This team of dedicated people have made the IIGS™ web presence what it is today and are, in consultation with our members and other IIGS™ teams, continually enhancing and improving the 'look and feel' of this important genealogical bookmark while still making it accessible to most types of browsers in use today.

The following Volunteers are currently serving as Webmasters for the International Internet Genealogical Society:

Harry deBruin (Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia) - Chair
Lorine McGinnis Schulze (Ontario, Canada) - Co-Chair
Jim Eakins (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Graham Hart (Aldershot, Hampshire, England)
Ben Laurie (London, England)
Jesper Zedlitz (Schoenberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany)
Wally Garchow (Sacramento, California, U.S.A.)
Pam Middleton-Lee (Palm Springs, California, U.S.A.)
Sherry Miller (Salt Lake City, Utah U.S.A.)
Joe Reynolds (Daingerfield, Texas, U.S.A.)
Pat Rogers (Maryville, Tennessee, U.S.A.)
Diane Ward Sives (Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, U.S.A.)
Holly Fee-Timm (Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.)
Paula Wiegand (Waldorf, Maryland, U.S.A.)
Bernice Wilson (Barnesville, Ohio, U.S.A.)

Volunteers are always being sought to assist the Webmasters Team. If you feel you have the skills needed to help with the design and maintenance of the Web pages for the International Internet Genealogical Society please send an e-mail to Joe Reynolds. Please put "IIGS™ Webmaster" in the subject line. Thanks!

Webmaster Projects

Webmasters have completed many projects since their inception and have many more underway. This listing shows some of the work completed to date as well as details of some important projects that are near completion.

The Style Guide
(Completed and available at http://www.iigs.org/webmasters/style_guide/toc.htm)
The Style Guide is a detailed set of standards devised by the Webmasters Team and intended to be applied to the design of all IIGS™ web pages. By following this guide webmasters conform to the agreed-upon standards for providing quick and simple access to the IIGS™ site for all visitors, regardless of the type of browser being used or power of the computer accessing the site. Using this guide, webmasters for any IIGS™ pages will be assured of continuity and cohesiveness of site structure.

The Webmasters Archive at
http://www.iigs.org/webmasters/archive/index.htm

The archive was set up to record the IIGS™ web site as it first existed and to capture some of the events that occurred during the first month of existence, eg: selection of the IIGS™ name and logo, etc.

Page Construction and Maintenance (Ongoing Project)
As the IIGS™ teams require changes to their pages in order to reflect the directions the teams are taking, the Webmasters (and the Translation team) see page construction and maintainance as a permanent part of their role. The team is always looking at reducing the amount of maintenance required to the pages. An example is the language bar which used to be hard coded is now set up as a SSI (Server Side Include). This SSI inserts hyperlinks on the languages for which translations exist for the page being viewed.

Future projects like the Language Bar might include:-

• The Team Listing at the bottom of each page could be set up the same as the Language Bar, as an SSI.
  
• The pages that contain the list of team members could be retrieved from a database instead of being coded by hand as they are now.

The International Time Conversion page has recently been updated with links to currently available time conversion pages elsewhere on the web.

Harry is also finalising a general page on HTML Character Representation.  This contains HTML codes required to display accented characters and other special characters.

Programming
Webmasters Team has coded programs required for Web, database interfaces, including Web forms. Initial projects (Project, Volunteer database). NOTE: This has been handed over to the newly formed Programming Team.

Coordination with other IIGS™ Groups. (Ongoing Project)
To obtain needs/requirement from and give advise to the other IIGS™ groups, Webmasters has continuing liaison with all other IIGS™ Teams. The Webmasters are available to advise of standards that are to be used on the webspace, create pages if required, and upload pages to the team sites. Teams are encouraged to have their own webmaster who creates and uploads all pages, and passwords and logins are available from Lorine McGinnis Schulze for those teams wishing to do so.

Locating Graphics and Images. (Ongoing Project)
Webmasters have also set themselves the role of finding suitable graphics for IIGS™ use. These graphics are uploaded to the IIGS™ website for use by all teams.

One-Stop Site of How-to-Links (In planning stage)
This site will provide help to those building web pages focussed on genealogy. It will be a reliable one-stop source to find how-to links and links to HTML instructions, collections of GIF's, construction tips, etc.

Creation of IIGS™ WebRing (This important Member benefit is now in place)
This WebRing is now in place and is available for IIGS™ members to place on their personal web sites in order to promote their own site as well as the IIGS™. We commend Webmasters on a job well done.

The following tasks are underway now :

Lorine McGinnis Schulze (Co-Team Leader):
* Webmaster for IRC Team (except for Team List which Paula now maintains.)
* Setting up team pages for Programming Team
* Working with various team leaders to get their second level entry pages online and passwords distributed to individual team uploaders
* Co-ordinating with Ben (SysAdmin) for second level directories and password distribution to team leaders via PGP
* Training of new team members who wish to learn more coding and page setup
* Recruitment of new team members
* Co-ordinating with Harry on various ideas for other team pages as requested by teams to make their pages more efficient
* Maintainer of Archive space for teams who request it - eg I keep the IRC log archives, and Historian Archives

Wally Garchow
* Liaison with Newsletter Team.
* Working on pages for Listowners Team
* Uploading of the Organizational Chart for General Services Team.
* Coordinating the Queries pages.
* Group member for pages concerning Building Genealogical Web Sites.

Joe Reynolds
* Maintainance of pages for the Webmaster Team.
* Keeping in touch as liaison with Global Village and General Resource Teams.

Paula Wiegand
* Has obtained a collection of graphics for use within IIGS™ - these include national flags and a collection of miscellaneous graphics.  All are available from the images directory at http://www.iigs.org/images/
* Maintenance of the IRC Team volunteer page.
* IIGS™ WebRing - This project has been tested and is now available. This is intended as a member benefit.

Jim Eakins (Webmaster in Training):
* At the moment Jim is still in a training mode.  He has been working on several new pages for the Membership Team and is presently at the stage of determining who controls what pages so that he can make contact and have a test site set up to verify that things will work properly and that the Team(s) will approve the changes.
* Jim is also working on the web pages for the proposed IRC Policy Manual. Work on this project was, in December, marking time but it was anticipated that there would be a flurry of activity in January and February.

Bernice Wilson
* Group member for pages concerning Building Genealogical Web Sites.

Cindy Bolinger
* Group member for pages concerning Building Genealogical Web Sites.

Sherry Miller
* Currently involved with a project external to IIGS™.

IIGS™ Surname Registry: The IIGS™ Surname Registry is a member benefit. This project is currently in the planning stage.  The idea has been accepted by the Membership and Library Teams. The project will be lodged with the Project Team within the next few days.  On completion of this the project will be taken to the Programming Team to start on the design and coding of programs and setting up of the database.  A further extension is to be able to display information on the IRC channels on request.

This project is a multi-team project currently involving Membership, Library, Webmasters, Programming and probably the General Services Team.

back to the February 1998 Newsletter Table of Contents

---

Home Page ~ Global Village ~ IRC ~ Library ~ Newsletter ~ Projects Registry ~ University ~ FAQ ~ Listowners Team ~ Translation Team ~ Webmasters

---

© 1997-2003 IIGS™
IIGS is a trademark of the International Internet Genealogical Society

Supervised by the IIGS™ Webmaster Team
Created & Maintained by the IIGS™ Newsletter Team


Revised: 14 August 1998