[Chapter-delegates] Chapter Website(s)

[Klaus Birkenbihl]

Dear Chapter Leaders, (especially those responsible for the websites),

/I'm not sure if this is the right place to bring up this topic. On the other hand, websites are an important part of our public relations, and we at ISOC.DE don't seem to be the only ones having issues. If you have an answer but don't want to leave it here, feel free to send me a private email at Klaus.Birkenbihl at ISOC.DE./


      Initial Situation:

After several attempts in recent years, ISOC.DE has decided to seriously undertake the relaunch of its website. After all, ISOC is providing support and guidelines for the relaunch in the form of the "Genesis child theme for Internet Society chapters". This should make switching a WordPress site by changing the theme manageable with reasonable effort.


      Expectations:

Besides all the dazzling, great features that make a theme attractive, there are a few basic requirements:

 1. The most important components of a WordPress blog—posts and pages—should be recognizably displayed,
 2. There should be acceptable default styles for frequently used elements such as forms (form controls) or tables,
 3. The remaining elements (menus, sidebars, categories, archives, etc.) should be easily customizable via CSS and, if necessary, a few scripts.


      Experience:

So far expectations 1 and 2 were a disaster. After just installing the theme, the site looks like this: https://www.isoc-german-chapter.de/. (Before: https://www.isoc.de/). Apparently, even the structure hasn't been preserved. Forms and tables are displayed unusably. Well, maybe we just make dumb mistakes and don't get the glue.


      Learn from the winners:

We thought we simply should take a look at how others managed it. So I investigated: who is using the theme? I examined 114 chapter sites (source: https://www.internetsociety.org/chapters/#find-your-chapter). Of 93 sites I could access, 5 are using the theme. Of these 5 sites, 3 look kind of successful. Congratulations to https://isoc.nl/, https://www.isoc.cat/, and https://isoc-ontario.org/. https://isoc.mk/ seems to be under construction without existing content.  (Fun fact: https://www.isoc-aragon.org/ looks pretty much like https://www.isoc-german-chapter.de/).

So 3-5 out of 93 Chapter websites use the Theme? Doesn't sound too encouraging. Were my investigations wrong?


      Open questions:

  * Did I miss a Website using the "Genesis child theme for Internet Society chapters"? Which one?
  * Who tried using the theme but then gave up? If so—why did you give up?
  * To those who are successful:
      o Would you recommend using the theme (migrating a lot of existing content)?
      o Do you have any tips or tricks on how to affordably switch a regular WordPress site with traditional structure (chronological posts, pages, menus, some forms, categories, archives, etc..,) to this theme?

Best regards

Klaus

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