You Must Be the Change You Wish to See in the Website

At the beginning of summer, in the midst of widespread and persistent problems with the website, the decision was made to build a new website. Now speaking specifically to the problems that plagued the old website, I’ve prepared a bullet-point list: 

• The site was huge. It took an absurd amount of time to traverse and edit (speaking in a modern internet context–by antiquated dial-up standards it was lithe and spritely). As to why it was so big? I’m not sure, but the site didn’t seem to have it’s storage well organized. 
   
• The site was faulty. Pages would die, calendars would disappear, and service complaints would roll in. Part of the problem seemed to be that the Wordpress build was, in many ways, hobbled together with third-party plug-ins that would just up and go out of service. Leaving us with a non-functional website. 
   
• It wasn’t gorgeous. Which is a diplomatic way of saying it was ugly. Strange off-brand wallpaper, poor use of pictures, and confusing site navigation are just some of the more obvious reasons why visiting the website felt like a chore. 
   
• The blog was sprawling and labyrinthine, with no clear entry-point. Which is a problem, because we have plans to put our blog to better use by publishing more frequently on a regular schedule.  

We hope that with the new site most of these problems have been addressed. Whether or not that’s the case is something that you, member and fans, can help us assess. You can do so through the contact page on the website, or by emailing us at info@blackstar.coop (speaking of, we had a member-owner contact us as soon as the site went live to tell us that the contact page wasn’t working).