There is now a new website for Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen: www.blackfencatholic.org. I had forgotten quite how much I enjoy building websites. My old parish website was from the days before Web 2. I linked a blogger blog to it, giving it the same look and feel but was still tied to editing html if any of the static pages were to be updated. I was rather proud of the tightly written html and css which meant that the pages loaded very quickly - pretty well instantly on any reasonable computer with a decent internet connection.
However I have for some time felt that I should move to a content management system to enable me to change static pages much more quickly and to integrate the news feed properly into the site. I opted for Wordpress which attracted me as soon as I first used it on other sites. I rather rue the day that I opted for blogger for this blog, but it is good to be familiar with different platforms, and the profile of the Hermeneutic would take some re-building, so I'm not inclined to change.
I have registered the domain name blackfencatholic.org; I find it difficult to resist saying the "dot org" in the way that failbog has in the signature ending to its clips. The domain name was the result of some careful thinking. People on the telephone don't always know the word "Rosary" (I frequently get letters addressed to "Our Lady of the Rosemary") but black, fen and catholic are not too difficult to get right. Over in Europe, we tend to accept that we must have org.uk or co.uk suffixes but in a slightly rebellious mood I wonder why we never ever see org.us or co.us suffixes. The site is hosted by Bluehost, by the way - I have found them excellent so far and very reasonable - particularly now that the dollar is only worth 60p.
There is some more work to be done on the site. In particular I have a number of pdfs to put up in the "Catholic teaching and resources" section, and most of the pages could be illustrated with nice photos. One thing that has changed over the years is that google and other search engines are now so good that it is not really worth putting up a "links" page. I remember spending many hours gathering Catholic links and checking them with Xenu.
If you have any suggestions that will not keep me up all night (I have to actually run the parish as well) I'd be grateful for your wisdom. A project for the autumn is to develop a proper email subscription mailing list since I think this will be useful as a means of communication with those who have had some contact with the parish (through baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings etc.) but may benefit from kindly pastoral reminders of events at the Church.
14 comments:
Nice-looking web site there, Fr Tim!
I would re-name the "information" tab to something like "getting here" - "about" and "information" seem sort of redundant and thus confusing.
It looks good, and I especially like the URL.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking that the "News" should be the homepage (with some basic information in the sidebar) and then "About" can combine what's currently on the homepage and the "About" page. I think your right that we could lose the "Information" tab.
Will do some tinkering ...
"Our Lady of the Rosemary"
ROFL!
A nice site. I liked the leaflet on the TLM: http://www.blackfencatholic.org/pdfs/tlm1.pdf
I remember the first time I went to a Low Mass and was utterly confused. It put me off somewhat. Something like that would have been helpful.
If you do not mind - since this is my area of particular interest -, I would suggest just placing "Traditional" or "Trad.", on the front page, for all related to the "Extraordinary Form", for uniformity's sake. I see that, in the front page, "EF" and "Usus antiquior" are used, and not many people know these - they could learn the various names and characteristics of the Traditional Mass, if they are interested, by following the links.
Yes, I think you are right. I could get some flak for not using the terms the Holy Father has used, but he did after all refer to his being ordained in the "old rite" so I think it is over-scrupulous to use terms that many people will not recognise.
Many thanks for the comment.
I like it. Duplication of info, though: 'How to get here', and then 'How to get to Blackfen' under Information!
Father, that's a nice website you put together. However, I'm missing basic information about the church (including a few pictures) and the history of the parish. Would be suitable to have that included.
Oh, and I can't see a link to your blog, but it must be there somewhere!
Wonderful, Father. And references to the earlier "traditio liturgica" are made unabashedly in SP, Art. 5, 1, and UE, n. 33. So ...I think you are covered...
Excellent!
Beautiful site, extremely fast in the download.
One understands it cannot be Wordpress.
Mundabor
To be contrary - I find "Traditional Latin Mass" a hugely irritating and offputting term - it has connotations, at least for me, of all that is worst about soi disant Traditionalists -with-a-capital-T! I love the old rite hugely deeply, but seeing "Traditional Latin Mass" always make me groan, and consider the availability of other Mass-going options. "Old rite" would be less prejudicial, and would draw attention(being unusual) if you want to avoid EF or u.a.
The term "traditional" has, apart from my admittedly disproportional and irrational loathing of Trads, an inescapable suggestion about those who do not use it as a qualification of their Catholicism. As if there were more than one faith. But this question was hashed out across the UK blogs a year or two ago, and I don't want to take your discussion offtopic.
A very clean and fast-loading site. Congratulations!
Why no co.us, etc? Why should there be? Uncle Sucker funded it through the Department of Defense...the rest of the world are the tag-a-longs.
Surely you are familiar with Arpanet/ Darpanet?
Post a Comment