View Full Version : Thoughts on Journlas on WhiteBlaze
I have another item I would like feedback on. Profile and I have been looking into the prospects of putting journals on WhiteBlaze. I have already been in contact with several software programmers that will do this for us. It is very expensive though. Way more then what the patches cost that I stuck my neck out for. The other thing about this is that it is not like patches. We will or I will not get the money back like when I sold patches. I personally want to see WhiteBlaze with online journals. But that is just my opinion. I don’t know how any of you feel? I personally feel that we have the best Appalachian Trail site on the internet. I may be a little bias on this. If that is the case why not improve on it and try and have everything on one web site. So that way users will not have to jump from one web site to another to get what they want.
If I can come up with the funds and I get the ball rolling they still will not be done prior to the beginning of the thru-hiker season which seems to be around the beginning of March. The programmer is saying it should be done about the beginning of May. That is if the ball gets rolling soon.
1. Does anyone have ideas and feedback?
2. Do you think this is a good idea?
3. Do you think I should start a fund raiser for this?
4. Should I leave things the way they are?
5. Should I use some of the donation money to help with funding this if everyone agrees?
Let me know what you all think on this.
Kerosene
01-29-2004, 01:39
I'm not convinced that spending a signficant sum to enhance the site with trail journals is really a good investment, especially considering the popularity of TrailJournals.com. I don't think that adding this would make the best AT site on the Internet that much better. I'd rather raise money to ensure that the site is properly hosted and cared for.
Rather than trying to add comparable functionality here, you might think about working with TrailJournals.com to see if we could more tightly integrate the sites in some way.
Regardless of the way you decide to go, I enjoy the site enough that I will contribute something. Keep on thinking!
Miss Janet
01-29-2004, 01:59
Most of us on WhiteBlaze are just as often on Trailjournals.com. Zip and Leif have done a fantastic job there and I support them 100% I don't think WhiteBlaze has to be EVERTHING... Both WhiteBlaze and Trailjournals are great sites but offer different things. I really hope we don't go into competition with them. :(
I'm not just agreeing with miss janet because shes the best woman in Erwin. :)
I think things are great here. Why change? Why fix it if it ain't broken. I'm on trailjournals for journals and whiteblaze for forums and discussion. Those guys have worked hard to make that place run on a very limited budget, as have you guys. There forum is nothing on Whiteblaze, so why completely monopolize when each site can have their own purpose. Whiteblaze right now is a great place. Thanks much ATTROLL!
No Miss Janet. This is in no way a competition. I love TrailsJournals. I go there often myself to read them. I am not trying to take away their users. I hope I did not make that impression.
The reason I even meantion it was because I have someone that may be willing to help with funding with journals on WhiteBlaze. I have also had several users asking if we have ever considered journals. So that was why I brought it up. I have a deep respect for Leif. In fact he has help me with a problem I had most recently and has passed some information on to me about things. He seems like a great guy. I hope to meet him some day.
Uncle Wayne
01-29-2004, 03:53
I'd vote no to adding anything other than what we already have as far as journals go, especially if major funding is involved. Trailjournals.com has that corner of the market and Whiteblaze.net has it's corner. I hope there never gets to be a conflict between the two. In our present format there won't ever be a conflict. IMO.
MedicineMan
01-29-2004, 08:09
I concur with Uncle Wayne and Miss Janet and cast a no vote.
Its hard not to walmartize good things but I feel a move in that direction would be not be appropriate and for several reasons.
In this virtual world I think our (Whiteblaze) section on hike reports is a perfect compliment to TrailJournals.com and the information garnered through these reports is most often much much more detailed. I'm not saying that Whiteblaze is for section hikers/conversely look at our population, with names like Doyle and Tarlin that is a moot point but all here who have visited TrailJournals will attest the reports from the thru's becomes less and less reports of the wonder of the trail but of a day to day grind. How many of you rush to the end post to see if someone has dropped out? In the harshness of competition who can doubt that Whiteblaze crushed (maybe deservedly so, maybe not) Wingfoot's site. Personally I dont want that to happen to Trailjournals.com, certainly a link between the sites is mutually beneficial but no internecine act should be commited toward them. The same thoughts also go to Sgt. Rocks site, a niche each his own.
