Setting website and DBS check for creator/designer

[KidsCorner]

Very quick question...looking at setting up a website for our setting. A parent (non committee member) has offered to do this using "some old wix sites he has spare". He does not do this sort of thing for a living. While grateful for the cost saving instinct tells me old sites could have been used for some other purpose in the dim and distant past, also I am insisting he gets DBS as committee member before I give the go ahead. Any thoughts or suggestions please...?

[FSFRebecca]

Mmm, I agree with you I would be cautious. I'll ask some of our tech people if they have a view. Definitely need DBS anyway! I'll be back

 

[Tom]

Old sites can easily be wiped clean, so you should make sure they do that. As long as they do that, it isn't a risk. If it comes with an domain name[1] then you can google for the name and see if anything 'dodgy' is linked to it. If you are getting your own domain name, then that isn't a problem. If it comes with an email address that has been used before, you risk getting more spam than usual, but that will just be annoying. Nowadays, all email addresses get sent dodgy spam, and the only question is whether your email software's junk mail filtering is good enough to remove the offensive stuff before you see it.

If it were me, my questions would be:

1. Is the person competent enough to avoid doing something that will leave the site open to spam or hacking?
2. Are they trustworthy enough to avoid doing something dodgy with the site?
3. Are they motivated enough to maintain it?
4. What will you do when they stop being motivated?

It is old, un-maintaned sites that tend to get hacked and used for dodgy purposes.

If the person stops being interested, but you don't have the power to take over or shut down the site, then that is when you are most likely to end up with something dodgy associated with your setting.

Hope that helps

Tom

[1] A domain name is something like 'tapestryjournal.com' or 'eyfs.info'.