Important Message

[Admin]

Hi All

 

I have titled this thread as Important Message simply because it is important to me and this site.

 

Recreational Flying has been going for 8 odd years now and has gone through many iterations, some have proven to have been needed and some very disastrous changes which I wear the blame for but the site is now what I believe stabilised into a fantastic and very friendly resource for EVERY recreational aviator. This has only happened due to many little things like moving back to Recreational Flying, removing bans, making it Australian focused and accepting each other as at times having differing opinions that make up the persona of the site.

 

Much of this has been a focus of turning back the clock and realising that I and we have over the last year or two, strayed from the successful formulae that made this site as important to you as it once was. It still is the leading recreational aviation web site in Australia but it is time to get it back on track making the site what YOU (the majority) want it to be.

 

So this thread is important now as I am asking what can I do for you to kick start the site again? The site needs to embark on a massive growth spurt and the only way to do this is to ask you what you want from it so what do you want?

 

We have forums...are these set out the way you want? Is the subject matter being brought up what you want? Is the style and level of moderation what you want? What is wrong with the forums and what are the best parts of them that we should capitalise on?

 

We have a News section...is the news broad enough to cater for all your aviation news needs or are they too broad...again what do you want?

 

We have a Photo Gallery and Video Library...again do these suit your needs or do we need them at all?

 

We have Private Social Groups, Clubs and Schools can create their own forum either private or public, we have an Event calendar and an Aircraft Section all ready for data input...we have a range of Free Pilot Tools, advertisers and more.

 

Is the Home Page what you like, would you like to see more things on there and if so like what? Should we even have a home page, is the site layout easy for you or could you suggest better ways of presenting things that you would like to see and use, what other areas do you want to have here or should we change to a completely different style of site like Wordpress, Facebook, Yahoo groups, vBulletin instead of Xenforo etc etc etc

 

The clock has been wound back and we are getting back on our path as being the absolute BEST recreational aviation web site based on what YOU want so PLEASE explore options here, brain dump your thoughts and ideas to help make this your number 1 recreational aviation web site...thanks for your input.

 

 

[eightyknots]

My two cents' worth (make that 33.5 cents worth with inflation):

 

We have forums...are these set out the way you want? YES

 

Is the subject matter being brought up what you want? YES

 

Is the style and level of moderation what you want? YES

 

What is wrong with the forums and what are the best parts of them that we should capitalise on? I'D LIKE MORE PEOPLE TO JOIN THE FORUMS. THE BEST PART OF THE FORUMS ARE 1. THE NUMBER OF KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE ON HERE WHO ARE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCES. 2. PEOPLE DON'T TAKE EACH OTHER TOO SERIOUSLY AND ARE PREPARED TO MIX A LITTLE HUMOUR WITH THE SERIOUS STUFF. 3. THE ENTHUSIASM FOR AVIATION.

 

We have a News section...is the news broad enough to cater for all your aviation news needs or are they too broad...again what do you want? YES

 

We have a Photo Gallery and Video Library...again do these suit your needs or do we need them at all? YES BUT IT WOULD BE NICE IF WE COULD SCROLL THROUGH THE PHOTOS EASIER (perhaps this is a technological user failure on my part?)

 

We have Private Social Groups, Clubs and Schools can create their own forum either private or public, we have an Event calendar and an Aircraft Section all ready for data input...we have a range of Free Pilot Tools, advertisers and more. YES, HAPPY WITH THESE BUT THERE'S ALWAYS ROOM FOR CONSTRUCTIVE FINE TUNING.

 

Is the Home Page what you like, would you like to see more things on there and if so like what? Should we even have a home page, is the site layout easy for you or could you suggest better ways of presenting things that you would like to see and use, what other areas do you want to have here or should we change to a completely different style of site like Wordpress, Facebook, Yahoo groups, vBulletin instead of Xenforo etc etc etc. I'M HAPPY WITH THE HOME PAGE AS IS.

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

My two cents' worth (make that 33.5 cents worth with inflation):

Hear hear...

