TAY software upgrade - Feedback requested!

With the help of one of TAY’s community members, we’re going to bring the site onto a more modern web platform.  The main goals of the upgrade, at this point:

• Improve security and ease of content management;
• Improve the overall user experience with respect to Trip Report creation, photo/video uploading, etc.;
• Build the site using largely existing out-of-the-box tools to speed development and future upgrades;
• Bring TAY onto a platform that has more power and flexibility for features/projects in the future, as yet unplanned;

I’m posting this because, while I own the place, it has always been a community resource and I want to try to capture the various uses and important features that y’all  value, which may not occur to me.  Now is the time to speak up about what you like, what you don’t like, or any ideas that you might have to make the place function better for you.

Please indicate whether particular features (existing or new) are "must have" or "nice to have".  We'll take a look at all the ideas we get and see what fits best with the project goals.  Down the road, this upgrade should make it much easier to make both significant changes and fine-tuned adjustments to the site.

Thanks!

I find the format for trip reports easy to use. If we had the option to place videos in line with our text, like we can with photos (instead of a link that directs your browser elsewhere), I would use that option.

Don't know how many other cavemen with slow connections are out there, but how about moving the 'Info Center' from the bottom to the top of the Trip Reports page?

Thanks Markus.

I do like the simple layout of the site. My feedback would be there's no need for anything fancy.

Also, there is real value in the historical repository of trip reports and discussion threads. It'd be great to see the whole site from "day 1" make the transition to the new platform. On this note, if it's possible (it may already be) to store photos on the site as opposed to linking to an external source, this would maintain the integrity of TR's with photos. Lots of older TR photo links are dead since the external source has moved, been deleted, etc.

Thanks again for all your hard work and effort keeping this community connected in such a wonderful way!

Hey Marcus,

I think a updated forum section would be nice. I like the tapatalk forum app that you can use on iphone/android which allows for easy integration and mobile browsing on forums. Another thing would be nice would be an updated home page, the current one seems a bit dated and formatted a bit off.

Another thing if you migrate off your current hosted provider you could migrate this onto AWS (Amazon Web Services) and use their compute cloud platform to host the site. I work for AWS and could help you setup this part and secure it very tight.

I think a trip report section that didn't require you to open a forum would be kind of cool. Click a 'trip report button' select the date, name, title etc.. Add in pictures and txt and hit submit, then it could automatically update to the trip report section in a formatted way that looks the same in every report? Maybe also have a option to upload GPS tracks in it too.

If we could setup something for each individual user such as strava stats or garmin stats, that could be fun to have a leader board to see who has the most vert logged each month.

Anyways, some idea's and food for thought. Let me know if you want help on implementing anything on the site.

If providing info on current conditions is the relevant purpose of TR's, then the current ability to go back no more than 3 months, or so, to reply/discuss, is acceptable.  But I would like the ability to layer content ( or to note others' comments), over a longer timeline for a particular location or tour.  In Random Tracks, one can respond to any topic since the beginning of time..   for better or worse..

First I would like to say thank you Marcus for running the site.

It would be great to have the ability to upload KMZ files along with with photos. Embedding youtube and other videos, as mentioned by mikerolfs would be great as well.

For me the most important thing in any upgrade is to avoid breaking links to old posts.

Certain other local sites (which shall remain nameless but which have more than one "C" in their name) have done a terrible job of this.

Ideally, the URL of a thread or individual post should never change.

Beyond that, I favor keeping the monthly organization of the trip reports. It makes it easier to find things (sort of like a journal) and it helps move the discussion along. Topics in previous months tend to die out pretty quickly as people move on.

I visit TAY frequently, so I don't really need it, but some sites (NWHikers.net is one) have a "notify of followup post" feature that lets you know if somebody has replied to a thread that you've participated in. Might be nice, but it would also be good for frequent visitors to be able to turn it off.

Thanks Marcus! (and anonymous helper)

I visit TAY frequently, so I don't really need it, but some sites (NWHikers.net is one) have a "notify of followup post" feature that lets you know if somebody has replied to a thread that you've participated in. Might be nice, but it would also be good for frequent visitors to be able to turn it off.

Are you looking for a profile-level setting for this, or an individual thread setting (or both)? The latter is currently available and I think you can achieve the former with a few changes to your notification settings in your profile.

w.r.t. migrating to the cloud, think it through before you move. Hosting + storage for forum data can get expensive quickly. But the tradeoffs in scalability, reliability and support/maintenance might be worth it. One thing to consider would be providing image hosting backed via a cloud storage service (e.g. Amazon's S3). The APIs are easy to develop such a feature with and then the problem of TRs losing their photos when the hosting service goes under or URLs change vanishes.

I agree with adding a feature to easily embed streaming video - most modern message board platforms support this (e.g. TGR's forums).

Other than that, just keep it simple and don't make too many dramatic changes all at once!

Also to note if you end up using AWS S3, I work for aws and support it for all of our customers if you run into snags.

Marcus,

Sounds ridiculous when I say it but I like modern emoticons. If the forum had the ability to redirect (or directly host, but I imagine storage req's would skyrocket) all kinds of other files like movies, GIFs, KMZs, etc that would be great too.

Your individual work is much appreciated by me. If upgrade cost is an issue I'd make a donation if you pass the PayPal basket around.

Total non-essential wish list items, but there are some very smart skiers and Seattle is a tech town now so I'll throw them out there.

