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The user acount Johnathon69 has been blocked and spam forum posts unpublished. Thanks to those who pointed out this problem! 

Hi,

I've had some correspondence with the ICC about possible improvements for the website. I publish it here so that other can think along:

"Dear ICC,

Great! The english website is continuously improving. Good idea to put some images to the buttons 'guided tour', 'ICC-radio' and 'library'. The images make the very busy homepage a bit more ‘light’/not so overwhelming/more sober and clear.

I think this dynamic should be continued by removing the quadrants on the left of the homepage and replacing them by a list of themes. So, instead of 3 quadrants (“other news on the site”, “recent and ongoing” and “tags in historic events”) just 1 quadrant (“themes” or “categories” or something of the like).

Another thing that could make the site more ‘attractive’ is the removing of lines marking quadrants. The library-button for example isn’t surrounded by a line, whereas the other 2 buttons “wr-radio” and “guided tour” are. There’s no need for that. Actually I would remove as much lines as possible and just put lines where needed. Is it necessary to have a quadrant surrounding a title + a line above it? Is it necessary to have a whole quadrant surrounding the review and journals at the right of the homepage? Wouldn’t it be enough to just have a line separating the press-images and the article-abstracts in the middle? And maybe even that line isn’t necessary, because the columns will probably stay quite clear, even without the lines.

To my opinion it would be good to drop the quadrant “popular content”, when you read an article. When I click an article, I just want to read the article and don’t want to be ‘disturbed’ by other links on the screen. Besides, it tempts readers to click and click and click, without reading anything. The quadrant “related articles” is however relevant and should stay, but maybe this could be added at the end of the article, between the “further reading” or “see also” suggestions.

Note: in quadrant “Popular content” there is a 2nd title “Today’s”. Why 2 titles? Just make 1 title of it: “popular”.) Don’t understand me wrong, I like the quadrant, but only on the front page.

About the navigation bar (grey bar on top). There is no home-button at the top of the page. It would be practical to have a this button in the navigation bar. This could avoid a lot of extra home-buttons at other pages, I guess. It would also be great to make the bar on top fit the width of the website: it would make everything a bit more ‘tight’ and professional-looking. Following the same logic it would look nicer if the google-search option could be integrated in the grey bar or could stick just under it. Also the small stripes separating the navigation-options (“Diary”, “Contact us”, “What is the ICC?” etc) aren’t necessary, they just make the whole look ‘heavier’, ‘full’, ‘baroque’. I think the navigation bar on the libcom site is better. Remark: is it necessary to call the forum “THE forum”? Why don’t you just call it “Forum”?

I really like the wr-radio and the library ideas. I also like the way in which the library is presented: very sober. I would even drop the the titles “international review”, “world rev” and ‘internationalism”, because the images itself say enough. Under each image a link to the content of each nr. could be practical. Again, I suggest to remove the “popular content” quadrant.

Question: is it out of security reasons that you don’t mention any e-mail addresses on the website? If so, I don’t think it is logical to send an automatic response to people who write you via the website, because in that case the person still gets the e-mail address.

I hope these comments can help the ICC. It’s just that I’ve received several comments from friends, saying the site is not very attractive. I always responded that the content is primordial to the esthetics of it. Secondly, that the ICC has limited forces and that anyone wanting to help, can present himself. For the moment I’m too busy finishing my studies, discussing and reading. But as soon as I can I’ll learn some more things on website management and design, and on journal layout etc.

Main message: more soberty, less baroque style

Rev Grtz!

A sympathizing studen"

ICC answer:

