New site.....lack of use. What happened?? Hellooooo, anybody here??

[madmax4073]

Rich,
Welcome to Snowtracks. I've been a reporter for the Mercer WI area for several years and I would hate to see this site go by the wayside.
But it has issues........
Why can't I see the dates and times of replies on the threads?

Hi Rich, This is my biggest complaint other than no trail reports, you look at a comment or rider report and you have no idea when it was posted.Member reports were/are just as good as reporters reports. Maybe the reporters dont like the new site and just dont want to be involved anymore. That is a possibility.
To me the site was perfect the way it was last year, layout ,fonts, ease of use. All the fonts are black now and small, evevything just kinda blends in together. My opinion, put it back the way it was and make small gradual changes where bugs can be worked out without losing all the members. That way its not such a big shock as it is now.

[webmaster]

I agree with you on the date & time stamp & we are working on that issue, The reason for the upgrade on the forum side is that the version of vbulletin we were using was several years old, had major security issues & was no longer supported by the developers/author.. Now regarding the fonts, look & feel here's a quick fix that should give everyone a better look & revert back to what the old forum looked like..
On the bottom left corner of any page in the forum there is a little dropdown menu that shows the word "Grayscale" which is the default display option, click the arrow on the right to dropdown the menu & select default.. Under this setting you will see the time/date stamps on each post as well as a simpler & more user friendly interface. You can always revert back to the Grayscale display also if you do not like the look of the default display view. The only drawback to this is you will lose the custom graphics header & menu bar that linked to the front end (the snowtracks site itself) Check it out & let me know what you think..

Thanks for your input
Rich

[webmaster]

Alright guys.. we have the date/time issue squared away.. And again for those who still don't like the new look you can go to the drop down menu on the bottom and change the grayscale option to default which will give you the "old" snowtracks look & feel.. Thanks for bringing this bug to my attention & being patient with me while we worked it out..

Rich

[federal68]

Still here, and agree snow would help things out. Hard to get going with brown ground. Dont give up yet.

[KAT]

Rich,
The date and time is fixed, thanks

Honestly, I never knew the reports were in the forum. I guess I always read them from the other end.
Can they be put back into the forum? Maybe some other people have an opinion on this and will post


There is a definite lack of participation and has been for years. When we had the Mercer Snow talk board years ago I felt like I was talking to nobody most of the time.
The lack of snow isn't helping either


I noticed there is a comment section on the reports that you can't access. Is that going to be accesible to people or removed?

I'm not sure my feelings on this one. Comments would be great but sometimes it gets to be just bashing. Although bashing seems to promote activity on the sites.
A bit of bashing might improve the honesty levels and reporting frequency of some of the reporters also.

[webmaster]

I'll look into the comments on the front end, but my guess is they turned them off on the site for the exact reasons you pointed out.. As far as reports in the forum go, as I posted earlier I'm new here & have little experience with the old site, I asked about it and was told that the only reports that were ever on the forum side were strictly from forum users and not actual reporters, which helps clarify things for me when people say there was always reports in here.. I also believe that Social network sites like facebook have taken their toll on traffic & user participation here, which is why I'm lobbying hard to get this site and the forum integrated into fb.. It's the best of both worlds & will open this site & all posts to literally millions of potential targeted users, and will open things up in different regions of the country yet keep those who don't use fb happy as they can still just post & respond here like nothing changed at all, plus any input / comments that come from fb will tend to be from people who are not quite so anonymous as the forum setting, which should keep the riff raff down to a minimum.. Thanks again for your input.. I'm open to any other suggestions from you or any other members here on things you guys would like to see, or any ideas that may get people to start participating more.. Think Snow!

Rich

[TommyBoy68]

Thanks for your efforts to get the date/time to show up. Much appreciated.

I do not have any complaints regarding the display of the site, however, I cannot find the drop-down menu to adjust the display setting anywhere either, for what that may be worth. I'm using IE9, if it matters.

Honestly, with the fact that everywhere I look around Minneapolis is BROWN, I haven't even thought about my snowmobiles very much yet, sadly. Some white stuff would definitely change my mood, though!

[webmaster]

Tommy,
Just checked with IE9 myself & your right about no drop menu, There has to be an option to change the display somewhere in the user settings & when I find it I will post the details.. But your right the BROWN does not help the cause.. And down here in SE Wisconsin where we have not ice on the lakes yet, snow is not really helpful to the ice fishing cause.. So I'm doing the snow dance for the North Country & hoping for some cold down here to get the lakes sealed up & a decent base of ice before the snow, especially because most sledding & the few trails in this neck of the woods happen on hard water.. Thanks for your input, It's much appreciated!

[ZLjeff]

Hey Rich the new site looks good. I do follow the snow reports on here and would certainly help out with that if I can, I am up in Iron river wi area all the time.

I think Snowtracks lost a great deal of participation in forums beccause of the over moderating,(some of you guys know what I am talking about). It seemed if someone would disagree with someone who was considered an elder of the site, they would either get kicked out or their posts deleted. It got to the point where you couldn't tease someone for riding a polaris or have some fun poking at someone for being a tool, machmike was fun to pick on. It is important to have some sort of control, but maybe it's time to find moderators that have a sense of humor and have some fun dialog for a change. I would joke all the time on other boards that this site turned into The Peoples Rebublic of Snowtracks.

So that's my 2 cents.

[webmaster]

Jeff,
Interesting observation & I will be on the lookout for that, I know there's a fine line between joking around & harrassment as everyone defines it different.. I wasn't around to see any of this so I cannot pass judgement, And I don't want to be hard on the moderators, but if we create a police state there will be nothing to moderate, that being said I encourage everyone to use a little common sense here & it should all work out.. Thanks for your 2 cents.. I'm almost up to a dime.. LOL