What new things would you like to see here?
- Thread starter Ben Ruset
- Start date
I very seldom find myself on the front page, but it is a great idea to maybe update that, since it is the 1st place new users and people searching for the site will land.
The thing I like the most about this site is that there's an archive of posts going back 20 years, such a rarity on the web these days. My request would be to make sure everything is stored properly to last another 20 years.
Also, I have noticed that a lot of the images are missing from older posts. I'm assuming those are gone forever?
Also, I have noticed that a lot of the images are missing from older posts. I'm assuming those are gone forever?
Some were from the Gallery that the site use to have and some were on storage sites that various members used that are no longer around. That is why at this point it is best to shrink your photos down to 1000 or 800 pixels and throw them right in the post. Just remember not to shrink the original file as some people have done.
I have also noticed that the NJPineBarren Maps have changed in that many of the old links go right to Chatsworth and no longer show the correct location mentioned in the post. I was looking over some of my old posts and noticed that.
I don't know how much trouble it would be to implement, but what about having a copy of the "Latest posts" forum window also displayed on the home page? That would let visitors know that even though there are no recent articles, the site is in fact very active and worth checking out in detail. I made a quick version of what it might look like:
Getting Wordpress (which is what runs the front page) and Xenforo (which runs the forums) to work together and play nice is tricky. But I can see what's possible now since it's been a while since I last looked.
I was also going to ask about this. Looking through old threads, there is a lot of valuable history here that seems to have been lost. Obviously there is nothing you can really do about photos that were hosted on third-party sites, but what happened to the photos in the old forum gallery? If there's any way to restore some of them, I think that would be a very worthwhile project.
As I posted elsewhere, I have a backup of my own gallery from 2004. But fixing old dead links would be pretty difficult at this point. There could be some backups at archive.org, we may have discussed that before.
I still have the final backup of the gallery. (9GB worth of pictures!) The issue is that the software that ran it is long dormant. I might be able to get it moved to some other software although I'm not sure that the links would be the same.
That's great to hear that they still exist and haven't been lost.
It looks like you were on vBulletin back in the day, and then migrated to XenForo circa 2011? I haven't been here very long to know the history - that's just based on what I see in the Wayback Machine. I assume you went through a migration process at that time. It looks like there may be an option for auto-importing vB images/albums if they're stored outside the forum database, which might be your situation. Although I imagine if you were using a separate gallery plugin or something like that then it might not be this straightforward. And I'm sure vBulletin itself changed considerably over 10 years of use.
You probably know this already and have tried - mostly just thinking aloud.
Spent very little time here, but it appears that the wayback machine has multiple snapshots of the most recent gallery, starting in 2007. Not sure how complete it is, but there are definitely some pictures here.
Wayback Machine
web.archive.org
Looking at old posts, it appears the gallery finally went away in 2014. Just wondering, after all these years is it appropriate to resurrect it? I'm fine with it myself and understand that newer members would like to see those old pictures. Just seems like a question that should be asked however, with a bunch of people who are no longer members and some who have passed away. And there could also be pictures that some people no longer wish to be public.
Ben,
I know I had brought it up in a direct message to you a couple of months ago, but I'd still be interested in a "randomizer" button for the forums that would bring up previous posts, much like Wikipedia's random article generator. I'm not sure that is technically feasible, but there is such a wealth of information in those older postings and I would love to peruse and potentially add to a possibly extinct thread. Thank you again for maintaining one of the few sites I visit regularly!
I know I had brought it up in a direct message to you a couple of months ago, but I'd still be interested in a "randomizer" button for the forums that would bring up previous posts, much like Wikipedia's random article generator. I'm not sure that is technically feasible, but there is such a wealth of information in those older postings and I would love to peruse and potentially add to a possibly extinct thread. Thank you again for maintaining one of the few sites I visit regularly!
This site is pretty darn good without any changes!!! I love stopping in when I am looking for info. Most of the time I do not need to ask a question because all the info is already here! I do miss the image gallery and would love to see some form of that return if it is not too much trouble!
This is also a great idea!!! But whatever you do Ben, it will be great! Thank you so much for all you and everyone else here do!!!!! You all rock!
I'm working on trying to figure out a safe and secure way to put the image gallery back up. The problem is that development on the software that ran it stopped years ago so there aren't really any new bug fixes to make it secure so I have to see what options are available, if any.
I definitely don't want the site to get hacked over it.
I definitely don't want the site to get hacked over it.
If you think it will be hacked I would pass on bringing it back.