O.C, CA Poll For New Website

Well first, I'm not confusing anything. I visit plenty of other websites where people do exactly that. People that only visit one site are far less likely to know how to do it than people that visit a lot of others.

Actually, you can have a pictures thread here. Plenty of other fan forces have them. Yeah, the pics look clunky, but just click on them or simply post a link (again, far easier today than it was 5 years ago). Is that really that hard? The sig banner can also be changed (do you think the top banner is the default?). Someone can design a new banner, host it somewhere, and then PM an RSA to have it changed.

Don't forget that all the things you mention cost bandwidth (personal avatar, sig banner, etc), unless you have an old version of phpBB that let's those things hotlink (I think there was a bug in the original code). And that doesn't even include all the theming that people will inevitably want (we had 5 or 6 on the old boards and they all have a bandwidth cost). And all of that will require someone to do it for it to look really good.

Here's an example of what the old site looked like:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7788/ocswswoswcs2.jpg

And a list of all the themes we had:
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/6346/ocswsthemesdo3.jpg

But hey, if you really can't stand these boards (they are far and away better than they use to be) and want your own site, go for it.

 

If I remember correctly, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, the reason for the pictures has to do with load times. People on dialup, don't want to have to for a bunch of pictures to load. So they shrink all pictures, and in most 'picture threads' here, they ask you to post a link, rather than the image.
I know on other boards, it take a LONG time (even with the T1 line) for a thread to load when it has huge avatars, the theme, pictures in the signatures, animated gif's, videos that just play when the page loads, and those animated smiley's.

The poll cleary shows what the clubs wants to do, and that's fine. Just try and realize how much work will have to be done.

 

It's load time and bandwidth. Bandwidth is the main reason they don't allow custom avatars (though, if you go to the icon forums and your icon gets picked, then you can have a custom icon). Load time is the reason mods usually come down on folks that have images in their sig. Everytime your sig loads, people have to wait for the page to load. People on high speed lines don't usually notice that much. People on 28.8 and 56k lines do. And that's actually still a lot of people.

 

It's worth noting that Fan Force's exist because of the forums at force.net, newbies to the forums might not bother joining if they have to sign up for two forums.

Seperate forums take away from the community feeling of fan forces at force.net , some of the groups with seperate forums look dead in here but if you see their other forums they are active. To me they also dont feel part of the fan force family cos it's more difficult for fan force members to visit/post other forums without having to create piles of user accounts.

Personally I'd have a website that just shows information on meetings, events, OCSA, photo gallery then link into the forums in here. Nice and simple just to promote the group on the web. I've been toying with the idea of doing this for the IEFF.

Most of the forum managing can be done if you work closely with the RSA and the hundreds of mods these forums have. Bans, Edits, Deleting Posts are simple enough things to get done. These forums will be updated sometime, they've been looking at it for a while now.

If you make an OCSWS icon you can have it uploaded in like 5 minutes, that's what I did for the IEFF one. As a Fan Force you allowed to have an one official icon.

 

I have 2 issues with the forums here:

1) Moderation. Not to discredit anyone, but there are 2 RSAs for Pacific Region. I think they have it broken up that Rachel has the south-side, and Earwen_Lightrider has the north-side (but obviously can do whatever section they want) That can end up being a lot of posts to look at. Also, with only 2 mods, theres the problem of real life preventing stuff to get done (From what I hear, Rachel dosn't have internet in her new diggs yet, and Earwen is on vacation). Not any of their faults (RL goes over internet stuff) its just an issue.

2) Harder to keep stuff divided. My only example is the difference with the club's activities, and the lightsaber class. Basically, there is club drama, and saber class drama. With new forums, we can divide them up, so it makes it eaiser to avoid saber class drama if you want to. Also, all the saber threads are in one section, all the event threads are in another, all the "OMG Transformers!/EPL/Clerks Lines!" threads.

 

1. You can PM any mod if you think someone has gone over the line or if you want a post edited or a thread locked. I know it's not immediate, but it's not limited to the RSAs. If you want to keep it to RSAs, you can PM any of them first, then go to a JC mod if necessary.

2. I'm not even going to touch this one. Even when they were separated, if someone new was coming to the site, it looked like it was all about the saber class, since that's where the activity was.

 

No need to get snippy, junior. I DO have my own website, and I've never had to go through the backflips and traumas you're cooking up.

 

whoa guys calm down if the issue was this touchy i wouldnt have brought it up...=/

 

Chill pills all around. =P

 

/agree =P

 

That's a bit hypocritical
What type of websites do you have?

And what he's 'cooking up', is just relating the problems that we had on the old site. Who, out of the what maybe 10 people here, is going to be the moderator for the new site? What's the domain name? Wher'es the money going to come from? who's going to do the maintenace? Who's going to make sure things are posted on both boards?

I'm not saying not to do it, just work out the details first, and decide if it's really worth it. You want to create a completely separate message board, for 10 people? (please correct me if that number wrong)

I don't want to shock you or anything, but OCSWS is a saber club.

 

I wasn't getting snippy Mr. Poe. I wouldn't have to go through any backflips either to do the things we're both talking about. But I am a bit more technical than your average user and I'm a lot more technical than the average user on TFN. Notice that I uploaded and hotlinked two images to Imageshack with no problem.

Most of the users here probably don't have their own websites (myspace does not count). A lot of work goes into a great site (if Britt was ever around you could ask him). I was only involved with maybe a tenth of what Britt did and most of that was helping him debug the site. Most of what you see on Myspace or any other free site doesn't qualify as great. Great is having a listing on the main page that shows the top 5 most active threads. Great is having a database driven member page that shows pictures of all the members that link to each persons profile. Great is having 7 (or more) different themes for thousands of users to choose from. Great is not just being able to simply hotlink to another site. If that's all you guys really want to do, just get a free Geocities account or start a Yahoo group.

Not everyone is as technical as you and I. Why do you think there are buttons for formatting text on these boards? They weren't here 4 years ago. You had to know the codes or click the help link to get them. You don't have to know that now, so things like quoting, linking, and italicizing text are a lot easier.

 

The bottom line gentlemen is this.

Do we or do we not want a seperate website?

Once that is decided, the next questions are:

Who pays for it?

Who controls it?

We do NOT want a repeat of last time.

I am personally looking into a seperate web site for the ORANGE COUNTY SABER ACADEMY. This does not mean that we won't be posting on this board or another website if we get one. The OCSA is part of the OCSWS and always will be if I have anything to say about it. Our club is the whole reason we started the saber class.

 

the Website will be the clubs

like it says in the poll the club funds will pay for it for 1 year

it will be the property of the club

 

If that's a done deal, then my final question is:

Who will be the webmaster? We DO need one.

 

I'd say Loreen since she's on the most.

 

I'm on the most? I just leave my computer on when I'm at work. I'm not actually here all the time.

I don't know anything about being a webmaster. I'm a moderator on another message board, along with Rion, but it's a fairly small board, with about 20 regular posters and people are pretty nice, so I haven't had to use my moderator powers that much yet.

 

opps, sorry

 

"Opps"? I think you mean "oops".

 

Liz is going to be the webmaster i was going to appoint her next meeting....

 

I second that nomination...er... appointment!

 

I agree with Don, the Saber Academy should have their own website and the OCSWS should remain on these boards.

 

I don't remember Don saying that the OCSWS should remain only on this board here.

More like the OCSA should also have it's own message board.

 

ok the VOTE IS CLOSED! looks like we have our new web site!