Our Website (long)
~ posted by Mab (July 2005)
*sets up a big screen and projector in the middle of the Grove, arranges nibbles and refreshments around in the hope of attracting an audience*
*gets stage fright, drinks half a bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy and a handful of 'Quiet Life', and sets up some Babel Fish, so folk can understand basic Black Country*
Ok, it's been a while since I posted anything like this and we've had loads of new people joining us, so I'm taking you on a tour of the website. A bit of background on this and the Grove as a whole can be found here: History of the Grove, but basically the ethos of the website is this: it bigs up our members. Yes, that includes you. And you. But not you, because you're just pulling faces at me and trying to freak me out. You know I don't like public speaking. I'm telling Cerr about you. *breathes* It's for bigging up our achievements, our artwork, our stories and wares. It's also for building up a resource archive, public and private, for all of us to use, like, for example, the reviews or the weekly discussions. You can plunder them for a wealth of information. If we can publicize what you're doing or make life easier in finding information, then we will. It also bigs up Witchgrove as a whole, hence the amount of people who find the website, then join us here.
It is looked at too. If you go here: http://www.witchgrove.org/Posts.htm and look at the bottom graph, you'll see the unique viewers (ie each month the IP of everyone browsing our site is logged by the software, it counts 'one' for each time a new IP is recorded, so even if you visit 10 times, it'll only count you once for that month) and the visits (this is every time someone is on there, regardless of IP. If you're on for more than an hour, it'll count you again.) In September, 657 different people looked at our site, logging up 1000s of visits between them.
To contribute to the site, you have two basic ways: a) E-mail something to Witchgrove, where someone (usually me, as one of the website mods) will nick it (if you've given blanket permission before) or approach you; or b) Fill in this form: http://www.witchgrove.org/Page3/Add_Comments.htm All you put in there will be first added to the members' page, then added to any other relevant pages, eg if you sell something, you'll end up in the Shopping Mall: http://www.witchgrove.org/Page3/ShoppingMall.htm
Just about everything leads off from the home page somewhere: http://www.witchgrove.org/ And the easiest way to see what's there is to go browsing. However, there are hundreds of pages and something once found can be easy lost again. That's when you'll want the Lost It page: http://www.witchgrove.org/Lost_it.htm Everything added to the site also has a link added to this page, plus there's a search engine attached to it. Also there's the update page, so you can keep track of what's new since you last looked: http://witchgroveupdates.blogspot.com/ (and being a good Virgo, I naturally did a load of updates this evening before writing this e- mail... ;-))
But back to the home page: http://www.witchgrove.org/ Scroll down the left hand side. Don't need to know how to join... 'high volume' will take you to the stats page, so you can see how many members, posts and visitors to the website we've had; the Healing Board is monitored by all of us, so if you pop in there and find a cry for help, don't wait on someone else to answer it. Just post an acknowledgment on there that it's been seen, alert the rest of Witchgrove and job's a good 'un. If you have a website and would like to host the healing board as well, all of the information is in that area: http://www.witchgrove.org/Healing.htm
Back down the left hand side... Shopping Mall you know about... MAP! Stick your pin in our map. It's fun and makes me happy dance.
Ok, right-hand column. Lost it and updates, you know about. Art of the Grove http://www.witchgrove.org/Art/Art_of_the_Grove.htm and Bards of the Grove http://www.witchgrove.org/BardsoftheGrove/index.htm If you want your work included in one of these, just e-mail mods at mods@witchgrove.org or, in the case of the latter, e- mail the Grove with it. I'll often raid Art of the Grove to illustrate the website version of the weekly discussions, so please let us know if you rather I didn't. If you do let us, though, it'll all be linked up from the weekly discussions to your own site as well.
Live Pagan News Feeds is broken, but there are links to Pagan news sites from there: http://www.witchgrove.org/Positive_Paganism.htm
If you'd like to link back to us or look at some non-Grove related sites which have either helped us or we're bigging up, then look at: http://www.witchgrove.org/Banners.htm I'm STILL really impressed with how I did those code boxes for you to link back up to us. It makes me happy. It's all neat and when you press that button, it copies everything. *big grin* You'll see the banners that Jeninia and Draig made for us. If you'd like to contribute a banner for Witchgrove as well, then just shoot it over to mods and we'll be really thrilled. Thank you.
