Website debate

[Dave Parry]

Hi all, this is a thread that is designed to get you thinking and hopefully talking about the future of the LMA Website and Forum, as you all know the LMA Journal is now at its highest level of popularity it has seen in years and it could be said is now on par with the BMFA News, the same however can’t be said of our Website and Forum.

Our main problem with the LMA Website is the lack of accessibility and it being tied to one person. We can’t update it on the move everything is done though an outdated piece of software set up on one of my old laptops. The whole thing came to light when Much Marcle cancelled on the last minute in 2012 and I was on holiday and didn’t take the laptop with me. The website couldn’t be updated until I came back which was very close to the show date, anyway to cut a long story short we got slated for it to say the least, or should I say I got slated for it.

It doesn’t matter how many good things you do everyone always remembers the one bad thing that happens. So I decided to do something about it, with the backing of the committee and the blessing of the members at the AGM I started work on getting a new website and our existing forum revamped and integrated into one, it will have a new look, which has not been decided yet and all the original content retained. Now this is not going to happen overnight but I am predicting it will be done and up and running by the end of show season 2013.

Now why am I telling you all this, well, this is where you have a chance to shape the way the future of our website is used I am not saying this will be done straight away as cost will be a big factor in all of this, but your thought and input will be taken in to consideration and will ‘I hope’ contribute to the way we see and use our most valuable platform to the world. So it is over to you, here is a starter.

1. Would you like a secure online membership payment scheme?
2. Well I will leave the rest to you.

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

ON PAR WITH WHAT !!!!
FAR in excess old boy,

About content, i wonder? does the membership actually study anything but the forum part of the LMA site? i fear not, do they know its alive with content, that is both absorbing and interesting? so is it worth an update? members need to come on board with this, i really think a good job is done already, i am not sure where the tweaks are needed, you Dave obviously think it needs this, so can i suggest you list whats wrong, and ask for ideas based on this? the fact that 56 have viewed, and none have commented could mean all is well in the world, or they could need guidance.

as for the secure payment thing, yes please, great idea, even merchandise could be sold this way, could it?

you do a very very good job, it must be a great burden on you, anythuing that can make it easier for you must be a good thing, but what?? i am at a loss, useless eh?

[Dave Hayfield]

Hello Dave, I really don't think you need to worry about this website. It is used very sensibly by the members who need to use it without nastyness or problems which I have seen on other forums. It is very useful to the people that do use it for sales or wants, for news of shows and events and for all of the other information relating to the LMA. If it becomes a noticeboard for all and sundry I think it will lose its close relationship to our members, which, after all is what it is meant for and is doing its job properly. Obviously the whole of the world can see what the website is about and the fact that it has not been infested by the 'great unwashed' must say something. As they say 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' !!!!

[Dave Parry]

Hi Alan/ Dave, thanks for your comments it’s not about what need fixing it is about bringing the website up to date with 21st century technology. With more and more members now owning smart phones and the higher demand for everything web based, keeping our old website up to date is very labour intensive and take up a great deal of my time, the new site would give greater access for others to help keep it up to date thus freeing up some time for me.

This is not a debate whether we should have a new website that has already been decided and accepted at the AGM. The reason I posted this thread was to give members the chance to shape it for the future, if no one is interested or if the members are happy to leave it with me than that is fine.

The LMA website was created in the 80’s and with the best will in the world I can’t make it look or work as modern website do, online membership or merchandise cannot be done with our present site our forum has never look as if it belongs to the official website fact it is used by most as the LMA site which is not what it is suppose to be. Having the website and forum as one will (I hope) encourage members to use and explore it more, I could go on but that is not what this is about. This is about your ideas, please your thoughts.

[Bob Thompson1894]

It is inevitable that the website and forum need updating, what with the new smartphones, iPads etc. I remember the fuss when the forum was updated last time, with a lot of people (including me) objecting to the change, which actually was to the benefit of us all. We should all appreciate the hard work that goes into the website and forum, it is decidedly underused, and I hope that will also change. Keep up the good work.
Bob

[Ken Bones]

Dave,
firstly the journal, I read all of the journal as it is far better than the BMFA one that unfortunatly seems full of stuff of no interest to anybody that flys rc.
The forum is great for the people that use it, but as you say things have moved on and it needs updating, if only to give you your life back!
One thing that I would like to see is a spell checker, I am crap at spelling and I am concious that those well educated chaps in the N/E are having a good giggle.
Keep up the good work, no, the GREAT work.

