Website Management

Sheffield Moors Partnership has a splendid website. It looks truly spiffing having been designed by a group called Vertebrate Graphics. A few things to say about it. First it ticks the right corporate targets, looking smart and classy being the number one priority. The photos are high quality and chosen with immense care. Each statement has been pored over many times for conveying just the right message. It demonstrates the value of good public relations and probably cost a bomb.

But what can we say about its content? After all style and presentation may be awe inspiring but shouldn't we judge on what you say and do? Take an example: There is a Contact page but no interactive discussion board. So you might write something in the contact comment box such as, for example, that SMP is a magnificent idea that deserves to succeed, but there's no facility for someone to read that and, being curmudgeonly, beg to disagree explaining reasons. Now this kind of message board is commonplace these days on a huge number of internet sites; it allows for a decent reasonable debate, a sharing of ideas and a chance to explain why individuals and groups hold certain views. This is also, I'm reliably informed,  inexpensive. So when I wrote in the comment box that I was disappointed by this lack of interconnectivity (is this right?) and a reply from Rita the project manager came back saying it would cost too much I was a bit sceptical. (What? Sceptical? Me?)

The history to this is thus: after my comment at the SW Community Assembly meeting when SMP gave its first presentation, I was contacted by the Kier officer David Howarth who wanted me to meet with him and Roy Taylor of RSPB. What kind of consultation did I wish to see? So I told them. They were definitely most impressed because they and the other SMPers decided to do pretty well exactly the opposite of what I asked for. I had asked for no post it notes, for an open general public conversation encouraging the public to discuss their ideas unconstrained by conservation industry obsessions, for a maximum of open discussion before moving to the next phase. And I had asked for a website with message/discussion board.

After a Freedom of Information request to Sheffield City Council I received the minutes of the SMP Steering Group meeting of the 2nd November. Along with this was a message from The SCC officer Chris Heeley saying that all minutes of Steering Group meetings would be put on the SMP website. Two months later none had appeared. I asked about it and was told they were just about to go up. What then happened was that the November meeting's minutes were put on the website. But I already had them and the ones I wanted to see were those for December (4 months back) and January. No answer. Looking again today I can't even find November's minutes. This defines transparency in the conservation industry.