[C320-list] Forum "architecture"

[Jeff Hare]

Dear members.

This is long but important as it marks a turning point.

I'm really not trying to be a brick wall here, but since this is and has
been essentially "my baby" whether I really wanted it or not for the past 12
years, let's clear up a few things. I'm a professional software engineer by
trade with a background in electrical engineering. I sit in front of a bank
of monitors and write software for web startup companies 10 hours a day as I
have for years. I completely understand this stuff inside and out at a level
that makes most people run screaming from the room.  :)

So, first I'll state the obvious so we're all on the same page.

Today we have an email based discussion list, not a browser driven forum. We
also set up a Google Discussion group that is Read-Only for searching (
**for now** ). Google is the undeniable expert in search. The reason for an
email discussion list is partly historical and partly because it is
incredibly easy for members to participate, even when out on your boat in a
harbor with very slow Wi-Fi or poor cell coverage. Try browsing or searching
a web forum from your phone or tablet with only a single non-4G bar on your
phone. Talk about frustrating!!! Text based email on the other hand will
come through quickly and you're likely to get an answer to urgent questions
just as quickly.

If you want a place to carry on categorized social discussions, forums are
great vehicle for that. This was really intended to be an owners technical
support forum, not a social forum. So CLEARLY we disagree on the intended
goal here.

I will add that searching most BBS/web based discussion forums can be a
frustrating experience because nearly all BBS systems rely on the database
engine text matching for locating results. That totally stinks for finding
quality results in context. Good contextual search is *very* hard. The C34's
forum is no different there. Quality historical search is the reason for
setting up an archive history using Google Groups.

Our discussion list *CAN* allow pictures, attachments, rich text, all that
and more.  That opens the door to viruses, inappropriate posts, etc.. (a
tradeoff).  We (I) deliberately operate it in plain text mode because of the
List's builtin archiving feature.  You can download all the discussion list
history to your laptop or tablet and have it available off line.  These
archives go back to October 2005 and cover everything that was ever
discussed here. You can see this in action here:  
http://lists.catalina320.com/pipermail/c320-list-catalina320.com/

The intent was that some volunteer or team of volunteers could use these
text based archives to produce a solid knowledge base of information and
best practices that has been captured in discussions over time. Because they
are plain text and require no special software to read, that makes them a
snap to copy/paste into any article or knowledge base.  So that's something
anyway that isn't *useless* as I keep hearing.  I intended to write some
software that would organize and keyword index these to use on our website.
Best laid plans...

Ok, Great, or Terrible depending on which of the many sides of this
discussion you happen to fall on.

The plan is (and has been for some time now) to enable social media Single
Sign-On into our website so that if you're signed into Google, Facebook,
Twitter or a myriad of other options, we'll be able to authenticate you as
an association member and allow you to participate without having to sign in
all over the place. Then we would make the switch over so that you can
participate in the discussion list through the Google Group web interface,
through email or both.  And it would be second nature and just work.

Just "wanting it" isn't enough to make it happen. There are many safeguards
that have to fall in place to keep things restricted to owners and those who
have a genuine interest in the Catalina 320.  This means writing and testing
more custom software. No out of the box system does this completely today.
None. It has to be programmed into existence and maintained, or you have to
decide which of the features you have now you're willing to give up in
exchange.  There is nothing but a large set of trade-offs to make here.

A new mobile device responsive version of our website was in development as
I write this. Frankly, it'll still take months more of my time to complete,
but it was coming together.  Our website is a unique among most of the other
association websites out there because it was architected as a community
site where individual members or groups of members can be granted rights to
enhance the site, its content etc.. The new site work in development would
be a major visual facelift and also add new set of community features where
members can more easily add/remove content, articles, share documents,
pictures, videos and other knowledge base information. Does it need a
content reorg, absolutely. Are all the right features set up so that they're
easy to use? Not yet. Is the site searching up to google standards? No, but
leveraging google site search instead of database search is a feature I was
researching.

It comes down to Time, Skilled Resources and Motivation to make this happen,
or paying a third party to do it.

Time: I have huge demands on my time these days. As of last week, we haven't
sailed our boat *anywhere at all* in 2 full years now.  Literally, floated
it off the trailer in the spring, to the dock, and back to the trailer in
the fall. 1 hr on the engine in 2 years. Awesome...  What exactly should I
trade off so that I can devote get several hundred hours of my spare time to
make all these changes people think are so easy to make?

Skilled resources: So far, it's just me even though every year I plead with
the association members to volunteer. (Thank you SO MUCH David Prudden,
Karl, Sean, Warren who all stepped up to help with website content and
membership details!!!!) Those with the skill know it's really hard and could
easily consume every available bit of their free time. It's far easier to
hide in the wings (which had I to do over again in retrospect...). Those
without the skills simply ask "what's the holdup?", or hey, XYZ is doing it
so it must be easy and we're all just bozos stuck in the stone age. Thanks
for that.

Motivation: I have to say, repeating this discussion every year doesn't help
much either.

Money:  I'm a volunteer. Not just in time, but also money as I hosted these
services for the association for several years out of pocket on my own
servers when this wasn't as cheap or easy as it is now.  A decent low end
community portal can easily cost 20-75K to develop.  Or you can have a
pretty WordPress or Drupal blog for free but give up most forms of member
managed content we can support today.

Sorry to say, that to that end, I'll be porting everything we have over to
the new free hosting account for non-profits I set up for this association
and stepping aside from the C320 board when my term is up this fall.  I
stayed on an extra 2 years already, now it's really time to move on.

Maybe I'll get my boat finished in time to sail it over to the haulout
trailer for winter.  I'll try to make the transition process as painless as
possible.  The membership will be free to establish whatever online
resources the association chooses to afford, but be clear that someone will
be required to make a commitment as I have done to keep things running,
manage the security, membership, whatever is next. I've paid my dues, and
now it's time for the critics among us to step up to the plate.  It can be
made a lot better, I just don't have time to do it and by staying on, I'm an
impediment to forward progress.  I guess I'll keep my stone tools however.

I've found the discussion list to be immensely helpful over the years in its
various forms, and I'm sure it'll do just fine in whatever format the group
ends up adopting.

Cheers!
-Jeff Hare
#809 Woodbine II