CAWG New Website

[Check Pilot/Tow Pilot]

I wanted to plug CAWG's new website at www.cawgcap.org.

We spent four months designing and building it to serve both as an attraction site for the public and as a portal for members.  We changed our hosting platform to Amazon EC2 and now provide hosting for all of our units that want it.

We also took our ES Resources site and incorporated it into the new website at esresources.cawgcap.org.

While there are some tweaks to still work on, we are proud of the site.

Any feedback is welcome.

[RiverAux]

Looks very nice.  For many, many years CA Wing had one of the worst websites in CAP.  Haven't been there in a long time so I'm hoping that one has been history for a while. 

[Eclipse]

Nice and clean with an updated appearance.

[Mitchell 1969]

Very nice. But, I noticed this, under the "missions" heading:

<<For more than 50 years, the Civil Air Patrol has performed three congressionally mandated missions: Aerospace Education, Cadet Programs and Emergency Services.>>

While CAP has, indeed, done so "...for more than 50 years...," it doesn't look right. Wouldn't "...for more than 60 years..." be more accurate?

(Yes, I know 1941-2011 = 70 years. I'm basing the 60 years on the Congressional charter).

[a2capt]

In all the files sections, it would be nice if the date listed had something to do with the document, and not the date it was uploaded.  We really don't need to know when it was uploaded, rather, if it's current. The way it is now, the dates are all recent because, well, you all uploaded that stuff recently.

[RickRutledge]

Looks great. We re-did ours in the last two years as well. We're taking the lead with standardizing all unit sites with a similar look and feel off of our wing site as well.

www.okwgcap.org
www.edmondcap.org
www.brokenarrowcap.org
www.tinkercap.org
www.capokc.org
www.stillwatercap.org
www.enidcap.org
www.woodwardcap.org
www.lawtoncap.org
www.altuscap.org
www.durantcap.org
www.muskogeecap.org
www.capstarbase.org
www.counciloakcap.org
www.tulsacap.org
www.grovecap.org[/url]

[Eclipse]

So how well was this received?

In my wing it's about 70-30 between sites that are absent or never updated and ones with a very involved curator.
The latter would be resistant to change, better or not.

If wing is taking the lead, why not move to a consolidated domain and host all of them?

[RickRutledge]

We offer to carry the hosting note 100%, we just didn't want to consolidate the domain. We wanted the units to take on the geographic location as their domain to keep it local, it worked. Traffic is up significantly.  Only one out of the 15 units were resistant but since we invested in the domains, hosting and a theme with tons of plug-ins, PLUS, I built them all out now they just have to maintain them -- there really wasn't room to complain much. Eventually there will be some standardization rules across the board for all CAP sites, but we just thought we'd get ahead of the curve...

[Check Pilot/Tow Pilot]

Looks very nice.  For many, many years CA Wing had one of the worst websites in CAP.  Haven't been there in a long time so I'm hoping that one has been history for a while.

Sadly no, we put this one in operation in late 2013.

[Check Pilot/Tow Pilot]

Very nice. But, I noticed this, under the "missions" heading:

<<For more than 50 years, the Civil Air Patrol has performed three congressionally mandated missions: Aerospace Education, Cadet Programs and Emergency Services.>>

While CAP has, indeed, done so "...for more than 50 years...," it doesn't look right. Wouldn't "...for more than 60 years..." be more accurate?

(Yes, I know 1941-2011 = 70 years. I'm basing the 60 years on the Congressional charter).

Thank you, it must be old verbiage.  I did a seatch on The Google and there were both 50 years and 60 year versions

[vento]

...
If wing is taking the lead, why not move to a consolidated domain and host all of them?

CAWG is actually offering to host all, so the url looks like:
www.cawgcap.org at Wing level
gp2.cawgcap.org at Group level
sqxxx.cawgcap.org at Squadron level

Some groups and most squadrons with an existing website have not moved yet. Some are doing a redirect with a .htaccess while some are not.
Hopefully, one day we will have all under the same domain.

[Check Pilot/Tow Pilot]

In all the files sections, it would be nice if the date listed had something to do with the document, and not the date it was uploaded.  We really don't need to know when it was uploaded, rather, if it's current. The way it is now, the dates are all recent because, well, you all uploaded that stuff recently.

Agreed, that would be much better.  This is not the best system for Document Management. 

[Eclipse]

...
If wing is taking the lead, why not move to a consolidated domain and host all of them?

CAWG is actually offering to host all, so the url looks like:
www.cawgcap.org at Wing level
gp2.cawgcap.org at Group level
sqxxx.cawgcap.org at Squadron level

Some groups and most squadrons with an existing website have not moved yet. Some are doing a redirect with a .htaccess while some are not.
Hopefully, one day we will have all under the same domain.

This really makes the most sense.  I have to admit having "home field" issues myself as a unit and group CC, but
having it all consolidated insures continuity, recognizes who actually "owns" the data and services, and
in case where a unit CC can't be bothered, allows for at least a contact site (which is all most units really need, anyway).

Now this presupposes a competent resource at the wing level, not to mention some flexibility in what is "allowed",
which is by no means universal.

[NIN]

I wanted to plug CAWG's new website at www.cawgcap.org.

We spent four months designing and building it to serve both as an attraction site for the public and as a portal for members.  We changed our hosting platform to Amazon EC2 and now provide hosting for all of our units that want it.

We also took our ES Resources site and incorporated it into the new website at esresources.cawgcap.org.

While there are some tweaks to still work on, we are proud of the site.

Any feedback is welcome.

Thats a pretty awesome site, really. Nice.