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Thread: websites

  1. #11

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    Jim when I lived in Sacramento I worked all the time and no time for much else. But I do love that area. The weather is the best I have ever seen. I was in that area for about 8 years. I drove past a glider air park a few times. Its been so long ago I could not tell you the location.
    When it comes to clubs and aviation all together. Its a dieing sport or hobby. We can all argue this but it is what it is. Aviation just does not have the young ones lining up to become pilots. We do see some but not like years past.
    If they where to redo this list in a few years half these clubs will be gone. I know of at least a few in my area that will be gone in 3-5 years if they hold on that long.

    Tony

  2. #12
    Jim Heffelfinger's Avatar
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    A quick history of the EAA chapter websites hosted by webs.com.
    About two years ago EAA created a website homepage for each chapter in EAA. This was a basic homepage with the ability for each chapter to add content as they wished.
    The program was created to eliminate the problems many chapters had either with no website or websites that were at one point active but webmasters have gone on to other places leaving the site outdated and nearly useless.
    EAA wanted to have easily accessible links to each chapter site so that someone interested in becoming a chapter member could quickly and easily find a chapter any place they go or have interest in. It became clear, very quickly, that the only way of doing this was to create the site themselves
    By cruising around at the various EAA hosted chapter websites you will find a variety of content. A chapter may only have a homepage that may or may not be current (it was at one time) , it may have some small limited content or you may find one with a tremendous amount of content including customized headers and footers nearly unrecognizable from its original form.
    Chapter 52 in Sacramento was one of those chapters with at one time an excellent website with tremendous content, beautifully laid out with lots of widgets and links to weather stations, and then the webmaster disappeared, we lost contact with the server and went through endless hours trying to get the old site turnoff so that we would not look like a bunch of buffoons.
    I personally keep up my chapter site and have from the beginning of the EAA created sites. I really appreciate EAA creating the basic framework within which I can add content. Using the Webs tools it's fairly easy to keep the site updated- limited only by my imagination and time.


  3. #13
    PaulDow's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 1600vw View Post
    What he is saying, you get a generic page with limit info just a link to someone's e-mail. I too found this frustrating when I first joined. I thought more info should be available to the members about each club not just an e-mail of some Joe.
    OK. I get it now. The problem isn't the links, it's that many chapters aren't putting more content on their web sites.

    Unlike Minor League Baseball where the league can require the Timber Rattlers to have a web site with specific content that is current, the EAA chapters operate as independent corporations with support from the mother ship, so they can't put any requirements out there (well, not without a lot of complaining.)

    Maybe the template provided to chapters can be changed to put meeting time and location. Add another couple of fields to the function that puts the chapter president and phone number. A blanket statement about what chapters do could go there too. If a chapter puts up their own content, it would replace it.

  4. #14
    EAA Staff / Moderator Hal Bryan's Avatar
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    Thanks for helping provide some clarity while I was out, Paul!

    A little clarification of my own:

    Quote Originally Posted by PaulDow View Post
    Maybe the template provided to chapters can be changed to put meeting time and location. Add another couple of fields to the function that puts the chapter president and phone number.
    First off, if Chapters are using the EAA Events Calendar as we encourage all of them to do, then their meetings will automatically show up on the home page and the events page. The home page has code that automatically displays all events in the next 30 days, while the Events page shows all upcoming events, period.

    Quote Originally Posted by PaulDow View Post
    A blanket statement about what chapters do could go there too. If a chapter puts up their own content, it would replace it.
    This is already included on the About page of each site.

    Hal Bryan
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    EAA—The Spirit of Aviation

  5. #15
    cub builder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Heffelfinger View Post
    A quick history of the EAA chapter websites hosted by webs.com.
    I personally keep up my chapter site and have from the beginning of the EAA created sites. I really appreciate EAA creating the basic framework within which I can add content. Using the Webs tools it's fairly easy to keep the site updated- limited only by my imagination and time.
    I had the exact opposite experience with the Webs.com tools. I thought the tools were really clunky and difficult to use. I would much rather build and test my web pages on my system using the site builder tools I work with daily, then push the pages to the EAA Web site. When I complained to the admin and asked to be allowed to FTP our existing chapter web pages to the web site rather than being forced to rebuild our site from scratch with a set of unfamiliar clunky tools, I was told I was the only web master to complain about the tools and they weren't willing to accommodate me. C'mon guys, I really wasn't asking for anything out of the ordinary.

    Thumbing through the EAA chapter web sites on webs.com, I see that the vast majority of sites are dormant or are rarely updated. If the EAA could cooperate just a little bit and allow web masters to use their own set of web site builder tools and push their pages to the EAA site with FTP, I think we would see a lot fewer dormant web sites. Our chapter ended up just putting a link to our web site on the EAA site and continued to pay for our own domain name and web service.

    The overall EAA Chapters web site is a great idea, especially with the default page and contact information, but the implementation wasn't so great. It could have been so much more useful by allowing web masters to build their pages with their own tools and push them to the EAA site, which is the industry standard. Instead, the vast majority of chapters don't use it.

    -CubBuilder

  6. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by cub builder View Post
    I had the exact opposite experience with the Webs.com tools. I thought the tools were really clunky and difficult to use. I would much rather build and test my web pages on my system using the site builder tools I work with daily, then push the pages to the EAA Web site. When I complained to the admin and asked to be allowed to FTP our existing chapter web pages to the web site rather than being forced to rebuild our site from scratch with a set of unfamiliar clunky tools, I was told I was the only web master to complain about the tools and they weren't willing to accommodate me. C'mon guys, I really wasn't asking for anything out of the ordinary.