MedicineMan
I have another item I would like feedback on ... putting journals on WhiteBlaze.
1. Does anyone have ideas and feedback?
2. Do you think this is a good idea?
3. Do you think I should start a fund raiser for this?
4. Should I leave things the way they are?
5. Should I use some of the donation money to help with funding this if everyone agrees?
Let me know what you all think on this.
1. I basically agree with most of the feedback so far - don't do it if it is in a form at all similar to TrailJournals.com. As for ideas - how about an area of the forum for "personal threads" - that is to say threads that are generally viewable but are restricted to a limited number of users for posting. I think that this may already be present on this forum IIRC. If you take the idea of personal threads and coordinate it with whoever wants to post a "journal" or other stuff specific to a particular user then isn't that basically a journal without the expensive software?
2. Good idea - no - not if it costs more.
3. Fund raisers are probably a good idea but not for this purpose specifically
4. leave asis - not necessarialy - possibly expand on the idea of personal threads - possibly give people who are not interested the option of not seeing the new posts on these threads as a grouped option - ie yes/no do you want to see the personal threads selection in the user CP.
5. use of donated money - use for the forum as you see fit but I consider expensive software specific for journals to be a questionable use
MadAussieInLondon
01-29-2004, 08:52
your running php, so for journals, just get some free php stuff. what you need is some blogging software that does multiple users type thing. same thing with forums. lots of good free forum software out there. so too with CMS stuff (content management stuff)
i should add, if i wasnt going on my hike in a few weeks, id offer to write some for free. hell, if you need any PHP stuff done, (after my hike). drop me a line.. obviously i will only have limited time (ie: nights, some hours on weekends, etc).. but my whiteblaze fees $0 :)
mm wont be back in the UK till bout october or november tho so... anyway.
i agree with ALL of the ABOVE!
i frequent Trailjournals.com often & have journals there....probably most
WhiteBlaze.netters do!
so, simply put i vote NO to journals.
thanks for all your hard work to make WhiteBlaze.net the awesome website that it is!
SGT Rock
01-29-2004, 10:26
My original post got lost, I'm trying again. Stupid Baghdad Internet sucks LOL. I guess I should be greatful I get it occasionally.
I really appriciate the offer from whomever it was to help get journal software up and running. But I really feel that posting journals would end up creating some unneeded conflict between Whiteblaze and TrailJournals. I really respect what Lief and ZipDrive have done from scratch with their site. A lot of our members maintain journals over there and I seem fine with that arrangement.
Besides all that there is the extra hassle of servers, bandwith, complaints about contents from the more sensitive hikers about the cruder hikers, etc. The board seems enough for now.
What I would like to see are more articles from some of our members with specialties to contribute. There are some talented gear makers, dehydrating culinary experts, thru-hiking re-supply gurus, historians that could write good articles about the trail's past, etc. How about a featured article link and more active article submissions?
1. I basically agree with most of the feedback so far - don't do it if it is in a form at all similar to TrailJournals.com. As for ideas - how about an area of the forum for "personal threads" - that is to say threads that are generally viewable but are restricted to a limited number of users for posting. I think that this may already be present on this forum IIRC. If you take the idea of personal threads and coordinate it with whoever wants to post a "journal" or other stuff specific to a particular user then isn't that basically a journal without the expensive software?
HOI
I would like to hear more of what you mean about this personal threads thing. I have this option for WhiteBlaze now that I can create a forum and no-one can see our use it unless they subscribe to it. So that means that any posts in this forum will not show up to any others or show up in the new posts for that forum unless you are subscribed to it. I have never had a reason to activate something like this. I can do it but, what would the purpose of it serve?
