Web Site / Bulletin Board Requests and News

[cascadeclimbers]

Hey All-

I just wanted to take a quick second to thank everyone for visiting and posting all the great threads on the site. I'm truly glad that climbers are using and enjoying this forum. But, being the perfectionist I am, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve this little site we have here, and I NEED YOUR HELP!! Here is how you can help:

FEATURE REQUESTS

I'm sure you have all surfed to quite a few climbing websites and you have said to yourself "This is cool, but I wish they had ....." . Well, let us know, and we'll try to add new featres to the site. Remember, this is YOUR site!

NEWS

If you have an important news story (Access, Fee/Bolting issue) that you would like to see featured, or if you want to promote a sale/slideshow, let us know, and we'll post it on the news in the BB and on our calendar.

SUBMIT CONTENT

I've seen many awesome personal web pages of folks that live around here, so I know there are some great writers/photographers in our midst. If you would like to share your story, or some of your pictures, please send us an email at

climb@cascadeclimbers.com

so we can get your masterpiece up on the site for all to see. Besides, if you submit some good stuff, you'll be the first kid on your block to have an ultra-cool cascadeclimbers t-shirt! NEATO

HELP SPREAD THE WORD

Tell your climbing buddies about the site, because the more the merrier!

Well, that is all I really have for now. Please reply to this thread if you have any ideas, news, or if you just want to say hi. Again, thanks for helping make this site happen!

-Tim

[snowleopard_x]

Finding a way to create a section for us to post photos (or especially photos with trip reports) would be great. These tend to lend to the community aspect of many boards on the web.

I think the idea of the News section on the main page is good, but it seems to not be very prominent. Maybe with time as this site and it's following grows?

Something NOT to do: Allow pop-up ads here, as they are far and away the most annoying ads on the web. Especially the kind that create new windows.

[cascadeclimbers]

Hey Snow-

Thanks for the feedback. I hear ya on the pop-up ads. We're not going to ever subject ourselves or our visitors to any sort of pop-up window.

Jon and I are actually going to create a gallery page where people can post picutres of their recent trips. I don't know if we'll have an automated upload, but most likely we'll ask people to email them as attachments and then we'll post them. We're looking into making pictures upload-able as part of our route report database that is currently being developed (very slowly i might add )

Right now on the BB here you can post pictures. The pictures already have to be on the Internet somewhere. For example, I have a free web space (with annoying pop ups of course) on geocities. So I store most of my pics up there to share out. Lets say I was writing a trip report about my last jaunt up to Boston Basin and I wanted to put up a picture of myself in the post. Here is how I'd do it:

1) Upload my picture(s) to my personal webpage and note the address of the picture that I want to post to cascadeclimbers. This time I will be using the picture at: http://www.geocities.com/timdcrawford/sahale024.jpg

2) Cruise up to cc.com and write up my trip report and in the trip report use the following UBB code:

***BE SURE not to have any spaces between the Tim acting cool on Sahale peak.

You can do all sorts of cool stuff with the UBB code. Its alot like HTML, but very basic, and we have an on-line tutorial which can be found Right Here!

3) Or, you could email us your picture, we'll post it to the gallery, and you can tell folks to check it out there.

I totally agree with you though about the pictures. We know how climbers love to see pictures, especially of themselves, so we are going to add the gallery very soon.

NEWS- I wish we could add more news on the main page also, but we really need people's help! The page is just a hobby of ours so we don't have the time to scour the net for the latest news, we'd really love it if people would notify us of cool happenings and we'll post them. I agree with you though, that as the site grows, the news will become a little bit better! Jon is working with folks from the Access fund both locally and nationally to get current Access news for the site, and we are in the process of contacting Manufacturers so we can find out about new gear before it hits the market. With time, it will become good, promise.

If you, or anyone else reading this post has questions about the UBB code/posting pictures just shoot me an email at climb@cascadeclimbers.com and I'll help you out.

take it easy!

Tim

[This message has been edited by tim (edited 11-06-2000).]

[gapertimmy]

woops

[This message has been edited by tim (edited 10-28-2000).]

[jon]

Snow and Friends- I’m working right now on a new section for photos, maybe I’ll call it the photo gallery J (Dr. Evil’s pinky to mouth). The idea would be to allow people to send in, or hopefully post pictures (obviously they must be appropriate, no Britney Spears photos) with a little story behind it. The one thing that is lacking on the site, which I’m sure everyone has noticed, is the lack of pictures. This isn’t intentional, just there is only so much time to work on the site, and pictures are hard to incorporate and still make the site look cool. The new site design I’m working will definitely include lots of killer photos. The more to distract people at work, right?! If anyone has input on this idea, you know what to do.