    Thumbing through the EAA chapter web sites on webs.com, I see that the vast majority of sites are dormant or are rarely updated. If the EAA could cooperate just a little bit and allow web masters to use their own set of web site builder tools and push their pages to the EAA site with FTP, I think we would see a lot fewer dormant web sites. Our chapter ended up just putting a link to our web site on the EAA site and continued to pay for our own domain name and web service.

    The overall EAA Chapters web site is a great idea, especially with the default page and contact information, but the implementation wasn't so great. It could have been so much more useful by allowing web masters to build their pages with their own tools and push them to the EAA site, which is the industry standard. Instead, the vast majority of chapters don't use it.

    -CubBuilder
    Ahh..Cub builder seems to have explained the problem!!!!!!

  7. #17
    cub builder's Avatar
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    I don't even begin to believe most chapters would suddenly start building web pages, but I do believe more would do so if the EAA allowed us to use industry standards rather than forcing us into the WEBS.com tool set. Make the WEBS tool set available for those that want to use them, but allow the rest of us to use industry standard tools. I know I would much rather have the EAA web site hosting our chapter web site for free than for us to be paying for a domain name and using a free web host that overlays their advertising over our pages.

    I find it mildly annoying that when I made a public statement about this in this thread under Chapters, which it certainly pertains to, the thread was moved over into feedback, which is kind of like getting dumped into the bit bucket. I brought this up when the web sites were first created, the administrator acted like I'm an idiot. No reason to believe he'll think any different today. Maybe he's right?

    -CubBuilder

  8. #18
    EAA Staff / Moderator Hal Bryan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cub builder View Post
    I don't even begin to believe most chapters would suddenly start building web pages, but I do believe more would do so if the EAA allowed us to use industry standards rather than forcing us into the WEBS.com tool set. Make the WEBS tool set available for those that want to use them, but allow the rest of us to use industry standard tools. I know I would much rather have the EAA web site hosting our chapter web site for free than for us to be paying for a domain name and using a free web host that overlays their advertising over our pages.
    Cub Builder, your feedback is well taken. We chose Webs.com as the best compromise available in terms of reasonable flexibility weighted against ease of use. There's no question that the latter weighed more heavily - the idea that some significant number of our chapters have the ability to build websites from scratch and FTP them out to a server just isn't realistic.

    Like any one-size-fits-all solution, it really doesn't fit anyone perfectly.

    Quote Originally Posted by cub builder View Post
    I find it mildly annoying that when I made a public statement about this in this thread under Chapters, which it certainly pertains to, the thread was moved over into feedback, which is kind of like getting dumped into the bit bucket.
    You're misinterpreting the situation here: what I didn't notice while I was traveling over the holidays and keeping up on the forums via my cell phone was that flyrite had created two duplicate threads. Because there was some valuable discussion in both, I merged the threads. This one became the "master", because it had more responses. This was just basic forum housekeeping, that's all. No insult, implied or otherwise, intended. If the participants prefer, I'm more than happy to move the whole thing back to the Chapters section, though I don't believe that the location of the discussion really carries with it any implied hierarchy.

    Quote Originally Posted by cub builder View Post
    I brought this up when the web sites were first created, the administrator acted like I'm an idiot. No reason to believe he'll think any different today. Maybe he's right?
    -CubBuilder
    I did no such thing, and I'm utterly baffled at the accusation.

    Hal Bryan
    EAA Lifetime 638979
    Vintage 714005 | Warbirds 553527
    Managing Editor
    EAA—The Spirit of Aviation

  9. #19
    Jim Heffelfinger's Avatar
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    Thanks for your dedicated work Hal.
    As any membership organization (including political ones) they are full spectrum groups.
    Since I made a comment others took differently I will add that I am not a web designer, I am not an IT professional and I have no desire to work in HTML. Making site changes are clunky - but I do not have any other knowledge. So, It is what it is. Those with great sites/skills - hotlink from the EAA chapter site to your site. The rest of us will struggle along to do the best we can. They say if it's on the web it is on forever.... so true with my chapter site - I can not get the server to dump/block the old now 4 years out of date site. It took nearly a year to prove to them that I am representing the site owner and need to get it shut down. They have finally stopped invoicing for service.

  10. #20
    cub builder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal Bryan View Post
    Cub Builder, your feedback is well taken. We chose Webs.com as the best compromise available in terms of reasonable flexibility weighted against ease of use. There's no question that the latter weighed more heavily - the idea that some significant number of our chapters have the ability to build websites from scratch and FTP them out to a server just isn't realistic.

    Like any one-size-fits-all solution, it really doesn't fit anyone perfectly.


    You're misinterpreting the situation here: what I didn't notice while I was traveling over the holidays and keeping up on the forums via my cell phone was that flyrite had created two duplicate threads. Because there was some valuable discussion in both, I merged the threads. This one became the "master", because it had more responses. This was just basic forum housekeeping, that's all. No insult, implied or otherwise, intended. If the participants prefer, I'm more than happy to move the whole thing back to the Chapters section, though I don't believe that the location of the discussion really carries with it any implied hierarchy.
    Which is why I said *mildly* annoyed. I didn't know if this was a routine maintenance thing, or whether you quickly shuffled this off to an unread forum due to my criticism. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.


    Quote Originally Posted by Hal Bryan View Post
    I did no such thing, and I'm utterly baffled at the accusation.
    I'll take this off line with a PM to Hal. I will say that being treated like an idiot was my interpretation of what Hal wrote to me 2 years ago, and not in fact what he said. In all fairness to Hal, while I took offense to his message to me then, that's probably not how he meant for me to interpret what he said.

    -CubBuilder

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