"Dear comrade

Our thanks for your thoughtful remarks, which we appreciate, though we're not sure we can answer all your proposals.
As you can imagine, the way in which the web site is built is to some extent determined by the software we used, and some of the stylistic choices are somewhat personal to the designer - we try to have a vision which is coherent overall although this may sometimes not be to everybody's taste.
Hence the "lines" on the site, which are simply a stylistic choice. Our webmaster liked the lines, so that's why we have them!
On the idea for a "Home" link on every page, actually this exists already. The title of the site ("International Communist Current"), will always take you back to the home page; perhaps this is not obvious enough and should be highlighted?
On the point of not having too many distracting links, we take your point and will mention it to the webmaster. One of the things we find most difficult is offering our readers a reasonably easy way to find their way around the site, especially from the front page which is rather crowded. There are so many "categories" on the site that we have tried to find a way of dividing them up so that our readers can find the most significant ones.
On the "Today's" title, this is actually a technical issue which we can't change. That particular quadrant (or "block" to use the technical term) also allows us the possibility of showing the most popular articles in the month, and over the whole existence of the site. Do you think it would be interesting to show these options also?
The reason we don't show e-mail addresses on the site is actually to cut down on spamming. Automatic spamming robots "trawl" sites for e-mail addresses that they can send spam to, so the idea is to avoid displaying any e-mail addresses while still allowing people to write to us.
We appreciate your main message: "more soberty, less baroque style". Ironically, this is actually what we are aiming for! Hence the relatively few graphics. But once again, the most difficult problem (from our viewpoint), is how to help our readers find their way around, and above all to find the subjects that interest them most. Any suggestions you might have from that viewpoint would be welcome (though given our few resources we can't respond to suggestions very fast). Ideas like this all "go into the pot" and are discussed amongst us.
You say that your friends don't find the site very attractive - do they give any reasons other than the points you yourself have put forward?
Finally, we appreciate that your studies take up a lot of time - this is normal and we always encourage comrades to study and to complete their studies, to take a long-term view of life. (...)

Fraternal greetings, ICC"

And my answer:

Dear ICC,

Thanx for this serious answer!

(...)

I understand your point about the surfing on the site. Not easy to develop a kind of logic system to search for an article. The tags in historic events is a crucial quadrant, but in a kind of way doesn't suffice. I'll think about it. And I'll ask my friends what they find so disattractive.

Rev grtz"

When I click "next" in the "library" it doesn't function...

We'll get the webmaster to look at this

The pages work on the library now. Enjoy!

I still stand to many things I've said. I don't want to defend any super marketing strategy, but if the ICC wants to be more 'attractive' for new people, it has to make its site more attractive, clear and 'transparent'. I agree however that it is not easy and that you can't change everything at once, so I'll try to make some more small (or big? I unfortunately don't know all the technical details YET) propositions.

I know discussions about style and taste can be endless, but I still think that all the lines are quite disturbing. Take a look at this site: http://mastbrothers.com/. Yes, this is a commercial site, not a political one. What I want to refer to is the style. It is very 'light' and elegant (a very popular style among many young people). No lines, no extra quadrants and still the content is clear. Take a next look at this site: http://www.zeit.de/index. Again lines are used very sparely and if the ones that are there are very subtle. The french ICC-homepage has no quadrants around the theme-titles and it looks much better. But OK, this is not an essential point.

More important, the navigation bar. Please, avoid the colour change (from light to dark) and make it just a homgenous grey/black bar, like the one on the libcom site. I think a 'home' button would be very appropriate. I would also add a second level with 3 buttons: login, register and search. Again I refer to the libcom site (I don't like their 'recent posts' button, it isn't logic). Look, I don't want to offense anybody, but when you go over the navigation/menu bar, 'option boxes' appear with a red colour and yellow letters, which I think is a very strange choice. I don't know any other site that uses these colours. If you look at the "Die Zeit" site (http://www.zeit.de/index), you see this is much more subtle. My proposal: make the font colour white and the letters red. Other suggestion: change "THE forum" into "forum" (the tone of it is incorrect: as if the the ICC-forum is the only forum that really matters).

About the lates issues on the right of the home page. The title latest issues appears just once, which is good. The french site finds it however necessary to repeat at each publication image that it is the latest issue. On the french site however are not all the publication details (number, year...) specified and on the eglish site they are. I prefer the french system. You see all the details when you've clicked on the paper.

A proposal to make the site more transparent: a category map, a bit like on the older site versions - deutsch, italiano, nederlands..., but I would make them more intelligent, that means: we need better categories. "Theoretical questions" is for example not a good category, because all the themes are in a away practical and theoretical... I propose categories as: nationalism, militarism, communist left, trotskism, ascendance/decadence of capitalism, crisis theory, history of the ICC... Some themes are good off course: gegraphical (I would delete "national situations" and place them under "geographical" as well), historical working class struggles (1830, 1848, 1870 ... 1980). No heavy titles as "development of the proletarian consciousness and organisation", but just "class consciousness" and/or "proletarian organisation". These categorization is not easy and self-evident, and are off course subject of discussion.

