Please READ! Especially Gmail Users

[Eric Patterson]

All

Thank you for the words of encouragement and support. I am reaching out to a company that specializes in online community software and hosting solutions. I should have some information along with cost estimates soon.

In the meantime, I'll briefly state what I'm after. We need forum software from an established company with proven track record that has a large user base and community of developers. I.e. a company whose products will be around for a long time and be supported. We wouldn't be in our current situation if our previous provider didn't throw in the towel. We need software that works seamlessly with both desktop and mobile devices. One the lets a user bounce back and forth between the two should they choose and eliminates the need to log in with your mobile device every time you visit. We need one that simplifies the photo posting process, and even better one with video compression that allows for short videos. We need one that can bring the content from this forum's database into the new system. That last one I foresee being the biggest challenge.

At this time, I would like to hear what attributes you'd like to have with a new forum. Further, what content across this site you think we should keep and what we should let go, or maybe find a different way of managing. There is a lot of outdated info that needs to be removed or updated. Personally, I'd rather have a system that lets the users build content rather than me entering it like in years past (e.g. the Resources & Reference section).

Thanks again.

Eric

 

[Jeff Reardon]

Well that sounds a little more positive! As far as changes go, as an old fart "get off my lawn" type, don't change a thing. I don't very often use the archive, the resources, or the reference sections any longer, but they were invaluable to me when I was new user and the combination of advice in the forum and some of that reference material walked me through my MMB sculler restoration. I'd hate to see it go, but love the idea of something that users could add to rather than needing to work through you.

 

[Linhardt]

https://www.refugeforums.com/ seems to be pretty decent as I visit that site like I do this one. It is powered by Xenforo. But I do not know of which platform has the best track record.

I also checked it out via android phone using chrome browser and it seems to look and work decently.

Here are a couple mobile screen shots.

 

[Eric Patterson]

Anthony

That is the very same company I'm giving the most consideration to. Those screenshots are useful to me as well.

Eric

 

[Dani]

You have to register and be a member to look at the forum but the forum software that Brad uses to run his upland journal site is very user friendly. I can easily post pictures from my phone, tablet or computer. Because of how large the membership is, you have to be a paying member to be able to upload to the forum versus using a photohosting site like flickr or smugmug or photobucket. My understanding though is that you have the option to allow anyone and everyone that ability or restrict it to certain people or not at all.


Forums - Upland Journal Board (ipbhost.com)

Brad does run his site as a business, but he keeps the ads from being those obnoxious pop up everywhere type ads. They are banners at the top of forums and threads when you click on them. Some other forums that I visit have constant popup ads and that keeps me from visiting them very often. Especially on my phone.

One thing that I don't care for about upland journal is that everything older than five years is no longer searchable. It is archived somewhere and perhaps you can find it but if you were doing a search for a specific thing, anything older than five years is not searchable. I don't know if that is a choice that Brad made or if that is the design of the software. So that is something to consider since there is a lot of really awesome information here on the site that would be lost if the forum is no longer searchable for anything other than the last however many years. I am not sure if the platform The Refuge Forums is on has the same sort of searching/archiving process/problem.

I really like the idea of having the recipes forum and a reader's rigs (I do like to look and see how people set their boats up without having to search through the whole forum for ideas) forum where people could just show off their completed boats. And the classifieds pages. The carving tutorial page with instructions on how to make y-boards or buoy birds or how to set eyes....all of that is great info, though I know that some of those pictures are gone. There are also some posts that the links are no longer valid on how to do something. Maybe making those stickies on the new forum somewhere would be useful enough. You could do the same thing with your building your Scaup posts...make it a sticky. I think it is great info to have available, especially for new people who are just thinking about building a boat for the first time. However, I think if you kept it fairly simple, that would be better. One of the things I love about this forum is that there are not a bajillion subforums. I'd hesitate to make a carving subforum and a duckboat subforum and an everything else subforum. I don't think this site is so huge that peoples' posts will get lost on the next page. If that became an issue you could always create a subforum for everything, but I don't think it would become a problem.

 

[Dani]

Some screenshots from what UJ looks like on my phone.

not being someone who likes lots of apps on their phone, having an app for the forum is not that big of a deal for me. I can use UJ through the internet browser on my phone or tablet quite easily. I'm not sure if I am in the minority on that preference or not though.

 

[greg setter]

I use this site on my smartphone browser(firefox) and never have a problem with that either. It may just be the browser, I don't know as I don't use any others.