Website Policy and Provision of Notice Policy

For Presentation to Chatsworth Council on July 6, 2016

Website Policy
1. This is further to my email on May 10, 2016 that focussed on the retention aspect of the Website Policy
that was of immediate concern at that time. This Presentation to Council includes further comments
about retention (point 6, below), but covers other points as well. As of today, none of the deleted 2014
information that prompted my May 10 email has been restored.
2. The draft Policy Statement says that the website is a primary source of corporate information ... .
Nobody could argue with this, but the subsequent sections in the document contain little or nothing by
way of specifics or examples to help users (identified as citizens, staff, visitors and stakeholders)
understand what Council intends by the policy. In my view, therefore, the document must contain both
general and specific information about web content (discussed in more detail below).
3. I would urge Council to think about Accessibility and to look at the standard suggested ( consistently
high level of usability ) from the point of view of an average user. Like the Policy Statement, these are
nice words, but what do they mean? How will they be reflected in the design and content of the website?
This is too detailed a subject for a 15-minute public meeting, but here is a brief snapshot of one facet of
the problem with the existing website. Information contained in the posted Agenda packages becomes
highly user unfriendly and highly inaccessible within a few weeks. For example, if someone knew that this
draft Website Policy had been on Council agendas earlier this year and wanted to find out how it was
dealt with, but didnt know the exact dates, he or she would end up downloading a number of complete
Agenda packages (averaging about 5 MB each) until finally finding the ones for March 2 and May 11.
Aside from the wasted time doing this, what about people who have only dial-up?
This major deficiency can be overcome easily and at virtually no cost (except for the time associated with
the initial setup). I have done so for my blog, where I post the Agendas with links to all supporting
documents (about 250 kB). Even someone with dial-up can easily download an Agenda and then perhaps
one or two of the other documents in which they are interested. Searches are easy.
4. In my view, the section titled Website Content Internal requires a general statement or expression of
Councils direction (which, I hope, is to provide as much information about the business of the Township
as is practicable). For a general statement of intention or direction such as this to be clear, the
document needs something along the lines of a Site Map similar to those that are often shown at the
bottom of web pages, thus providing guidance for both structure and contents.
There is no valid reason for only the most commonly referred to municipal by-laws and policies to be
on the website. With thoughtful organization (as per the Site Map concept, above), virtually all of the
Townships By-Laws, Policies, consultants reports, agreements and more can and should be posted so
that all documents are easily discoverable and readily available. What would be the reason for not doing
so when almost all documents are in electronic format and can be posted with a click or two of a mouse?

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As an aside, I note that the Website Policy document that is part of the Agenda package appears to have
been prepared, printed and then scanned. This is extremely inefficient and wasteful of time software
has been available for many years to convert most documents produced in the Township Office to pdf
format with one click (printing and then scanning are not required). Documents received by email (such
as reports and presentations) are typically already in pdf format or can be converted easily. Using a
scanner will still be required for things like historical paper documents, newspaper articles, letters and
maps, of course, but not for most documents prepared internally or received by email.
5. Still with regard to Website Content Internal, the statement that out-of-date information will be
removed needs thoughtful consideration. Some sort of principle may be appropriate here, but I would
suggest turning the emphasis of removal of information in the draft on its head: once posted almost
everything should remain. Out of date is not simple, so a variety of examples would be necessary. To
illustrate this, in 2015 a consultant prepared a report on the Sullivan Landfill Site. This report may be out
of date when a new report is produced this year or next, but the 2015 report will still have value, and in
fact may be extremely important for many years. In this one case, how would out of date be defined?
6. Finally, I would respectfully suggest that Retention on the website be addressed in this policy document
in a meaningful way, and not punted to some other policy document. At present, I expect that the
retention of documents required by legislation serves a different purpose from documents that are
posted on the website, which is different again from a purpose related to historical interest. Today, these
previously separate purposes appear to be merging. Because of these interconnections, I dont see how
Council could approve a Website Policy in the absence of the Retention Policy.

Policy on Provision of Notice

1. Until quite recently, there was nothing on the Chatsworth home page to indicate when there was
something new behind the Notice of Public Meeting button. About 98% of the time, therefore, people
who came to the Chatsworth website and clicked on Notice of Public Meeting would find the same old
statement to the effect that Chatsworth was trying to keep people informed and aware. In my view, this
wasnt a good example of the high level of usability intended by the Website Policy.
The present practise (I think from around the flooding in April) seems to be to provide key information on
the Chatsworth home page, together with links to sources of more information. If this is what is meant
when the Notice Policy says Notice to be posted on Chatsworth website, then I wish to simply
commend you on this major improvement. Even so, however, I believe the Notice Policy should contain
wording to clarify the procedure, and make it clear that reverting to the earlier practise is not acceptable.
Incidentally, these same comments also apply to the button for RFPs and Tenders. If there is anything
new or of interest that Council or Administration wants people to know about, then there should be a
concise statement on the Chatsworth home page, with more information behind the button.
Respectfully submitted,

Trevor Falk
trevorefalk@gmail.com
https://shininglightonchatsworth.wordpress.com/
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