NWOGEO Mtg - Topic now CLOSED, see new Event Topic

[TeamMina]

The crazy thing is...that we could've actually made it!

[jslagle]

I think this outcome says a lot.

I pushed other things off because I had this tonight. It was in my calendar.

While I realize that geocaching isn't many people's top priority, the fact that we couldn't get enough of us together to have this meeting says too much to me.

My suggestion now sits at me just moving the website here to a phpbb forum on my new server, and dissolving any formal entity. People can organize events as non-group related groups of volunteers.

Jason

[OnDHunt]

...just moving the website here to a phpbb forum on my new server...

Jason

Okay, I have to ask since I am lucky to have figured out how to turn my computer on with my limited computer knowledge, what is a phpbb? I assume it is computer related and not something I should get a vaccine for.

[Mighty_Mo]

php is a computer script language. phpbb is a Bulliten Board implementation.

[sunrenay]

So, what exactly does that mean?

[OnDHunt]

php is a computer script language. phpbb is a Bulliten Board implementation.

I still don't get it! Call me slow, call me inept, call me computer challenged, just don't call me late for dinner! What's it all mean?

[Mighty_Mo]

The functionality of a phpbb I will leave up to the experts to discuss as I barely speak HTML.

However dismantling the "formal entity" I'm not sure is a good idea. I see the cancellation of the meeting a "bump in the road". People posted they had issues getting to the meeting. Certainly not like August 2008 when only two of us even remembered there was a meeting.

There seems to be a few people that may be able to make it work this time. If we can get the same kind of interest that there is in the Christmas Party, the future of NWOGeo ought to be secure.

I expect a reschedule of the meeting to be announced soon.

[jslagle]

I'm extra frustrated because I actually showed up. The meeting was cancelled at the 11th hour because all the sudden everyone had something better to do. Iwas at a conference from Sun to wed morning and busy at work, so didn't get a chance to check in. Left work early to be down there by 6:05 only to find out that on Tuesday they decided to postpone it.

I understand people have stuff going on. But, until people decide they want this to work, and pencil it on calendars and stuff, it's never going to get organized.

FWIW, the forums portion of the site is phpbb. Converting to straight phpbb would just have the forums and nothing else basically.

Jason

[Mighty_Mo]

Just wondering ..............
Why remove the rest of the site? Is there a problem with it?

[jslagle]

The site runs on old unsupported software running on an old dying server. It needs moved to a new server, and the version of the software we're running won't run there.

Upgrading has proven non-trivial due to customizations made to the site over the years.

[Mighty_Mo]

So that is an issue separate from the Re-org issue.

I wish I could help with the software issue but my last programming was DOS based Pascal and Assembly. Just a little rusty to say the least.

[jslagle]

It is.

If the organization is going to organize and need things like calendars, etc I'll find time to come up with a solution. If not, exporting the forums straight to phpbb and being a lose knit forum is a quick thing for me.

[Mighty_Mo]

Then I guess it's wait and see how things progress. I hope it moves along fairly quickly. Like a rescheduled meeting.

[OnDHunt]

Jason, sorry you had to hear about the cancelled meeting the hard way. No one meant for that to happen.

Thanks for all the clarification on the "phpbb" thing. I won't say I understand it, but I now follow what you are talking about. I agree with Mr. Mo, it sounds like the computer issue is separate from the reorganization issue and it is one that should be resolved no matter what.

As one of the only two who remembered the last meeting for the reorganization effort in August 2008 I too think there is alot more interest in moving things forward this time. I am all for trying to reschedule something quickly.

[GizmoGuy411]

To answer a couple of the questions posed here, and to attempt to preemptively answer some potential future questions along the same lines, and to provide some perspective history, I am posting this in my typically long and wordy fashion.