Bonzey

[Bob Thompson1894]

It does have a spell checker Ken. You dont really think that the Picts and Border Reivers oop norf know how to spell in English?

[Dave Parry]

Okay here comes the boring stuff.

Thanks Bob, finally, someone who can see what I am trying to do. As Bob as pointed out smartphones, iPads (or tablets as they are known) etc, are the future, laptops and computers will become a thing of the past and even though I am ageing myself we have to look to the future generation of LMA Members and stop living in the stone age.

We now live in a world where very few people don’t have some sort of technology to help them with everyday life even the humble car is full of tech now. Do you really think we should stay in the 80’s with our website? We have already established that it people tend to join the LMA later in the years but what you are all failing to understand is that our next generation of members will have been bought up on technology and can’t live without it.

Right putting all that aside, now what happens when I decide to hang up my boots. Who is the LMA going to find to replace me who will know how this dinosaur construction of a website works; I was lucky I trained at collage on this software and although we had a big outcry last time we changed the forum you all got use to using it.

This time however we will be changing it all, the forum will change its look not the way you use it that will stay the same, nobodies post will be lost and all the threads will remain. The contents of the website will also be retained and transferred to the new website, the difference will be in how it will look and be presented, the new site will be able to be access and updated from a mobile phone which will be extremely useful if we have a last minute change at one of our events, or if a show has to be cancelled due to bad weather, this will stop people wasting money travelling for nothing.

In the future, we could end up seeing the Journal online a lot of mags are already doing this. The LMA website with its own Apps, streaming video of our shows live to entice more people to come to them, the possibilities are endless If we want it to be.

Ken I like the idea of a spell checker, I am like you can’t spell for toffee, the forum we use at the moment is free, we may look into paying for more features like the spell checker etc... Please remember our main revenue to keep the Association going and to give you all what you receive today is generated from our shows, we need to keep promote then in a professional way to attract the public to these events. Our website has evolved beyond its original intention to just inform our members of what the LMA is doing, I would go so far as to say 20% of our forum members are not a member of the LMA, I know for a fact our Journal is read by people outside the LMA so you see we are no longer in our own little bubble and it is time we moved on and expanded this great Association to which I am proud to be a part of.

[Ken Bones]

It does have a spell checker Ken. You dont really think that the Picts and Border Reivers oop norf know how to spell in English?

Where Bob, I have never seen it!

Ken.

[Bob Thompson1894]

Well, if (on the very odd occasion) I spell something wrong, it puts a red line under it. Right-click, and it gives you the correct spelling..

[Bob Thompson1894]

spell.jpg (16.5 KiB) Viewed 13911 times

[Ken Bones]

Bob,
Oh no, here we go!
How the hell do I do that!

Ken.

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

Dave, i think that whatever wants doing is more in your head than ours, all these words written by me, and others, and the only suggestion is a spell checker, i KNOW about the need to use modern communication means, and agree, i just didnt think i needed to mention them, i think whatever you do, the associations site will be better for it, but one thought i do have, and you have touched on, this forum IS the front of the LMA, this needs addressing, the forum should be an add on, NOT the main attraction, make the rest of the attractions of the site more user friendly, and let it lead to the forum, for me, its important for guests to see what we do before they commit to looking at the forum, hope this helps, will we be seeing you sunday??

[jimlambert]

I think that the website is just grand ... and hardly any abuse, I find the odd 'spit the dummy' post can create a fullsome amount of mirth ... which is good and as far as needing a smell checker ... I have wun and it wirks jest fine ......

[Dave Parry]

Okay there is no spell checker on this forum, if you are using Chrome or an Apple Mac it auto spell checks for you, Windows and Internet Explorer doesn’t, I am not going though it all again, our site needs to work on all formats. I will make sure this happens before the end of this year. The forum will be a part of the site not the other way around.

