Webmaster blog

Internet Explorer users have been experiencing layout problems with our website.

We believe this is just due to a couple of css-related issues we overlooked yesterday, and hope to have it fixed within the hour.

Update

This is now fixed.

I have, at last, been able to make some long overdue tweaks to our website.

Most are stylesheet changes, tackling consistency of layout and readability of text. It’s been a lot of work that most people probably won’t notice, and there are still bits to iron out, but it is a lot tidier now.

I have also tightened up some of the content, in particular the information about our work and what we mean by ‘citizenship‘.

I’ve set this blog up as a space to talk, think and generally mutter about our website. I’ve done so to free the main blog of stuff that isn’t quite so obviously ‘citizenship-related’.

This should also help me to write more often. I’m trying to encourage staff to blog, yet my own contributions have been few and far between. As my work is supporting projects not delivering them, the things I can think of to talk about sit awkwardly alongside posts by colleagues.

At the moment I’m using the same visual theme as the main blog, but when I’m able to get full ftp access again (grr) I’ll change it. So hopefully you won’t get too confused next time you come a-calling.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a subtle change to our website’s navigation bar: where it once read ‘forums’ it now reads ‘blogs’.

This change reflects a shift in our approach to engaging with visitors. The forums have always been very quiet, and we have never really found our feet with them. We will still use them, but for specific project-related purposes rather than general discussions.

Instead we aim to up our blogging game. Rather than trying to encourage what felt like arbitrary forum discussions, we will be actively voicing our thoughts and opinions to give readers something to get their teeth into. Whereas we have felt uncomfortable doing this in our news items, the blog has become the perfect place for views which may not always reflect those of the Citizenship Foundation.

I hope this subtle but significant shift in focus will help us to engage in more, richer, conversations with our visitors.