I realized, just recently a few things:
1-Our team of volunteer news gatherers is doing an extraordinary job, perhaps the best on the web. Our news links are fantastic.
2-Even though we have such great news coverage, I don't scan it that often because it is formatted in one long column that I have scroll and scroll and scroll to see. Bottom line, it's not that friendly for quick reads. We can do better.
So here's the deal. I'm asking you for your input. Which websites, and their design/layout, etc, do you like, do you find friendliest, fastest to scan, the most valuable?
We're looking at creating a new category of secondary page, beyond the front page, similar to what alternet.org and the huffingtonpost.com do, with primary categories.
We're thinking about having these categories:
headlines
op-eds
news
politics/govt
media
polls
life-arts-science
Issues
diaries
And one Top Level Directory Levels page listing the most recent or most popular four articles per top directory level.
- Govt- Politics (elections, constitution, democracy, FISA, justice)
- Health (universal single payer insurance)
- Issues-Advocacy (women, green, rights, justice, etc)
- Life-Home-Family
- Locales-World (focusing on YOURS)
- Media-News
- Money-Business (corporatism)
- Recreation-Arts-FunReference
- Science-Nature
- Society-Culture
- Technology (internet)
THese are just a first draft and not at all locked in stone. If you have ideas or suggestions for other "secondary pages. So please, speak up. Suggest websites for us to check out. Tell us what you like about what we do, about other sites, suggest categories or ways to organize our content. We have a powerful system, withour tagging , our database-- so get creative. Tell us what you wish we could do. Maybe we can.
From the bottom up, we're going to keep making OEN a better place that serves its members, it's readers, and the greater good.