Out of all this info we have so far:
1 membership renewals on line
2 spell checker

Come on i am sure we can do better than this.

[stuart knowles 1611]

Interesting that people think that the main site should be the premier attraction and the forum secondary.

I find that the main site content has been pretty static & stale for a long time with only the pics on the front page and the event calendar being up to date

The 'featured aircraft' are now pretty dated and haven't been added to for some time, I look at the front page every month but very rarely have cause to look any further. On the other hand, I look at the forum most days and always find something of interest.

My suggestion would be to keep and add to the repository of info on large models and when anyone writes an article for the mag on the construction of a particular model, perhaps it could be pasted in to there. Anyone new into large models will find it useful. Event reports could drop out after a couple of years.

My guess would be that the forum will continue to grow and become a central point of contact and information exchange. Switching to an 'on line' journal will also probably come to pass as production costs rise. Not anytime soon I hope but it is the direction that we are headed. With that in mind, I suggest that the new web site is assembled to allow for a public and a restricted section, intended for members only. There should be enough in the public section to fire the interest of prospective members and make them want to join the LMA in order to access the rest. I belong to a car based forum which has an open section for anyone to post but all technical info, sales & wants, private messages etc is kept in the members section.

Some form on 'on line' payment for subs and sales from the on line shop ought to be considered

something like this:-

Front page - general info - event reports. Public access
Build reports - techical information & articles. Events calendar Members only (Info re the over 20kg scheme will be public)
Journals archived on line. members only

I do think that the web site and journal are exemplary for a comparitively small organisation such as the LMA although I agree that looking to the future is timely & sensible. How all of this might be achieved..... no idea!
cheers,
stu k

[Paul Holt]

having ran forums in the past with similar software, keeping things upto date and everyone happy is a problem. I only use a laptop to visit the site but can understand it needs to be smartphone and tablet friendly. My advice is keep it simple and easily available, and may be have a number of people to admin the site.

[Mike Booth]

One new feature That would be handy Dave is IP address recognition.
That way the website could have software programmed in to delete the harddrives of those that are determined,after one has posted up real progress and decent photos with a project to seemingly knock it off the top within minutes.
I talk of the culprits that see a new post at the top of a title and add a three word comment to another slot to maintain it as I say.
Or those that within minutes of posting up new material, as I describe, after days of inactivity, decide to add a picture of two twigs of balsa glued together on some random airborne plank just to be at the top of the pile.
Being a gentleman stops me from expressing the real frustration of this, particularly.. Acknowledging its a free speech country we live in, when you are genuinely trying to attract developed conversation or new work.

Soapbox,down, step. MRB

[Mike Booth]

To add constructively to this thread now.... You've got a tricky one there Dave.
What with an ageing workforce, a limit to members who are totally savi with websites and have some real long term commitment to reliably put into it.
I just wonder to make it more attractive and viable, should you need to hang up your mouse, whether a younger members wife with good knowledge of the LMA, more time at home and some form
of financial incentive would ensure its maintained.
I for one love the forum and I know my comrades in epoxy arms do.

[Dave Parry]

Excellent this is more like it Stu, interesting response and makes a lot of sense, I was thinking down the same lines of having a member’s area but I didn’t want to make all the suggestions. The old website as remained static due the amount of work it takes just to do a simple show report, trying to keep on top of all that and do the Journal as well is just too much at this moment in time. It has taken me over two years to establish the monthly front page to a stage that everybody knows it is going to change each month, the amount of visits every month is increasing which proves I am doing something right. The website need more people taking responsibility for certain sections, part of this revamp is to do just that, the site as it is now can only have one person doing it.

Paul the forum does adapt to the tablets and smartphones that is why we are keeping it, it will just get a face lift to blend in and match the website. Keep it up gents, this is encouraging.

Mike I know where you are coming from, but a gentleman you are and I thank you for that. It is my intention to have the truly genuine long term builds put on the website where it can be viewed at anytime without being pushed down the list.