Re: (ET) What for our future?

["Bob Murcek" <rmurcek geisinger edu>]

In-line comments below preceeded by "}}"

>>> "Don Barry" <Don Barry kirbycorp com> 1/19/2003 12:26:53 AM >>>
Hello All,

Tonight I was pondering upgrading things on the www.elec-trak.org (or 
.com) website. I thought it would be good to poll everyone on some of my 
thoughts. Please give this some thought and email back yours. 

 Hopping on top of my E-15's seat, here I go:

- I don't feel like our numbers are increasing much. If you look at some 
of the other tractor clubs, they seem more robust. What to do (or is it 
not a problem) ? 
}} This may not be a problem.  I'll never forget how amazed I was when I 
thought I was the only person in the world that would restore an ancient 
tractor, then accidentally came across this mailing group and found there 
were lots of us.  Considering the age and availability of Elec-Traks, it's 
really pretty wonderful that the number isn't declining.

- It breaks my heart to think running (or nearly running) ET's are sitting 
unused or in the junkpile. Why can't we as group make some of them running 
and GIVE them to groups (like a church, city, any enviromentally-active 
company or whatever) to use? The more folks who see an ET makes more folks 
who might want one.
}} Are any of us close enough together to be able to do something like 
this?  I think the nearest ET'er to me is 60 miles away!

- I feel that we all answer the same questions over and over again. As we 
do not have an indexed archive for our email messages, a lot of info gets 
lost.
}} I've tried using indexed discussions for car info and haven't been 
particularly impressed.  While stuff does get repeated, it's possible that 
the personal involvement is one of the strongest aspects of this group.  
I.e., you really feel supported when you yell for help and several people 
take the time to answer.  If info is getting lost, one approach might be 
to copy good advice to pages on the web site that can be referenced in 
conversations.  I.e., split the Resources category into "Factory" and 
"Owner Tips".  Closer ties between the web site and the mailing list would 
be good, though.  Hmmm.  An interesting compromise would be to use a 
web-based bulletin board, but make it easy to subscribe to all messages.  
I.e., simulate the listserver with the bulletin board so that the indexing 
would be available if needed.  Would it be possible to set things up so 
that a reply to a listserver message would get posted to the bulletin 
board?

- While the websites are good, there isn't any easy way for us to upload 
and comment out information individually or spontaneously. This would be 
invaluable for those of use with problems to submit a picture (worth a 
thousand words, I hear).

- We lack a registry of existing tractors.
}} This would be neat, it would also help in getting a feel where other 
owners are.  Wouldn't have to be fancy.

- We lack a concise history document for them as well.

- We still don't have PDF's of every Owner's Use and Care Manual on the 
www-sites collectively.

=================================================
A solution I've been thinking of is a having is a BBS....

I see a lot of other clubs using web-based bulletin board software.
- anyone can browse. Registered users can upload text AND IMAGES. It's 
searchable, too

For an example of a layout see http://www.acuramdx.org and 
http://www.acuramdx.org/forums You can all guess what car I drive.
This site is uses a popular package called vbulletin.  One of the 
interesting things here is you can have multiple admins/moderators for the 
foums.

So far the downside is that we're really used to seeing the emails. 
Typically on the forums you need to "subscribe" to a discussion group, and 
then you'll get an email whenever something changes on that group. You 
still need to go to the WWW site to read/write messages. But you get to 
see pics then too. 
}} I agree that seeing the E-mails go by is a positive thing that binds 
the group together.  A plus about the group being the size that it is is 
that the E-mail traffic doesn't get too high to deal with.  There are car 
forums I'm signed up for that I haven't visited in months.
==================================================
Another is that I've been doing is re-writing the www interface to 
something much simpler. Right now you *have* to use MacroMedia Dreamweaver 
to edit the site. I used a template (which I thought was cool), but now 
with so many changes means any menu-update means updating over 60 
template-ed pages. It's getting kinda kwirky doing the updates.
==================================================
For those who are curious, the domain names are good for another three 
years (www.elec-trak.org and www.elec-trak.com). 
The ISP is paid up for the next two years (cost is $240/year). We're only 
using about 35% of the allocated disk space, and about 5% of the bandwidth.
==================================================
My darling bride bought me (or should I say let me buy) a brand-new HP 
officejet d145 combo printer-scanner-fax for Christmas. The scanner has a 
SHEET FEEDER (Thank God)... Omnipage Pro 12 Office software is also on 
order.. this should allow almost automatic generation of PDF files. 
Currently the page-by-page scan on the old HPScanJet 3300C was about 15-20 
minutes per page...
==================================================

Okay, I'm off my tractor now... 

Don

Houston, Texas
Restored E-15