New ENTS BBS site.

[James Parton]

Ed & ENTS Officers,

This is cool but like many of us I have a few questions. First, I am worried about data loss on the old Google site once it is discontinued. Some of us have submitted recent posts and measurements and hope they don't get lost due to switching from Google to the BBS forum. But yes, I think I will like the BBS forum and I like the way it is set up. I have much to learn on it and I hope with everything so spread out on different topics that I can locate everyone to converse with. After all, out of 400 or so members of the old ENTStrees site only about two dozen regularly posted. But yes, this will really help Ed out. I really congratulate Ed's work in the past on the Topica, Google and main ENTS website. And now there is this BBS site. ENTS has grown and this is a sign of progression. I am proud to be a part of it.

Another question. Will this make the main ENTS website obsolete? I tried it earlier and noticed it was down. Also, how long will the Google site be around before it is completely discontinued.

James Parton

[edfrank]

James, ENTS

The old Google Site will be set to Archive and will still be available for people to look at. Over time I will try to convert the key posts in that archive to website pages. I have copies of essentially every post that had not been converted previously on my backup hard drive. These could be compiled into archive packets for posting somewhere if necessary.

Ed

[James Parton]

Ed,

I would have guessed that you had a plan and had backed everything up. I know it will take a little time to make the change. I too have all my trip reports backed up on both my internal and external hard drives. I learned long ago that backing up valuable files is priceless!

James.

[gnmcmartin]

ENTS:

  I expect the amount of discussion will be somewhat reduced in this new format.  Two reasons; some extra navigation will be required to see everything.  For people on dial-up, this can require a lot of extra time. Second, the lack of a direct link to e-mail means people will not automatically see all the new posts in one place, and a place they regularly visit anyway.

  When I was an English professor I ran discussion groups for my students.  When all the discussion was in one big "bin," the discussions were much more lively and everyone was eager to participate.  Anyone could set up a new topic without thinking about where it belonged--it was in the same place as all the other topics.  It could get wild.  We also had campus-wide forums that operated the same way.  Later when the university changed to a new system that divided everything up, and in some cases strictly threaded everything, participation was much reduced.  With my students I had to set requirements for participation for the first time.  And the campus-wide discussion forums completely died out.  That was a terrible loss for the campus community.  I tried to get something like the old system restored, as did a number of the others of us who valued the sense of community they created, but to no avail.

  Here, of course, with a "mission," anyone who has something important to contribute, will.  The amount of responses to things in general will not be the same.  I am, as you have all have observed by now, am a "chatty" person.  Others, not so much.

  --Gaines

[Gary Smith]

Unless I'm missing something, every time a member comes on, he/she can hit "view new posts" up at the top of the board index and catch any activity that happened from the previous time they came on.

They can then quickly decide what posts on what subject they want to see and go to it. This is great and keeps it simple, imo.

This new board runs circles around the previous setup.

Gary Smith

[gnmcmartin]

Gary:

  I tried that a couple of times early on and nothing came up--it just said "search unsuccessful."  Ed told me that that just meant no one had posted anything since I last logged in.

  Well, here's my question.  If I log in, and don't ask for the new posts, and then log in later, do I miss the new posts I didn't ask for before?  In other words, is the list of "new" posts a new list since I last logged in?  So if I don't keep up--ask for the new posts everytime I logg in--I have to go to "unread posts," which could be a lot, because even if I see everything, I don't click to open and read everything? Having dial-up I have to be selective.

  Help. I just need to learn the system, I guess.

  --Gaines

[edfrank]

Gaines,

The view new posts is not the only button at the to left above the topics.  You also have a link there that reads "view Unread Posts"  which will show you all of the posts that you haven't read on the board.  The View "Active Topics" button Will show you the topics that have had activity in them for 1, 7, or more days.  These will let you see posts you may have missed.  The new posts do not refresh I think until you view the post, but I am not sure.  The "View unanswered posts" will show you a list of all the post for which there has not been a reply.

Ed

[edfrank]

ENTS:

  Later when the university changed to a new system that divided everything up, and in some cases strictly threaded everything, participation was much reduced.  With my students I had to set requirements for participation for the first time.  And the campus-wide discussion forums completely died out.  That was a terrible loss for the campus community.  I tried to get something like the old system restored, as did a number of the others of us who valued the sense of community they created, but to no avail.

  Here, of course, with a "mission," anyone who has something important to contribute, will.  The amount of responses to things in general will not be the same.  I am, as you have all have observed by now, am a "chatty" person.  Others, not so much.

  --Gaines

Gaines,

That was the primary reason that I favored hanging onto the old list as long as possible.  Shortly after we created the Western Native Tree Society one of the members suggested going to a BBS format like this one.  At the time I explained I favored the single list because to did create a sense of community and served to encourage participation by a wider membership.  However as the number of post continued to grow, and grow dramatically, it became too difficult to even read all of the messages, let alone try to organize them into some sort of an archive.  As a group founded to promote the accurate measurements of trees and scientific documentation of our trees and forests, those posts were being overwhelmed by the discussions on more general topics.  I know many of the long time members were pulling back or dropping out of the organization because of the sheer number of posts.  I know there was a loss of community with this change.  I know many less active members will not make the transition.  I know there will not be as many posts.  It was felt by me and others that the benefits of having organized categories outweighed these losses.    

For those of you on dial-up.  Yes you will need to do more navigation to find messages.  On the other hand there will not be any more 4 or 5 MB downloads facing you when you check your mail.  You will especially not need to download 4 and 5 MB attachments you are not interested in reading.

Ed

[Larry Tucei]

Test photo.  I have to write 45 minimum characters. Why? What if I want to  write less?  Larry

[Don]

Test photo.  I have to write 45 minimum characters. Why? What if I want to  write less?  Larry

Larry-
Obviously the code writers for this BBS weren't Southerners, whom I found in my years in Kentucky, had the capacity for being, hmmm brief?, taciturn?, curt?, depending on the occasion...and then, joy of joys, there's the Southerner that's a story teller, and you don't wanna turn him off!