What's up with the site?

[ldreefer]

So what is going on with the site? I used to frequent the old site a lot and stopped getting on very often for the past year or so - now when I come back the whole site is different. It says I registered last month, but I've been a member for at least 4 or 5 years now. It also says I have 0 posts when I'm pretty sure I had over 500 at the least.I will admit the new site looks a lot better and seems to be more up to date, but it just seems like a lot was lost in the transition and I tried searching the forums for any news on the new site or any stickied posts or announcements and didn't see anything.So what's going on?

 

[Billy]

We did transition to a new site a couple of weeks ago. ?We are testing migration scripts now to migrate some of the history over.However, in the meantime if you want to access the archived data now, you can simply click on the Archive tab on the forums menu.

 

[ldreefer]

Gotcha, thanks.

 

[druid1200]

Its horrible, hard to navigate and yes it shows i'm a new member, which is not the case. Everywhere I click it seems like i'm being asked to become a paid member. ?I like the old look better.?

 

[ldreefer]

I agree - I've had a tough time even getting into the site a few times as well, like the server is getting too much traffic and it won't connect to the site. I haven't been around a lot in the past year or so, so I don't know what all has changed, but this site just doesn't seem like what it used to be.

 

[Billy]

Could you elaborate on why its hard to navigate for you? ?We do want this to be a fluid and easy to navigate forum. ?Their may be things we can add to the wish list. ?Right now the webmaster and his team are working hard to write custom scripts to bring over the old history and content to the new site. ?Once that is done, they will be making lots of improvements.??

 

[DFW]

As I understand it, the old site is not being updated to a newer version of the same platform because it does not readily integrate social media. Is that correct? Could it, however, be readily copied to a newer, secure version of the same phpBB platform, so that we have our familiar, very usable site intact, and secure? If so, could we not do that, and use this site for the BOD to interact with social media, and still have the very valued, familiar site for every day use of our present members? This site is apparently good for growing the club, but the other is good for local club interaction. This site could direct social media traffic there. I know that it is likely that if this were a good idea someone else would have already thought of it. I mention it in case it has not, and in case it might make things easier, and better.

 

[Jose]

We have increased memory in the server; tested on multiple devices and we haven't been able to detect a slow response, let me know if you continue to experience this.Please clear your cached history as you may have a older version of the site and we update it constantly.

 

[Jose]

You can refer to this reply (http://www.dfwmas.org/community/need-assistance-with-the-forum/moving-thread/#post-341); there is a complete explanation on why we changed to this platform.One thing is the website and a different thing is the forum.The old forum was not updatable; also was no longer supported. PHPBB is not a good platform to use because they have multiple security issues as they continue to grow their platform poorly; they also have a short support span, their release from 6 months ago is no longer supported, and the one they are about to release will be completely different to any previos one.?We are not into getting in a solution which is not a solution, we also don't need to support a website on a platform and a forum on a different one.The new forum has gotten several improvements and continues to be worked on and our selected historic data will soon become available to all; and the archive will remain available to all as well.There are multiple users happy with the new site; even those that don't appreciate change; we welcome your suggestions, and if you need a deeper informed decision i'm happy to discuss with you personally and or via video conference.When I picked up Phyto from you at the ocean's avenue event I discussed with you on our new website and you seemed exited, If you have improvement you would like to see feel free to post them in the wishlist, we will not return to insecure, non supported and time consuming solutions.

 

[DFW]

[I don't know how I could have been excited. I don't think the new site was even up at that time, was it? At least I don't recall any of that. ]?[As far as improvements, I guess you have your hands full already, building this from scratch apparently. ]?[One thing that I posted already, and got no response about, is that when someone responds to a post using quotes, instead of telling me in my activity section who responded, it tells me that I posted again, which is not true. It treats quotes as a post by the quoted instead of the quoter. Also, what do the new symbols next to posts mean? I expect that they are mixed up as well, showing this same mishandling of posts. The old site had a readily understandable method of showing a thread had new posts.]?[You could add a member only section where you show a monthly statement of assets, expenditures, and revenues of the club. This should be reported at the monthly meetings at the very least, but placing it on the site makes it more accessible, and gives more time at meetings for fellowship. I have been to at least 20 meetings, mostly years ago, and do not recall ever getting this financial disclosure. I say that it should be done. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I also understand it to be standard operating procedure for non profit hobby clubs. ]?[Also, you could have threads explaining in detail all of the affiliations of our club, and the legal workings of those affiliations. We had some oddball stuff happen a while back that never was sorted out publicly, at least that I am aware of. ][[And I have been here watching, listening. ]Of course I have not been to most of the meetings the past few years, so I could have missed it. I depend on getting informed on the site. Many of us do, and probably most. Is our club operating under the auspices of another legal entity? If so, how does that work? Yeah, a thread with all the facts about that kind of stuff would be good.]?[And where are the smiley faces? I see lots of alignment tools, but no smiley faces. I don't see a button that allows us to increase the size of the font either. ][Thanks for all your hard works!]Oh, I see the smiley face now! ?

 

[Steve]

The old site was a constant work in progress, it took years to get it configured but we finally reached a point where we could not take it any further and it started to crash. We understand?the new site?will continue to be a work in progress as well. The BOD is committed to making this?the most interactive and user friendly site. We appreciate all of the input and suggestions as that assists us to know what you want your site to do. The site is also designed to streamline some of the manual process?that will enable the BOD to focus on other challenges.The bylaws govern how the club operates. Each year after the Business meeting the proper paperwork is submitted to the state notifying them of any changes and the document becomes a public record. The bylaws are posted in the members forum. The BOD can not make changes to the bylaws without a majority approval from the members.

 

[Jose]

We have updated the navigation, font colors, and size for the forum; let me know if this is easier to read for you.