[Lnc-business] new LP.org website update

Wes Benedict wes.benedict at lp.org
Tue Nov 15 17:14:18 EST 2016


Dear LNC:

The new website has some problems and we are working to resolve them.

We are making progress, but there are several significant problems and 
probably several dozen minor ones. This is not a big surprise to me. 
Major I.T. projects often have problems.

Based on some of the emails I've seen, I think people are looking to 
point fingers.  I think if we went ahead and did some finger-pointing, 
it might be good to get that out of our systems. And then get back to 
working on fixing the problems as well as considering various paths forward.

A little background:

At the February 20-21, 2016 LNC meeting in Phoenix, the LNC passed the 
following motion by a vote of 13-1:

"Mr. Goldstein moved to appoint Kevin Ludlow to chair a Website 
Redevelopment Committee with two other Party members of his choosing 
from this body. The committee is appointed with power to execute 
contracts on behalf of the Libertarian Party for redesigning the LP.org 
website for an amount up to $10,000 plus any additional funds raised for 
this specific purpose."

You can find the vote on the minutes posted at the (complex) link below:

https://d1pxvgfbl3s7lq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/20160220_LNC.pdf

As directed by the LNC, Kevin signed a contract and hired a firm to 
design the new website. I think Kevin Ludlow underestimated how 
difficult the new website rollout would be. It's not uncommon for I.T. 
projects to take longer than expected.  Kevin has volunteered a lot of 
his time to help deploy the new website. That deployment turned out to 
be more cumbersome than expected and still has some major issues that 
keep showing up that we need to resolve. Also, I think staff 
underestimated how long it would take to have the APRC review each 
individual page of content for compliance, make edits, review again, etc.

Mostly for technical reasons, and because of so many projects on our 
plates, we haven't prioritized putting up lots of old content. We need 
to make sure the site is set up well and running smoothly before 
investing lots of time adding lots of content and we need to make sure 
we find efficient ways to do it and don't create too many new problems 
as we tweak it and use it.

Just to make that point clear, I do not think it would be wise to 
prioritize putting up old press releases, blog entries, and some other 
old documents right now. It's not because I deliberately want to hide 
them. It's because I don't want to waste a lot of time loading stuff 
inefficiently or that is full of bugs (like bad links and images that 
aren't going to look right). The intent isn't to hide old meeting 
minutes or other things. The website design firm is not loading the 
content. Staff is tasked with loading all the content (all the LNC 
photos, blog entries, press releases, etc.). I believe the original 
discussions implied that the design firm would be loading all the old 
content, but that's not how things have gone.

The basic donation function works. We are getting new members and new 
donations at the website. That's a top priority, as well as having the 
home page look at least decent.

I realize rolling out a new website approximately two weeks before 
election day was risky. I probably would have waited until after the 
election for this entire project. But I want to temper that risk by 
pointing out that donations at LP.org followed a curve this year that I 
think was similar to previous years as well. Revenue started going up a 
lot in March, peaked in July and August, and then started going down 
quite rapidly. When we switched to the new website in October, the rate 
of donations online was already much lower at the old website, so at 
least on that point, the risk was lower than if we had switched and had 
major issues during peak revenue season.

Additionally, there has been a whole lot of commentary for the past 
couple of years about how ugly and out of date the old LP.org website 
was. The new LP.org website is in fact "new" and some would say "nice 
looking," but opinions on the look of a website vary as much as opinions 
on a logo. The point being a new imperfect website is in some ways 
better than an old imperfect website, even if the problems are different.

So, if you want to point fingers, you can point them at the former LNC 
for their motion. Then you can point at Kevin Ludlow and the design firm 
he hired. Then you can point them at me and the rest of staff.

Going forward, we have a combination of the LNC, the Chair, a newly 
forming I.T. Committee, the Executive Director plus other staff, the 
design firm as well as perhaps outside experts that may be involved in 
what steps are taken next with the website. I've been having 
conversations with the Chair to establish who has what authority to make 
what decisions going forward so I at least know what decisions I'm 
empowered to make. I believe we should discuss that particular issue 
(who decides what) in depth at the upcoming LNC meeting. If you put 
staff in charge of website decisions going forward, then you will 
definitely know who to point the finger at when problems arise.

In the mean time, I'll keep working with all to move the LP.org project 
forward where we can.

And just one more reminder about how bad so many of you and others, 
including me and staff, said the old website was. At least that 
clunker's gone.

-- 
Wes Benedict, Executive Director
Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
1444 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314
(202) 333-0008 ext. 232,wes.benedict at lp.org
facebook.com/libertarians @LPNational
Join the Libertarian Party at:http://lp.org/membership

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