Brad axed:

Quote:

Is there anything that can be done anymore on the AW website that does not involve 6 extra steps? Why do I have to name every link that I post?

I don't know; I think the Forum editing interface is pretty easy and simple. If you don't want to use the web icon, you can manually type in the code for the link. (url=http :// www.americanwhitewater.org.linklinklink.html]Here's my link[/url). Don't forget to include the open and close brackets.

You certainly don't have to give a title to every link, though it can make your posts clearer.

Hey--at least we have the Stream Team Forum. That's a huge improvement over the past. It's getting a Lott of discussion lately. That's a great thing for communicating with other Stream Team members.

Trying to get back to the subject of the original post . . .

I guess I'm not sure why you think of the info as "hidden behind a tab". The tabs are all up in plain view, and not at all 'hidden'. While I was initially just as vocal as anyone in my disdain for the tabbed format, I am largely being won over to it's numerous benefits. I had a good number of reaches which took advantage of the former layout, where gauge info preceded river info on the page. And yes, the new tabbed format demands some re-arranging of information in such instances.

However, when I look at the amount of info which is currently available, I do NOT see a way it could have continued to be all on one page! It just got too lengthy to have to scroll down through, sometimes not knowing where to expect to find particular details (such as shuttle directions!).

With the tabbed arrangement, I KNOW I can find succinct shuttle direcitons (and can now even get driving directions from my house to the river with ease!) under the "directions" tab. I know I should look for gauge/flow detail under the "Flow Info" tab, and so on. It really doesn't 'hide' anything, it organizes it.

With respect to the Ocoee page which was cited as a way for StreamTeamMembers to 'work around' the tab system . . . I have just one reaction . . . YUCK!!!! That page is (to my eye) TERRIBLE!!! Do I really need the accident report in the description? Especially when it starts with one where "Victim suffered no known injury"! WHAT? WHO CARES!!!! And, somewhere (BURIED in the middle of all that!) it has "River Levels" information. To me, that's just a run-on mess, which NEEDS to be better organized, as the tabs arrangement is TRYING to do!

BradR Wrote:
>> Bear Creek in GA is a good example. Bear creek
> dumps into Lookout creek and the USGS gauge is a
> short ways downstream. Now one would not want to
> put on bear above 200 cfs, but you need the
> lookout gauge to be reading over 1000 cfs to do
> the run. Hiding the gauge name and the gauge info
> on a run like this can be very misleading.
> >
> >
rgroth Wrote:
> > One potential way to handle this is to remove
> the correlate gauge reading and just provide
> running/not running and a % of correlate.
>
>
BradR Wrote:
> If I understand you correctly, you wish to remove
> the gauge that folks go by to see if a creek is
> running or not? Is that correct?
>
But for those
> ...............
> just looking at the state pages it would seem that
> these individual creeks are running at rediculous
> flows. ..................., but I would still
> maintain gauge description info needs to be on the
> main river description page.
>
> Brad.

Sounds to me like at least 3 separate issues are being discussed.

1) Should the gauge name be displayed on the main river tab along with the flow number and date?

This information has never been displayed in the past, but it seems a good idea to me.

At present, no gauge name is provided, but there is a link to the gauge page where the name is prominently shown. It would be nice if that link was the actual gauge name. This would show the reader whether that gauge is on this river or on some other river, or if the gauge is a virtual gauge.

In the past the flow line displayed the river name which was a circular link back to the same page and the flow number which was a link to the gauge page. (This caused the complaints that Ryan remembers about the flow number not being an obvious link to the gauge page.)

Until the gauge name is displayed in the flow line, the Streamteamer can prominently display the true gauge name just below with an explanation to the reader.

2) Should the gauge name be displayed on the state river lists?

I don't see where we have the room. Also, if the reader knows that the lookout gauge has to be 1000 cfs in order for Bear Creek to be 200 cfs, how are they going to be confused when they see Bear Creek green and showing 1000 cfs on the state list? If the reader is not familiar with Bear Creek, they see it running green and check the river page and see an explanation about true flows.

If you know a fairly precise correlation between the reach and the gauge, then you can create a virtual gauge and Bear Creek will display 200 cfs when it is green. The streamteamer still needs to give a good explanation on the river tab and flow tab.

