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Topic: Forum tips and suggestions (Read 777 times)
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QMaze
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Chrispy and I discussed yesterday that it would be advantageous to have a sticky on this forum on how to rig up different baits. Some of us may not be new fishing but its impossible with such a huge fishery to know how to rig a worm, tube or your favorite live baits.
As to the post with knots that is a great start but it needs to be a sticky to stay on top.
I also had another few suggestions regarding the Canadian forum as it is just a blur amongst all the other topics, way too many topics and a huge job for the webmaster and their mods to try and keep up. Your going to have to a few dozen moderators. As well the forum path is not linked to the top of posts once you enter them, makes it difficult to navigate properly through the forum.
Please do not take this as criticism by any means, I merely an experienced forum user and know that ikonboard is not the most popular utilized on the internet (not sure whats hosting, linux box, windows etc..) I am use to the phpBB and mySQL boards so not sure how difficult it is to modify this BB.
Just a few suggestions to make the user experience smoother and new fishers the ability to get up and running quicker. I think you are doing an amzing job on this huge forum, hats off to you all.
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h2o
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Hey everything helps for sure. Thank You for your help. Being new at this makes learning a experience. It's things like what you wrote that makes it better. It's constructive criticism. And a value. Andy's the brains behind the tec. stuff I'll talk with him.
h2o<--says thanks but that icon stinks. lol
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icefishermanmark
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Until they get a sticky forum I'll bump it every once in a while.
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Most fishermen sit at home in the winter, thinking about fishing. Real fishermen go out and do it.
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QMaze
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Thanks h20 and ice. I always like to use the KISS technique, I'm sure you know what that means.
Lots of forums without posts, just add forums as they are required, it will keep things much simpler. Your users will request new forums, is there a suggestion or general forum on this site? That would be a good way to get constant feedback.
I'm sticking around for the long haul, its going to be a great site.
Appreciate you providing this venue.
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icefishermanmark
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| Quote (QMaze @ May 02 2005,8:15) | Thanks h20 and ice. I always like to use the KISS technique, I'm sure you know what that means.
Lots of forums without posts, just add forums as they are required, it will keep things much simpler. Your users will request new forums, is there a suggestion or general forum on this site? That would be a good way to get constant feedback.
I'm sticking around for the long haul, its going to be a great site.
Appreciate you providing this venue.
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I was thinkin the same thing about the general chat, but was gonna wait a while to say anything because i know how busy Andy is right now. But I guess it's out there so no biggy. |
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Most fishermen sit at home in the winter, thinking about fishing. Real fishermen go out and do it.
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Beermaster
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Chrispy and I discussed yesterday that it would be advantageous to have a sticky on this forum on how to rig up different baits. Some of us may not be new fishing but its impossible with such a huge fishery to know how to rig a worm, tube or your favorite live baits.
Chris, thank you very much for stepping up to the plate and writing all this. GLF was thrown together, in less than 3 days, and we are now 3 only weeks old. I think bait rigging is a great Idea, we should dedicate a whole section to it. Put up a link for it on the left hand side navigation bar. Do you have the time to put it all together in a word document or html document, prefrably with pictures? Same thing with knots, I will write that section myself and put up a link to it.
In terms of forums, and CA forum being somewhat obscured... With the site redesign I wanted to get rid of a mess of forums period. the nice little idiot proof map on the right hand side takes you to your state/province portal page. same function is accomplished by clicking the STATE/province on the left naviagation bar. That way Michiganders as well as Canadians can click on their spot on the map, and get to their destination. I don't want to get rid of the forums itself, eventhough they are empty. Search engines are finally picking us up and index every bloody post on here. Ive seem some people come from google who searched for wisconsin fishing forum, as well as canadian great lakes forum. So forums have to stay for visibility. What the mods need to do is find some new york and wisconsin dnr fishing reports and occasionally post them to make it alive, as well as help those forums propogade through the search engines. I realized that maintaining and moderating this site with its original structure will be essentially impossible. Hense, i jumped in to redesign. redesign, although not complete yet, has accomplished alot. Site is viewable in most browsers without glitches, perfectly fits 800x600 resolution, and when you go to print it, prints properly on paper. Improper printing always pissed me off with other forums.
Chris, if you can come up with a different structure or navigation ideas, please please please let me know. I definately need another technical and design guru working with me, i can hardly handle it alone bro. I am not the touchy type, i welcome feedback, of all sorts.
