Hi Everyone,

Now that sailing season is closing, I am focused on improving the J30.org web page. I need to know what everyone would like to see changed (if anything). Please reply to this post with some thoughts.

Here are some things on my punch list:

(1) Redesign the web site to make it easier to maintain.
(2) Get the fleet data up-to-date. Dennis will export the filemaker pro data soon and send to me. We'll most likely move to a "real time" database design. Fleet Captains will be able to edit information online.
(3) Obtain more space to allow photos.
(4) Solicite more stories and photos for the front page.
(5) Keep all pages up-to-date and accurate
(6) Potentially move the "For Sale" section to a database design, allowing people to post information online. An editor would simply review and approved the post.
(7) Obtain a new look. Work on some graphics design.
(8) Add a counter to track usage.
(9) Do HTML based electronic mail once a month to include links to stories.
(10) Market the web site.

Thanks,
David Erwin

There's an end to sailing in Nawluns?

Lots of good ideas Dave, glad you have the time!

The last Wednesday night race is tomorrow. So I am spending the 5 hours of spare time each week to rennovate the web page.

Looking at the N'awlins calendar, we have 12 days of weekend racing left. The last race (also J/30 One Design) of the year is called Sugar Bowl Regatta December 27th and 28th.

Thanks David. It's more about the info than the look. By all means get the users to do their own 'For Sale/Wanted' (with over-ride editing in case of spam). It could be done here in the Forum, which is editable and depending on preferences times out. But this stuff has to expire unless the seller takes action to renew. There are J/30s listed on the for sale that have been there at the same price since 1995.

Thanks also, David. All your ideas sound good. I would differ with Bob vis a vis the importance of a little visual splash for the page. Web sites like this are major tools for marketing used boats, and a site that looks dull and is not frequently updated gives the impression of a stagnating class. I would love to see all regattas for class 30's represented with postings of photos and results provided quickly. The N'awlins web site featured a great (although Zephyr biased) slide show of this years NA's posted immediately following the regatta.

How about a beautiful photo of a 30 in action on the home page to start?

Thanks, all of the above sounds good, photos and race results keep visitors coming back. Have you looked at the US J/24 page? Being a longtime J/24 member (new to the J/30) I find that web page very good and easy to work with.

Steve, thanks for the feedback. I have too basic problems to solve:

(1) I am hesitant to post Zephyr photos as I do not want this web site to be to "Zephyr" biased. I am a member of the Zephyr program, but also a member of the J/30 team, so want to be 100% neutral. The Zephyr program's photographer, Matt Garrett has mailed be a CD with some good photos. I will review. 90% of the photos are of Zephyr/Blitz. Next year, we'll have more photographers at various spots on the course.

(2) No one provided any "non Zephyr" photos to me. I will however, look for a J/30 photos from previous years. Here is one of my favorites. The photo is from last year's N/A.
http://noyc.org/images/2002j30NA1a.jpg

How about a photo contest? I am looking for more FTP/Web space now.

Bob,

I noticed some old information on the For Sale.Wanted page. On future posts, I want to include the date posted. We're sending e-mails and will call everyone to ensure the page is accurate and current.

We'll convert the For Sale/Wanted page to a database and SPAM proof design.

Did you have some J/30 photos from 2003? If so, I'll take a CD.

Thanks!

David, if you are looking for photos of J/30's in action, I have some on our web site: www.defiantracing.com .

In addition, I too am looking to move providers for hosting my web site. I have recently come across a hosting provider that offers large storage for a reasonable monthly charge: www.deltawebhosting.com . $6/month for FREE domain name, 1000MB disk space, 20GB monthly transfer, unlimited subdomains, 1000 pop3 accounts, CGI, PHP, MySQL, plus much more.

For ideas, you could really put everything in a Message Board area (Rules, For Sale, Events, Photo Gallery, etc) and have moderators for each section.

I have time that I am able to donate should you ever have the need for addition crew to work on the site.