Finally, for the right hand side, there's our guest-book, which currently Pixie and I are emptying of spam on a daily basis. We're looking to fix it, but in the meantime, it would be nice to have a real entry in the middle of all the 'come and look at my boobs' links.
Ok, middle section! Cerr's page, gives you everything you didn't really need to know about Cerr and the mods, but does have a wonderful interview that Cee did with Cerr about the Grove: http://www.witchgrove.org/page1/Cerrinterview.htm On the whole though, that page is very out of date and in the process of being revamped. Hopefully by the end of this weekend, I've have stopped tatting with it.
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page2/Index.htm is up-dated every month from information sent to the Grove and collected in my little folder. I'll alert you when it's up-dated, so you can go on damage limitation.
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page3/Index.htm allows each member of the Grove to have a section just for them. You don't have to have climbed Mount Everest or anything to get a section, just have joined the Grove. You can big up your links, even if they're just favourite sites and nothing to do with you. Just fill in the 'add comments' form and wait for one of us to add you. Also, on the Grove we'll talk about just about anything, but if you're interested in something more specialized or just a different atmosphere, then it's worth perusing the links for groups owned or moderated by Grovers, listed there on the right-hand side.
http://www.witchgrove.org/Local/Index.htm was for bigging up Pagan activities in local areas. So far there's a Nevada section which none of the Nevada Grovers have volunteered for; a buzzing Colorado section maintained by Pixie; and... I really ought to up-date the Black Country section... *cringe* If anyone would like to find out information for their area, then please do volunteer. We'll make the pages for you, if you just find the information and alert us everytime something needs up-dating.
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page4/index.htm The weekly discussions happen every week, and the person leading it gets their 7 days of fame here. Scroll down and you'll find all the discussions that have gone before. The diary will tell you what's coming up: http://www.witchgrove.org/Page4/Archives.htm and if you are an artist and want to create something to illustrate it, I'll likely want to marry you. Just ensure the artwork is with me by the Sunday before the discussion and I'll gratefully ensure it illustrates it. :-D There's also some tips for those undertaking a weekly discussion: http://www.witchgrove.org/Page4/WD.htm To volunteer for that, just see me.
http://www.witchgrove.org/psychicmuscle.htm Every week, we have a strengthening your psychic muscle exercise, where a Grover 'sends' and we all try to guess what 'it' is. Pixie maintains that diary and you can see what slot you have on this page. You might want to look and see who's sending on August 8th...
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page5/index.html Interviews with the more famous Grovers. There are dozens more planned, it's just a case of having the time and arranging them...
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page6/Index.htm These are from the files in the Yahoo Witchgrove group, so you can only access them as a member. There are three taster ones on the right-hand side though.
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page7/Index.htm Reviews! Post them to the group and they'll end up in there with your permission. There are literally 100s, mostly penned by Mike Gleason, who we love. Books, music, CDs, film, websites and magazines. The latter two hardly have any in them though, so we're definitely on the look-out for them. And you can read all the lovely things that Shewolf Silver Shadows wrote about our website when we'd just started out.
http://www.witchgrove.org/traditions.htm Traditions - this is lifted from the weekly discussions, whenever someone tells us about their tradition. It's for information and ease of finding them. If you'd like to tell us about your tradition, then please do sign up for a weekly discussion. :-D
http://www.witchgrove.org/Page8/Index.htm Competition winners... we've hardly had any competitions, but here are the winners from those we have had. Perhaps we should have more...
http://www.witchgrove.org/messageboard/ This one is brand new. The general public can read, but you have to be registered to join in the discussions there. The weekly discussions and who am I? are stored there too, for ease of finding later; but the most successful section thus far are the book discussions. If you'd like to add a book to it, ask a mod and it will happen. It's out there, rather than in here, to save on spoilers. Once there's a section set up for your book, then please do introduce as many topics around that book as you want. It's for discussion, not looking pretty.
Then the Private Members' Page. That's a secret, unless you're a private member. To get the username and password, please see the mods and we'll let you peek inside.
And there you go.
Any questions?
yours
Mab
xxxxx