Home Page Suggestions

[dt]

I like the home page, but would like to pose these as suggestions…

1.   Revise the second sentence of the intro to add something along the lines of “and plan your next ride.”
2.   Insert an area right above the recent posts area called Upcoming BikerFlorida.com Events and Rides, or something along those lines and link the associated posts.
3.   Knock a few lines off the top boards and popular treads areas, maybe even five. I like these two items on the home page, but the Biker Florida Football thread is now going on two years old. I’m more thinking along the lines of making room for the upcoming events and rides area that I’ve proposed.

What do you all think?

[mrbones]

Good ideas. Lets tie it into the Calendar some how. I'll have to check on how to add calendar events to the home page. Here's the calendar link.

http://bikerflorida.com/forum/index.php?action=calendar

You can post events in the calendar and their might be a way to tie them into posts.

[dt]

I put a ride in the Calendar for July 3…a ride up to Webster for the cycle/swap meet…to work with if you want. Never used the calendar before; it created a thread too, which is good. I thought all the birthdays in there could be a little distracting. The only other thing is I couldn’t use the links, like when you want to link a website to a word or phrase. It did something kooky. The button worked but it showed the whole link and copied the word/phrase at the front.

The whole objective here is to possibly create some identity to the forum membership…or, let the forum create its own identity. This week I had a whole bunch of people tell me people don’t ride on this forum. That ain’t true, but no one really knows what riding we do and perhaps not having an identity keeps bikers from joining or joining in. So if we do this, we need to post up rides and events and show the biker community that we actually do a lot from our saddles.

Thoughts?

[danh600]

This week I had a whole bunch of people tell me people don’t ride on this forum.

I do my part. My one year old bike had right at 16,000 miles on it when I traded it. 

I find it strange people would think that about the forum. I think I have been here less then a year and there have been three large multi-day group trips and all kinds of local rides. I have rode with Jamie a couple of times and I am sure there will be many more trips this summer.

[dt]

We do a lot of really cool stuff for being a small group of guys. I think it just gets lost in the forum behind all the gobbledy-gook (90% of which admittedly I’ve posted). Displaying our rides and events on the home page should help those just interested in that stuff find the current goings on. It’s actually not my idea…I’m a member of a jeep club and they have a window on the home page for upcoming rides then they leave each ride up for reports and photos for a month or two.

[dt]

Don's post on the Windy Acres Halloween Fest and other Windy Acres events could be something that would go in the window so it would stay right on the front page.

http://bikerflorida.com/forum/index.php/topic,936.0.html

[dongalb]

I had not used the Calendar before either.  It is quite nice as it does start a thread.

It does default to a thread I think in For Sale, so users will have to watch that.  Probably better if there is a way for the default thread to be Rides & Events.

[dt]

It does default to a thread I think in For Sale, so users will have to watch that.  Probably better if there is a way for the default thread to be Rides & Events.

Yeah, I saw that too. Plus the drop down window shows all the other non-classified categories as “General Category” which could get confused with the “General Discussion” board. However, all the live categories and topics are there in the drop down. If it could, as you suggest, default to the Events board that would be good.

[mrbones]

I changed the default forum for the calendar and also altered the home page.

Do you think "Rides & Road Trips" and "Bike Nights & Events" should be merged into one?

[dongalb]

Bike Nights and Events does give us a place to post about them, even though we may or may not attend.  Rides and Road trips seems to be more about members organizing a gathering or ride, which I guess might be to an event.  If that were the case, the discussion is better suited in the event thread, in my opinion.

So I guess I have argued for both sides.  If forum traffic does not justify two areas threads would still divide topics.

[dt]

I think there’s a distinction between the two categories, but given how they’ve been used merging would probably be best. I’m still thinking that what goes to the home page should be rides and events that the members here put together or are seriously involved with. In other words, I don’t care about advertising other people's bike nights unless a bunch of us get together and decide to actually go to one. We can otherwise go see all those bike nights and events on slick’s site. Just my two-cents. I think others should chime in too.

So how do events/rides make it to the home page? If you (Bones) select what goes there, that’s fine with me. Also, is the home page the way it is now done or is it still work in process?

[dt]

I’ve looked that home page on a number of different sized screens around the office. The wider the screen the smaller the font sized is and the more empty space at the bottom. Like the background design. Maybe we could think about re-centering the recent posts window and go back to two windows under the recent posts…one for the new Events and Rides threads and bring back the most active boards window.

In the intro the link to BikerFlorida.com goes to that same page. Consider…

“Check out the forum and see all the latest events and rides in the BikerFlorida.com Calendar.”

[danh600]

Nothing wrong with Bike Nights and events being advertised here. I like to know about them. I don't go to that many, but do like to do a charity ride or small rally now and then. There are several web sites out there that do a decent job of putting the word out on these events.

Rides and Road Trips is different. I think that's what this board is all about. The best internet forums on the web no matter the hobby tend to be the ones people know each other in real life and do the activity together. I think riding together is what is going to make this a bigger and better community.

Even if I haven't been on the group rides I still feel that way. 

My vote would be to have seperate sections for them.

[mrbones]

Thanks for all the comments. I tweaked the Home page a little bit. I'm not sure what will display if there are no events in the calendar. We'll have to wait and see.

[dt]

I think surfacing the calendar was a great result from this effort. After this gets tee’d up it should be up to the members to post events/rides directly in the calendar. But is only one upcoming event/ride going to show on the home page? I was kind of thinking that ultimately things like the Windy Acres, Barber, SGT would show.

I’m still thinking that what goes to the home page should be rides and events that the members here put together or are seriously involved with. In other words, I don’t care about advertising other people's bike nights unless a bunch of us get together and decide to actually go to one. We can otherwise go see all those bike nights and events on slick’s site.

Nothing wrong with Bike Nights and events being advertised here.

To clarify…the original idea was to have our “riding activities” on the homepage. When I said that ^ I was referring just to the homepage. I didn’t mean that folks like 904Iron couldn’t/shouldn’t continue to advertise or promote their events in the forum or put them in the calendar.

[mrbones]

I can't yet see how far in advance the home page is posting the events. Further investigation in necessary.