Bernie Kucharski
bkucharski@defiantracing.com
J/30 Defiant - Hull #23 www.defiantracing.com

We have some great j/30 photo's and regatta details from Lake Ontario. Keep us posted on how we can add to the site and supply photos. 3 J/30's racing One design in OSwego Next year 4 possibly 5 .

OK, I have drafted a potential web page format for the class.
http://www.j30.org/indexnew.html

Please provide feedback. We're rotating 7 photos on the front page as it changes each time you access the page to provide fresh content. If everyone could mail me (dave@NOYC.org) that single favorite photo, I'll place in the rotation.

I added a voter poll. The subject is subject to change. I simply wanted to demonstrate.

The new design is much easier to maintain.

I want to find a graphics artist to develop a class logo to include the J/30 graphics surrounded by Class Association in white over a blue circle. I do not like the look of the top section. Here is an example:
http://www.j80.org/images/j80int128.jpg

Special thanks to Matt, Dennis and Bob for coming this far to improve the current design.

Special thanks

The site looks great!

I am a graphic designer, principal of a Stamford CT design firm, and proud owner of gwylan #523. We would be happy to help design a class logo for the site.

Contact me at, rshear@lmsdesign.com

Next subject. What are the views of selling advertisement space on J30.org with 100% of proceeds to go to the class?

NO POP UP'S,NOTHING FLASHING, NO SCAMS how much longer will it take to load? SW takes forever even with DSL. Does the class need the money? Is it enough money to make it worth it? Do any other classes have advertising?

All good points.

NO POP UP'S,NOTHING FLASHING, NO SCAMS I TOTALLY AGREE

How much longer will it take to load? Long the first time. It is cached in your browser for visits 2-999.

SW takes forever even with DSL. What is SW?

Does the class need the money? I don't know.

Is it enough money to make it worth it? If the class needs additional funding, yes. It would also be another venue or selling point to attract sponsors for MidWinters and NAs. Sometimes sponsors look for media value including Internet exposure.

Do any other classes have advertising? http://www.usaj22.com/ but more common in Europe. They do a better job of marketing the sport of sailing over seas.

Hey, I am simply asking to obtain opinion.

Thanks,
Dave

SW Sailing World Forums ads on both sides and it loads really slow every time, several secs. DSL Good idea about bundle ing sponsorship with the NAs

Nice new website! Thanks Dave!!

I went to vote (on materials for #1/2) and got a bad link message

I corrected the link problem.

Moving to a new web system will take some time. We should be finished in the January time frame.

I noticed that the original bulletin board is back.

Is there any chance that messages posted on the interrim bulletin board are archived anywhere?

Thanks,
Ryan Pierce, #337

Here is the link to the temporary forum:
http://j30.us/cgi-bin/webbbs_config.pl

Thanks!

Ryan Pierce, #337

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to let everyone know that we transferred the J/30 bulletin board to a new service provider. In the process, some posts from 1/20 through 1/31 were manually reposted. Some of the dates will be wrong and listed as 1/31. Please accept our apology for this.

We have opened another forum for Larry Christy to host OD/Class Rules related topics.

Please let me know if anoyone experiences problems.

Cheers,
David Erwin
J30.org

We're looking to transfer the current J/30 Forum to newer software that provides more capabilities. The current software used on this forum hasn't been supported for a few years. It is Ultimate Bulletin Board Version 5.44b.

There are a number of free software packages available, and the phpBB 3.0 software looks pretty nice. I installed it on our web server so people can look at it and provide feedback. It will allow posting of pictures and files, personalized avatars, and CAPTCHA authentication for new registrations to prevent spambots from hijacking the forum (the problem we had just over a year ago).
Here are some of the features, and ideas for using it:

We'll be able to move the "For Sale" section off the web page and make it so people can post and maintain their own entries with pictures on the forum. We'd build some templates so that basic information is included in each "for sale" posting.

• Members will be able to send mail to each other via the forum.
• You can setup custom signatures with links and display an avatar.
• You can easily post pictures, links and attach files. (We'd set a limit on size).
• We can setup poles and take votes. Private groups can be setup to accommodate things like Board of Governor meetings.

