This Forum

Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 12:01 pm

While I claim to be no expert, I just wanted to suggest possible another type of bulletin board system.

Why I suggest this.

I use two different computers to view the board. Due to this it shows that I have not read messages on one machine while there are shown read on the other and vise versa. It might be nice to have one that retains user viewing information on server side to prevent this showing of unread post that were read.

In addition, this board shows options that are simply not available to me. Another board could hide those forms from those without access.

Those are two main things I have noticed over and over when I view the forum. If you are interested in looking into another BBS you can follow the link below. I seen this used at a few places and it’s generally nifty to use for bother administrator and end user. If you’re not interested at least I gave my 2cents worth.
http://www.phpbb.com/

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PCFROG

Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 2:20 pm

Thanks for the request, but we are already headed in that direction....

As was mentioned at the campout meeting, there has been some VERY PRELIMINARY groundwork done with regards to re-vamping the current website and message boards.

I cut this from the very bottom of the "Alpha" test version of the new message boards.

"Powered by phpBB 2.0.10 © 2001 phpBB Group"

Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 9:27 am

Can't wait to see this migrate to phpBB. I've configured it a few times and have used it at other various sites. It's great, so long as it is kept up to date with the latest code. It tends to get 'hacked' somewhat often and they release fixes for it regularly. Still a great board. I love being able to subscribe to threads and forums

Nick

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of The Cacheseekers

http://www.cacheseekers.com

WGA Member Joined: 2005-04-21 Posts: 33 Location: Boyd, WI

Will the new board have some of the funtions like member profiles, PMs, not having to enter your name and password to make a post, etc?

Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 3:35 pm

Its been at least 3 weeks since I used one but I think once you log in for a session you do not have to type password for each post.
And yes it has member profile and icons/avatars (sp)

[This message has been edited by pcfrog (edited 05-25-2005).]

Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:15 am

quote:
Originally posted by Docapi:
Will the new board have some of the funtions like member profiles, PMs, not having to enter your name and password to make a post, etc?

Yes to all of the above, plus the feature that was originally requested where the last time you visited is stored on the server, so you always see the posts that are new to you, regardless of the number computers you use to view the forums. A complete list of features in the latest version of phpBB can be found here:
http://www.phpbb.com/features.php

I will confirm the rumor that we are planning to switch over to PHPbb for the WGA forums. We've actually successfully converted all the WGA forums, the 17000 or so messages posted here since 2002, and all forum user accounts to PHPbb.

So why aren't we switched over the PHPbb yet? Well, we are in the process of performing a major website overhaul, not just a change to the forum software used. The big thing that we want to do is consolidate the two user registration systems we currently have... one for the forums and photo album, and one for WGA membership and everything else, into a single system. New members will only have to sign up ONCE to be WGA members and have access to the forums. Existing members will have a single username and password to access everything on the WGA site. To pull this off for the existing members, someone has to untangle the accounts in the two systems, decide which ones "match", and combine the data from the two systems... Ray Handley (aka The Beast) has volunteered to perform this thankless task and is examining spreadsheets of data as we speak.

Because of this consolidation of user registration systems, many of website features we have (Cache of the Month, Membership List, etc.) need to be reworked. This is the part of the website revamp that I'm working on. We are also going to take this opportunity to revise a lot of static web pages we have, like "Hiding a Cache", "About Us", etc. The Board will be working on revising the contents of these pages over the next few months.

The plan is to be switched over to the new system around the time of the WGA Geo-Picnic (sometime in August). Before that, the site will be in beta test for a few weeks to make sure all of the bugs are worked out. We will be contacting some folks to help us with the beta testing, probably in late July or early August... if you want to get a sneak peek at the site and help us with development by being a beta tester, you can contact me (jeremy at vechinski dot com).

Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:24 am

I forgot to mention this important point:

Don't hesitate to ask for new web site features or improvements by posting them in this forum.

This is especially relevant right now. As I mentioned, many of the features have to be reworked anyway... it is often easy to add features while we are in there performing updates.

For example, we've always wanted to give people the ability to "delete" their vote for Cache of the Month and vote for some other cache. While restructuring Cache of the Month to work with the new single user registration system, I was able to add this feature in less than an hour.

Joined: 2003-09-10 Posts: 1263 Location: Bristol WI

A couple of thoughts-

The "links" page is a great asset when I remember that it's there.

It might be even better if there was simple way to submit new links without first having to find out who to contact and then submitting via private e-mail.

How about creating a seperate "techno-geek" forum to seperate the technical posts from the general posts?

I don't know how many other people would be interested, but I always thought it would be cool to have a "me@wi-geocaching.com" e-mail address.

Maybe a "test" forum for when EnergySaver wants to talk to himself?

And Major Brat definitely needs her own forum.

Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 8:47 am

Actually I DO talk to myself ... but I don't technically type to myself (yes you do, no I don't).

A joke forum would be great!

Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 11:22 am

It would be nice to see the events page in a Monthly Calendar format!

Also, how about a WGA virtual Ammo Can that takes donations via a Paypal button? It will make it easier to donate to WGA, especially with the impending Non-profit status.

Thanks!

Mr. WISearcher

[This message has been edited by WISearchers (edited 05-27-2005).]

Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 1:44 pm

quote:
Originally posted by EnergySaver:
Actually I DO talk to myself ... but I don't technically type to myself (yes you do, no I don't).

A joke forum would be great!

So, three ammo cans walk into a bar...

A tie, a beast and a green army man are driving in a car...

What do you get if you cross a GPS...

LOL!!!

Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 3:49 pm

quote:
Originally posted by Cathunter:
The "links" page is a great asset when I remember that it's there.

It might be even better if there was simple way to submit new links without first having to find out who to contact and then submitting via private e-mail.

Good ideas Russ.

The "new" links section is already in place on the revised website. It does allow members to submit links for consideration. If a link is approved, the name of the member who submitted it is listed along with the link, basically giving them credit for contributing to the site.

There is also a "Quick Links" block with links to the most popular external sites, like geocaching.com, Wisconsin geocache map, Brew's stats, etc. This block will always be present on the left hand side of all WGA pages so you don't have to go looking for these links.

quote:
Originally posted by Cathunter:

I don't know how many other people would be interested, but I always thought it would be cool to have a "me@wi-geocaching.com" e-mail address.

The Board members already have these addresses... mail coming to them is simply forwarded to another email address/account. (No mail is actually stored on the WGA server.) First, Alan would have to agree to allow this, since the forwarded mail goes through the ElkNet mail servers and could impact their performance. Second, the Board would have to vote to allow it... using a @wi-geocaching.com address may make someone seem "official" or seem as if they are speaking for the organization.

Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 6:47 pm

Does phpBB have RSS support?

Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 3:41 pm

quote:
Originally posted by TeamLotsacache:
Does phpBB have RSS support?

RSS support is not built into phpBB, but there are several add-ons for it that can provide this capability. If others want it, I will look into using one of these add-ons... though this is probably something that would wait until the rest of the new site is completed.

There will be an RSS feed for the content on main WGA page (the "homepage"). Basically, any official announcements from the Board, "news" type items posted, Articles of the Month, etc. will be available through this RSS feed.

[This message has been edited by jvechinski (edited 05-28-2005).]

Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 8:52 am

quote:
Originally posted by TeamLotsacache:
Does phpBB have RSS support?

Chad or someone:

Can you email me on how to use the RSS "code" to use its content? I understand what it is, just not how to use it for publishing "news" on a website.

Tony (WISearchers)