How often is this website FAQ updated with new info?

[Jakobud]

In the past year there have been tons of new innovations and ideas and solutions that have come up here on the message board that end up just staying buried on the message board and basically get lost.  The message board is cluttered with hundreds of duplicate posts from newb's who get on here and ask questions that have been answered 20 times before.  I look through the rest of the website and it seems like there are many many many parts of the website that don't appear to have been updated in 2 years.  

Is there someway that a large group of us who are experienced in website design/creation could get together and sort of revamp the entire website with and update and add lots of stuff that has been discovered on the message boards?  

Newbs get on this website and just go straight to the message board and ask questions for things that they can simply get the answers for by clicking a link or two on the left. Perhaps the layout and organization of the website needs to be rethought?  I think this website is going to need to be revamped eventually and I'm just thinking that it would be good to do sooner than later.  There is already so much information on this website its not even funny and considering that most of the best and most helpful info is actually on the message boards, the longer that we wait to revamp the website the more difficult it will be.  

I'm just sorta throwing ideas out here and was hoping to just get a thought or two from the admins.  It would require a large effort and if volunteers were needed to help out I would happy to help.

What do others think about this?  Is the website organized enough, considering the large amount of info here?  Is it difficult to find what you want?  What about you new folks?  How difficult is it for you to find the information you need?

[SirPeale]

I gotta agree.  I went looking for some info the other day and couldn't find it.  It was here on the board easily enough, but it should have been on the main site.

It also appears that the site is just a static page.  May I suggest maintaining it with a program called B2?  It's available from http://www.cafelog.com.  It's for Blogging, but I have found that it's actually quite powerful in it's own right.  Take away the 'comments' section, and it would be invisible.

[Jakobud]

Hmmm... I don't think that having the different sections of the site in 'blog' format would be a good idea.  Its too much stuff and that would make it too difficult to find what you need.  I mean, if you look through the sections now, you can see that it is already practically in blog format.  For example, click on the "Artwork" link on the left.  It's like one big blog page.  And it's equivalent to about 15 pages worth of paragraphs.... it's takes forever to find what you are looking for.  Its difficult.  And whats up with the huge blank gaps in the pages between the different sub-categories??  All the pages are like that... Also the whole format on the pages that has some sort of menu kind of thing at the top and then the links jump down to certain sections of the page is such an old webdesign trick.  This website is getting more and more popular and contains all sorts of new and innovative information.  The website itself needs to be more cutting edge so people can more easily find what they are looking for.  No offense to the site admins (you guys rule) but I think that the old design and lack of update in the site is the reason that everyone goes straight to the message boards and immediately posts a question about something that is already answered elsewhere in the site...

Let me give you ONE little example of something that would be extremely useful to anyone who visits the site:

http://www.fraggersxtreme.com/arcadepanels/encoder/

Look at that keyboard encoder comparison. It's great.  This was created a while back by someone from the messageboard.  How come this never made it into the actual real part of the website?  I've seen like 3 or 4 topics in the last week that say "which encoder is the best?" or "IPAC vs Keywiz" or something...  Remember this is just one example of many...

[saint]

Good posting, couple of things I want to throw out:

First, the site is horribly out of date.  I am working on a different project right now that will be for the most part finished in early January.  Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, but it's literally been a second full time job, easily 30+ hours a week.  Once it's finished, a complete page by page revision of the web site is my next goal.  There are things that are outdated, expired, or just plain wrong in some cases.  

Second, I desperately want to move away from static HTML to something dynamic, probably a proprietary PHP/mysql backed system.  The donations page is an example of a page that is created dynamically. People who donate are added to a mysql database, and the total donations and list of names is created on the fly.  Updating is just a database update now, instead of working on static HTML.  

I also want to move away from editing by hand to a web development system, such as Dreamweaver or Net Objects Fusion.  Previous attempts to import the BYOAC content into one of those packages was horrible, so I'll look again but it's probably an entire site redesign. Rather than take forever to do that it'll probably happen section by section.  

Table of contents will need revising too.  Something to give a better flow and easier access to answers.  For instance, where's the definitions page?  It's under Tech & Tips, but good luck knowing that.  Also, another great example of a page screaming for php/mysql.  Have a new definition?  Add it to the database page through a form, have it automatically alphabetize it for you and voila.  I can't wait to get to something like that.

SO: Come first quarter 2004 I hope you begin to see a different story.  I'll probably be asking for some php/mysql help as my attempts at bringing myself up to speed are hampered by real life things (like child #3).   I've had many offers of help in the past, but have never had the time and resources to take advantage of them properly.

It's going to be a heck of a lot of work.  Among other things, I can't just take something like Tiger-Heli's encoder comparison and put it on my web site.  It's not my content.  I believe he'll allow it, but  it would be presumptious to simply assume so, and a copyright violation at worst.

There are many things I would have been willing to put online, such as the vector library (although I have copyright concerns and probably would have opted not to in the long run) and the catalog of cabinet dimensions, that I simply didn't have the time to do justice to.  That should be a different story come January, but those sites already exist.  I'll certainly link to them, but I'm not sure it'd be fair to try to take over hosting of that content.  I'm certainly willing.  I always intended this site to be a one stop shop, and while I think it was at the beginning age has made it no longer so.

With an eye to this I may be upgrading the server to a much bigger and faster server if load warrants.  As is right now we're upgrading from 256 megs to 384 megs of RAM as soon as Servepath gets that done.

At any rate, it was a well thought out posting that deserved a good answer. Hope this is one  

Cheers and happy holidays!

--- saint

[Jakobud]

Yeah it was a good answer.  Sounds good Saint.  Hopefully I can lend a hand if necessary.  Thanks!

[Jakobud]

When is this website gonna get updated and revamped?  What is the plan here?

[saint]

Starting now?

By now it should be obvious the other project I was working on was the book.   It took longer than I thought it would, running up until last night at 2:30 AM in fact

I'm taking some time off, going to take a vacation (gonna see the mouse), and come back and start working on the redesign.

No time like the present to start talking about it though. New thread in this forum being written now . . .

--- saint

When is this website gonna get updated and revamped?  What is the plan here?