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Grex > Coop > #284: Grex Town Hall -- How do we move forward? - Fall, 2010 |  |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 334 responses total. |
richard
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response 11 of 334:
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Sep 27 23:32 UTC 2010 |
re #8,9, sorry but yes you guys are minimal, you guys are unix
dinosaurs. grex can only ever be signficant again if it moves into the
modern era.
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keesan
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response 12 of 334:
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Sep 28 00:24 UTC 2010 |
Dinosaurs take up a lot more space than a text file.
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nharmon
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response 13 of 334:
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Sep 28 02:14 UTC 2010 |
You know, if I were to sum up modern web design; minimalist, simplified,
and streamlined would be words I would use.
Richard doesn't know what he is talking about.
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keesan
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response 14 of 334:
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Sep 28 02:31 UTC 2010 |
I see a lot of really bloated websites.
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nharmon
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response 15 of 334:
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Sep 28 12:15 UTC 2010 |
A lot of websites need modernization.
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richard
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response 16 of 334:
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Sep 28 14:47 UTC 2010 |
re #13 neither does nharmon if he doesn't realize that grex will never
get new users, younger users, without a new approach, more interactive,
to its web page.
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keesan
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response 17 of 334:
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Sep 28 15:00 UTC 2010 |
Modernization is not always an improvement. A seed saving organization that
I belong to has its catalog on the internet now. It shows only the first few
sentences of four entries from each page (which has dozens of entries) and
is 200K in size because of all the fancy programming and their insistence on
including a long list of all the varieties offered, on each page (instead of
a link back to a list). Contains about .5K of useful info, then you need to
go to another page to see the rest of the entry. A lot of the users live in
farm country and could not get broadband if they wanted it. Dialup was taking
40 sec to load each page (with 2 pages per entry). The fancy fonts,
backgrounds, etc. for each variety wasted a lot of this space. Plain text
(or plain HTML) could have produced a page listing everything about 30
vegetables in 2K or so that everyone could have read. Form over function.
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twinkie
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response 18 of 334:
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Sep 28 16:37 UTC 2010 |
re: 16
How do you suppose a whiz-bang web page is going to entice new or younger
users, when there's already an oversaturation of places to talk about whatever
you want, through the magic of PHPBB?
I don't mean that to take a shot, but setting up a web BBS is literally as
easy as clicking "Install" and slapping a logo on top of a premade skin.
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richard
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response 19 of 334:
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Sep 28 16:45 UTC 2010 |
I'm saying that in the situation Grex is in, there is no reason NOT to
overhaul the web page. There is no status quo here to fall back on.
Grex is either going to change to survive or it isn't. The stats
clearly show that very few people dial in or telnet in anymore. Any
improvements have to be geared toward those using the website.
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slynne
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response 20 of 334:
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Sep 28 17:01 UTC 2010 |
Well richard, I am sure that if you would like to overhaul the webpage
and then submit your designs to the board, they will be fairly
considered.
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richard
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response 21 of 334:
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Sep 28 17:09 UTC 2010 |
re #20 I didn't say that I had the expertise to do this myself. It is
useless to "ask for suggestions" in my opinion, when the board won't
even consider the suggestions and then says, 'do it yourself' This
attitude gets grex nowhere. Why even enter this item if nobody wants
to change anything?
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mary
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response 22 of 334:
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Sep 28 17:35 UTC 2010 |
We want to move forward. We don't have any volunteer movers at present.
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slynne
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response 23 of 334:
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Sep 28 17:51 UTC 2010 |
FWIW, I am not on the board and have nothing to do with this item. I
just find the way you make your suggestions to be kind of obnoxious.
That is my own opinion and doesn't represent the opinions of anyone
else.
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nharmon
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response 24 of 334:
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Sep 28 18:16 UTC 2010 |
Yes it does, slynne, it represents my opinions too.
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kentn
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response 25 of 334:
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Sep 28 18:19 UTC 2010 |
The board is considering the suggestions you and others have made. What
makes you think we won't? I think updating the web pages and adding
more web apps would be a good idea. It's not so much that there are
plenty of other places with fancy web pages to visit, but that there are
few any more who like to use the command line and probably take a look
and run away fast. We'll never know what will work if we don't try and
I have to admit, it's more than a little frustrating to see every idea
torpedoed before it gets tried. At this rate, we won't do anything. We
can always ask for help in getting things done, but without a clear idea
of what we want to do, it will be frustrating for any volunteers.
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twinkie
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response 26 of 334:
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Sep 28 20:37 UTC 2010 |
re: 19
Since you've admitted that you don't have the background for doing it, I think
it's worth pointing out that overhauling Grex's web presence is not an
insubstantial amount of work.
There has to be some compelling reason to be here, though. And from what I've
seen, that reason is largely nostalgia. With the exception of zulu, there
haven't been any names in BBS that strike me as being new.
Years and years ago, you could have played the "Ann Arbor Flavor" card, but
that's largely gone now, and available elsewhere.
Having a flashy web site isn't enough these days to answer:
*Who do you want to attract?
*How will you attract them?
*Why do you want to attract them?
*What unique or compelling reason will they have to stay?
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tod
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response 27 of 334:
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Sep 28 20:55 UTC 2010 |
And how many pieces of flair are you wearing
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kentn
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response 28 of 334:
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Sep 28 21:17 UTC 2010 |
So, since a flashy web site isn't enough, what is? Any suggestions?
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bru
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response 29 of 334:
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Sep 28 23:10 UTC 2010 |
I would rather have a simple system than a fancy one that takes time to load.
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richard
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response 30 of 334:
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Sep 28 23:50 UTC 2010 |
all I did was make suggestions without any mean spiritedness. I fail to
see why slynne thinks that is any more obnoxious than anyone else making
suggestions.
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twinkie
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response 31 of 334:
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Sep 29 01:18 UTC 2010 |
It's because she knows you're going to shop it on M-Net to great success,
before the slow pokes here get around to discussing it in coop.
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slynne
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response 32 of 334:
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Sep 29 02:10 UTC 2010 |
resp:30 If you really want to know...
You said: "I'm saying that in the situation Grex is in, there is no
reason NOT to overhaul the web page."
But there is a reason NOT to overhaul the web page. There might not be
anyone with the skills and the time to do it. There is a difference
between what you said and simply making a suggestion which would go a
little more like this: "It would be a very good thing to overhaul the
web page"
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nharmon
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response 33 of 334:
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Sep 29 02:11 UTC 2010 |
Didn't we already recently overhaul the web page?
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slynne
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response 34 of 334:
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Sep 29 02:48 UTC 2010 |
resp:33 The main Grex page is five or six years old. All of the interior
backtalk pages are at least seven years old (I think)
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kentn
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response 35 of 334:
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Sep 29 03:06 UTC 2010 |
Which in Internet years is....a lot. There is also a need to update
much of the information on our web site.
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