forum organisation feedback?

[Nikolas_A]

What would it take to upgrade the forum engine?

I also think the structure needs some work, there's info all over the place. Similar sections with confusing titles. I often find myself puzzled as to which section I should post in.

IMHO there should be general posts (Electronics, visuals, pc-related, chit-chat etc), sim related (BMS, DCS, X-Plane FSX), and F-16 specific. For the latter, I think the way Martin (Pegasus) arranged the info in his site is best, that's what I use to keep my hard disk folders organized (Left Console, Left Aux etc)

[tiger-31]

The admins and mod also need a kind of backoffice forum where they can discuss matters that do not need to be in the open.

[Kukki]

RD, Tiger1 and Nicolas, I total agree here.

We need to have a place were moderators and admins can talk and descuss how we continue here on VP, because our Forun engine is so outdated and unsecure.

Im willing to do what ever it takes to make this place better and have as many pitbuilders inhere as possible (the good once) but like RD state, we cant close the doors just because there ar bad once out there, if so we will die for sure.

And we need active moderators and admins to be online all the time, so we need more of each so we can support eachother.
And to be honest it cant be worse than it is now. 
Im pretty much the only one there is administrating/and moderating this site.
Romanski have done a great work with tools we have here on VP, but we need new and more mordern forun for sure.

And im sure when we get a new engine wecan easy migrate the DB to the new system with all the new more upto date rooms/foras.

RD is the one who have a lot experience with good forums and know what it takes, so lets see if we can get a skype meeting or some other place and date were we can talk about it.

And no offence to Mike Kabar, he have provided a great place and platfor so far, but he is never around anymore, so it might be time to get a new host too.

Kukki

[Marvin]

@ Marvin. If you think you wanna take over and let all the Russians inside VP , you can do it . Then I will step out and let you do the job.
There is nobody which has an F16 cockpit and fly DCS. All those DCS guys have desktop pits. Correct me if I am wrong.

Romanski, how about you read my fucking post before you start speculating.  I CLEARLY wrote that I have no interest in dealing with this bullshit when Mike asked me.  Clearly Mike was looking for new guys which is why he asked me, so I am just passing this on to RD that he could most likely get access if he wanted to.

[Nigel]

You guys calm DOWN!!! I am sick of this shit on another forum I am heavily involved in and it is causing members to leave. Grow some thicker skin. Romanski, I dont think Jody was trying to offend you. You over-reacted. Jody, no need to elevate it from there. I love you but drop the F-bombs. Please. It doesn't help at all. I have very little time as it is, and I dont have time or patience to MODERATE FIGHTS!!!
 I am going to propose a a self-imposed rule here, and it's this:
After you type a reply, and before you post it, read it again. If you find you are replying to a perceived insult or sarcasm, HIT DELETE. Man up. Guys we are supposed to be adults here, act like one. I will use Kukki as an example. When I first joined, I was clueless and asked some what I think now are some pretty dumb questions. Kukki always was patient and calm and answered in depth to what I know were the same old newbie questions. Always a gentleman. If anyone could be angry at the world it's him. Guys, he's in a chair and cant do half the things we take for granted. No complaints, no self pity, no whining, no taking it out on other people. He knows a LOT about pitbuilding but never gets arrogant or condescending or says . Some guys dont know how to even ask the right questions or where to start looking. So take him as an example of how to behave on this and any other forum. Make it fun and exciting, not dark and ugly. Rule: CHECK YOURSELF.

[Taipan]

You guys calm DOWN!!! I am sick of this shit on another forum I am heavily involved in and it is causing members to leave. Grow some thicker skin. Romanski, I dont think Jody was trying to offend you. You over-reacted. Jody, no need to elevate it from there. I love you but drop the F-bombs. Please. It doesn't help at all. I have very little time as it is, and I dont have time or patience to MODERATE FIGHTS!!!
 I am going to propose a a self-imposed rule here, and it's this:
After you type a reply, and before you post it, read it again. If you find you are replying to a perceived insult or sarcasm, HIT DELETE. Man up. Guys we are supposed to be adults here, act like one. I will use Kukki as an example. When I first joined, I was clueless and asked some what I think now are some pretty dumb questions. Kukki always was patient and calm and answered in depth to what I know were the same old newbie questions. Always a gentleman. If anyone could be angry at the world it's him. Guys, he's in a chair and cant do half the things we take for granted. No complaints, no self pity, no whining, no taking it out on other people. He knows a LOT about pitbuilding but never gets arrogant or condescending or says . Some guys dont know how to even ask the right questions or where to start looking. So take him as an example of how to behave on this and any other forum. Make it fun and exciting, not dark and ugly. Rule: CHECK YOURSELF.

Bravo.
Thanks Dave.

[warbirdguy1]

"- Maybe the homepage could be updated a bit more often?"

Absolutely.  I think there should be a monthly rotating "featured projects" and news on some of the notable progresses of peoples pits.

In addition maybe a "news" section that gets updated every week or two with recent product releases or BMS updates.

[warbirdguy1]

You guys calm DOWN!!! I am sick of this shit on another forum I am heavily involved in and it is causing members to leave. Grow some thicker skin. Romanski, I dont think Jody was trying to offend you. You over-reacted. Jody, no need to elevate it from there. I love you but drop the F-bombs. Please. It doesn't help at all. I have very little time as it is, and I dont have time or patience to MODERATE FIGHTS!!!
 I am going to propose a a self-imposed rule here, and it's this:
After you type a reply, and before you post it, read it again. If you find you are replying to a perceived insult or sarcasm, HIT DELETE. Man up. Guys we are supposed to be adults here, act like one. I will use Kukki as an example. When I first joined, I was clueless and asked some what I think now are some pretty dumb questions. Kukki always was patient and calm and answered in depth to what I know were the same old newbie questions. Always a gentleman. If anyone could be angry at the world it's him. Guys, he's in a chair and cant do half the things we take for granted. No complaints, no self pity, no whining, no taking it out on other people. He knows a LOT about pitbuilding but never gets arrogant or condescending or says . Some guys dont know how to even ask the right questions or where to start looking. So take him as an example of how to behave on this and any other forum. Make it fun and exciting, not dark and ugly. Rule: CHECK YOURSELF.