 

 

[Admin]

80knts...I will look into making the photo gallery better...thanks

 

 

[turboplanner]

Very good 78

 

 

[dazza 38]

I think that the site is travelling along nicely.I am not that flash with the computor techno stuff.80 knots has great points . I think all sites have a small percentage of members who post in relation to the number of members.It would be nice to see alot more members post something.Even if it is just to say hello.

 

 

[gareth lacey]

Great stuff Ian ,does averthing for me

 

Cheersgareth

 

 

[Compulsion]

I am always surprised at how many people are visitors compared to members. It is a free site after all. I think it is great. My only thought is sometimes as a newbie to flying I feel some members jump on you from a great height if you ask a silly question or give an inexperienced comment which makes people like me reluctant to join in. I love the shop and will continue to support you.

 

 

[Admin]

I am always surprised at how many people are visitors compared to members. It is a free site after all. I think it is great. My only thought is sometimes as a newbie to flying I feel some members jump on you from a great height if you ask a silly question or give an inexperienced comment which makes people like me reluctant to join in. I love the shop and will continue to support you.

Any suggestions on how we can overcome this?

 

 

[dazza 38]

People should not worry about asking a silly question or what they perceive to be a silly question. They wont be jumped on here.We all from time to time have disagreements on certain topics, but we dont hold grudges or anything like that.If everybody agreed with everybody else, we would never look at a topic from somebody elses view point.We wouldnt learn anything.

 

 

[robinsm]

There is no such thing as a silly question. There are however really stupid answers. If someone wants to know something, and they genuinely dont know the answer, then tell them. Just because you think it is a very simple thing, doesnt mean others do.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

If it ain't broke Ian, don't fix it !!............works for me as it is................................Maj...

 

 

[Admin]

If it ain't broke Ian, don't fix it !!............works for me as it is................................Maj...

I agree, I don't think it's "broke" either Maj but what I am trying to do is more about how to make things even better and grow even further for everyone

 

 

[Zibi]

There is no such thing as a silly question. There are however really stupid answers. If someone wants to know something, and they genuinely dont know the answer, then tell them. Just because you think it is a very simple thing, doesnt mean others do.

Yeah, right... especially when both your instructors are members of this forum and you're still before the flight test...

 

And now I'll just and hide for a while...

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

Any suggestions on how we can overcome this?

Would it be possible/acceptable to track visitors, and after say a month, or maybe 10 visits, or whatever, send them an email, politely inviting them to join if they wish to continue visiting?

 

I am always surprised at how many people are visitors compared to members. It is a free site after all. I think it is great. My only thought is sometimes as a newbie to flying I feel some members jump on you from a great height if you ask a silly question or give an inexperienced comment which makes people like me reluctant to join in. I love the shop and will continue to support you.

Please understand Compulsion, the fear of being jumped on from a great height is not restricted to "Newbies to flying". I've been involved in aviation in one way or another all my life (my Dad was on #1 intake of RAAF apprentices, I was on #22 intake, and most of my earliest memories involve aircraft), and when Bubbleboy, Old Koreela, David Isaac and Don Ramsay finally talked me into contributing, let me tell you, I was as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.

 

But over time, I came to realize that the blokes who know the most rarely jump on anyone, and when they do, it's sort of like a grandfather picking a youngster up and dusting him down while saying, "You silly billy. Bet you won't want to do that again?..."

 

I've also come to realize that the occassional bloke who does rip someone a new one, usually doesn't know all that much himself. So don't worry or get upset about what they're saying, they're just grabbing the chance to be a bully.

 

As always, there are exceptions... I have seen the older hands get lit up occassionally. But it's almost always when they've been provoked by a Troll...

 

 

 

[Admin]

Would it be possible/acceptable to track visitors, and after say a month, or maybe 10 visits, or whatever, send them an email, politely inviting them to join if they wish to continue visiting?

Wayne, I would need to get their email address and without them freely providing it there is no "legal" way of obtaining it to send them an email...if I lock the site up then those that remain just visiting may end up missing someone's post that can have a safety aspect to it...the more people that just post in one spot i.e. here, the more the greater collective wisdom grows that helps everyone minimising the prospect of missing out on something important, especially in the exchange of information related to safety and the greater the numbers the more precise the information is by way of having more experiences posted, but there will always be "visitors" for one reason or another yet there is absolutely no reason why they can't join in and help everyone else...human nature. So this thread will hopefully come up with some ideas, your ideas, that may make the difference in visitors becoming users.

