Web Site
Hi Amy,
The questions you ask are very common.
As I've stated on previous threads, the Board of Directors has no means of updating the information on this site. All information must be passed through a web site coordinator. This web site is maintained by a resident of the community, not the Board of Directors.
On this web site, all information must be manually typed in by the web site coordinator, which takes a lot of time. This site offers no ability to upload pre-typed documents and make them easily available for everyone. Scanning and uploading documents is easy and fast.
If someone was interested in our community and wanted to look at the CC&R's or even if a current resident lost their copy and wanted to view the CC&R's, they do not currently have the ability to do so. Someone would need to manually type in our entire CC&R document on this web site, again taking a good deal of time. Once typed in, there is not easy way to navigate the CC&R?’s. A person must scroll through the entire page to find the information they were interested in. The other web site would give us the ability to scan and upload the CC&R document, then make it available for people to view or download in PDF format.
If someone wanted an architectural request form, the ''official'' web site would have the document available for download or printing, again in PDF format. This is not possible on this web site.
On this web site, most all the links are located on a single page (the first page). Over time, the amount of links increase creating lots of clutter. This in turn makes the web site look 'busy'. The other web site would have a menu and take people where they need to go. One good example is 'Community Pages' section on this site. The meeting minutes are listed out of order and there is not way to order them. One must look through all the links to find which one they want. Over a period of time, minutes from previous meetings or older links disappear. There is a limit to what can be posted.
The bulletin board on this web site is not user friendly. One must look through all the dates on all the posts to see if anyone has written something new. A user-friendly bulletin board would be in chronological order. This board does not have the ability to post links or pictures for people to share as where it should. This board does not allow people to edit or delete their posts, others do. Here's an example of user friendly bulletin board software. I'm not sure what the board itself is about, but in terms of layout and user friendliness, this is one of the best ones out there aitenshi.nu/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi
This web site is free. It is subsidized by advertising ads that flash on the page. Some find it annoying, some don't mind it. The ''official'' web site could pay for itself in the same manner or other by means if the Board chose to do so. For example, a nominal fee could be charged if people wanted to list items for sale on the web site (in a 'For Sale' area). Perhaps people would like to list their homes on the other web site that they are trying to sell. If the other site is designed well, perhaps people moving to the area could look and see what houses are for sale in our community. Nonetheless, creating and maintaining another site will not cause the monthly HOA dues to increase.
There are several other HOA web sites that I feel are very user-friendly and contain lots of information. If anyone would like to get an idea what westpointresidents.com could be like, take a look at these web sites and compare them to what this one has to offer. You'll notice how user friendly these sites are. I would like to see our ''official'' site modeled after these in terms of layout and content.
www.desertridge.com
www.greenvalleyranch.org
I hope I've answered your questions.
- David Sobelman
U.S. Home Representative
