A New WGA.org Is Coming
Ed. Note: I’ve been working for a while on revamping the official Writers Guild of America, west website. Here’s an article I wrote for our Member News bulletin. The new website will be up by the end of the month, and I’ll alert you guys once it launches. In the meantime, if you go to the WGA site now, you can see how backwards it currently is.
I’m not wearing pants right now.
That’s one of the benefits of working in the Information Age. As writers, we’re creatures of windowless rooms. The internet allows us to indulge our essential drives to learn and create without coming in contact with other people or violating our primary directive: never move when you can sit perfectly still.
Unfortunately, our Guild’s presence on the web has been a liability. The site was originally designed in 1996 and received little updating since. When it comes to technology, nine years might as well be nine hundred years. Our site was poorly organized, annoying to navigate, used frame-based technology that predated the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and perhaps worst of all…it was ugly.
One of the first actions I took as a new Board member was to create a committee responsible for revamping our web site. Sure, I wanted a website that was competent, but my purpose was a bit deeper than that.
When I ran for the Board, my primary motivation was to improve the relationship between our members and their union. The root of the alienation is understandable. Writers are busy. We have families and friends and careers. It’s easy to allow the Guild to fade into the background, but when a residual check goes missing or a credit arbitration looms or a payment is late, I want to know my Guild will be there for me…without leaving my room.
Or putting on my pants.
In the years to come, the WGAw website will increasingly become the face of our union. It needs to be our clearinghouse for information, our calendar, our early-warning system, our library. Our website should inspire us to learn about the developments that govern our industry, shape our negotiations and impact our earnings. It needs to provide a pathway to our staff, and an opportunity to give feedback, ask questions or simply rant.
By rebuilding the website, we’ve created the foundation for all of that. Our new site is attractive, clean, easy-to-use, and adaptable. We have the ability to create moving-image libraries, poll our membership, and put a face on our staff and the leadership. If there’s a wall between the rank-and-file and the HQ, consider this website a big rock thrown through the barrier.
I’m proud of the work we did. In less than one year, we accomplished our goal. While much of it involved reworking site-maps and navbars and menu trees and databases and streaming video and content management systems, it’s the human experience that is essential. My hope is that our new, world-class website will bring members closer to their Guild and closer to each other.
Take your pants off, people. The new wga.org is here.
1 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: A New WGA.org Is Coming.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://artfulwriter.com/mt4/contages.cgi/102
I didn’t know that Craig Mazin was a bigwig in the Writer’s Guild of America—West, which probably earns me a few demerits or something, but he is, and he’s the guy behind their spiffy, modern redesign: The site was originally ... Read More
“Take your pants off, people.”
How do you know I have any pants on?
;)
This article is even more enjoyable if you remember that, in England, “pants” means “underpants.”
Unfortunately, there seems to be some sort of rule of thumb that directly states that however large a company or organization is, the crappier the website. Which is insane considering how utterly important a good website can be.
Take The Blair Witch Project. Please.
The movie in itself is, well…bad. The acting (HA!), the direction (what direction?), the cinematography (the what?), was totally subpar. The movie should have been regulated to the film vault at NYU. That is, if such a vault exists. But then you have the Marketing. That brilliant Marketing. And as arbitrary as throwing out a percentage number may be, the WEBSITE had to have contributed at least 55% of the movie’s success. At least. TBWP’s website was interactive, well thought out, and downright spooky. It was so good, it made people think that the movie was real. Really real. So real in fact, it made my ex-wife cry in the theatre. She was pregnant at the time but still. So why do we still continue to see crap websites from large companies?
Because the internet is for porn obsessed nerds.
At least that’s what the thinking is. Maybe someday it will be “WAS” but right now “IS” is the way it is. A good friend of mine is the Vice President of MTV. I always bust his balls about how insane their website is. Ever go there? Go there. I dare you. And try to keep your eye on one thing. It’s impossibe. It’s an advertising wasteland. When you move your mouse around things start to pop up everywhere and it just makes my head hurt. Now here’s the funny part. This is the revamped version. It used to be even worse. So what am I getting at here? Simple. Age. Close your eyes and think of a company. Any company. Ok, I’ll give you one. Think of K-Mart. Now think of a K-Mart boardroom. All the executives, the CEO, the CFO, the COO, the BFD, the ASS. Got ‘em all. I do. And guess what? They’re all old. O-L-D. Every single one of them looks like Mr. Burns with a sprinkle of Smithers’ here and there. So how often do you think the word “internet” or “website” comes up? Pretty infreguently. But it’s getting better. As long as we have people like Craig around, it will get better. Just don’t go to any of my websites. They all suck.
yes, yes. that is the (secret) directive. do not move unless absolutely necessary.
had to stop there. too tired to continue reading. will try again later
question, where did the minimum rate cards on the WGA website go?
An interesting obscure test case for websites is to test it for accessibility (ex. so that people with vision problems, like older writers who’ve misplaced their bifocals can read it). Simple test is to go to IE’s View, Text Size and pick largest and see if the site is still readable and all the toolbars and buttons work. Full test is to go to Internet Options, Accessibility and check off all the boxes and see what the site looks like then. Not something you have to have to ship, but an interesting test case during evelopment to see how it looks.
I just want to remind everyone that the new site has not yet launched. You’re still looking at the old one.
As for the schedule of minimums, they’re still there. At the current site, click on “Publications”.
Another question: What happened to the Agents List? The site says that it will be back sometime in October. Is it possible to get a hard copy in the meantime?
Hey Craig, not to go completely off topic here, but I’m curious about your take on the recent election and news today of the ouster of John McLean. Any comments, sir?
No comment. We’re covered by confidentiality, I have to abide by that. :(
Fair enough.
I would expect links to be changed and having to learn a new system of navigation for a new website, but I never expected that the WGA website would become completely inaccessible to any writer looking to register their script online or perhaps wanting to browse those wonderful articles on craft. And it seems that’s exactly what’s happened. You can’t even go to the entry page anymore at just plain www.wga.org because it demands a password. That makes sense for members-only sections, but what about general information and script registration? Why require a password even to visit the front page? Now I can’t get in at all.
Patricia:
Don’t panic. It’s a bug. I can’t get in either. No one can. Stay tuned.
Have you seen this before? It’s a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 47744, and it got it right! Pretty neat.