Look at the link below and provide comments. You can register and try posting if you like, although this is still the official class forum. Anything you post may get deleted as we setup the board further.

I'd really like to find a translator so we can convert this old board seamlessly to be part of a new board. If anyone knows of a translator from UBB 5.44b to phpBB3, please let me know.

New bulletin board trial link: J/30 Class Bulletin Board

Thanks,
Bill Kneller

[This message has been edited by Rhapsody #348 (edited 01-02-2009).]

This weekend there were a few updates to the class web page that should be helpful.

Class Rules: The official J/30 Class rules are now available to view online without having to load the Adobe PDF files. When you select from the top menu "Class", then "Class Rules" you are taken to the new page with the class rules, by-laws and specifications available for direct viewing. Downloadable PDF files are available there for printing. There are also links to print older versions of the class rules.

Docklines is now Calendar: "Docklines" is no longer on the menu. This has been inactive for some time. Instead "Calendar" now appears on the menu in that spot. This opens the Calendar on our new Forum. Feel free to populate the calendar with events. Note that if you make a new forum posting with the description of the event, you have the option to also include it on the calendar for the date you specify. This means you only need enter the item once in the forum, select the date, and it appears both in the forum and on the calendar.

Photos: This had some broken links that were fixed. There is a new Photo section on the forum that will probably take the place of this in the long term. A link to the Photo Forum has been included on the Photos page. Everybody needs to post photos of the J/30 events!

Let me know if there are any other updates desired.

WOW Bill!! Thanks so much for all of the time and effort you have put into making this website what it is today.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5 on 24 Feb 2009. This cleaned up some minor bugs and provided some new features.

• RSS Feeds Available - for those interested in a J/30 news "push" you can select it using the "My Stuff" menu when you are logged in
• Better search engine - you should be able to find things easier
• Updated display of user profiles
• Member list can be sorted by "last online"
• Added display of most "Popular Topics" on left side based on number of views - you can click on these to read them

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

Bill, I just went to DIRECTORY to pull Carl Scherter email...its screwed up???

Thanks for the note. The Hosting ISP has a problem and I'll submit a trouble ticket. You can get Carl's email from this page: http://www.j30.org/html/fleets/board.html or on his forum profile.

Update 8:03am - ISP restarted the server so class database is working again.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.1 on 20 Mar 2009. This cleaned up some minor bugs listed here.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.2 on 23 Mar 2009. These are "bug fixes for the bug fixes" . Here is what is fixed.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it. This should be a totally transparent S/W update.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.4.1 on 27 Oct 2009. This cleaned up some minor bugs listed here.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

Twitter and Facebook J/30 links have also been added in the left margin under the "Newest Members" box.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.4.2 on 2 Nov 2009. It fixed a calendar problem reported here.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

Effective 5 January 2010, the look of the forum was changed by incorporating the menu structure from the main J/30 web site. You'll now notice the full "J/30 Blog" menu structure at the top of the forum. This will make it easier to navigate between the forum and the main web site.

Some of the forum style formats look a little different due to the main website styles that were brought over with the menu structure. If this causes a problem, please post a reply here and we'll tweak the styles as needed.

I like the updated look of the forum

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.5 on 11 Feb 2010. It fixes a number of minor bugs reported here.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

Whenever I click on "Cruising Discussions" I get the list of topics in reverse order. That is, the oldest posts are at the top of the first page. Have not seen that on any other topics.

I found the problem and fixed that. The forum should sort correctly now.

The J/30 Forum Software was updated to UBB.threads 7.5.6 on 22 Aug 2010. It fixes a number of minor bugs reported here.

If you find something broken or working strange, please post here so we can fix it.

Just Bill testing here to make sure everything is working ok after the 7.5.6 software upgrade.

Vic reported a problem posting on the photo forum that I am troubleshooting.

I found the image upload problem and fixed it at noon 22 Aug.