About

This is a general chat page, to introduce the site and tell how it is progressing. It will change as development continues, and covers only:

• About
• Status

About

This site was first conceived in November 2002, when I decided to write "5 or 10 pages" about the geology of Portsdown Hill. The "target audience" is - everyone who may be interested. And maybe some who are not yet interested, but may gain something from these pages.
I hope that people local to Portsdown who have no knowledge of geology will find it interesting, and also geologists who know a lot of geology, but not this area. Only a small proportion (maybe 5%) of the website is specific to Portsdown, so I hope my audience will not be limited to locals. Perhaps I ought to rename it.....
I've tried to assume no geological or specific knowledge. Brief definitions will display when you hover the cursor over geological terms. If the cursor turns to an arrow when you hover, then clicking the word will take you to the more extensive glossary, or possibly another reference page. The glossary and pages on the right-hand navigation bar are a 'reference shelf', rather than a part of the narrative.

I had a number of reasons to write this site:

• I wanted practice writing a web-site; this is my 4th attempt and the first that will be 'completed' - as far as any website is ever complete
• I am interested in geology, and am currently working on earning a degree in Earth Sciences with the Open University
• I spend most Wednesdays "scrub-bashing" with the 'Friends of Portsdown Hill', a bunch of volunteers interested in helping maintain and study the area
• Something to 'keep me busy' over Christmas before the February 2003 Open University year began

Clearly, the site has expanded exponentially - for each page I write, I realise the need for at least 3 more. This expansion - of the plan, at least - continues....

The site is purely voluntary, but has the support of the council ranger who is responsible for the Portsdown Hill site. If my website is good, it will get a lot of exposure.
I am getting a huge amount of help from all over, and I hope I haven't missed anyone out in the Acknowledgements page.
And I really am not possessive about the site - I'm hoping to receive ready-written pages for my "Archaeology" section, and I would welcome not only comments and suggestions, but ready-written text, diagrams, and photos. Anything in fact that you might have got, or would be prepared to write, that would be appropriate here and would improve this website.
This site will take me at least a year to complete - but would take only a couple of weeks if 50 people wrote a page each .... :-)

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Status

• There are more pages 'in the plan' than in the site
• There are more links to pages than there are pages
• Some pages have just one line in them, describing 'what will be'
• Most pages need more images, at least
• Slicker navigation and other design issues (cross-browser compatibility, accessibility etc.) will be addressed when I have go the bulk of the content written
• [Green italic text will disappear later, as they are development messages, relating to outstanding issues/queries]
• But many pages *are* full of text

The following table gives a brief summary of status, which may or may not exactly reflect what I have uploaded to the website. However, it gives a reasonable status since the last upload on
18th January 2003

There are meant to be 3 colours per section, shading lighter as they become more detailed, which are sub-pages of the one above. I hate the colors as much as you, so would welcome any new sets of hex colours. The navigation bars might someday change to reflect the section-colours.

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For any comments, suggestions or contributions, please e-mail me at: portsdown@bbm.me.uk