BradR opined:

Quote:

Rob, you'll love this page:
the nanty

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

Rob responded:

Quote:

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 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.

A point of clarification: the Ocoee page was put together before we had the separate Rapids function. At the time, it was one of the best ST pages we had out there. Nobody has reconfigured it to work with the Rapids function. I’d love it if someone took that on; it’s past time.

I heartily agree with Rob, that things will go best if STs work with the general structure of the river pages. I particularly disagree with Brad’s suggestion that STs bypass the Rapids interface, because that suggestion ignores the tool we have for inputting the coordinates of rapids. Since that has the benefit of improving communication with rescue personnel, we shouldn’t encourage anyone to bypass it.

In fact, I'd be especially concerned if those who have the standing as Regional Stream Team Leaders were encouraging STs to bypass the Rapids interface. I would hope that leading volunteers wouldn't use their stature to work at cross-purposes to the current organizational goals.


BradR also suggested:

Quote:

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.

I understand your frustration. (Was that an "angry" icon? Really?) If you think that’s a high priority, enter a ticket in the Bug Tracker. Butt before you do, please consider:
- Ryan has limited time, and many bugs and suggestions to work on. Since there is a (fairly simple) way to enter lynx and give them meaningful names, his time might be better spent on ways in which the website doesn’t currently work.
- This Forum software is a program which Ryan collected and installed. He had many factors to consider in selecting a Forum setup. I think that, overall, this Massage Board works pretty well, and I’d be disinclined to mess with it. If Ryan can dig into the code and redo some of it, it will probably not be a small feat, like changing a couple of lines of code. It might take a wholesale change.

Is that what you want Ryan to focus on? If you were to conduct a marketing survey, do you believe that the Voice of the Customer would list this issue as one of the highest priorities?

Quote:

Ryan has limited time, and many bugs and suggestions to work on. Since there is a (fairly simple) way to enter lynx and give them meaningful names, his time might be better spent on ways in which the website doesn’t currently work.

On any of this stuff, one way to help me out a lot is to mock-up any cosmetic changes. You can do it in paint, dreamweaver, frontpage, word, or whatever. But if you can propose a change AND demonstrate it, then it saves me a lot of guess work. Also, provide a link where and if you can. Sometimes the river page I am looking at is good but the one you are looking at is really ugly.

Matt writes

"I heartily agree with Rob, that things will go
> best if STs work with the general structure of the
> river pages. I particularly disagree with Brad’s
> suggestion that STs bypass the Rapids interface,
> because that suggestion ignores the tool we have
> for inputting the coordinates of rapids. Since
> that has the benefit of improving communication
> with rescue personnel, we shouldn’t encourage
> anyone to bypass it.
>
> In fact, I'd be especially concerned if those who
> have the standing as Regional Stream Team Leaders
> were encouraging STs to bypass the Rapids
> interface. I would hope that leading volunteers
> wouldn't use their stature to work at
> cross-purposes to the current organizational
> goals.
>"


Last I checked, I had tried to resign my duties as RSK. While I appreciate that Ryan and everyone else have put a tremendous amount of work into the latest upgrade, it is obviously going in a direction that I for one am still not happy with.
Brad.