3) Should the flow number in cfs or stage be displayed or not displayed when it comes from a gauge on a different river?

Ryan suggested that in the Bear Creek example, if you fear that the 1000 cfs number will be confusing to readers, you could remove the number and replace it with a more general indication, such as 50% or 100%. Not sure if that is actually what he meant. But, sounds like extra work on his part for questionable benefits.

Streamteamers already have some good options from virtual gauges to in depth explanations. I think this is best left to individual discretion unless we see some obvious system wide issue.

4) Gauge description info needs to be on the main river description page.

This is still up to the individual streamteamer and always has been. The streamteamer can put information almost anywhere they want to. I think it is very reasonable to have some flow explanation immediately below the colored flow info line on the river info tab.

However, the USGS gauge graphs and links have always been on a separate page. We still have a separate page for them, but we also have a Flow Info tab that is obvious and easily accessible. Now, the StreamTeamer can put their own extra information and explanations in the same tab as the USGS graphs. We could not do that before. I like being able to place my explanations and further links on the same page/tab as the USGS graphs. Even if I place some of those same explanations on the main river info tab.

Virtual gauges tend to get tricky on creeks.

Another popular gauge that gets linked to a number of smaller creeks is Sweetwater creek. When that gauge peaks, some ten creeks in the area are going. The problem being that sweetwater holds its water for 4 days, and the other creeks hold thier water for about 9 hours. This particular gauge was the reason behind the asterisking of area gauges. Even with the info displayed prominently on the main page, folks would still email me about faulty gauge info.

Taking the flow info that had been prominently displayed on the main page and hiding it just makes it that much more difficult for people to be educated on what the flows are doing. I frankly don't believe most folks are going to click on a page and then work thier way thru all, or any, of the tabs.

Rob, you'll love this page:
the nanty

The mighty nantahala as done by Chris Bell & some other folks.

Edited by Matt, 11/29/07 05:37, to fix the lynx.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2007 08:44AM by matt.

perhaps if clickable links could just default to the web address in the text area? I really don't want to take a microsoft word refresher course in adding hyperlinks.

Brad wrote:
Rob, you'll love this page:
the nanty

Actually, I don't think that page is anywhere near as bad (to my eye) as the aforementioned Ocoee page (http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River_detail_id_1780_). The Nanty page left the rapids-by-rapids description under the "Rapids" tab (the Ocoee page did not). I do think it seems a bit of 'overkill' to paste in the entire text of the Nanty write-up from "The Asheville Area Boating Beta Page" into the AW page (the link would be quite sufficient -- unless there is concern about the AABBP going defunct in the near future). However, at least it is quite clearly delineated, and one can easily choose to either read, skim, or skip the two text articles. The Ocoee page 'inlined' the accident report information -- the Nanty page (I think properly) left this (as it always is) available in the link box in the right margin. Obviously that's a bit of a judgement call. Some may feel this info should be more prominent. Especially where (in the case of the Ocoee data listed) there is one spot (or a couple) which seem to be the common site for deaths or injuries. I would agree special mention should be made of that concern, and it might be best to have a link (in the description, in addition to the one in the sidebar column) to the Accident Reports, but I don't think we need each specific incident listed in the description!

And that's before getting into the 'nits' . . . do I really need to be told that "... you are forever surrounded by Hardees. The one on US 411 toward Atlanta happens to be my personal favorite." and "Hazards include: ... shallow water in places" Oh, REALLY?!? (NOT meaning to pick on or step on toes of any of the authors of these pages. Just commenting on my perspective as I review those two pages. YMMV)

Again, I was initially as upset as anyone with 'fractioning' the descriptions into the tabs. Especially so, since it makes more work for those of us who had put in so much work formatting our descriptions 'just so' under the old layout, and now having to rework them to make sense with the tabbed layout. However, there is so much functionality now: automatically creating the maps tab rather than having them stuck as a sidebar link, automatically creating the shuttle map (which admittedly isn't always perfect, but it's a great start, and many many rivers/StreamTeamers did NOT previously have any usable shuttle directions in the description), the "Network" function (which is 'young' and probably little used yet, but which could hold great promise and opportunities, as our pages are used by many folks besides the boating community), and so on. I just don't think the old fomat would come close to accommodating all this and whatever additional info which may be possible in the near future.

