Creating and maintaining a site: One person, or a team effort?

What do you think the better way to operate a site is, having one person single-handedly run the site, or a group of people all pitch in to run the site?

There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and every situation is different, but which way of maintaining a site do you prefer?

 

I prefer to make and maintain my websites by myself.

Sure that means extra work on my account, but it means that everything is how I want it.

Selfish I guess...

 

It depends on the site, I guess... If it's my personal site I prefer to do all the work.

If it's a subject-related site, it depends on how much work it involves, I think.
If it needs to be updated regularly, I think it's best to define tasks and delegate each one of them to a different person or group of people, and give them access to the site news if it has such a section, so (s)he can update it with the alterations made to her/his section.

But in some cases i think it's just a matter of personal taste whether you decide to make it a one person only or a group site maitentance.

 

I really haven't formed an opinion. I've work in myself only enviroment, I've worked in a team-but-really-just-myself enviroment, and I've worked in a real team enviroment.

I think the best situation is to be the leader so to speak, and have a group of people you can sort of hand off small projects to.

¤Night

 

I like running a one-man site. I have total control over everything. And since I'm so picky about things, I like it that way. I can work at my own pace and know that no one else will be telling me what to do. But, if there's ever something I can't do, it usually doesn't get done.

I would like to work on a group project sometime, but it would have to be with some people I really trust. Though working with other people who have different talents than I do, we could produce a better site.

So, I guess both ways have their own pros and cons.

 

I hate group projects. I have to be in control

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

It really depends for me. If the site is content heavy, IE a news site then yes I like working with a team. But if it is something that involves minimum change then I like to work by myself.

 

I think it depends on the depth of the site, how often it would need to be updated and the source of the information you are updating from.

Personal sites - just myself, when I have the time

There are currently two people working on a website for our FanForce, but they are taking forever. So much so, that I've created a deliberately crap website to try and motivate them into finishing the proper one (they are very talented, and the finished product will be excellent I'm sure)

For the mean time they are stuck with the website in my sig named "Official Galactic Senate website"

malkie

 

I think it depends. I've never worked on an individual website with other people, but I have been in sort of an informal arrangement on websites with a-p. My site is about Anakin after Ep3, a-p's is Anakin's before Ep3. We have roughly the same editorial bias and the same general group of visitors--why duplicate sites when we can just cooperate?

I would think the same would be true of sharing an actual site if you're doing a boutique site where there maybe isn't as much material as there is on Anakin. Say you're over at the AotC forum and you find that you're one of a group of several Taun We fans. Does each person in this little group make a separate Taun We focused site, or would it make more sense to get together and pool resources, both monetarily (in the case of paid hosting services) and in material gathering. I mean, how many stories and how much art will be available for that kind of site? Without cooperation, you'd pretty much end up with clone sites. (No pun intended, given the hypothetical subject.)

That said, trying to get a committee to agree on design issues or anything else is a real pain, and I enjoy being able to just go into the Mask and decide what it's going to look like and what's going to be there without consulting with anyone.

 

My opinion is that if two or more people are working together on a site, the work should be split up properly such that there isn't any overlap. I find that it gets irritating when one person is in charge of the design and somebody else goes and changes it; it seems to undermine your authority. Also, it gets messy if somebody wants to hand code the page, while somebody else wants to use Dreamweaver or other programs. This tends to cause confusion.

I think that it really depends on the size of the site. If it's a small site, then an individual effort is probably better. A big site would probably have to be a group effort.

 

Using the "Newspro" service for posting news on my site, I used to have other people post on my sites, either if they did something for it, or just for some other views on the world I suppose. I only once had someone helping me with graphics and uploading, on my second site ever, a few years ago. I could work with others (The best example of a site where you need others is TFN. That can't be run by one person), but I think it's better if it isn't.

 

I agree that a site like TFN needs to be a team effort. However, I find that running my site by myself gives me all the control that I need, and I never have to get in arguements about how things are run. Then again, when I get lazy or busy, it doesn't get updated for a few months.