^^^ This guy gets it.  Most people I see asking questions do not even know enough to search for the answer themselves.  It is amazing what learning just a few keywords does.

Also I love "" because most of the time I ever get hit with that [not specifically here] I already did and the manual fails to clearly communicate what I am looking for.

[Snoopy]

Maybe it could be a good idea to have some polls (if that is technically possible with this forum software) to get a sense of what people would want or like in such a forum. We have heard several opinions now but that might not be what the majority wants as some members seem to be more vocal than others. A kind of survey might provide objective data on what forum members are looking for.

[Kukki]

@Snoopy   that might be a good idea, and we are open for all suggestions to meke VP better, but I also think we have all we need/want inhere, all is pretty much covered, we just need to structure it way better so we can find all the gold nuggets here and its more eassy to navigate.

There is no doubt about we need a new and more modern forum engine with the level of security here.  And we will also see if we can find a better auction engine to implement.

Kukki

[Red Dog]

Also I love "" because most of the time I ever get hit with that [not specifically here] I already did and the manual fails to clearly communicate what I am looking for.

I have a particular opposite experience
All the ppl I RTFMed stated that they checked the manuals and I proof them they did not because I quote the manual bit that answer their initial question.
PPL don't search forums, ppl don't search manual either
Not saying this for you, it's a general statement and I do have quite a bit of experience on that managing the BMS public forum and having written most of the 2000 pages of BMS documentation

[Romanski]

Guys ,

If it possible I would like to involve also Auke , as he is the one who helped us fix the forum all the times we had issues. He is very familiar with what we have here.

Maybe also organizing an Ms Teams or Skype meeting at least once a month to discuss stuff we can do , and also to get to know each other better.

Romanski

[Tulkas]

You guys calm DOWN!!! I am sick of this shit on another forum I am heavily involved in and it is causing members to leave. Grow some thicker skin. Romanski, I dont think Jody was trying to offend you. You over-reacted. Jody, no need to elevate it from there. I love you but drop the F-bombs. Please. It doesn't help at all. I have very little time as it is, and I dont have time or patience to MODERATE FIGHTS!!!
 I am going to propose a a self-imposed rule here, and it's this:
After you type a reply, and before you post it, read it again. If you find you are replying to a perceived insult or sarcasm, HIT DELETE. Man up. Guys we are supposed to be adults here, act like one. I will use Kukki as an example. When I first joined, I was clueless and asked some what I think now are some pretty dumb questions. Kukki always was patient and calm and answered in depth to what I know were the same old newbie questions. Always a gentleman. If anyone could be angry at the world it's him. Guys, he's in a chair and cant do half the things we take for granted. No complaints, no self pity, no whining, no taking it out on other people. He knows a LOT about pitbuilding but never gets arrogant or condescending or says . Some guys dont know how to even ask the right questions or where to start looking. So take him as an example of how to behave on this and any other forum. Make it fun and exciting, not dark and ugly. Rule: CHECK YOURSELF.

I agree fully with Nigel here. Those who have been around for a while have bookmarked threads, memory of who does what, who to ask, experience succeeding and failing buildings, a "pit builder vocabulary" already learned...we can navigate this monster forum. But entering here for the first time must be incredibly overwhelming, the amount of subforums, the amount of ideas, systems, buildings, offers, some up to date, many fased out, some successful, others not, accumulated for almost 20 years... must be even scary. New guys have to be nurse and  treated with patient if, as Kukki said, we want VP to survive. We are now an old community and we are losing important members, some because they disengage from the hobby, others because regretfully the course of live claims its toll. VP cannot afford to look with disdain the newcomers just because they are new, any of them could bring the next great system  for our pits, for example. 

That said, I have to say that this one is one of the best forums/internet communities I have ever been part of. 99% of the time I see polite exchanges and a sincere desire of helping each other to advance on the different projects. It is no so common on the internet.

Regarding the restructuration  of the forums. It's a daunting and kind of risky task. Of course it is important to update the system so it is safe against hacking and other threats, but I wouldn't like to risk to lose any information, even if considered outdated. I have so many links and bookmarks that loosing them would be like burning my particular Alexandria's library (cockpit building edition).

Regards

Tulkas   

[Kukki]

Tulkas good words 

What I can say for sure when we migrate to a new system, is that we will proberly loose something I guess, might be the different user settings like bookmarks etc.

Some post and forums will be scrabbed, but all the knowledge we have build up inhere the last almost 20 years we will ofcause keep, but structure it in a better way.

But from my experience there are always something in an old system we cant automate to get into the new system, but the people there will do this will do the best they can to keep everything, and we will setup an test site and make all there and only when we are sas sure as we can be we migrate, but we can still have the old site as backup till we are satisified with the new site/forum.

[Kukki]

Guys ,

If it possible I would like to involve also Auke , as he is the one who helped us fix the forum all the times we had issues. He is very familiar with what we have here.

Maybe also organizing an Ms Teams or Skype meeting at least once a month to discuss stuff we can do , and also to get to know each other better.

Romanski

you got the ball here to contact Auke and hear if he have time and want to join here.  We need all the expertise we can get.  And we have a very good and trusted bunch of great people inheree.