Rev grtz

The login and register at the navigation bar would be usefull, so you can just log yourself in at the start of the visit, and don't have to do it later on. Besides, most sites do it like this: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/ and http://global.nytimes.com/?iht.

About the "contact us". An e-mail adress seems essential to me. To avoid spam you could write the e-mail adress like this: worldrevolution [at] internationalism.org. Don't know if it helps, but I've seen it on several sites.

I think the leading principle must be: to make the "guided tour" redundant and the whole site very 'intuitive'. The guided tour is a good idea, but if I may be very critical and punctual, the tour itself is also very complicated and needs a guided tour by itself. When I did the tour I was thinking: where do I need to click? on "this way" or on "the text boxes"?

Maybe a series of videos like this one would be simpler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2jV1zELCxY. The latter video is a kind of 'help' video from 'Wordpress' = a blog server. I like the principle of the video, where someone explains it to you as if the person was next to you. For the guided tour I imagine just a list of 5 videos, each video explaining a part of the webiste functioning.

OR you can just make a kind of FAQ, a simple list with questions and aswers. So:

- Who's behind the site?

  answer (text

- How can I buy the ICC press?

 answer (video)

- What is the menu/page "theory and practice" about?

 answer (text and/or video)

- How can I find an article?

etc.

I'm looking for the search-function. I can't see it anymore. (I want to find back articles about the strikes in Vigo)

I stumbled by coincidence on the Coca cola site of Austria. Again a commercial site (by Coca cola = symbol of capitalism!). However the site layout and structure is nice. Just to bring some ideas for the future. I understand we can't change the site in 3 seconds.

Got this looked into. The Search box is back again. We've been having some problems with people not being able to access some of our articles (especially in the "What is the ICC?" section), which seem to be caused by a problem in the Search function, hence it getting switched off and on again from time to time 

First let's say that we much appreciate comrades' comments on the site to make it more attractive, so I propose here to answer some of them

I couldn't agree more!

I don't think the "mastbrothers" site (or the Coca Cola site, see above) are really appropriate comparisons. Not because they are commercial sites, but because they are basically advertising sites with extremely limited content. IMHO the most appropriate comparison is the Zeit site (though we have also tried to draw inspiration from the Guardian, and from the IHT. These sites all use some form of separation between articles and/or sections of the page, and in my view these pages would be incomprehensible without them. However, it's true that they use much lighter lines, or sometimes just background shading, and we could perhaps experiment with that.

Well, I think some change of colour is necessary for a nav bar (actually it's pretty standard on most sites, including the Zeit one - and look at the Guardian nav bar which is all different colours!). Generally a menu bar should have the following "looks": ordinary, mouseover (ie you're hovering over it), active (you've chosen that option, and you're on the page in question). It's true that the red/yellow is a bit violent, on the other hand red is the dominant overall colour of the site, and yellow on red has the advantage of being very readable. But perhaps you're right and we should sober it up a bit. Personally I rather like it: for the Chinese, red and yellow are lucky colours (look around next time you're in a Chinese restaurant!), so perhaps other readers could say what they think.

There's no "home" on the nav bar because we're running out of space, and so we just use the standard practice of making the top link into the "Home" link.

We did that!

I'm afraid we're planning to move the French site to the English system... Actually the English site is the way it is for two reasons: first, you may have noticed that the order of the publications changes, so that the most recent one is always at the top; second, the reason the title links are there is so that if there are technical problems displaying the images (it sometimes happens...), then you still have a link to get to the press.

I agree with this: the problem with the categories is that they got very big (that's why we introduced the "Theory and Practice" page - which has it's own drawbacks...). However, we do plan to put them back in a better organised and more readable way than on the other language sites you mention.