 

I agree with the sentiment that it really depends on the size and content of the site. I'd never try to run a site the size of TFN on my own, but smaller sites that need to be updated less often... I need to be in complete control.

LittleJedi

 

I definitely like to work on my site myself. As JG says, there are places of overlap between sites where it makes sense to work together, but that's largely on issues of site concept. When it comes to site design, doing the updates, deciding what goes where -- just the day to day stuff of running a site -- I've always wanted to do that myself. If I were to work with others on a truly joint site venture, it would really have to be people that I know I can work with. Just to be sure that hassles are avoided.

 

For me it has to be a team effort. There just isn't enough time otherwise.

 

Malkie - I'm sure the two people of which you speak are working as diligently as possible given the amount of free time they have.

I usually prefer to work alone on sites because (as stated previously), I am a control freak, and I often nitpick over stupid little details. Although, my sister and I do team up on a lot of sites because our skills differ so we balance each other out.

So my choosing whether or not to work with other people really depends on the people involved.

 

I'm perfectly happy to have someone else update content once I've designed and created a site. I can't stand the mundane details.

 

I've run my sites by myself. My SW site really doesn't need another person. It's just more of an adoration site than anything. I did get an expert to read an article I wrote on ILM (in which I'm going to fix the mistakes).

I run a Superboy site based on the hit show back in the late 80s. People have helped me on that and it needed it. So I'd say, for a big site it is nice to have helping hands.

 

What do you think the better way to operate a site is, having one person single-handedly run the site, or a group of people all pitch in to run the site?

i think i started construction on obidala sanctary last year (around this time). i was somewhat familiar with making a website (i tried to make one when star wars.com hosted fansites made on homestead). it didn't work well so last year was really the first time i really worked on one.

honestly, it's hard making a website all by yourself. i had to learn everything on my own, through a lot of trial and error. but over time, as i switched hosts, i became more and more familiar with the language.

it wasn't until i asked my brother for help (on how to build frames) that i became more familiar with frames.

 

Yeah, my site's not a SW site so I'm technically not allowed to like post it here or whatnot, but it's a site that is updated several times a week and that has a lot of content. It's a lot of work, but I still like to do it myself. I handle all the e-mails and submissions and things myself... it's just a lot easier on me that way. I'm such a controller

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

before creating my website, i opened up another e-mail account. this is very valuable if you have one e-mail account, b/c this way your main inbox will not be flooded with submissions and will be divided b/t addresses.

 

I do my site by myself. I don't really like running it with many other people because I once worked really hard on something and then she changed everything (note, this was not my sw site). I had to try to get it back, it didn't, so I just let her do the site.

 

Depends, is it a news-themed site? or more of a personal site?

If it's news-themed, forget it. I've found out the hard way that it just takes too much time to do and maintain properly.

However, the Star Wars Universe site I am working on now, is a sort-of news site, but not really. On this particular site, the hardest thing will be collecting the initial material. Once that's done, the links are really all that will need to be updated regularly.

For Instance : I've gotten permission from three different site owners who have some really nice instructions on lightsaber guides. But the layouts aren't conducive to printing. (among other things). So I'm working on putting them into PDF format for easy viewing/printing and to make them more aesthetically pleasing to the eye at the same time.

With the wonderful world of Java and RSS feeds, I can pull news from just about any starwars site that offers it to keep up-to-date news flowing in. So it works well for a one man operation.

It all depends on how involved you want to get. Most Starwars sites I come across haven't been updated in a long time. 80% of their links don't work (ohh how I despise that) and it looks like it was just thrown up really quickly. Some are very well done. So well done that it takes forever to do an update. etc. or design a new page.

I'm shooting for the middle ground. Easy to update, easy to design. and keeping those links up to date.

 

I maintain my site myself, though I get feedback from my members from time-to-time that I act on.

Since my site revolves around our RPG board, the actual site doesn't need a lot of updating, except for the News page and occasional policy updates. This frees me up to RP and just have fun instead of laboriously updating all the time.

 

I think one owner and a team to run the site is the best way to go. It has been very effecient for my site.