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FEE has a new website

By admin
Published: 24 December 2008

FEE is excited to launch its new website. Over the past several months we have worked hard to accomplish a gargantuan task: moving 10,000+ pages of content from an outdated ASP.net system to a Web 2.0 friendly php-based system. This will allow us to make the site more interactive and useful to FEE supporters. Among the new features we’ll be rolling out:

-RSS feeds for everything, even particular categories and authors.
-User commenting on FEE articles.
-User generated content. FEE seminar alum and others will be allowed to submit content for publication on this web site.
-Brand new content. William Anderson’s “Not So Fast” is just the first in a series of new content we’ll be rolling out.
-Interactivity with social networking systems like Facebook and Twitter.

Because of the sheer volume of content we’ve moved, there are likely to be bugs in the system. And we cannot address them unless you let us know they are there. So, if you run into problems or have any ideas, please leave comments below or email Mike Van Winkle at mvanwinkle@fee.org.

Also, you will note that all Freeman content has been moved to www.thefreemanonline.org. Go check it out!

13 Comments »

Awesome job! Looking forward to more here in the near future!

//Michael Boldin
24 December 2008 at 8:52 pm

Will there be an option to search back issues of the Freeman by issue (ex November 1993)?

I found this to be a useful feature when browsing and not searching for a specific topic.

//Marc
26 December 2008 at 6:20 pm

How to start this commentary… First, let me say I was satisfied and happy with the old site, and liked the rotating quotes and drawn headshots of classical liberals in the upper right corner, not on this site; it is especially good for new viewers and new to classical liberalism. This is a nice looking website, probably important to young people, but not important to old fuddy dudies like me, content more important than fancy web layout, your old site had a nice enough appearance. Which brings me to the point of being interactive, again, old site was fine, and it seemed more intuitive than than this ‘interactive’ site. For example on the old site, you could click open The Freeman icon and click the Archive link to open the Archive window and drop-down listing of years and click the year you wanted. I visited this site twice today, the first time I saw an Achive button, but got an Error 404 code (like other places on this site), but the second time I got onto the site the Archive button wasn’t even there anymore, had disappeared. I think this site was put up too early, major functions not working like the Printing button not working, Archive not functioning, nonexistant except some recent documentation. I understand that you probably wanted to get initial feedback, but the site major functions should be mostly intact and working, they’re not. Also, I believe you should still have available the old site until this new site is fully functional. I have seen this employed several times elsewhere. I just noticed when I had to use it, the up/down slide bar in this window is being partially covered up by the edge of the window.

Welp, that’ my opinion and you’re entitled to it for what’s its worth, since I’m 54 and you’re probably trying to appeal more to young people. Please, make your old site available and fix the Printing function so when I come back to explore the site I can print something I’m (or someone else) interested in (the print copy from printing function in Internet Explorer>File just doesn’t cut it.). And try to get the Archive up, a lot of folks (for their own info and spreading the classical liberal message) is critical and depend on its access. Drop me a line if you want, if what I have said is useful. I hope I didn’t spend to much time on this critique, I had to be thoughtful on my comments since I send people here and the education that is disseminated is vital. -Kevin Kelley

//Kevin Kelley
27 December 2008 at 6:05 pm

I would agree with Kevin that there are some rough edges. I would vote to change the white text with grey background on the hover menus — it’s practically impossible to read. But interactive sites (like the http://www.feeblog.org site) are a big attraction for many and if managed properly, could be a plus. The archives are important and keeping things easy to find and organized is a big plus. Keep up the good work.

//Carl Clegg
30 December 2008 at 11:52 am

I was unable to access the first 2 books listed in your library. Loved everything else so far.

//Reynolds S Cheney III
30 December 2008 at 12:04 pm

Thanks for all the comments. I have fixed the two book links. Also, the printing function on thefreemanonline.org is also fixed.

I understand the concern about the premature launch. But our decision was based both on the readiness of this site, the expense of maintaining the other, and the fact that website readership is likely to considerably lower than usual this time of year, making it an ideal time to go forward with a new site.

Thanks for your patience, I will try and address all your concerns as quickly as possible.

Happy New Year!

//admin (author)
31 December 2008 at 11:27 am

Umm, and how is asp.net “outdated” and not compatible with web 2.0? I’m all for tweeting content, but this looks like a Tumblr blog, not a .org site, sorry. The old site (which was what, 2-3 years old?) had form and content, this one claims to have function, but these web 2.0 enhancements seem trivial. Comments, a few more sharing platforms, and a flawed tag cloud? Couldn’t you tweak the old site to make these changes? Donations to non-profits are down with the economy in the gutter, and you can justify paying for a new site?… Just sayin.

//Reader 2.0
31 December 2008 at 11:58 am

The cost of building this website is a fraction of what it would have cost fully upgraded the old site.

And as for ASP. There are some very expensive ASP solutions that are web 2.0 friendly, but for the most part most of the innovation in the social web is NOT in ASP.

I sincerely appreciate your honesty. But we wouldn’t have made the choices we did if we didn’t feel we’d be getting the most bang for our development buck.

//admin (author)
31 December 2008 at 1:20 pm

I like it. Clean new look, I find it easy to navigate. Maybe that’s because I’m the young audience that Kevin is talking about.

@ Reader 2.0, for a site and data migration like this the project was probably started 6 months ago at least. And I think asp.net to php is a worthwhile transition to make, the latter is more widely supported and should be easier to run and maintain.

//MD
31 December 2008 at 1:25 pm

Also, Reader 2.0, are you experiencing problems with the tag cloud? If so, please elaborate. Thanks!

//admin (author)
31 December 2008 at 1:25 pm

ANNOUNCEMENT: There were problems with our audio links. The problem has been corrected. Best, Mike

//admin (author)
31 December 2008 at 1:32 pm

You guys do a great job, but where is the store?

I also liked the quotes and pictures of great men.

Thanks,

Bill

//Bill Green
31 December 2008 at 5:16 pm

The store is being upgraded as well and should be online again within a week or two.

As for the quotes from great economists, we talked about different ways to replicate it on this site. Since it was so popular, I’ll guess we need to make it a top priority, huh?

//admin (author)
1 January 2009 at 2:16 pm