The news section will take some time to mature. We are still working on establishing contacts to help us get info where we can post current news relative to us. This is just going to take some time. And as you pointed out, as the following grows, we will have more opportunities to work from. If anyone knows people who would be good contacts for climbing news, that may be willing to help, throw us a message.

As far as advertising is concerned, we are being very careful about how we approach that idea. I’ve received a few emails already asking us to post what are essentially advertisement for them. One that I found especially funny was this movie shop owner who wanted us to link to his page where he was selling a Hillary/Everest movie. When I scrolled to the bottom of the page there were links to every kind of porn that your could/couldn’t imagine. Obviously we didn’t link to him, and no I didn’t buy anything. Depending on where the site goes and how people react to the idea, advertising might be an option to keep the site going. Good hosting isn’t free, especially if traffic keeps increasing, and some of the stuff we want to do will cost some money. I’d be interested in hearing what the opposition to this idea would be, or for that matter, any comments whatsoever.

I’d just like to thank everyone who has taken the time to participate in the forums. It means a lot to us that people are using and enjoying the site. I’d especially like to thank all the people who have written in to say hi and tell us how much they like the site. Our inboxes have been flooding with mail, and I spend many o’ nights trying to reply to everyone. Tim and I are really excited with how things are going. Anyways, thanks….

-Jon

intensity@cascadeclimbers.com

 

[snowleopard_x]

Sounds good guys. I think the idea of being able to post photos with trip reports (or vice-versa) is a great idea. Having a picture story of climbs will certainly help lure people to that area of the site.

What might help with photos is if right on the site you have a place for us to e-mail photos, instead of having to get out of the browser, open the e-mail program, then link and send. Call me lazy, okay. But this being the time of "better, faster, cheaper" with the web at the center of it...

If you get automated upload of photos it would be wise to have it autosize. This will help keep the load time down for us folks with slow modems.

[jon]

I definately hear you Snow. Being able to upload the pictures through the browser will be the ultimate goal for posting on the bb. Writing a script to upload the pictures shouldn't be terribly hard to do, though I'm saying this before I have started hacking the PERL and trying to integrate it. For the time being we will set up an email address for this. Another option is anonymous ftp, but web is better.

I'm still interested in having a photo gallery, where people can show off their photos and a short narrative. Tell me your thoughts and who is interested.

Peace, Jon

-intensity@cascadeclimbers.com

[gapertimmy]

Hey all-

Little off the picture subject, buy anyhow... I have added Yahoo Instant Messenger functionality to the BB. If you have a Yahoo account and want to let people IM you, just edit your profile here on the BB and add your Yahoo ID. After you do this, a cool little icon will show up next to your name on each post (see mine ^^^) telling folks wether or not you are online.

I'm going to add Aol IM, and eventually MSN IM also so folks who use the different programs won't feel left out .

Again, if you don't like letting people access you via email or Instant Messaging, you can use the Personal Message functionality on the board. To send a personal message to someone, just click on the little icon next to their name in a post and write up your message.

-Tim

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skippy@cascadeclimbers.com

[forrest_m]

Tim & Jon (and others)

I wanted to go back the discussion about ads and making the site pay its own way for a minute. I don't want to seem ungrateful, and I totally appreciate your point about hosting not being free, however... to be perfectly honest, I know that my interest in the site will be inversely proportional to the amount of advertising and commercialization that I encounter. Even banner ads would reduce my visits from daily to occasional.

That said, I think the "partnership" model could be pretty effective, by bringing in a commercial partners who actually have information that people want - like your health and fitness section. If you have to have some equipment/gear shop sponsors, maybe it could be on that model, some store that would be willing to chase down in-depth answers to questions, interview reps, write up a lowdown on the latest trade show. At the very least, I hope that any advertising in that vein would remain totally segregated in a "gear" section of the site.

Anyway, I appreciate all the effort you have put in. Keep looking for creative solutions!

[rbw1966]

What about forming a partnership with local gear shops who provide not only sponsorship for the site but also discounts to climbers who buy gear from using Cascadeclimbers as a portal? I know that there are already a few resources in my area for sharing trip reports, route information and the like that are totally free and totally free of advertisements and spam.

This kind of forum is fun and its nice to build a regional rapport with local climbers but its cumbersome to post this way and it sees a bit less traffic then the other sites I visit.

I can talk with one of the climbing shops in my area to see if they would be interested in providing a discount as well as sponsorship of the site if you like. Email me off-thread and we can talk more.

Rob in Portland