RETRIEVING AUSTRALIA FORUM

Hi all

Ashley and I were having a conversation last weekend about the difficulty of posting material to the State pages on the website. From my point of view the main problem is that it takes time, is a bit tricky to do and requires ftp client software.

Following that conversation I have been thinking that maybe it would be better to create two new forums on the bulletin board - "Schedules" and "Results". That way people could add the info quickly and easily. At the end of the season the results could be consolidated and moved to the relevant state page and the schedules deleted.

This approach would save Ashley's valuable (and much appreciated) time for doing useful stuff on the main page like the events calendar.

The only disadvantage I can see would be that you can't directly post images to the bulletin board. These would need to be uploaded to the main site then linked using the "Img" button in the posts.

What do other people think?

Cheers, Jason.

Hi Jason,

Sounds like a great idea to me. It should ecourage more clubs to post their schedules on the site. This, as you say, is particularly valuable for triallers considering travelling interstate to trial.

Kirsty

Hi Jason and All

About the posting of information on the board. Most people don't know that almost all the items that have been placed by ftp or other methods all get placed in the root directory. (ie in the filing cabinet but not in a suspension file.) Every file, picture, etc. ALL end up here and form one giant list.

I've been trying to establish a patern (which is a little bit more work) where the items are placed in the news directory appropriate to the state involved, otherwise we are going to have hundreds of files in one directory and no way of knowing who posted or what the relevance of any document or letter is.

I also have a recomendation for those who are posting things in terms of the naming of things.

I use names like
nsw_030923_gds_trial_res.doc and
nsw_030923_gds_trial_sch.doc
nsw_030923_gds_trial_pic1.jpeg

the names listed alphabetically now group each state's material together and the date as yymmdd places them in strict date order and topics group. It will make it much easier to clean the outdated materials later.

Also, I have establisted a calendar for 2004 so if state reps. can send their respective trial dates I can include them.
As states post Schedules if they can let me know the location/name of the schedues I can link them.

This approach could centralise the access to the information and streamline sorting through info later. Sorry this is mainly only of interest to the computer people.

Ashley

Thanks for all the work you are doing behind the scenes in getting the web site working more effectively.

I was suggesting setting up new forums on this bulletin board, so along with "General" and "For Sale" we would have a "Schedules" and "Results" forum where trial managers or secretaries (or interested bystanders) could post trial information more easily and importantly more immediately - much like what I did for the NSW Champs.

Does anyone know how difficult would it be to set up these forums?

Cheers, Jason

Hi all

I have set up a poll on this topic to try to elicit more responses. Registered users just click the button to vote! All you guests - its time to register and have your say!

Cheers, Jason.