact that a gorilla co-founded wc2.
They just couldn't acknowledge the fact that a gorilla could do a better job of it than they had.
chansen
Had a point all along
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If you want larger type, you can change the style in your profile to "Wondercafe2Large".
And welcome. We're glad you like it.
chansen
Had a point all along
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You're welcome. And if anyone is having a hard time finding the option, click on your username at the top of the page, select "Preferences", and then choose your style there.
"Wondercafe2Large" is just displayed in a larger font for those who prefer it. You can sorta do this in your browser for all sites by pressing Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - to make things smaller, but that will zoom in and out of the entire page, so the logo and everything gets bigger, while Wondercafe2Large only changes the size of the font in the messages.
And yes, we are self-funded. By using a more appropriate software solution for Wondercafe2 and omitting the parts of the site that were not used, we created this site, which looks and functions better, for a small fraction of the cost of the original Wondercafe.
"Wondercafe2Large" is just displayed in a larger font for those who prefer it. You can sorta do this in your browser for all sites by pressing Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - to make things smaller, but that will zoom in and out of the entire page, so the logo and everything gets bigger, while Wondercafe2Large only changes the size of the font in the messages.
And yes, we are self-funded. By using a more appropriate software solution for Wondercafe2 and omitting the parts of the site that were not used, we created this site, which looks and functions better, for a small fraction of the cost of the original Wondercafe.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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And it should be pointed out that the United Church of Canada could have chosen to make these same changes, and carried on the original Wondercafe for a fraction of the costs they were quoting.
Damned fools, as far as I'm concerned, but just my opinion. I find the upper levels (and no-one has YET managed to convince me of the usefulness of BOTH conference and presbytery) of the United Church a tad on the "penny wise and pound foolish" side.
Damned fools, as far as I'm concerned, but just my opinion. I find the upper levels (and no-one has YET managed to convince me of the usefulness of BOTH conference and presbytery) of the United Church a tad on the "penny wise and pound foolish" side.
KayTheCurler
Well-Known Member
It seems obvious to me that the UCCan deliberately chose not to continue with WC in a more affordable format. No effort seems to have been made to consider the thoughts, offers of help, availability of improved platforms etc that various members suggested. Not only could they have (as BetteThe Red points out) made the changes themselves, they could have avoided setting up the original discussion forum in such an expensive way from the get go if they had utilised the vast amount of knowledge found in actual church members (you know, some of those smart folks who sit in the pews). Whatever happened to volunteers??
chansen
Had a point all along
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The UCCan had decided that Drupal was their content management system of choice. Drupal is also the backbone for their main UCCan site, and I recall one argument for it as the backbone of Wondercafe.ca was that their social media staff wouldn't have to learn a new admin interface if they used Drupal for Wondercafe as well. The original Wondercafe probably was over-ambitious from the start, by trying to host blogs for anyone who wanted one, plus a "Books" section I still don't understand, plus a church finder app, plus the forum tacked on. But with better free blog hosts like Wordpress and Blogger already available even then, there was no reason to use Wondercafe for personal blogs or church sites.
With the minor exception of a couple of bloggers, the only thing that took off was the forum.
And if you take a CMS like Drupal and customize it, you're hiring programmers to create custom code to do what you want, plus stylists to design the look of the site. By going with a forum only, Wondercafe2 can use stock forum software that doesn't try to do anything but be a vehicle for discussion, and do it very well. We only needed a stylist. By avoiding custom programming and not having a church finder or blog section, we saved thousands of dollars. Possibly tens of thousands, compared to what the UCCan would have spent setting up Wondercafe.ca in the first place. We spent less than $1000, half of that on the stylist's fee, and ongoing costs should be much less, and though we'll need that stylist to update the site to work with software updates, those should be minor, inexpensive tweaks.
I think the UCCan ended up with a pot of money from an estate, threw a wad of cash at some webmaster company, and in the end, didn't know what to do with what they had created. We had a total of three WC regulars who had helped to run forums in the past, and knew it didn't have to be expensive, despite what a the UCCan and some others inferred or even insisted. All I did was choose and install the software, and honestly, it wasn't hard. I think most of you could do it with an instruction manual and some tutorials, which are available online. The harder parts were Pinga dealing with the UCCan and managing it and Mendalla writing the code of conduct and other boilerplate for the site.
I still wish we had the original Wondercafe posts archived here. That Wayback Machine website is impossibly slow, and the snapshots of the website it shows only includes some of the pages. It's really quite useless as anything but an example of what a site used to look like.
With the minor exception of a couple of bloggers, the only thing that took off was the forum.
And if you take a CMS like Drupal and customize it, you're hiring programmers to create custom code to do what you want, plus stylists to design the look of the site. By going with a forum only, Wondercafe2 can use stock forum software that doesn't try to do anything but be a vehicle for discussion, and do it very well. We only needed a stylist. By avoiding custom programming and not having a church finder or blog section, we saved thousands of dollars. Possibly tens of thousands, compared to what the UCCan would have spent setting up Wondercafe.ca in the first place. We spent less than $1000, half of that on the stylist's fee, and ongoing costs should be much less, and though we'll need that stylist to update the site to work with software updates, those should be minor, inexpensive tweaks.
I think the UCCan ended up with a pot of money from an estate, threw a wad of cash at some webmaster company, and in the end, didn't know what to do with what they had created. We had a total of three WC regulars who had helped to run forums in the past, and knew it didn't have to be expensive, despite what a the UCCan and some others inferred or even insisted. All I did was choose and install the software, and honestly, it wasn't hard. I think most of you could do it with an instruction manual and some tutorials, which are available online. The harder parts were Pinga dealing with the UCCan and managing it and Mendalla writing the code of conduct and other boilerplate for the site.
I still wish we had the original Wondercafe posts archived here. That Wayback Machine website is impossibly slow, and the snapshots of the website it shows only includes some of the pages. It's really quite useless as anything but an example of what a site used to look like.
Pinga
Room for All
Kay, there are many reasons the program was done a certain way.
I believe the negativity is ill-placed and does not take into account, nor can it take into account, the objective of the site, what took off, and what didn'.
It is really easy o be critical
It is harder to recognize the wonder of wondercafe forming, the risk that the uCC took, and the many successes that went with it.
I for one get really tired of the easy criticism from the sidelines.
I believe the negativity is ill-placed and does not take into account, nor can it take into account, the objective of the site, what took off, and what didn'.
It is really easy o be critical
It is harder to recognize the wonder of wondercafe forming, the risk that the uCC took, and the many successes that went with it.
I for one get really tired of the easy criticism from the sidelines.
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KayTheCurler
Well-Known Member
Pinga - I'm sorry you find my words critical. What risks did you see the UCCan taking when they started WC? Correct me if I'm wrong but - didn't someone else pay the bill for Emerging Spirit and WC?