Unscientific survey

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RGrossberg's picture
RGrossberg
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Which website do you prefer? Old or new?

JReaven's picture
JReaven
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Reply to informal survey - Jim R webmaster

Anyone with any sense will prefer a web site that is running on a server that is large enough for it...and this site isn't yet but will be soon. At that point, we will also have a test site where we can adjust the colors. To be fair, you also need to ask if the people answering your survey will be willing to do the manual work behind the scenes that the old website required that this one doesn't.

MSilver's picture
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"...will be willing to do the manual work behind the scenes"

Right. I'm sure that the new website will run itself.

HSchiffman's picture
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If we are to take that as a sarcastic remark,

were you to know the greatest underlying reason why we need the new website you might be ashamed.

The major flaw with our system was that management of the site at the back end could not be divided easily among volunteers, not that it was user unfriendly on the front end.

This issue is one of taking pressure off volunteers. How's this for sarcasm: we need more volunteers and less critics?

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I'm glad the New York Cycle Club finally acknowledged this.

"The major flaw with our system was that management of the site at the back end could not be divided easily among volunteers"

I loved the appearance and usability of the old site and in all fairness to the old website creators, it was a work of art. But as some have already stated, it was only manageable by by the one or two people who built it. No organization should ever allow such a dependency for such a critical part of it's day to day operations.

The New York Cycle Club needed to make the move to a more mainstream solution. I can't comment on the main site since I'm not a designer. But as an IT professional, I would have thought the logical move would have been to move the message board portion of the site to a much more manageable solution like vBulletin. It's inexpensive, very widely used, highly customizable, very well supported and is easy to set up and manage. As you might imagine there's also quite a large vBulletin support forum that would have made it the right choice for the New York Cycle Club message forum.

Take a peek at some vBulletin screenshots.

Most of the forums I'm on run on vBulletin. In fact, I'm a moderator on several of them. I'm not a programmer. I don't need to be. Day to day moderation is a piece of cake. Day to day administration of vBulletin is far simpler than Drupal, and the potential for finding volunteers is much higher. Implementing vBulletin for the message board portion of the site would have lifted the burden on the WebMaster today and going forward (no shortage of volunteers on the back end or in moderator roles).

There are many reasons why it is the most widely used message board forum. I think the New York Cycle Club board should take a serious look at it.

PS, I haven't been a member for years, but if the New York Cycle Club goes with vBulletin, I'll re-join and volunteer to moderate.

NYCC Oldtimer

nycc_oldtimer's picture
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...for iPhone users, there's a vBulletin app too.
Rmarcus's picture
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Several vBulletin Boards we may have visited and used are.....

Bikeforums.com
Roadbikereview.com
MTBreview.com

Tons more

The obvious advantage is we could keep the board simple or as the above forums have with added revenue from Advertising.

Why should the board suck up our Volunteers time when perhaps they could be better used
in keeping the website moving and updated.

That said if you want my help, I'm here.
I know nothing about websites but do have one for my business.
The first thing I learned was that before you build it you must have a COMPLETE focus on where you want to go in the future.
Flexible or Expandable systems cost $$$$.
Message boards should not be a finacial drain on the club.

I agree with the Oldtimer. CUT OUR LOSES NOW, it will pay dividends later in happy webmasters and members.
VBulletin is so simple, so easy to read that it could be its OWN website, minus a home page or even with a homepage.

nycc_oldtimer's picture
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Hi Rob

If you go to the vBulletin site you'll find many more cycling related sites that use vBulletin:

http://www.vbulletin.com/links.php

vBulletin is the most widely used message board turnkey solution out there.

NYCC Oldtimer

TLaskey's picture
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" But as some have already

" But as some have already stated, it was only manageable by by the one or two people who built it. "

I don't know who started that rumor but it's not true. Robin Read built the basic site in 2001 and had not been involved in managing it beyond 2003. Timothy McCarthy made a lot of upgrades to the site but he bowed out a few years ago. Peter O'Reilly built most, if not all of the applications but he hasn't been involved in at least a year. When it became apparent that changes needed to be made, the message board could have easily been re-born using a phpBB plug-in (similar to vBulletin) that was available from our web hosting service at the time. Same for eCommerce applications. For whatever reason, the board decided to go a different route.

MSilver's picture
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phpBB

Both vBulletin (which would have been my preference) and phpBB would have been far superior to the new message board, and would have required much less volunteer work. New Jersey Randonneurs moved over from a Topica list to a phpBB-based message board a few years ago; no changes have been made to it since its inception, and things have been running smoothly.

nycc_oldtimer's picture
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Hi Tom

I think there may be some confusion. I was focussing on the message board portion of the New York Cycle Club site. That's where vBulletin would have been an easy solution to put in place. The benefit to using vBulletin is that you you can link to it from the main New York Cycle Club site using a URL such as;

http://forum.nycc.org

Or

http://nycc.org/forum

Or, you can host the message board on a different server, as I noticed the webmaster mentioned some issues with available space. An A Record would be needed for that but it's simple to do.

The vBulletin message board would exist separately from the rest of the New York Cycle Club site, but of course it's appearance can be easily customized to fit the look of the rest of the site. The whole point of this is to lift the dependency. One can exist separately from the other, but still tied together through links and similar design.

NYCC Oldtimer

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Now where did I leave my

Now where did I leave my pants?

HEskenazi's picture
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Live in “positivness”

As I understand it every site needs a vetting period. Things need tweaking / adjustments / change, even when companies spend millions of $$$ and have hundreds of high paid consultants to develop a web site. I believe we got in just under the wire on that [$$$] number thanks to people like jim and the web team answering the call for a volunteer[s] when no one else heard the shouts, as they worked throughout the weekend [this and others] to hit the “go live” date.
So I’d say the best “criticism” is rather observation and suggestion as to what you see right / wrong or issues you are having, sent directly to jim so he can compile a punch list. Now you know no matter what the team accomplishes they will not please everyone especially those with too much time on their hands. But while you’re at it think about what you were doing last weekend and then send a “thank you” to jim and the web team. And while I’m at it, THANK YOU web team. hal eskenazi

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Sorry Hal, I guess I was

Sorry Hal, I guess I was thinking about what I was doing around a year ago when I mentioned to certain powers that were about moving the message board to phpBB and also offered to help. I was soundly ignored. I sent a note earlier today offering to help out yet again. I'll be sure to let you know when I hear back.

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