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

I am very happy with the 'back to the future' look and feel of the site. Would agree with eightyknots re the gallery. Keep up the good work!

 

PS: Site donation link not working!

 

 

[damkia]

We have Private Social Groups, Clubs and Schools can create their own forum either private or public, ...

Would it be possible to have a read-only preview of these social groups? At the moment they are locked up as tight as a..... You have to BE a member of the group to even look at the threads. Perhaps a read-only preview of the first post in the thread would be useful.

 

 

[ben87r]

I am too of the opinion of "aint broke", the only thing that i can add is with the search function. When searching if a word is found to be to short or too common it is left out of the searches. This has been annoying recently when looking for posts on CX4, Half VW, VW conversions and others as, im sure that there is good content that i have been unable to find

 

 

[Admin]

I am too of the opinion of "aint broke", the only thing that i can add is with the search function. When searching if a word is found to be to short or too common it is left out of the searches. This has been annoying recently when looking for posts on CX4, Half VW, VW conversions and others as, im sure that there is good content that i have been unable to find

Great thanks, I can fix that with a $50 enhanced search engine for the site...great contribution

 

 

[Admin]

Would it be possible to have a read-only preview of these social groups? At the moment they are locked up as tight as a..... You have to BE a member of the group to even look at the threads. Perhaps a read-only preview of the first post in the thread would be useful.

Thanks Damkia, to do this would make the groups non-private and this would not differentiate the groups from the normal forums. If the person creating the group wants to have control over it for say just their club's members etc then they can ensure that things that are discussed in the group are only seen by the groups members...but hey, if others want them to be non-private then I can easily make them that way...tell me what you want

 

 

[Admin]

This is the enhanced search addon that costs $50 which should assist everyone with a more enhanced search function...Registered Site Members Only though:

 

XenForo Enhanced Search - $50

 

XenForo Enhanced Search is designed to give significantly better search performance and additional search options to your users. It is built on top of elasticsearch, which is in turn built on top of Lucene. This gives excellent performance, even with millions of pieces of content. Elasticsearch allows nearly infinite scalability and redundancy by silently allowing searches to be run across multiple servers. Additionally, you benefit from a very small stopword list and no minimum word length, allowing nearly any search to return meaningful results. Elasticsearch also provides support for returning results based on how relevant they are to your search. You can select relevancy ordering on the advanced search page.

 

You must have access to install elasticsearch 0.16.0 or newer and XenForo 1.1.1 to use this add-on. Only customers with dedicated servers or VPSes will be able to use it.

 

Access to Enhanced Search updates and support is included as long as your XenForo license is current for support and updates. When extending your XenForo license, the cost of add-on extensions will be automatically added to the base cost.

 

 

[Zibi]

One small improvement I'd like to suggest is to change the small button on the mobile version, that lets you select subsections (Media, Photos, Video, etc) into something that stands out a bit more or maybe even put it on the main bar with Forums, Register, etc as it's a bit easy to miss, unless you know what it does.

 

 

[Admin]

One small improvement I'd like to suggest is to change the small button on the mobile version, that lets you select subsections (Media, Photos, Video, etc) into something that stands out a bit more or maybe even put it on the main bar with Forums, Register, etc as it's a bit easy to miss, unless you know what it does.

Will do...big thanks for helping with that

 

 

[cscotthendry]

My only thought is sometimes as a newbie to flying I feel some members jump on you from a great height if you ask a silly question or give an inexperienced comment which makes people like me reluctant to join in.

This is a perennial problem with simplex communication (ie one way at a time). People type in an answer to a question and don't take the time to re-read and consider their answer. What results is a response that sometimes comes off as unintentionally abrupt. I don't know what the solution to this is other than to keep reminding people to re-read and re-read again and think before you press "submit". Does your response really convey the tone that you would like? Can it be percieved in ways that you might not have intended?

Another suggestion might be to include such advice in the posting rules and not allowing people to post until they have at least looked at the posting rules.