Rain Man
01-29-2004, 13:25
I love the camaraderie and mutual support among good organizations of any ilk.
Since the consensus is that we'd prefer to support TrailJournals.com (or is it org?) rather than compete with them, why not post a prominent link to their site, for journals. Maybe they'd do the same for WhiteBlaze for the forums and daily commentary? Both would be stronger than they already are.
Just an idea. Cooperate? Yes. Compete. No.
Rain Man
.
I love the camaraderie and mutual support among good organizations of any ilk.
Since the consensus is that we'd prefer to support TrailJournals.com (or is it org?) rather than compete with them, why not post a prominent link to their site, for journals. Maybe they'd do the same for WhiteBlaze for the forums and daily commentary? Both would be stronger than they already are.
Just an idea. Cooperate? Yes. Compete. No.
Rain Man
.
I have a link for them in our links section already. Were you thinking of putting it on the front page?
Well maybe I had a bad idea. Attroll and I were emailing off the forum and we discussed putting journals up. It was just a thought. Oh well not every idea is a good one. :datz
Our emails were focused on ideas for the site and how people on the site could help Attroll pay for the expense. I do not think he wants to come off as begging or hitting people for money. So I will ask that some people pitch in. Buy the patches send a few extra dollars. The patches are real nice. I have grown to really like this site and so have many others so I fell as if it is the least I can do.
HOI
I would like to hear more of what you mean about this personal threads thing. I have this option for WhiteBlaze now that I can create a forum and no-one can see our use it unless they subscribe to it. So that means that any posts in this forum will not show up to any others or show up in the new posts for that forum unless you are subscribed to it. I have never had a reason to activate something like this. I can do it but, what would the purpose of it serve?
What I was thinking of was an operation similar to a journal where only one or two people could post on the thread but "everyone who wants to" could read the posts. Then collect all these personal threads into a single (?) group that people interested in the "journals" could subscribe to (that is to say subscribe to the whole group). As to the purpose - well already I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of threads with new content that come up after a day or a two away from the computer - by permitting the users to select whethet they want to see the added content from the "journals" it makes it easier to handle the volume. Mostly I was thinking of some sort of a way to only see the new content for those areas of interest and then for the other areas have the ability to browse to those areas but the new content in those areas would not appear automatically. One obvious area of interest would be these "journals" - not every one wants to see all the new content all the time.
I am afraid I am not explaining it very well - the purpose is sort of a user friendliness to avoid overwhelming those users that use the New Posts button for all their reading.
Brushy Sage
01-29-2004, 18:32
This is a very dynamic site, responsive to the full spectrum of interests in the hiking community. As long as it is thriving, I hope you will not make any major changes in accessibility either for posting or reading.
Rain Man
01-29-2004, 19:43
I have a link for them in our links section already. Were you thinking of putting it on the front page?
Honestly I didn't know you already had a link. Not even sure when I last visited the Links page... thus I'll do so now! :)
If I was thinking, it was probably to put the link wherever you would be putting the journals forums if you put them on here. Clear as mud?
Rain Man
.
Honestly I didn't know you already had a link. Not even sure when I last visited the Links page... thus I'll do so now! :)
If I was thinking, it was probably to put the link wherever you would be putting the journals forums if you put them on here. Clear as mud?
Rain Man
.
I like that idea I will email Leif at TrailJournals later tonight or tomorrow and see if he is willing to do that with WhiteBlaze.
What I was thinking of was an operation similar to a journal where only one or two people could post on the thread but "everyone who wants to" could read the posts. Then collect all these personal threads into a single (?) group that people interested in the "journals" could subscribe to (that is to say subscribe to the whole group). As to the purpose - well already I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of threads with new content that come up after a day or a two away from the computer - by permitting the users to select whethet they want to see the added content from the "journals" it makes it easier to handle the volume. Mostly I was thinking of some sort of a way to only see the new content for those areas of interest and then for the other areas have the ability to browse to those areas but the new content in those areas would not appear automatically. One obvious area of interest would be these "journals" - not every one wants to see all the new content all the time.
