Christopher M. Kelty is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has a joint appointment in the Institute for Society and Genetics, the department of Information Studies and the Department of Anthropology. His research focuses on the cultural significance of information technology, especially in science and engineering. He is the author most recently of Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software (Duke University Press, 2008), as well as numerous articles on open source and free software, including its impact on education, nanotechnology, the life sciences, and issues of peer review and research process in the sciences and in the humanities.
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My comments here.
Um…How do you get access to antrhosource through AAA now? There used to be a spot to sign in on the front page.
I really have two questions on this:
1. We’ve been waiting how long for this?
2. It cost how much of our membership to do this?
I heard some ridiculous amount being quoted regarding how much money they were budgeting for it. Definitely not what I expected, and there are a lot of problems with it. But, it’s a million times better than what we had before, which looks like it was abandoned back in 1995.
Tastes great, less filling.
“too swirly”
No just kidding. It looks great — congratulations! I am glad this project finally got done. It makes our discipline look better.
That said, I agree with some of the comments above. Many of the problems with the site have to do with the fact that the copy is still the same as from the old one. So, for instance, the menu item “What is Anthropology” should actually be entitled “About the AAA”, which is what that page is actually about. A paragraph or two of that should (obviously) be on the front page but is not.
I agree with Kerim the “learn more >” links need less padding above or below the paragraph proceeding them so we know where they go. I don’t agree that we need an RSS feed on the front page, since this would imply that there is some sort of news being rolled off here, and its not clear that is the case. What is the difference between ‘news’ and ‘alerts’? Shouldn’t the alerts have a feed?
So… now that we are out of the Suck Zone for the website, now is really the time to make it not just look great, but work great. Go go go AAA!
Finally, based on the code it looks like these are the guys who designed it:
http://www.paperthin.com/
I agree, this is the hugestest step forward the AAA has taken in my recent memory, and I’m extremely pleased to see it finally on its way to glory. I managed to login and renew my membership without swearing once, which is alone worth whatever we paid for the site.
There are a couple of problems though. I agree with Rex that the site doesn’t need an RSS feed on the front page, but it does need one on the news, issues, press releases sections. I didn’t look very hard, but it doesn’t look like there are ANY RSS feeds on the site yet.
I also want to see New Publications prominently displayed on the front page, and a clearer pathway (and rules) for submitting a new publication to be featured. If the real estate on the front page is going to be taken up by “Featured News and Commentary” then I think publications by members should be central to that.
I also don’t see any mechanism for sections to independently update part of this website–there are only links to their own web sites. On the one hand this is probably a good division of labor, but on the other hand, it seems like the sections should be able to publish “commentary” here, no?
and in sooth, that bulletin board needs to go.
all in all, though, this is promising. I hope there are some ways to give feedback and to help make it better.
(paperthin is the content management system. I don’t know whether they are involved in design or in the maintenance of the site)
So now I have to learn how to ot find things all over again?
It’s pretty bad in Firefox, unless javascript is enabled. And then, the dropdown menus are funky.
It takes forever to load.
No alt titles (no mouse tips)
color scheme is off (the pumpkiny color doesn’t fit)
No hyperlinks (in the about anthro section)
faint, san serif typeface
Dropdown Menus are not parallel in organizational structure.
Search for Kroeber yields this result (as example, inside a small frame and those dropdown menus are hopping about) (and this is…? size of download?)–
5 0.9527 073boasexch.pdf 50boasexch
It would not meet accessibility standards.
Honestly, they should hire someone who knows human factors and communication, like an anthropologist.
I never thought I’d live to see the day this that this site would finally be dragged into the 21st century.
Looks good although still some cleanup to do.
Congratulations AAA! Nice job 🙂
I hear that AAA will now host the pages of the sections. Anyone know about this?
A long time coming indeed. I’m both glad to see this, and wryly weeping myself silly.
In 1994, when I started putting up sites for anthropology and communications, I demo’d “web sites 101 and why we need one” to the staff at AAA (encountering everything from frothing antagonism to jubilation…but nothing happened), to then-prez Yolanda Moses (who took it seriously, but nothing happened), gave workshops at AAA meetings on using the web to communicate to the public (terrific individuals got it), then gave up.
As an occasional AAA member, as well as early-adapter internet user (currently a web content professional in this field), I agree it’s long overdue.
And I, too, have wondered what our dues were for, if not to communicate what this field’s all about to the global audience out there.