Soliciting User Comments
, 14 May 2007
It's been a while since I posted to the New Media blog, but plenty of work has been going into the blog system itself to fix bugs and add features. Building a blog server is less work than you may think if you have enough control over your CMS. For instance, pinging a blog site with your new content is easy using a XML-RPC call - PHP even has a helpful xmlrpc_encode_request function - and a site like Pingomatic will pass the message on to everyone for you
The remaining big feature for us is user comments - I'm not sure we're even a real blog till we enable this. Although the museums I've spoken to haven't experienced problems with comments, most still retain safe-guards. This might be through a registration/email verification system or pre-approving comments to appear on the site. One method favours the regular contributor, the other casual commenters. I haven't seen a system that lets the user decide which they group they belong to, but this might be a good way forward.
Of course, this work could be avoided by installing a blog server like WordPress but by integrating with our in-house content management system (the snappily named Amgueddfa CMS) this work will eventually find its way throughout our site. One of the projects we're working on will introduce lots of interesting articles and other content about our collections. We'd like people to discuss those themes too.
Comments - (4)
Hi there Bob,
I'm really sorry to hear that your visit to St Fagans was not as enjoyable as it should have been. I have passed your comments on to the appropriate member of staff at the museum, who will be able to respond to you in full in the coming days.
Again, please accept our apologies for not meeting your expectations during your visit,
Sara H
Digital Team
If the two staff standing outside the row of cottages don't like their jobs suggest they go elsewhere.they are not customer friendly at all, they were bored and rude to people who asked questions.
Suggest you put lots more information boards for people to read the details of the houses , not just one little plaque. Have a look at boards in Carfartha castle they are so much better and give lots more information for the public.
Don't know who pays the two outside the cottages but they don't know a thing about customer services.
yours sincerly,
Blodwyn Jones