Well, I certainly agree with many arguments, e.g. that the Mast Brothers site and the Coca Cola Austria site (I mean this site: http://corporate.coke.at/content/at/corporate/home.aspx) have few contents, and in that sense are not very comparable. What I like about the Coca Cola site is the navigation bars. At the top of the page, above the logo, you have some key-buttons. Below that, there is the Coca Cola logo. Then you have the main navigation bar. Something to think about.

So there are several options considering the navigation and language bar:

1) a double layered navigation bar, like on the libcom site, with the first level = the main themes, and the second level = login, register, search... maybe we could add a home and a sitemap button, like on the coca cola site

2) like on the coca cola site: on navigation bar at the top of the page, with login, register, search, home... and then we keep the navigation bar with the central themes as it is.

3) the language bar is quite central and politically important. But even than the language bar could be placed on top, above the organisations' name. Just an idea.

Other suggestions? I guess, a bit of trial-and-error is necessary to see, what gives the most comprehensible and clear effect.

Something else that I didn't mention untill now: the ICC logo and name. <a href="http://www.zeit.de">Die Zeit</a>, <a href="http://global.nytimes.com">The NY Times</a> and even the <a href=http://corporate.coke.at/content/at/corporate/home.aspx"> Coca Cola site </a> all have their names in a smaller letter type as on the ICC site. Except for <a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk"> The Guardian </a>. To me the title is ok and I think it just appears a bit bigger, because of the big logo in the background, which I find a bit disturbing. To me, it would be nicer to have the logo a bit smaller and before the name "International Communist Current" or before the name and the slogan "workers of the world, unite". So like this:

        ----               INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST CURRENT

/                   \       

|                    |      

\                  /         

        ----                Workers of the world, unite!

The drawing above is terrible, but you see my point. In the above case, the logo could also be black, and not gray anymore. (details, details...)

Also agree about the "theory and practice" page. It took me a while to really see the point of it, but actually it is good. Just like you said: categories aren't easy to make, so this is a good step towards grouping articles per theme.

About the latest issues. I don't think the french, neither the english nor the russian system is optimal, but a combination of these. I would just put "latest issues" on top, then a picture of each latest issue (with a line between the issues, like on the russian or english site, or maybe just a line, neatly defining the paper picture). Why is it necessary to put all the informations about the paper (title, number, date) above it, when you can have all informations one click away? I think it'll work without it. Internet surfers will intuitively click on the paper when they are curious (to see a larger image, to see contents etc). And after this click all information appears, just like it is allready very nicely done.

Here I am again with my favourite subject.

I was talking with my girlfriend about the site and we propose the ICC to seriously think about reducing the columns on the site. We very much like the following sites (esthetically speaking):

http://www.rosalux.de/

http://www.boell.de/

http://www.zeit.de/index

What they all have in common is a first broad column on the left and a second smaller (but still broader than on the ICC site) on the right. The broad column isn't divided into smaller columns: the preambules fill the whole width of the column. This makes the site look more sober and 'overviewable'.

Die Zeit and Heinrich B. have also smaller preambules, like the ICC, but these smaller introductions are structured in a kind of same size boxes, in such a way that they begin and end on the same heighth. Again, this creates a 'tight' look/impression.

                     ---------   --------                                   --------   

so like this:  |             |             |   and not like this:  |            |   --------

                    ---------   --------                                    --------   |            |

                                                                                               --------

The Rosa L. and Heinrich B. site have a calendar on the right.

The Rosa L. has its publications under this calendar, a bit like the ICC, but with smaller images. They even write some comments to it, like the ICC. As I said before, I don't think this is really necessary, at least, if the images are large enough to read. But again, this proposal can be discussed about.

The Rosa L. has images under the publications to YouTube and such. The ICC could place its images to the library, the guided tour... over here.

So for the ICC the right column could look like this:

1) calendar

2) latest issues

3) latest (forum) comments/discussions

4) images to library, guided tour, multimedia, theme/site map

We would delete the "recent and ongoing" and the "today's" quadrants, because that is the function of the home page: to show what is recent and ongoing. The "tags in historic events" is also unnecessary, because that is the function of the "theme/category map".

We hope this is useful.

