HW: Mission Control Website

[Rik Rx]

Hi Richard - as you turned the BOClist into the Richard Lockwood channel
over the last few days, I thought I'd
respond with a few observations:

You Wrote:
"So you got the domain name off Andy then did you Rik?
Hope you're f**king proud of yourselves after all the work he did from day
one, when no-one else would".

A: wow -  you only just caught up with this old chestnut? Tell me NEWS not
HISTORY ! :-}
(Just to update those new to the list, the old site run by Andy Gilham at
www.hawkwind.com was NEVER owned
by, or run with the authority of Hawkwind. In fact, the band have never even
*met* Andy Gillham, so the "Official"
status bestowed on the site came from god knows where. Whatever stuff went
up on the site may have been good,
bad or indifferent and that was the whole point, as Andy did not liaise
directly with the band, anything that went up
there was NOT sanctioned by them, and therefore they had no control over
words, images and views that claimed to
be the "official" voice of the band. This could obviously lead to the
possibility of court action being taken against them
if the site contained anything not in their interests or broke copyright
etc. Action was taken when things started to
appear that could possibly lead to the band being sued. Oh ya - curb the
language eh?

As to "got the domain name off Andy... Rik"  - well as Andy didn't own the
site, (it was a Mr Smith), and as I don't
own it now (It's Mr Brock) - both of your allegations fail. Perhaps a tad of
research (and less beer) before you spout
off again eh?

-----------------------------
You Wrote:
"You were quite happy to slate Andy Gilham for promoting Nik's gigs, but
you'll quite happily promote Alan's Bedouin gigs on the site now".

A: Well Alan is still IN the band - Nik ISN'T - e-mail me privately if you
still can't grasp this basic concept.
(Also your mail from Andy Gilham about 'Liberty' was totally irrelevant.
Members of Liberty X were never in or
connected with 'Liberty' - different issues involved totally).
And remind me exactly where I slated Andy for promoting Nik's gigs - a bit
of over keenly reading between the lines
on your part I think? I assume you have some direct evidence of this claim?
I'd *love* to see it.
-------------------------------
MISSION CONTROL:
Twice in as many weeks you have publicly ranted in haste then repented.
This would be fine if  we had not already been in private contact about such
issues as the website, where you agreed
to wait to see if your suggestions had been incorporated into the new
update. Yet you still felt the need to again have
a rant about stuff which you already knew is being addressed, albeit as you
put it "after a few beers and got really
irate". Why the need for such a public slagging when we'd chatted quite
amicably in private?

I look forward to when (if ever) your site WWW.BEERPOWEREDNOISEFRENZY.CO.UK
comes online. Perhaps we can all then see how a 'real professional' does it.
:-}

YOU WROTE:
"Oh, and I notice that since you're quite happy to slate Nik's usage of the
letter "x", you're main page flies in the face
of all convention, and rather than calling it "index.html", you're quite
happy to call it hw_x.html.
A: Ever since launch, a year ago, the site has discreetly JavaScript
filtered IE users to the page 'hw_x.htm' and
Netscape/Opera users to the page 'hw_x.htm' to make use of each browser's
particular JavaScript capabilities.
So, in fact, a) index.htm *is*, and always has been the 'conventional'
default page and b) it redirects to hw_x.htm
only in IE browsers c) the filename hw_x.html you stated does not exist (no
'l')  oh ya while we're at it - index also
has an 'x' in it - oh dear, better not use that either !!!! :-}
------------------------------
MISSION CONTROL UPDATES IN PROGRESS:
For those that missed it before, MC is being updated to give it a cleaner,
fresher look, and will address most of the
issues that people have raised as constructive critisism. (HOWEVER, -
(Richard please note) - just how "the current
site sucks", "f***ked off with trying to get rid of those f**king irritating
fades" can be construed as 'constructive'
beggars belief).

IF YOU GET 'LOST IN SPACE' - CLICK ON THE EYE
The "hard to navigate" MC site has one very, very simple concept to grasp:
click on the eye that appears on every
page to return to the central, 'mission control' launchpad, from where you
can access all the site's key areas. No page
is more than two clicks away from Mission Control, as per the 'traditional'
conventions of web-design. As this
appears much too radical for some to grasp, the new site will have a choice
of an updated graphical rich interface,
and a very basic one for those who don't like to think too much. :-}

The site on relaunch will include many more pages, much better navigation, a
password protected area for HW
passport holders, audio and video streaming, a web-board, on-line
merchandising, a java chat facility, an e-mail
announcement facility, WAP extensions, a chillout zone, an upgraded
guestbook, a text only option (oh, hi Arin !),
downloadable HW screensavers and browser skins, and loads of other updates
and fixes for  those visitors with
electronically or digitally challenged connections (You know who you are !
:-)

As the site is >75mb over 1800 pages, with filters, XML and all sorts of
stuff that has to work over a huge
combination of browsers (of various versions), operating systems, Platforms
inc. webTV etc etc it's taking a while -
but hang in there......

Rx