New format for Trail Conditions

[darren]

After 13 years, the format of the Northeast trail conditions section has finally been upgraded. The custom Perl scripts I wrote back in 1994 have been retired and the trail conditions have been rolled into these forums. I can honestly say that when I wrote the scripts back in 1994 I had no idea that they would still be running in 2007.

Yes people are resistant to change, but merging the trail conditions into these forums provides a "one stop to shop" for your Northeast backcountry info and also greatly reduces the burden of moderation.

The trail conditions are still broken up by state. This forum software doesn't allow pre-formatting of trail, date, conditions, comment, etc. but please follow the old format when posting new trail conditions. An example format is provided as a sticky in each state forum.

The trail condition forums are for posting trail conditions only. They are not for discussions and the ability to reply to a post has been disabled. Longer trip reports should be posted in the Trip Report forum and discussions should still take place in the other appropriate forums.

Enjoy the site. Change is good.

- darren

 

[MichaelJ]

This sounds great - searchability, woo-hoo!

But ... is there any way to have the "New Posts" button ignore everything under the Northeast Trail Conditions heading? I know I can click the little double arrow on the right to collapse them out of my sight when looking at the main index, but I'd like an option, if the software allows it, to ignore them when just checking for new posts.

 

[poison ivy]

I'm seconding Michael's request!

- Ivy

 

[roadtripper]

non-registered users

Hey Darren,

Can I throw out a suggestion? Can we make it a little bit clearer that you don't have to be a registered member to post trail conditions in the forum? Perhaps adding a note to the old trail conditions pages for each state, or as an addition to the new note on the main forum page?

I would hate to see the volume of trail conditions significantly decreased out of avoidable confusion.

Maybe i'm being a bit picky. It's up to you, of course.

 

[David Metsky]

Actually, I don't believe the Trail Conditions are being indexed, so no searchability at this point.

If someone can come up with a way to get the Trail Coniditions sub-forum excluded from New Posts we're all ears. That's what has been holding us back for some time, but we couldn't figure out a way around it. Any vBulletin experts out there?

-dave-

 

[dr_wu002]

Any vBulletin experts out there?

-dave-

vBulletin has it's own bulletin board(s). You can either do a search for your answer or log in as a member and ask yourself.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/portal.php
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

-Dr. Wu

 

[MattC]

Definitely seems like a positive change. However, I do appreciate that we can still also access the old conditions reports, at least for a short transition period. In another week or so, they will start to become less meaningful.

Hey, I wonder who will be the first New Yorker to post in the new forum tomorrow. The race is on!

Matt

 

[David Metsky]

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/portal.php
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/

I searched there for a while but couldn't come up with any answers. I may go back now that this is set up and try again.

 

[NH_Mtn_Hiker]

Would it be too much to add the date of the hike to the title?

I didn't see this thread before sending that email a few minutes ago.

 

[Tuco]

This is gibberish to me but does it help any? I supect that being a "sub forum" makes it a bit different but...

http://forum.vbulletinsetup.com/f66/new-posts-todays-posts-2317.html

 

[chomp]

Exclusion

Well, here is the URL if you want to see NEW POSTS without any of the posts in the Trail Conditions section:

http://www.vftt.org/forums/search.php?do=getnew&exclude=13,14,15,16,17,18,19

Dave, Darren: Its the same URL as NEW POSTS, with an exclude variable tagged onto the end and the forum #'s for the trail conditions removed. You should (if you are so inclined) be able to add a button or something for New Non-TR Posts, or change the URL of the New Posts button itself.

chomp

PS - I just tested this and it seems to work, but I did have to change the URL slightly.

 

[darren]

Chomp - thanks, I'll check it out and see what I can do.

- darren

 

[darren]

OK...that was WAY harder than it needed to be. It took me like 3 hours to figure out how to add a "New Post - No TC (Trail Conditions)" button to the navigation bar at the top of the forum pages. I had to edit java code and create a new global phrase...huh??? (hey, I'm a hardware guy, not a software weenie, so whatevah).

It even appears to work. Let me know if anyone has any problems.

So you now have your choice of "New Posts" with all discussion forums and trail conditions or "New Posts - No TC" which is just the discussion forums.

Whew.

- darren

 

[David Metsky]

Killer dude.

-dave-

 

[iceNsnow]

a special request

Firstly Darren, I would like to say that I really like the new format for the trail conditions section - great job - I have come to expect nothing less from this site......!!

My request would be to have the "new posts" as it was, and then a "new Posts - TC" instead of the "new posts - NO tc".

Seems to make more sense to me. But that is because I usually only have time to check out the trail conditions and not read through all the other posts.

Thanks so much for a great site and I understand if I am alone in my request.

All the best!
Inge Aiken

 

[bikehikeskifish]

You can certainly build your own bookmark... just need to know the discussion forum ids to exclude them.

Tim

p.s. I would vote to keep "new posts" to it's original behavior and have a second button which includes the trail conditions, or 2 new buttons - one for both, and one each for either.

 

[yvon]

I change the link that I had on my Website.

 

[MichaelJ]

Sweet - thanks for implementing that, guys!

 

[Tom Rankin]

This is another 'nit pick', but the titles of the new categories are just state names. When I first hit 'new posts' I found that slightly confusing. The other categories are more descriptive, (e.g. 'Q&A - New York ').

Having said this, if it didn't change, it wouldn't be a big deal...

Definitely a big step forward either way!

 

[BlackSpruce]

Thanks Darren, the new format is an improvement and it's nice to be able to easely edit our trip reports. Nevertheless as the post reply button is still there it needs a third point option as to why access is refused.


...Already 4 inches of snow in New Russia....


Christine