[gabba]

Hi

Okay - time to put my money where my mouth is ...

gabba, on 15 January 2010 - 09:05 AM, said:

3: Best new entrant - restricted to those who have set up a website within the competition period or immediately prior to it

I'm looking at providing a prize for the third category

I'll offer up a free domain name (1 year or total value NZD45) for the best new site as judged by NZweather.net members. Sometime between now and the end of the competition I'll also put up an award logo you can put on your website.

Domain provided by my hosting company (OnTheInternet.co.nz) (Shameless plug :icon_biggrin: )

Conditions are:

1: Must be a new site on the internet between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2010
2: Must be a member of NZweather.net
3: Must be submitting data to the NZ Weather Network (NZWN) and link to the NZ Weather website
4: Judging will be done at the end of June in the same way that the monthly photo competition is done
5: Judging criteria will be as follows:
Approximately 20% allocated to design and layout
Approximately 20% allocated to coding - if your sites CSS and html validates correctly you will get all of this
Approximately 20% allocated to content - ie what raw data is presented
Approximately 20% allocated to usability - ie show that you have taken usability into account. Are the flow between screens sensible, do the menus make sense. Are colour combinations / fonts ok for people with poor eyesight etc.
Approximately 20% allocated on how well the raw data is presented - Is it presented in a manner appropriate to the sites audience. Does it convey the information in a non technical way, and easily explain scientific concepts

The object of this is to encourage the development of sites that follow good design principles and convey information to the general public in a way that can be easily understood. I'm expecting that this will be a tough ask for many people but as a result of entering you will have contributed to raising the bar for weather websites.

To enter:
Just build your site and post your URL / Link to the website as a response to this post. I'll gather up all the URL's at the end and consolidate them somewhere for voting purposes

Have fun

This post has been promoted to an article

[David]

Damn I can't enter...my site is fairly new but went online late December 2009

[TokWW]

David, your site is still in development and not finished yet. Beta form out of the box then, yes but.... it is really just starting and being developed! Perhaps he will widen the start bar to Oct 2009. I would need to start from scratch to enter...

[Grant]

TokWW, on 22 February 2010 - 09:58 PM, said:

David, your site is still in development and not finished yet. Beta form out of the box then, yes but.... it is really just starting and being developed! Perhaps he will widen the start bar to Oct 2009. I would need to start from scratch to enter...

hmm, perhaps a clarification is needed to avoid confusion and disappointment. "Development" is subjective and the constant changing of appearance and layout could always come under that banner for a site that is already established. I also have an example. My test page http://www.nzweather...springston.html which has not worked since 12 September and has never published my own data, is not a NEW site but it is truly under "development", rather than just being a revamp of my current weather data in a new format - would that qualify?

If the idea is to encourage new people into the fold, then this current competition layout works and perhaps a different competition would look towards those developing existing sites.

[gabba]

David, on 22 February 2010 - 08:57 PM, said:

Damn I can't enter...my site is fairly new but went online late December 2009

Sorry David - I have to draw the line somewhere, and since it was originally talked about doing the award twice a year, Jan to June seemed like a reasonable fit.

@TokWW - That's sneaky. All our sites are still in beta aren't they? :icon_biggrin:

There was talk of getting competition running for existing sites. The above rules could work for this as well. Lets see what happens over the next few days perhaps...

[gabba]

Grant, on 22 February 2010 - 10:15 PM, said:

hmm, perhaps a clarification is needed to avoid confusion and disappointment. "Development" is subjective and the constant changing of appearance and layout could always come under that banner for a site that is already established. I also have an example. My test page http://www.nzweather...springston.html which has not worked since 12 September and has never published my own data, is not a NEW site but it is truly under "development", rather than just being a revamp of my current weather data in a new format - would that qualify?

If the idea is to encourage new people into the fold, then this current competition layout works and perhaps a different competition would look towards those developing existing sites.

Ahhh - I knew it wouldn't be long before this happened - and we have only got to the first rule

>>1: Must be a new site on the internet between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2010

In your case Grant, I think you were using Metar data for a while, so it wasn't specifically your data and therefore I think I would allow that as being a new site, since the weather stations data is new on the internet. However strictly speaking, if you put the website up before 1 January, you will have had more time than anyone else to build your site. On balance though having looked at your site, I think I would allow it. So far it is a pretty stock standard site, and I'm hoping that the competition will drive something better than the standard stuff we can all do

The purpose of the competition is to encourage people to the nzweather site and get their PWS data onto the internet. It also tries to recognise that people starting out are often at a disadvantage to those that have been building weather websites for years.

