YouScotland:Let Me Try Again

After the reviews here on the YouScotland website and Doctor Vee's blog and the Scottish blog round up I have been returning every day to see if they have implemented changes. Well this morning they have.

It seems they have left the old forum but added a new one. It seemed random which one you got. I tried to post, this meant I had to login, so did so in the left hand side. This took me via my options page to the old forum. As this was not the one I wanted, I clicked debates on the top which took me to the new forum.

This I then found I was not logged in for it. So did it again in the embedded part of the new forum. I tried 3 times but it kept on rejecting my pass word. I took the option of having my password sent to me under the forgotten password option, (even though I knew I was entering the correct one). The site then told me my email address was not recognised and had to contact the site administrator. There were other pages that said that an error had occurred or page not available and also had to contact the site admin.

Decided to leave it alone and come and write this. Perhaps someone else will test it and it might get sorted out. Anyway that was 20 minutes wasted. If anyone has worked out how to use it please could they leave the instructions in the comments here please.

YouScotland The Morning After

After yesterdays review of the launch of YouScotland, this morning had a visit to see how they were progressing. With about 20 more general posts on their welcome forum there had been some activity.

Nicely they have apologised for the technical problems they had encountered. Launching a web based democracy movement with a dodgy site may well have resulted in late night arse kicking competition. Other forums have been added for discussion. If you enter the one on Xenophobia it appears compulsory to have a line about warrior princesses, a bit like discussing the MSC Napoli without mentioning it's academic qualifications.

Anyway there are bits on Trident 2, Cash for Peerages etc. I started with a post on the Trident forum and replied to one on environmental concerns for Scotland in the any other ideas part.

The technical problems probably won't affect the site in the long term as they might have not got all that many visitors to notice them. It stuck me this morning that if you are trying to attract people disenchanted with the political establishment, then perhaps the Politics Show, The Herald, Scotsman and Guardian weren't the ideal places to market the site. These are part of the established political set up.

Anyway good fortune may be their way. Not many people visited a technically flawed site. Which is far better than million going there. Now they will have the chance to improve the site in balance with hopefully more visitors. All in all worked out OK for them.

YouScotland

Saw The Politics Show piece about participatory democracy and YouScotland, revolution in cyberspace and thought that was interesting. Somehow was the first to their blog site to post, though didn't know what I was posting to. The subject was only added later, Dragons Den, which is why no ones post made any sense to the subject for those going there now.

Then I found the forum, which took an age to register for. Thought that I would never get a post with the expected rush straight after the TV programme. Then found out when posted I was only about the 20th post having already been in the blog as well. In my post to add support to the cause I had added a hyperlink, unfortunately when it published it turned everything into a hyperlink, so was useless. Tried to edit my post 3 times without success. So posted a brief comment without hyperlink, having to point out the software was dodgy.

There are many deserving projects and initiatives that could and would create a better future that are starved of the publicity they deserve to help them evolve because they do not have friends or contacts in the media. YouScotland got the publicity, but didn't back it up with the heart of a site to match. Only bloggers would have the patience and knowledge to work through it, but they don't need such a site, they have the whole 'blogsphere' to roam, post and discuss in. The non bloggers disenchanted by the present political establishment should have been the target for YouScotland, unfortunately such a user unfriendly site would loose them straight away.

The site was supposed to be accessible for those with the minimum of computer experience. Not so, it was very unintuitive, links did not work, the site was unfinished for a launch and very difficult to navigate. Some posts noted the lack of response re the number of posts. It would be interesting to know how many hits it had, and how many tried to or wanted to make a comment and were put off or failed.

The idea was laudable, but if you are going to try to create a revolution in cyberspace, the first priority should be your site and software is at least basically up to the job. This Google blogger set up was better, as in easier to use for a visitor, than their revolutionary cyberspace offering.

The sad thing is they got so much media coverage, probably due to their connections, on TV and in the papers, then let the whole project down with the most important aspect, a sloppy site set up. It's not even though they can say well you try it. I haven't done it with websites, but with concerts. when you are doing large open air concerts you cannot have a rehearsal. Everything comes together on the day, it is the preplanning that ensures when you have a sea of thousands watching, when it starts, it is perfect and is perfect in every way through the event. You owe that to your audience who have made the effort to turn up.

Part of the proposal to use the Millennium Dome as a global environmental management centre relied very heavily on internet and advanced interactive communications so the YouScotland initiative was very interesting to me as an example of how some of those ideas could be implemented. The difference with the Millennium Dome proposal was though it contained most of the solutions to climate change and many other environmental challenges as well as being able to save many lives and stop the extinctions of lots of animals and plants, and create £billions of revenue per year, the media had no interest in it.

Probably it would have been better for YouScotland to have run the site for a while before having the big media launch, iron out the bugs and got some feedback on how to get it ready for a big hype launch. It will be interesting to see how many do return to the site in spite of the first day let down. I have volunteered to moderate or run their ecology or environment forums, it remains to be seen if they will contact me over that. If they have only a low level of participation though my time is better spent on this site and other projects which will have a bigger impact for a better future than YouScotland will have in it's present form and if it doesn't evolve. At present it is no threat to the political establishment. Even taking the whole of Scotland, it still lost it's deposit. In political terms it is yet not even a Kilroy-Silk.