ADF-Serials, Keeping it updated and alive

[Demon50]

It's frustrating me too Warhawk as I also have plenty of updates ready for my pages but there must be good reasons why it's not happening.

And to be perfectly frank, I'm rapidly losing interest in the aviation hobby generally and have considered giving it away on several occasions recently.

I don't know much about how these sites work and what access/security/privacy issues are involved but could a solution be for authors to get into the pages themselves and update them online ?

I guess they would have to be password protected so that only the authors could change them so could be considered ?

[Martin Edwards]

I agree something needs to be done to keep this most valuable project alive.

I will have to think about the best course of action.

I too have put in many hours both with the aircraft pages that I look after and of course the gallery has been a major effort.

I believe that we all have a sense of ownership and certainly don't want our efforts to be for nought.

The point made about the tickets is a very valid one.
I have taken it upon myself to respond to every ticket outstanding, even if the reply has been a bit apologetic regarding our lack of activity.
If we don't respond the updates we recieve will dry up.

All we need now is to be able to get the updates on line

[Brendan Cowan]

I'll take a deep breath and a big think too.

Personally, I would like to retire from my job and make this website my full time volunteer labour of love - but that's not a real option at this time.

My situation is like a lot of us, I'm a 45 year old senior executive in a major global corporation with a family to support and very little time left over after that.

I had to drop my own contribution down below the horizon for the last year due to ongoing family circumstances that I won't bore you with here and the increasing demands of work. I have decided to pitch back in because I don't want to see this magnificent site and the hard work of all of you go down the gurgler.

That said, we need to do something differently as we are all getting burned out and need to reinvigorate ourselves, and in turn the site.

A few years ago several of us had ideas for revamping the look and feel of the site and I still think that is badly needed - but in a way - we are the victims of our own success. The site is so large - this will be a huge undertaking.

We need help - and that means some new volunteers with the time and smarts to do it.

That way, folks like Gordy, Bob, Martin et al can do what you guys do best, produce outstanding content from the fruits of their research.

Thanks for the vote of trust - but given that I have been fairly absent for the last year, I'm not sure that I have fully earned it yet.


Anyway, I think a little more and post some new thoughts in the next few days.

Brendan C

[Demon50]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the same way.

I know that our hobbies start off small and as pleasant pastimes to take our minds off other things. But too often they spiral out of control to overwhelm other aspects of our lives such as personal, family and work commitments to the point where serious choices have to be made.

I know of two cases where hobbies were the cause of marital problems. The first where a fellow photographer was given the ultimatum by his wife "it's your photos or our marriage". He chose his marriage and left his hobby of more than 40 years.

The second was offered a similar choice but chose his models over his marriage which ended after 33 years !!!!! Both are true stories.

But back to the site.

I'm an original pen and paper sort of enthusiast who has fallen into line with the computer generation over the last 15 years. All my records have now been converted to spreadsheets or databases and are frequently updated, often daily, as new sightings or information comes to hand - ie my civilian aviation and sightings databases for instance.

I'm able to change entries at will and that's what the authors of pages on this site need to be able to do. Any other visitors to the site would only be able to read the pages and not change the content in any way.

I have a scant knowledge of programs and software so am wary of such things. Could my suggestion work ? I found that having to code everything then send it off was time consuming, frustrating and confusing and heaven forbid if there was a coding mistake - ie a colon instead of a comma which often caused me much angst trying to find my error. Getting photos to work is a constant source of frustration so I have given up.

If the authors had their pages protected by passwords, and the ability to change details online then we would see almost daily updates rather than have info years out of date. A friend pointed out to me that the "Wedgetail" page for instance has not been changed in over 5 years yet the first two were finally accepted by the RAAF last week !!!

Also, the display of the info leaves a lot to be desiresd in my opinion as do the spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes throughout the pages. I rewrote my pages in 2009 using a tabular format rather than the narrative style originally favoured for the site but which I found very messy and difficult to read.

It took me a long time to revise my four pages so it would require a gargantuan effort by other authors to do likewise and I guess it all comes down to personal preference. My info is displayed from latest down to earliest and being modern types makes it much easier to display.

I marvel at the outstanding research efforts of the various authors of the WW2 and early postwar pages which makes this site such a wonderful resource. My contributions of a few modern types pale in comparison and I find that obtaining information, other than that officially available, is often hard to get as sources and access to bases is drying up in the name of "security". And when you do ask or go looking, people often treat you with suspicion as the public has been made much more aware of the implications of people acting "suspiciously" in these uncertain times.