We forgot something:

On all 3 sites the preambules are not separated by quadrants, but by a grey frame (on the Rosa L and Heinrich B) or even without any line, but with photographs (like on Die Zeit). We prefer the gray frame system, it is a bit more clear. Especially because the ICC doesn't use many photographs.

We further suggest to move the language bar to the top of the page, above "International Communist Current". Below the organisations' name the navigation bar can be kept as it is, but a second layer below that is necessary with login, register, site map, category map and search button.

We realise that these are quite radical proposals and that all this needs a bit of reflection and discussion time. We don't expect the site to change in the next months, but we strongly suggest to change it anyway so that especially new, young, not very political people can easily discover what the ICC is about. But this sober structure is also usefull for the elder, which don't have as many computer skills as the younger ones.

The most difficult part stays the category/theme map. Stilll have to think about that.

Comradely greetings

Actually the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (http://www.rosalux.de/themen.html) have a nice system:

http://www.rosalux.de/themen.html

The "theory and practice/themes for reflection and discussion" page of the ICC could use this kind of system. The existing titles can be taken over, a picture can be added and a short description of the content, just like on the Rosa L themes map. When you click on it, you get a list of texts, like allready is the case on the "theory & practice" page.

What I don't like on the Rosa L theme map is the big amount of other links and images that are not related to the themes. They are quite distracting. I prefer the ICC system (although the "popular content" frame could be removed).

Well never say the ICC doesn't listen! You'll notice that on the front page, the solid lines have been replaced by dotted ones, and the rubrics now have a grey background rather than a black border. Hope everybody likes this!

: D Joohoo!

TESTING

Just an attempt to type up on Office and copy to this site.

I've tried it before and it was a mess with all sorts of “interferences”. If it happens again how do I avoid it (if I type directly onto the ICC discussion forum there is a danger of losing the whole thing)?

Alf tells me that my computer senses my hostility (and presumably provokes me further) but, on the other hand, my e-mail page categorically assures me that I (yes, “You”) am the “New Master of the Digital Universe”. I don't know who to believe but if my e-mail page is correct will my efforts to be a force for good ultimately end up in corruption and failure?

I have a new Office system and it seems to have worked OK

Notice the little "paste" button with a tell-tale "W" on it in the "Comment" box tool bar. This allows you to paste from Word and should eliminate all the garbage that Word invariably carries with it.

Thanks for that. In fact the new Office stopped the pasting because of the "garbage" around it; put it into another box and pasted OK. It took just one more click.

Hi,

I justed wanted to say that I appreciate the small, but accumulating improvements, which are made tot the ICC website. I see for example that the input window, in which I'm typing at the moment has several formatting options. This is really great. No need to know HTML or other computerlanguages.

I've also seen that the homepage has undergone some changes (lines are more subtle, titles are marked with grey, quadrants around pictures are gone...). I know I've made lots of suggestions in the previous comments. Some of them will be usefull, others will seem to be invalid, and other possible improvements weren't mentioned (such as the forum).

I don't know if the ICC has a plan for the changes on the site. If I may suggest something... It would be nice if one of the next steps would be to change the position of the search bar (from the top of the page to the navigation bar). If it is not too difficult, it can be integrated in a second navigation layer below the allready existing navigation bar.

Sorry for my impatience.

Having a little difficulty with the Podcasts. Probably just me but.... Chris K Part One plays straight from the link fine, but I can neither play from the site direct nor download CK Part 2 or the Decadence discussion. Any guidance? Anyone else having problems?

Nope, it wasn't just you! But it's sorted or at least should be. Let us know if you still have a problem

There is a plan, sort of, for the development of the site. The first and foremost thing is to upgrade all our sites to the new format (look at Spanish or German.... yukh!).

Then we need to do a lot more work to make the content easier to get at. That means improving the classification and the search engine.

The trouble is - as with everything else - it's a lot of work and there are not enough of us to do it, and those who do do it also do a lot of other stuff (if you see what I mean). So there is a plan, but unfortunately at the moment it tends to evolve at genetic rather than cultural speed...

On the search bar, it is where it is because this is pretty standard for web sites. It might move if and when we manage to develop a faceted search function (like on Amazon)

all 3 podcasts working fine now. many thanks LL et al.