DragonFly-CMS is the name of the Open Source (read free to use) software that NWOGEO.org runs on. CMS means “Contact Management System�. (DragonFly-CMS was formerly known as CPG-Nuke)

Out of the box, DF comes with an assortment of modules to do various things. One module runs the Forums. As Jason mentioned, the Forums here are a DragonFly customization of the phpBB Forum software. The php part of the name comes from the programming language used to write the software, and BB means Bulletin Board, which is part of the acronym, “BBS� for Bulletin Board System that was used back in the day before the Internet when you called individual computers with your trusty dial-up phone modem.

When Jason started our site, he researched available CMS software, and chose DF because of its power, stability, flexibility, function integration with the forum module, and security. In the past, phpBB had some security issues, which DF claimed to have improved upon to use for their Forum module.

Again as Jason mentioned, phpBB is JUST the forums. To switch to it we would lose the other capabilities that we currently have, such as downloads, links, picture gallery, system wide voting, articles, weather, and pretty much everything you see in our left menu plus any other add-on modules that are available for DragonFly. While some of these features could be gained back by writing HTML pages, maintenance of the site would require a bit more technical knowledge than running a CMS package.

Back when Jason took on the project of rebuilding the Michigan Geocacher’s site, he chose a newer CMS called “Joomla� which was quickly becoming a favorite among people who evaluate various CMS packages. DragonFly at the time was having some growing pain issues, and it looked like the 3rd party add-on developers who felt abandoned by the DF website, were going to jump ship to something else. Eventually things settled down, but not before a number of other CMSs had moved up the ladder including Joomla.

Jason’s plan was to build the Michigan system, and then re-customize it for us. While Joomla has some great features, one of the things I was concerned about was that the forum module did not integrate into other the modules as well as DragonFly. They seemed to function almost like two different systems. I was concerned that our users may have a problem with that. Jason actually had a test site running for us that I played with for a while, as I thought we would be migrating to it before long, and I needed to learn how to administer it.

While there is nothing WRONG with the current version of DragonFly we use that I know of, I would like to at least upgrade to the latest version. Back before the new versions came out, I made some changes to the core software that Jason felt would not be an issue, as he could compare the files from the old to new versions, and easily reapply the changes I had made. As it turned out, DragonFly made a major change in their basic file structure to better implement the ability for DragonFly to work with multiple languages. This prevented Jason from making the changes as easily as he thought he could.

To further complicate the issue I did not adequately document the changes, as I thought it was a non issue, from the way Jason said we could implement the upgrade. Additionally, we had the assistance of another NWOGEO member to implement some of the code changes that I had dug up around the Internet. I don’t think he documented those changes either.

Jason has asked me in the past what we should do with our CMS. My suggestion then was to just stay with DF, as we were familiar with it, and it ran pretty much without any work on his part that I knew of. I also said that it would be nice to upgrade it to the newest version, since many newer 3rd party add-ons were only designed for the newer versions. Plus the newer version better addressed some security issues.

What has changed since then is that the issue with the code changes I made in the core of the old version would no longer be a problem as one of the newer 3rd party add-ons accomplished what I modified and was much better. (The changes I made had to do with the method for editing forum posts and such.) The worst problem would probably be that I would have to go back and change some posts to properly display with the new version.

Jason may have other reasons to reduce the site down to phpBB that I am not aware of. And for those who are not aware, from the beginning of NWOGEO.org, Jason has provided the computer, and the Internet connection that NWOGEO.org runs on for no cost to us. Good Dog initially created the NWOGEO account on geocaching.com, and for a while Jason even paid to make it a premium account. (It is a free account at the moment.) He also pays yearly for the registration of our NWOGEO.org domain name.

In the past, several of us have suggested that NWOGEO pay Jason for his services, and reimbursement of the domain name fees. To date, he has gracefully declined. While it would not be as good of a service as Jason provides, (he runs our system on a dedicated machine), webspace on a reliable commercial shared server and the domain name registration would cost us around $100 a year.

Sorry for the long post, however, I suspected from the questions so far, and by the otherwise relative silence, that the long answer was necessary.

FYI:
http://www.DragonFlyCMS.org
http://www.Joomla.org
http://www.phpBB.com