Webdesigner’s Library

[Jerm993]

Hey everyone,

I was just curious what everyone’s thoughts were on the idea of a user supported site, entitled the webdesigner’s library. It would be wordpress powered, and allow anyone to register as a contributor and post they’re own tutorials. Of course these posts would all need to be moderated by higher tier users/the admin. Basically just another resource for people to go and share their ideas, their work, etc.

[gno]

While there is nothing wrong with that idea, it is just not how the world works these days.

It would work, if people had a hard time publishing the articles they wrote. But with blog system like wordpress, which you mention yourself, getting a website up and running is close to being the easiest thing in the world. To be concise: The “Webdesigners Library” as a blog would not give anything to the contributors that the site would rely on.

Such articles is a way to generate traffic on your site, and you loose that benefit when publishing another place. There are various other benefits from publishing stuff like that – besides giving back to the community – and why would one want to miss out on those?

However, if you would like to tune the idea of yours, to be something that would work;

Instead of letting people publish articles to your site, make a database of webdesign related articles linking to other sites. That would add to the benefit the contributors get – as they both provide “content” for your page, while they gain additional value out of their article.

To make the idea more clear; what would a visitor do at such a site? He would go to it, to look for tutorials about a certain subject. The site would provide him with a search functionality, searching the archive for articles regarding the subject. Additionally, one could browse the entire archive by category. And nothing else. No commenting system or anything. Contributors should be the only one logging in, and that would only be to add and maintain their links.

And scrap the idea of the system being wordpress-based. WordPress is great for publishing, and not much else. It is used for a lot more than what suits it, if you ask me. A site like this would be much better off with a custom made solution.

[gno]

The idea described above is actually one that I have been thinking about for quite some time. I have yet to see a service like that – so I think it has potential. I have never come around to actually start the project, so if anyone wants to – feel free.

[Johnnyb]

I think the only way that idea would work is if you paid contributors a fee on a per tutorial/post basis. Otherwise what is my incentive to post my tutorial at your site rather than my own, when I can be making money through advertising with my own site.

[Jerm993]

i guess i never thought of that guys, I can’t connect because i don’t have any ads on my blog, course no one reads it so why should i ^^. I guess i thought that that improving that extra resource would be enough… Also Gno i would consider your adaptation; however, i don’t have the knowhow when it comes to databases, other then how to create one for wordpress.

[TheDoc]

Johnnyb pretty much hit the nail on the head. Contributors that have their articles approved would have to get paid, else there is no motivation!

[TT_Mark]

And the going rate for some articles isn’t cheap! I’ve been offered anything from $60 for a short article up to $140 for a bigger post on CSS3 Selectors.

[gno]

Well, the problem Johnnyb, TheDoc and TT_Mark points out, is exactly why I suggested the alternative idea.

@Jerm993, Maybe you should dive into SQL then :-) WordPress is not all that impressive when you get a grasp of what you can achieve on your own. WordPress is for websites where the only non-static-content is a blog. It can be used for a lot more – of course – but it will always be suboptimal.

[Jerm993]

Perhaps i will start looking into SQL, although i am about to start a college this fall, and i’ll probably learn alot more backend stuff there.

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