Forum Organization / Set-up Poll

[Smokin' Joe]

changes to the main page already!

[nickster]

I made changes to the site last night. Now I need the correct info for the leagues to update the old text. If anyone has it readily available, please send a PM. I'll update this version of the site with the correct info until we get our final solution in place.

thanks!

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by zipper

Larry, Larry, Larry! I represent the zombies for Larry for world dictator voting pool. Frankly, I think hindsight is myopic. Let me refresh your memories. There was a web site set up going way back when and it crashed. Everyone stepped up to offer to create a new one and Larry beat them up one at a time until they gave up. Ha! The reality is that we had to brow beat Larry, using guilt, to do this.

What is wrong with us. Cripes, Larry hates this job and does it fairly uncomplainingly. Cut him some slack. What is our goal? Is the set up as it is brutally hard to use? Does it crash? Does it lose our data? Does it advertise Depends to us? Does it spit on us or load viruses to our computers (not that Larry could stop such a thing if a determined hacker had at us).

Why are we so mad at Larry about this? Look, Larry and I have our issues too, but I'd be stupid not to recognize his contribution here, whether or not it gives me every perk I might want.

Larry, thanks.

Lyle, I certainly appreciate your input. When you choose to weigh in there is usually a good bit of sound logic behind your statements. Larry has done a significant amount of techno work for HFDS, I'm sure a ton of it before I ever threw a disc. I'm not sure anyone is disputing that.

What I have an issue with is re-organizing the message board in such a way that it's only intuitive to one, or at best a very few number of users.

What we have now are dedicated areas (sub-forums per course) into which we can confine topics of discussion (threads) related to those courses. These dedicated areas are organized alphabetically, an order understood by most everyone with at least minimal reading comprehension skills.

The proposed change would eliminate many/most of the smaller sub-forums to consolidate them into a hodgepodge of threads with no commonality other than they're all potentially "unpopular" courses.

I'm an engineer, I thrive on logic. I see no logic in the proposed change. Larry has expressed a desire for a way to monitor recent activity. I've provided several ways that vBulletin quickly and easily enables that.

As for your lack of Depends, ED pill, and porn site advertisements, you can thank me for that. I've personally banned over 300 IP addresses and 200+ e-mail addresses of known spammers as they've registered for this forum.

[LOU18132]

Thanks Eric.

[ChingLizard]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

What I have an issue with is re-organizing the message board in such a way that it's only intuitive to one, or at best a very few number of users.

Thanks for the benefit of the doubt there ERic.

Yeah...I'm a techno-rookie and don't have the faintest idea about what I'm doing. And...by inference from your statement "I'm an engineer, I thrive on logic. I see no logic in the proposed change." an IT programmer with 30+ years of programming experience doesn't know jack about logic...or efficiency of it.

Originally Posted by ERicJ

What we have now are dedicated areas (sub-forums per course) into which we can confine topics of discussion (threads) related to those courses. These dedicated areas are organized alphabetically, an order understood by most everyone with at least minimal reading comprehension skills..

Almost 20 of the Course topics have fewer than 50 posts in them...and several of those are only that busy because Birdshot held a mini there and folks posted up stuff there instead of the in town tournaments area.

Originally Posted by ERicJ

The proposed change would eliminate many/most of the smaller sub-forums to consolidate them into a hodgepodge of threads with no commonality other than they're all potentially "unpopular" courses..

So how about their TRUE commonality ERic which is: THEY DON'T GET DISCUSSION? <--- That is what I'm talking about and my whole objection to the current structure is!!!

Originally Posted by ERicJ

As for your lack of Depends, ED pill, and porn site advertisements, you can thank me for that. I've personally banned over 300 IP addresses and 200+ e-mail addresses of known spammers as they've registered for this forum.

I certainly appreciate all of your work on our behalf ERic! I'm one that actually knows how much you are doing behind the scenes!!!

I'm not sure that I have e-mail discussions going back that far, but weren't you one of the folks that recommended vBulletin to me for consideration? If so, then you certainly have my heartfelt Thanks for that too - we've been very successful in keeping spammers out of this one and I attribute most of that to vBulletin. Even with multiple upgrades and countless patches, I couldn't keep ahead of them using the old Discusware stuff. I know that you are the guy approving all of the new user-ids and I'm not sure that I can even find my way to that panel any more...

[zipper]

Hey ERic,

First, thank you for your input to the web site and recognition of what has gone before. As for the concept of lists of courses alphabetically vs. real use, well your poll says it all, with the exception of, who is voting? I've not, and honestly won't. Tea cup in a tempest for me. The reality is that what Larry is proposing is the better solution. Adding an alphabetical sort on top of use, is fine with me.

I don't program, I manage, programmers. My method of operation is to go to the end users at my company and ask them what they need. The idea that the tools they need and want to get to fast would be in a long alphabetical list vs. the tools they need being at the top of the list is a no-brainer in their world. Think about it like this. When I fill out one of those forms that require my address, and I have to go down that list to find TX or even if I type in that T and it takes me to Tennessee, and I still have to go into the menu to get to TX - well, I'm not impressed.

Either method will work, but the alphabetical listing is only preferred in a very logical sense of the word. It is not as useful IMO based on long experience. Will it work, yes. Now in the business world, I would never use alphabetical. If each tool use added three seconds to an end users schedule, and they go into the tools list 50 times a day, and I have 100 end users, well, a small issue becomes a costly one pretty quickly. That's why there are efficiency experts that sit and watch how workers do their jobs.

Granted, this is a fun site and efficiencies aren't as important. On the other hand, take a look at what happens to sites that are hard to navigate. Then think about use of this site on a netbook, or even more so, on a handheld device (the future of computers, that is). That long alphabetical list which looks grand on a 19 or 20 inch monitor looks like a pain on a smaller screen.

Soooo, I still side with Larry, but I greatly appreciate the fact that I don't have to do it, and that incredibly motivated and generous members like you are willing to.

THANKS!

[Miller]

I think the problem (in my opinion) is that right now it can work well for everyone (including Larry I think). Being alphabetical it is in a format where everyone can find what they are looking for easily. I don't see why you can't just click on the "New Posts" link at the top if you want to see recent activity. Why do you have to redesign the entire forum?

[bmugwump]

Should Birdshot not be posting mini/tourney info on the actual course link? I can post strictly on the in-town & out-of-town tourney links if you want me to. Mostly I've posted the minis on the course link itself, because I really don't think of them as "tournaments" in the usual sense. If my posts specifically are crowding up the place, I'll lay off I guess! I was under the impression that there was more than enough room in cyberspace to post whatever whenever wherever...but I have tried to post things in the most logical places.

[ChingLizard]

Originally Posted by bmugwump

Should Birdshot not be posting mini/tourney info on the actual course link? I can post strictly on the in-town & out-of-town tourney links if you want me to. Mostly I've posted the minis on the course link itself, because I really don't think of them as "tournaments" in the usual sense. If my posts specifically are crowding up the place, I'll lay off I guess! I was under the impression that there was more than enough room in cyberspace to post whatever whenever wherever...but I have tried to post things in the most logical places.

No worries Billy. It ain't that big of a deal and I was citing those posts as a reason why some of the small course threads had ANY activity at all when nobody was running leagues at them.

It only bugs me to see multiple threads for the same topic...like stuff under the tournament threads as the courses area. It makes it confusing to recall what post was made in which thread.

[bmugwump]

I dig what you're saying, Larry....for instance, Chris MacG started a new thread under TLV today talking about moving the tee for #2. That post did not need it's own thread....it could've gone under general course information. And Chris, I mean nothing bad about that....it just struck me as a good example of what Larry was talking about.