1. A map with tours on it that links to a list of all associated TR's going back in time. I'd like to be able to search by area (visually) rather than just by name, so that if I'm curious about an area I could just pull up the map and see if anyone had been there before.

2. a way to cross reference trip reports with a database of weather data a bit more efficiently than it currently is, in particular snow fall data vs. road access coverage. I'd imagine that in time, someone smarter than myself could create a bit of software that could guess the probability of you driving to a given trailhead.

regarding realistic requests, I'd second whoever asked for on-site photo hosting. It'd be great if TAY would store photos and their associated trip reports together forever.

The chronological listing is key. Means you can find stuff from the past, explore previous years.

Being able to search for previous trips by geographical location is also important.

I like it the way it is, so I'd 2nd the 'don't change too much, too fast' vibe.

Also, instead of paying for a cloud hosting service, can't the photo/ video data all be hosted peer-peer by TAY folks, reducing the cost to zero, plus that vibe is in keeping with the community ethos? (I'm a technological dunce though so forgive me if this is just plain dumb).

regarding realistic requests, I'd second whoever asked for on-site photo hosting. It'd be great if TAY would store photos and their associated trip reports together forever.

TAY does do that. Three images per post, with a fixed photo file size. I've come to appreciate the format, as it helps me distill for quality. Becoming a full-on photo host might add a lot of administrative overhead + bandwidth/storage costs?

I think it would be neat to be able to 'tag' the folks that were on the trip with you. That way if I want to see what kind of skiing a person does before I respond to a "partners wanted" post, I can look up their name and all of their trips will come up, not just the ones they authored. I also like the way NWHikers segregates TRs from Posts. I'm more interested in a person's trip reports than their comments, so it would be neat to be able to search TR's seperate from all recent posts.

I'd love to see some functionality with mobile devices. I belong to several other forums and most of them tether to a mobile app called Tapatalk. Makes it really easy to see all your stuff in once place!

A " view new posts" button wouild be great. It would run a quick report in the backgound and show you all the post since you last visit, with a cap of 2-3 days. Splitbaord.com runs one and it is a quick way to see whats current across the entire board.

A " view new posts" button wouild be great.  It would run a quick report in the backgound and show you all the post since you last visit, with a cap of 2-3 days.  Splitbaord.com runs one and it is a quick way to see whats current across the entire board.

You can get some of this functionality by scrolling to the bottom of the main trip-reports page; it shows recent posts to the board. To make it a little easier to view (when you're logged in), you can collapse each year's trip reports by clicking the little arrow at left.

For the last ten posts to TAY, you can visit www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?action=recent

It would be kind of cool if TAY had a "like" button on trip reports for social media platforms. Not sure that goes well with the vibe of the site but I would certainly enjoy the feature. Also didn't even know TAY had a FB page until now so maybe have another button to "like" TAY in general somewhere on the site.

TAY FB page ---> www.facebook.com/groups/18868349698/

Perhaps I just need to study how to reduce my photos but upgrading to HD photos seems appealing. Not sure if GPS info would transfer with the photo but that is a feature on some cameras (and phones?).
Are you going to increase area for commercial ads for $? Nice if support ads remain simple and inactive. Linking to their sites is good but annoying if they are constantly popping up and trying to sell you another jacket because you showed previous interest. (although that might be a feature one could turn on and off?)

From the weather links button the NWAC telemetry links don't work anymore.

It would be really really nice if my PM notifications worked (again). They used to work and then mysteriously stopped working about 2-3 yrs. ago. For example just now, after logging in, I got a PM from three days ago... not good.


I've PMed Marcus twice before about this (I think once a year), and I've checked everything on my end including changing my e-mail reception of PM's, etc.
Boxes are all checked: "Notify by email every time you receive a personal message."


Apparently I'm not the only one this is happening too... it would be really nice to have this basic functionality restored! (so that I don't feel like a total schmuck when I answer someones PM like a week later....

PM notification and NWAC telemetry (purple dot most recent 24 hr data) work fine for me.  Maybe a reward for posting conditions reports? 

And TAY site renders quickly and clearly on my cell phone, unlike the reports I hear about the new FOAC site. Thanks Marcus!

PM notification ... work fine for me.  Maybe a reward for posting conditions reports? 

hmmmm... I seem to be on the inverse plan: the more reports I post, the less PM's (or any notifications) seem to function. Maybe stop posting?--or just get reborn as silaswild?

Thanks for TAY. Amazing such a valuable resource has gone ok this long on the old SMF platform. Yes, TAY is due for an upgrade that will allow upgrades! And mobile is important.

Thank you very much for your work on the site. I think it would be useful to have a search function. Also, I think it would be useful to have a specific section under "trip reports" for posting questions about conditions.

Cheers

I think it would be useful to have a search function.

www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...ex.php?action=search  works well. Get to this page by clicking on the blue "Search" word just below "Yuki Award" button on the top line of the TR page.

I would like the email PM notification to contain the body of the PM.

This is the only place where I often get a really slow load and regular 500 and 404 codes. Any connection to the need at hand or is it just me?

Hi Marcus, et.al.
Anything new shaking on the website? The TAY page on my phone looks different, but the desktop looks the same. I miss my quick links to the weather click maps and the NWS forecasts.

Thanks! I know you guys have put in alot of work. Can't wait to see it.
Don aka Rusty