Also, I live in Perth and RAAF Pearce is 50kms up the road. But in the 9 years the Hawks have been based there, I've never seen one anywhere near Perth or Jandakot airports or even involved in flypasts over the city for such events as Anzac Day or the Red Bull Air Race when the PC9 is the usual choice to "fly the flag". Maybe they have, maybe they haven't. If not, then no doubt cost would be the main reason cited.

So that is very frustrating to me as the author of the Hawk page as I wouldn't have a clue which aircraft are currently on strength with 79 Sqn.

Another particular bugbear of mine, and probably for other authors of the modern RAAF pages, is the confusion surrounding the allocation of Hornets and Hawks to various Squadrons. Aircraft are constantly moved between units so that each Squadron has aircraft painted with others units' marking so you don't really know at first sight what unit they belong to.

Two recent examples being the deployment to Nellis for Red Flag and Malaysia for Exercise Bersama Shield by, supposedly, 77 and 75 Sqns respectively. But look at the photos and you will see every RAAF Hornet squadron represented. No doubt cost to repaint will be cited again but whatever happened to uniformity, discipline and esprit de corps ?

Sorry for the rambling guys but just a few thoughts.

Cheers

Bob

[Martin Edwards]

Well there is obviously still a pulse in adf-serials!

A couple of observations if I may.

We all have work / family /time commitments.
I relax by doing what I do on this website.
(Better than watching "Australia's Greatest Desperate Lost Talent" or whatever on the box)
I am sure many of you feel the same.

If writing shtml (Shit mail I call it) is a problem may I respectfully suggest that practise makes perfect.
I couldn't even turn on a computer in 2002 but I went for a late life Teaching Diploma and had to learn.
ADF-serials was my chosen excersice and by doing the Canberra page it became fairly managable and led to the Sabre and Vampire pages following suit.
The bottom line is if the updates are recieved in this form it means a hell of a lot less work for whoever has to upload them.

It is obvious than Darren has more pressing issues at the moment.
It was his foresight and talent that got this thing happening and drew us all together.
We need a strong team effort to be able to offer him a way to keep his legacy alive.

Please keep the feedback coming. There are 550+ people registered for this message board so please people feel free to express your thoughts

[batman]

I do have some time and the knowledge to update some pages. For instance, I could start with the Imperial Gift aircraft and update the 1A1, 1A2, 1A3, 1A4 and 1A6 pages if you could grant me the access.

JB

[Martin Edwards]

Hello Batman, welcome to the forum.
Thanks for your offer of help.
We are trying to do some re-organising access at present but I am sure we will be able to use your talents.

[Rod Farquhar]

Most of the comments posted here pretty much reflect my own thoughts.
We really do need some people with the savvy to run the nuts and bolts part.
I have time to spare but my computer skills are definitely not up to it, just reading some of the instructions posted here have emphasised that.

The ability for all users to upload images seems to have worked out OK, albeit with a lot of work from Martin (well done).

Enabling page editors to update their own pages would eliminate a lot of the bottleneck but obviously it is not all that straight forward as the process needs to be foolproof (read old men).

Anyway let us hope that something can be worked out, too many people have put too much effort into this site to just let it fade away.
Rdo.

[Rod Farquhar]

Hell I can't even spell my own name!
Rod.

[Brendan Cowan]

Thanks Batman,

Drop me a line at brendan.cowan@adf-serials.com.au

All help is appreciated!

BTW, I'm seeking some further volunteer help and advice from my colleagues in the IT profession on how we can simplify the upload issues for starters and make it so simple that even I could understand it.

I may be an Associate Partner at IBM, but I'm not web coding guru by any stretch!

Brendan C

[Brendan Cowan]

Hi Folks,

Well, Darren, Martin and I have been in contact again over the last couple of days and are now experimenting with some new methods of updating the site.

Darren has set up some trials lst night and this morning which if succesful will allow a few more of us to post updated pages as an interim measure.

It might take a bit of tinkering until we can declare success, but we are getting stuck in!

We'll keep you posted.


BC

[darren.crick]

thanks guys for the help, I have setup trial access for Brendan, Gordy and Martin... for those other page editors who have updates, get them to me asap and we will discuss options.

My time is limited, but I will do what I can when I can.

[Warhawk]

For those hanging onto those last words since it was posted, the trial never took off after getting passwords despite attempts and some unanswered emails.

I figure I'll have to invest in some appropriate software afterall, rather then use the same software as one other unsuccessfuly tried to use as well.

I have come to the conclusion that from now on I'll just be content doing the odd message post and being a no thrills part time ADF member for the future so I can keep intouch with my like minded friends on adf aviation subjects and help out where I can.

In having said that, it seems finally pointless to have my name on those author pages, so I now insist that my "author" status and so-called Research Co-ord nameplates be removed.

Now that's said and done, there'll be no more talk on the subject by me now or the forseeable future


Cheers
Gordy :D