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”

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?

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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?

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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).

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 “[email protected]” e-mail address.

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

And Major Brat definitely needs her own forum.

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).]

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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.

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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.

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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 “[email protected]” e-mail address.

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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.

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Originally posted by TeamLotsacache:
Does phpBB have RSS support?

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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).]