[thelist] what IS a webmaster??

[Chris Johnston]

On 11/23/05, bill <bill at first-encounter-design.com> wrote:

> Now I've been asked by the Board to write a job description for what they
> call a 'webmaster.' I see a series of different jobs here, all of which
> need
> job descriptions if and when they ever have money to hire for some of this
> work.
>
>

According to the Wikipedia website:

"On a smaller site, the webmaster will typically be the owner,
designer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design>,
developer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_developer> and
programmer<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer>in addition to
writing the actual content. On larger sites the webmaster
will act as a coordinator and overseer to the activities of other people
working on the site and is usually an employee of the owner of the website,
hence *webmaster* can also be listed as an
occupation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession>
."

I would agree with this description. However, this brings up several other
descriptions (again from wikipedia):

*Designer:* "the design <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design> or designing
of a web page <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page>,
website<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website>or web
application <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application>. The term
generally refers to the
graphical<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface>side
of web
development <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_development> using
images, CSS<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets>and
one of the
HTML <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML>
standards<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards>
."

*Developer:* "a broad term that incorporates all areas of developing a web
site <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_site> for the World Wide
Web<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web>.
This often includes graphical web
design<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design>,
backend programming <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming>, and web
server <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server> configuration. For larger
businesses and organizations, web development teams can consist of hundreds
of people, while smaller organizations may only require a single
webmaster<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmaster>
."

Don't you just love circular definitions?

Programmer: no definition--but I would list them as being responsible for
the backend programming of a website without the responsibility of actually
setting up the server, etc. That would fall to the webmaster or possibly to
the developer.


--
www.fuzzylizard.com