Millstreet.ie

ok, here’s the crux of the matter. if a person from the community who runs a local business comes to you and asks to put something on the site, what do you do? Do you put in the background where nobody will notice?
I think it is fair to at least give them a chance (especially with the times we live in), and to allow people to be aware of what is on offer, but in no way will they be allowed to overrun the site. the article will be off the front page soon enough

Consider this: without local business, there is little or no community … just people driving out of town to work, shop and everything else.

*note: the facebook page is essentially a mirror of millstreet.ie. when something is published on millstreet.ie, it is automatically published on the facebook page.

hi Seamus,

For the 10+ years that millstreet.ie has been going, all parts of the community have been welcomed to put their wares up on their site.

In fact we have held the view that millstreet.ie belongs to everyone living in the Millstreet area and it gives them a platform to advertise, voice an opinion, put up pictures, or anything they wish as long as it is not considered offensive.

Now to say that any group of the community should not be treated the same as others (in this case companies) is effectively to me the same as saying “there should be no sport on the front of the site because I don’t like sport”. In any published media you will not be interested in everything and one just skips over them, and doesn’t think any more of them.

Specifically on adverts this year, there have been 7 adverts out of 342 articles. Now that could hardly be considered as over-running the site by any stretch of the imagination, and it should also be noted that when adverts are put up, they actually do attract a good deal of attention. Anyway, where else would they advertise that has such a large local readership?

As for your suggestions on site redesign, we know that the site is not prefect by any stretch of the imagination, because it has expanded a lot since last August when it was redesigned, so the design probably needs to change a little again to allow for the change in content and readership trends. All suggestions will be considered as to how to make the site better and more accessible. But all the work on the site is voluntary, and (as I’m the one implementing the design) I honestly don’t have time or energy at this time of the year to put a much of effort into redesigning the site.

There’s an adage about websites that I learned maybe fifteen years ago, that “Content is king … and always will be” – meaning that: generally the more useful and interesting content a website has, the more successful it will be, regardless of how the site is presented. This is because more people will want to visit it again and again, this is especially true if a website is constantly adding more and more content on a regular basis be it articles, tutorials, news and opinion or whatever.

… so lets just leave the content drive the site and welcome everyone to participate with open arms whom ever they are.

michael