| Author | Message | ||
| Ken
Old Hand Username: Ken Post Number: 38 Registered: 3-2005  Rating: N/A |
Where has the Forum Gone? Hi all, I stated on a previous post that, rather fortunately for me, there has been a sharp increase in the tempo at my workplace which will involve a lot of time away from home and access to a computer will be minimal, if any. So it is with a little sadness that I have to inform the 'loyal' and 'contributing' users of this site that I will be unable to administer the 'forum' part of the site. The site will not just disappear though! Most of the site will stay up including 'Fight Club.' Just the 'forum' will go as I cannot spare the time to administer it. I suggest that someone with a few hours on their hands starts up a forum and either link to the relevant bits here or copy the source and upload onto the new server. (You do not have to be a guru to do this, you just need the time. Lots of it.) I envisage the forum coming offline possibly on Thursday the 25th of August. For visitors to the site that have been viewing the thread called 'Rubbish' by Adam George, I would just like to clarify that his and Treeboy's posts are definitly NOT the reason the forum has gone. I am fair dinkum flat out at work and do not have the time to do the things that need to be done to keep the 'forum' presentable  Cheers, Ken. P.S. If you were wondering what Adam's post was I have placed it below. Rubbish Author Adam Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 1:29 pm: I have been holding off from stating the blatantly obvious for some time now, in the overly optimistic hope that things will improve. I am unfortunately compelled, however, to mention that the once glorious jewel in the crown of the "ABA", ie: this website, has degenerated into an overly convoluted, confusing, password-protected heap of rubbish. A quick examination of this site's post frequency compared to its old unmodified version makes this bleedingly obvious. Comparatively, no one is using this site. It seems as if the vain attempt to hide ourselves in the shadows as it were, in order to seek refuge from prying public eyes has resulted in the dilution and almost entire dispersion of what this site's primary objective should be. Namely, the dissemination of information to basejumpers and potential basejumpers. Sure, people can still access the site if they really want to, and questions of whether someone who can't be bothered to seek access has enough desire to be worthy of entry into the sport can be raised. But why should we make it more difficult. Really we should be trying to make it as easy as possible for safety and technical discussions to be conducted and viewed. Besides, the objective reality of the situation is that people are not making the reqired effort to post on this website, and subsequently important discussions are not taking place as readily as they should, and as readily as they used to on the password free site. And since when was the decision made to password-protect the public forum? Ken, I realise this is your website, and appreciate the effort you put into its existence and maintenance, but as it stands the website appears to be now next to useless. The decision to evolve the website into its current incarnation was passed at the last ABA AGM, and the majority including myself voted for the password protected "fight club" as a compromise to our demands for the return of the password-free site. I feel that this experiment has failed. What does everyone else think? ========================================== Username: Spider Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 2:24 pm: i agree it is anoying and stuff but, i think if people want to know somthink or are serious about getting into the sport they will get through the password stuff... =============================================== Username: Jesse Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 6:03 pm: I agree with Adam on this. ====================================== Username: Ken Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 6:18 pm: Hi Adam, thanks for the feedback! Just a few quick responses to some points you've made:
Posts are down, but, page viewings, unique visitors and returning visitors are up. Signups are up despite having to queue and wait a day or two. Also more shirts have moved in the last two months than in the four before those. This, me thinks means that more people than ever before are using the site.
Depending on which group you chose when you joined, the topics page will look different than to members of another group. E.g: not everyone sees the 'Media Only' section or 'Fight Club.' I also update the Meta tags frequently and re-submit to lessor known search engines quarterly. I figure the more easily found the site is the less prying eyes will want to see it. (Duh)
Spot on! And those that can be bothered do.
Maybe people are fact finding and interacting with others at jump venues. Some technical questions maybe better directed to sites such as www.dropzone.com as the chance of getting a quicker response is a lot higher. Whilst it's o.k. to be nostalgic about the old site and the good old days there was a lot of crap posts that had very little to do with jumping as well.
What 'public forum?' There isn't one! There is a forum for members of the public that choose to register though. To assist in the functionality of this multi-faceted board 'registrations' and 'cookies' are the only way to go. At least this way you can selectively enable cookies for basejump.org and never have to log on again, unless you are away from your personal computer.
As I stated earlier posts are down, but, page viewings, unique visitors and returning visitors are up. Signups are up and more shirts have moved in the last two months than in the four before those. Anyway Adam, I hear your concerns and love your 'shoot first ask questions later' technique and what I'll do right now is make the 'registered users forum' visible without having to enable cookies. Keep the feedback coming as that's the only way to make this thing work. ============================================== Username: Kieran Posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 12:41 pm: I gotta agree with Adam. this is the first time I have seen the forum etc since it has changed cause couldn't get my password etc working. Has been confusing and frustrating but then again it's not that hard to confuse me either. The idea was good though! ============================================= Username: Adam Posted on Monday, August 22, 2005 - 1:17 pm: I am going to take the lack of responses to this post as a clear affirmation of my sentiments. ============================================ Username: Treeboy Posted on Monday, August 22, 2005 - 6:06 pm: i also agree that since the confusing changes to the log-in etc that this website has become almost redundant as a vehicle for sharing information,,but actually not alot is being spoken on the other websites either,,, (Message edited by admin on August 25, 2005) |