From the technical aspect, my desire was to start this thing with a minimal expanse. I am broke, wife is 9 mo pregnant and out of work. So buying Invisionboard (which is 90% ikonboard code) didnt make much sense to me. I knew nothing about PHP so phpbb, as nice as it looked was out of the question. Ikonboard is god old pearl, which to me is a little easier to understand. That, plus i figured there is a billion and one perl scripts out there that could be used in conjunction with the website. So thats why i focused on ikonboard. As you can see, it is extremely modded right now, having little resemblence t original out of the box ikonboard. Ikonboard is also MySQL based, which i figured would be awesome for scalability and future growth. I leared everything i could about mysql, refreshed my cgi skills and GLF was born. The good thing is, GLF runs off of my own IIS6 server box.
I have now PHP, col fusion, asp and perl setup and running. The bad news is, ikonboard and perl scripts in general were never meant to be on a windows box. making it all run on windows was a huge technical challenege. Most of perl scripts expect to see standard linux packages such as Modperl and ISAPi rewrite. these of course do not exist in windows world. Had to hack, crack, whack and mold all this **** together out of tonns upon tnns of gpl software. So modifying ikonboard is a bitch. And in addition, there is no perl SSI under IIS - primarily what I am trying to resolve right now. Basically i wrote a perl function that will load and parse ad html file through mshtml.dll and have mshtml.dll spit that file out in a form of source back to perl. Essentially, thats faking SSI in IIS perl environment. Works great, but needs major testing before I am ready to deploy it. With SSI working, MODS will have an idiot proof admin page which will allow them to change sections, links etc etc on the fly. meanwhile, You can copy html code for these spearate portal pages and paste it into namo or frontpage and then paste them back in admin and save them to make changes. So if you are up for getting into it a bit more, we need to chit chat  '>. I could really use some help.
I agree that navigaton is one of the biggest reasons for site success or failure. We are still in inancy, so now is a great time to think about all this stuff and plan it out.
Thank you for your suggestions. Glad to have you onboard!
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Great Lakes Forum - Your Destination For Great Lakes Fun
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icefishermanmark
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You told me you would beat me up if I said this again, but after reading that post I have no other option. You're a computer genious
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Most fishermen sit at home in the winter, thinking about fishing. Real fishermen go out and do it.
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Beermaster
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No Mark, I am the BEER MASTER '>
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Great Lakes Forum - Your Destination For Great Lakes Fun
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Chrispy
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Hey Beermaster!!! I think you and Qmaze have to chat...I'm not into the programming aspect of computers....my expertise is in network design and implementation....from our conversation (with Qmaze) I know he understands all this programming mumbo jumbo....get in touch with him, he is a great guy and has some really cool ideas....as for the rigging and knot page, I will start searching the net for pics and descriptions....Cool???
Chrispy!
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To fish or not to fish....WHAT A STUPID QUESTION!!!!
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Beermaster
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Yeah totally cool Chris, I must appoligize, as i wrote your name in the post, when it was really suppose to be for Qmaze. Qmaze, do you use any instant messanging programs? Whats your name buddy?
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Great Lakes Forum - Your Destination For Great Lakes Fun
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h2o
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IIS6, PHP so phpbb,SQL,cgi,perl function, parse ad html file, LOL, wish I knew .05% of what thy beermaster knows, yes mark he is a wizard.
h2o<)-----says beyond me is this unknown language. LOL 
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icefishermanmark
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Well andy doesn't look like anyone has volunteered, so i'll get working on it. It may take a while, or just a day. Depends on what i'm doing. I'll try and get it done in a week.
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Most fishermen sit at home in the winter, thinking about fishing. Real fishermen go out and do it.
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Beermaster
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Its a big job Mark, just make sure you take your time and wite alot on every righ known to you, use h2o as a reference, he is a walking fish encyclopedia '> Thank you, and i will start working on knots section. Again, there will be a separate link under GLF ain menu for Riggin, and every rig will have a separate page for it, with pictures, descriptions ideas and hints... Or however else you want to structure it/set it up.
Rock on!
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Great Lakes Forum - Your Destination For Great Lakes Fun
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Chrispy
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Hey Mark & Beermaster, don't worry about the knots page...just use the topic I pinned....why recreate what is already done....those websites have awesome diagrams.....I also went through a bunch of books I have and found some diagrams for rigging....I just haven't found the time to scan them in yet....let me know your thoughts...
Chrispy!
Chrispy!
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To fish or not to fish....WHAT A STUPID QUESTION!!!!
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Beermaster
