World Wide Cobweb

Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko: I see. You and your wife, you work in the theater. And you live here...in Siberia.
Raymond Greenwood: It's just temporary.
Rodchenko: [dryly] Of course. Nobody is here permanently.

—White Nights (1985)

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I mentioned awhile back that the Morrell Park Community Association had decided that they didn't want me to do their newsletter anymore. I wasn't getting any feedback with relation to their website, so I put up a "Goodbye" page letting people know that the site was going to go dark sometime shortly after Christmas.

Well, that's when heads started to explode. The phone calls and emails started, people asking me what was going on, please don't do this, and so on and so forth. The VP of the Association came up with the hosting fee and the renewal and told me that they wanted the website to go on. So I put up a new home page with a new design, and solicited updated information. And I waited for the information.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited. I got information from one person and I put that up, but otherwise nothing came to me.

And the stuff that was on the homepage started to age out, so I took it down, piece by piece. At this point, all that's left is the meeting dates, some recycling information and some contact information for the Association. I'm not going to make stuff up for them, right?

A few weeks ago (April 7) an email came to me from the Association's VP. It read, in part:

Good things are happening back here in Morrell Park.  Next Pancake Breakfast, 8th year for Mayors Clean Up, Big CERT expansion Meeting, Next GED Sessions both day and evening , Little League 28th Parade, updates/plans on MP New Rec Center, Dunkin Donut expansion, and new homes being built to name a few. Also, many Business and Builders want to advertise and our web site update is desperately needed. Good people have offered to help make this happen 
XX and XY son B offered to place MP updates on the web. <snipped> [B] would like to become more involved offering his experience with computers to update MPCA web site.  However, he needs www.morrellpark.net user ID and password.    Could you please forward that information forward so this process and progress can begin ?

I guess that's their way of saying they don't want me to do this anymore either. So I sent a reply telling them it wasn't quite as simple as handing over an ID and a password, and I'd get in touch with B directly.

A few days later, on the following Sunday, I sent B a detailed email telling him how to FTP information to the website: where the hosting is located, etc. He didn't reply, nor has the website been updated since then.

So let me be the first to congratulate the officers of the Morrell Park Community Association on their fine selection of a new webmaster. You've done a fantastic job, so far. And the best part is that I'll be billing the MPCA for hosting a webpage that hasn't been updated in a couple of months.

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Confidential to SH: I admit it in this space; you were right. 'nuff said.

Comments

[yellojkt]

I was a newsletter editor for the local chapter of a professional society. It was a really thankless job and getting information was worse than pulling teeth.