Also forgot to add one more competition rule

6: Judges decision is final and subject to random decision making :icon_biggrin:

Please continue to post clarifications here for particular sites as required. What gets classed as a valid site for the competition should be able to be decided by us all, and will help clarify the rules for everyone

This post has been edited by gabba: 22 February 2010 - 09:47 PM

[Grant]

thanks for all your patience in explaining things thoroughly gabba
:thumbup:

[TokWW]

gabba, on 22 February 2010 - 10:22 PM, said:

Sorry David - I have to draw the line somewhere, and since it was originally talked about doing the award twice a year, Jan to June seemed like a reasonable fit.

@TokWW - That's sneaky. All our sites are still in beta aren't they? :thumbup:

I haven't altered mine in about 6 months - I split it up using home made icons at the top and left it with several pages. I occasionally edit out the dead links, but have hardly changed mine at all. It has never passed muster re validation, and I should try... It is still generated by WD with modified sections as text using original WD files and using some of the tools generated there.

It would probably not hurt David to try another framework site now he has the data published to the web or able to be published as small custom tag files.

[Grant]

gabba, on 22 February 2010 - 08:54 PM, said:

Approximately 20% allocated to coding - if your sites CSS and html validates correctly you will get all of this

Are we using anything in particular to check the validation of these? If I am going to start from scratch I may as well make sure everything is as close to good as it can get

[Tornado Tim]

Grant, on 26 February 2010 - 11:51 AM, said:

Are we using anything in particular to check the validation of these? If I am going to start from scratch I may as well make sure everything is as close to good as it can get

I use the official Web standard compliance service: http://validator.w3.org/

[David]

Tornado Tim, on 26 February 2010 - 12:19 PM, said:

I use the official Web standard compliance service: http://validator.w3.org/

Yes, and also the CSS validator here: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ :)

[gabba]

Tornado Tim, on 26 February 2010 - 12:19 PM, said:

I use the official Web standard compliance service: http://validator.w3.org/

Yep - that's the one I'd suggest

Not so sure about CSS validation though - that's a challenge in itself.....

[David]

gabba, on 26 February 2010 - 08:24 PM, said:

Yep - that's the one I'd suggest

Not so sure about CSS validation though - that's a challenge in itself.....

Really, I find CSS very much easier to validate than HTML. ;)

[Grant]

I've got several ideas that I am trying out at the moment. Including template and CSS changes. Nothing is together enough to have a final site up yet (Although some have found the pages having a look around - lol)
Who else is having a go?

[gabba]

Hi all

No-one putting their hand up for this one yet, so just giving it a bit of a bump. Remember entries close 30th June.

Note that this is only for new websites. There is a similar competition for best existing website here:

http://www.nzweather...522

[Palmy Weather]

My website went live Feburary 1 this year for Palmerston North. My website is http://palmyweather.co.nr and is currently free hosted so I don't have a .co.nz domain and get anying pop-up ads at times from my host.

Anyways, I would like to enter this competition if it is still open.

Matt.

[Grant]

Good to have your entry Matt :)

[gabba]

Palmy Weather, on 23 May 2010 - 10:26 PM, said:

My website went live Feburary 1 this year for Palmerston North. My website is http://palmyweather.co.nr and is currently free hosted so I don't have a .co.nz domain and get anying pop-up ads at times from my host.

Anyways, I would like to enter this competition if it is still open.

Matt.

Good stuff Matt. Thanks for your entry. Great site by the way

[RWood]

Looks very nice Matt, but fix your spelling of "forecast". Any historical data planned later?

[AndrewB]

Palmy Weather, on 23 May 2010 - 09:26 PM, said:

My website went live Feburary 1 this year for Palmerston North. My website is http://palmyweather.co.nr and is currently free hosted so I don't have a .co.nz domain and get anying pop-up ads at times from my host.

Anyways, I would like to enter this competition if it is still open.

Matt.

Nice site Matt

Thats how I want mine to look!! I just need to learn how to st it up.