I am afraid I am not explaining it very well - the purpose is sort of a user friendliness to avoid overwhelming those users that use the New Posts button for all their reading.
What we have on WhiteBlaze that I was trying to describe has been implemented as a test area a couple months ago. You go look at it and see if that is similar to what you were talking about. What I did was set up a whole separate forum for The Long Trail. It has been on here for months but I never mentioned it because it was a just playing with it and testing it out. In order to see it you will have to go to your users profile and on the left column select “Group Memberships”. You should see The Long Trail user group in the list. You will have to click on “Join Group”. Once you have done that then a whole new forum will should up in you forum listing.
I don’t know if this is what you meant. As for subscribing to a forum. You can pick a certain forum and just subscribe to it so that when a new message is posted you a notice sent to you in your email.
Jack Tarlin
01-30-2004, 17:11
I agree 100% with what Rock said; Trailjournals is widely known as THE best site for trip journals and diaries; Whiteblaze is widely becoming known as the best information storehouse, the best place to exchange useful information on the Trail; the best place to go to for planning and preparation; the best interactive Forums, and so on.
Rock is also right that folks should contribute other stuff----useful articles, stories, recipes, whatever. But as for adding diaries and journals, right now I think we're better off keeping things the way they are, rather than "competing", even indirectly, with another site that is primarily devoted to posting and archiving diaries and journals. Trailjournals.com is great at what they do; we're great at what we have to offer. I think for the moment, we should leave it that way.
I did not make decission or was not set on putting journals on WhiteBlaze. I had thought about it in the past and done some research on it. But the funding was not there. I had someone offer to back me in funding journals on WhiteBlaze so that was why I asked for everyones opinion. I was never set on doing it. The concess seems to rule that we stay the way we are and I am good with that. We are still growing right now. It would be better to wait and see how much traffic the site gets and uses about this time next year. I think it would be nice to have journals on WhiteBlaze someday. But I know that TrailJournals is an awesome site and after thinking about it, it might be better to just let them have the market so to speek on journals. We are not in this to compete with others and steel there users. The way I look at it, we are here to help each other and work together. Right now we are doing really well on the new server (knock on wood). I really don't want to jump into running another pieces of software on the server at this time. I need to update the photo software again because a new update has come out for it and the forum software has another update. I am going to hold off a lttle on doing these. There is no big hurry because everything is working fine.
So as for Journals. It is a no go. I want to thank everyone for there inputs and feedback.
Brushy Sage
01-30-2004, 18:08
I did not make decission or was not set on putting journals on WhiteBlaze. I had thought about it in the past and done some research on it. But the funding was not there. I had someone offer to back me in funding journals on WhiteBlaze so that was why I asked for everyones opinion. I was never set on doing it. The concess seems to rule that we stay the way we are and I am good with that. We are still growing right now. It would be better to wait and see how much traffic the site gets and uses about this time next year. I think it would be nice to have journals on WhiteBlaze someday. But I know that TrailJournals is an awesome site and after thinking about it, it might be better to just let them have the market so to speek on journals. We are not in this to compete with others and steel there users. The way I look at it, we are here to help each other and work together. Right now we are doing really well on the new server (knock on wood). I really don't want to jump into running another pieces of software on the server at this time. I need to update the photo software again because a new update has come out for it and the forum software has another update. I am going to hold off a lttle on doing these. There is no big hurry because everything is working fine.
So as for Journals. It is a no go. I want to thank everyone for there inputs and feedback.
I think that's a very wise decision. I also want to compliment you on the photograph displays. Often when I sign in, I get caught up in looking through the pictures. Most of them are really good. They bring back a lot of memories -- of amazing sights I have seen or would like to see in person.
SGT Rock
01-31-2004, 01:55
Here, Here! I love the photos. They have been a source of numerous desktops throughout the Camp.