"pittendrigh" wrote\\

I got started on one about a year ago, and then
bogged down trying to figure out how to populate it.
Mabye I should just put it online and see if anyone
uses it.......even though it would start out almost empty.


I had a "user built" website based on retrievers that grew fairly large
fairly quickly, all from user input.

That experience leads to these suggestions

Security: A certain small percentage of 'net users look for ways and places
to be disgusting ... bare minimum only issue memberships via an e-mail
address at a real ISP .... Not hotmail, Gmail, etc .... and build in easy to
just administration tools to totally ban given users, their past and any
future articles they attempt to post. Some will try to f..k up the site
via a couple addresses before giving up, even at that

Editing: Make sure your users can edit their own articles ... we ALL make
spelling/grammar/typing errors we don't chatch until after posting G
Also, make sure you provide one of the available user interfaces that does
HTML markup for them and requires zero knowledge of website work ... and
tweak your CSS to control the look of all allowed code. Resize images as
they arrive and store the small version ... people will upload 5MB files ( 6
of them for one pattern) if you let them.

Emotional detachment: I've seen you work on several levels. You will
find that most contributors will NOT come close to your standards ... fuzzy
pictures, fuzzy thoughts, and inaccurate details will be the norm ... if
that would bother Sandy, he does NOT want a "do it yourself" site for other
"selfs"

Money: Bandwidth costs .... advertisers are there but not to the degree
commonly believed ... a buzy website costs a lot to get hosted



The dog site I had grew and was getting advertisers ...it had potential as
a business enterprise ... it was also a pain in the ass .... I shut it down
and don't miss it. The only real advantage I think I got from it is
learning enough PHP/MySql/HTML/CSS to know I'd never want to be a 'puter
geek G