# New web site -- different than our last attempt with the wiki !!!!



## t2000kw (Jul 29, 2006)

I thought I'd mention that the new site is free of the problems the wiki site had. It may have frustrated you, but this new site won't. Matt has put a lot of work into it and so has Jennifer ont he web design end of things, and it looks and works simply wonderful! And to give credit to the person who set up the wiki, it was not poor layout or setup on his part that was the problem. It was the limitations of the wiki software. A wiki is not really well suited for our needs. I saw the same thing happen for one of the Yahoo groups I belong to when we tried a wiki as an additional source of information. It just didn't work well enough for members to use it. This site is not a wiki and is quite different!!!

(Note: Please don't use the test web site I set up as a proof-of-concept forums site. It isn't where we will be hosting our permanent site. Its only purpose was to demonstrate that it could meet our needs. Matt--can you delete the links or even the entire thread about the test site so it doesn't confuse anyone? I can't edit my posts there for some reason--I am logged in--so I can't delete the links in my posts.)

You will get email notifications to replies to posts you made if you set it up that way (it's a one-time setup). You can easily tell if there is a new post in a forum or thread since you've last visited. You can modify the way it appears on your screen. There are quite a number of features there. It is worth the time to check it out. 

If you need to change a setting and it's not apparent where you should do this on the board, post a "help me" message and we'll not only help you but probably others will need help as wella nd we can put up a sticky message on how to do the more common things like turn on or off popular options, choose themes, etc. 

This is a dual purpose web site, with a bulletin board for discussion forums and a web site for articles and other things. We will get the most use out of the forums, of course, but I think the rest of the site will be a useful tool as well. 

We will be looking for informative articles to place on the web site, so if you're an expert on a subject, or even "sort of" an expert, you might be able to help others with your knowledge. Help with editing will be available if you have problems translating your head knowledge into written form. You will be given credit for your contributions. And you can co-author an article, too, if you and another club member share the same interests. 

If you're familiar at all with the CAFE or GCAS web sites, they use the same forum software so you should have no problems with the forums on our new site. 

I'm not posting the link to the new site because I believe it is for members only. I'll leave it up to Matt and our club to decide if we want to advertise it or not (there are pros and cons to this). If you are a member of SWOAPE you should have received an invitation by email recently to join the new site. Please give it a try and post feedback in the forum about your experience with it. 

Donald


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