So, I have grown to LIKE the fact that the tabs help 'standardize' the listings. If the user needs shuttle info, they don't have to search down the page to SEE where (or whether) the STer included it. If there are comments, they'll know that immediately by looking at the number in the "Comments" tab, AND if there are "critical" comments, they'll know that too, by the orange bar on the river page or by the new column and warning icon on the state-listing page. No longer do they have to pull up the river listing and make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom -- past the rapids-by-rapids description (when that existed in-line), past the photos list (which was also in-line, and for some of the overly 'loved' runs, got rather lengthy), past the "Detail" info (which for most folks, I think, pretty much signaled "You're done", and they looked no further, thereby missing the comments entirely! Yeah, I know, they can just hit 'End' or otherwise zap their way there, but if they're reading through stuff, by the time they hit all the photos, and the "Detail" info, they've pretty much figured they've got all they need to know and move on!

I'm not expecting that its possible or even likely to please everyone on everything. My thoughts are not any more nor less important (or 'right') than anyone else's. However, I do hope that we can agree to work with (and within) the framework that is presently in place -- to see it's strengths and work together to remedy its weaknesses. I would hope that we will not sabotage the system by such 'workaround solutions' as that Ocoee page represents. The rapids-by-rapids description belongs under the "Rapids" tab, not inline. Information about shuttle, directions, parking . . . belong under the "Directions" tab, not buried inline. River Level/Gauge/Flow information belongs on the "Flow Info" tab, not buried inline. If we leave it to each STer to decide where to put all that info, nobody will ever know where to find it. If we use the organization which tabs represent, the River Pages will be far more useful in the long run.

The issue with both the ocoee and the nantahala pages is that they were written before the new system was introduced. Your very own president of the board of AW wrote up the Ocoee page.

Some of these pages were written before we had the edit rapids function.

With regards to the nanty, we never got a streamkeeper to jot anything down, so Chris Bell was kind enough to add the information from his page.

The kicker is that we have a new format. As was mentioned above, there are a few streampages that do not easily transfer over to the new format. There are fewer people still who want to go in and reformat the old pages to the new style. And I have more than a few streamkeepers who got pissed off about the changes and have quit.

My question for Rob & others is what content should go on the river description page? How much or how little?

At the very least I want gauge/flow info, and a detailed river description, along with print directions all on one page. Comments would be nice too. As I have stated before I like this for printing out a page before I head off into the woods. I also find it easier to read. Obviously some folks above vigorously differ on that.

Matt has let me know that the pages can be viewed in a manner to which that (viewing and printing) is possible. I have yet to have much luck with that. The bigger issue is what do the masses prefer to see.

For now I have to open the flow tab - print.
open the rapids tab - print.
open directions - print.
See if there are new comments - print.
etc....


Or just grab a guidebook off the shelf and hit the road.

Brad testified:

Quote:

And I have more than a few streamkeepers who got pissed off about the changes and have quit.

This is important (and disturbing!) information, but it's fragmentary. At this point I have no way to know how widespread the disaffection is. Please email me and tell me how many ST members who you know have quit. Please also tell me their names, and forward as many of their angry emails as possible to me.

Thanks,

Matt

Brad wrote:

Quote:

The issue with both the ocoee and the nantahala pages is that they were written before the new system was introduced. Your very own president of the board of AW wrote up the Ocoee page.
Some of these pages were written before we had the edit rapids function.

Yes, the Ocoee page was written prior to the Edit Rapids function. The page looks and feels old. I hope an ambitious ST volunteer will take it and move the rapid descriptions to the Rapids section.

...

Quote:

Matt has let me know that the pages can be viewed in a manner to which that (viewing and printing) is possible. I have yet to have much luck with that.

This is the first I've heard of your problems with the one-page option (i.e., AW for Mobile Phones). In what way have you not had luck?

...

Quote:

The bigger issue is what do the masses prefer to see.

No argument here. We need good "Voice of the Customer" data. Do you have a proposal?