Some suggestions
 

Hey Grant and Co. :-)

Since i'm now back in switzerland, after using that beautiful website intensively, I would like to make you a few suggestions.

- There should be a direct link to the HUBB on the Start-Page, one that points directly to http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi . It's for those travelling the most important function i guess

- maybe you could change the 'posts today' thing to 'posts in the last 24hs'?

- Sometimes i replied to a thread that another guy started, sometimes i'm active on several threads. It would be nice to get an email notification whenever somebody replies to any of my messages

Maybe more Ideas will come soon :-) If you need any help, maybe i can help you, I can do some programming stuff

Thank you for this wonderful website which helped me so much!

Marco
http://www.schnueriger.et

> - There should be a direct link to the HUBB on the Start-Page, one that points directly to

I just bookmark it...

> It would be nice to get an email notification whenever somebody replies to any of my messages

It's already an option for threads that you start.


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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.

bonjour!

Yes, i've got a bookmark on my home pc, but when i'm in an internet cafe, i cannot use bookmarks. So if i'm on the road, i always have to click through.

I know that you can receive a notification for threads you're starting, but it would be nice if you could get one if you're replying to someone else's thread. Of course, the HU server has to send a lot more e-mails and I don't know how much more that would mean.

Marco
http://www.schnueriger.net

Thanks for the comments guys, we are working at this moment on a whole new HUBB, as well as a whole new site - lots of features and goodies that I think you'll like!

some comments in line:


Good point - I'd forgotten that both the "intro" and "Bulletin" links are to the intro - shows how long since it was touched! I will change it so that the "Bulletin Board" link is direct to the HUBB Ultimate.cgi link.


Not so easy, beacause it's all relative to GMT - Greenwich Mean Time, so it's "today" GMT, not the last 24 hours - a big difference. NOT sure, but I think we can do "last 24 hours" in the new setup - I will make sure it's on my list to implement if at all possible, I agree it's a good idea. I also WANT last 7 days too, but we'll see if it's possible.

You WILL be able to choose to receive an email notice whenever there is a reply to any thread you have posted in, on a per thread basis. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks Marco! How's your PHP skills?


You're most welcome, and we greatly appreciate it when people give something back to the HU Community, by volunteering to help, posting information, or whatever they can do to assist. Just spreading the word, and participating helps us all. Contributions to help pay for the site helps a lot too.

To see what the new site will LOOK like, see http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu/

NOTE nothing works, it's just looks.

Thanks again for all comments and suggestions. Any comments on the new look appreciated. We want to make sure it looks ok on all browsers and operating systems, so if something is broken for you, let me know.


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Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------

One world, Two wheels.
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Hi Grant

Call me a Luddite, but I prefer the existing look. The white background's just too harsh as well.

My thruppence worth.

Regards, Mick

hmmm... I like it, looks fancy!

Grant, I can do php, although not perfect. If you've got something specific you need, i will do it for HU. I've got some spare time at the moment

Marco

Glad someone likes the existing look! http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

We hope to let you have a choice of "looks" including font sizes and colours and backgrounds. No guarantees, it's another task to add, but we were discussing it just today, and may be able to include it. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

Grant

Thanks Marco, I'll keep you in mind for small jobs when we get to that point - at the moment it's all infrastructure using Typo3 as the back end for the site, but we will have some PHP in a couple weeks if all goes as planned. Thanks!

Grant

grant,

the website is excellent and very usefull, well thought and made, no worries :-)

in the category "regional forums", why not put a page "ex ussr" ?

for each country also, a kind of page full of "practical info for other travellers" with the official view (ministry of foreigh affairs etc ...) but also a page that all the travellers could update with their own info ...

it will maybe make some search easier (?)

for example, that s what i did for some countries : ex : pakistan : http://vincent.danna.free.fr/infos/pakistan.html

cheers

Hi Vincent, good ideas - and in progress on the country info pages. We've started that at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tripplan/ - links to countries on right of that page. Adding in the ability for users to add info is in progress, sometime this summer, or early autumn at latest. Building the infrastructure is a huge job, and unfortunaely country info isn't at the top of the list, but it IS on the list.

Re the ex-ussr countries - kicking the idea aorund, not happy with the "ex-ussr" description - perhaps a better category would be "Central Asia" including the 'stans etc. Comments?

thanks for the ideas guys, keep them coming!

Grant

grant,
i can understand the infrastrucutres thing, it can be really complicated :-) but can t help you, sorry. what i did on my website (the few practical info) is quite easy and very basic but here, you have to plan a bit more in advance the infrastructures !
i don t know if it s possible the way i imagine it as a user : but it would be nice for each country to have the official view but also -above all- the bikers users views : it would be quite convenient for a search but to build the infrastructures, i don t know :-)
a few examples : visa, CPD, fuel, garages, etc ... kind of Lonely Planet for bikers :-)

for ex ussr, whatever the name, i agree with you, it s not very sexy, you understood me, thanx : since more and more people go there and since this region has a lot of similarities.

good luck with the new site

I'll set up "Central Asia" now - but we need a moderator with some expertise on the area - Vincent? http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

euh :-) ... thanx and why not ?
i m sure simmo could be interested too.

in your infrastructure, i would put russia, china and mongolia with central asia, because of the similarities (region, visa and procedures things, langages, roads, weather conditions, etc ...), and also because they are quite new areas to ride, so same wonderings / expectations of travellers.

therefore, europe would be europe (former west and east) without russia. asia would be se asia mainly and india.

any ideas or other suggestions from others ?

I've moved Russia to Centra Asia, that's a good idea, but I think we leave China and Mongolia as part of Asia forum.

So we have:

1. the 'stans and Russia as "Central Asia",
2. Iran Pakistan India and all SE Asia, China Mongolia, as Asia

If anyone can think of a better way to break out the whole mess - I mean Middle East, Asia, SE Asia etc. please list it EXACTLY!

IS THERE a conventional breakout / categorization?

Vincent, you're now moderator for Asia nad Central Asia - your fun task is to browse the old Asia forum and move Russia posts to Central Asia!

Just open any thread, and you'll see

Close Topic | Archive/Move | Delete Topic

at the bottom. Click move, and choose "Transfer topic..."
"Delete topic from current forum" and
"Select Forum to Transfer to:" Central Asia.

Submit and done.

thanks!

It seems to be a big question where russia belongs to. I found out, that in most websites or books where they try to throw russia into some category, they put in into the Europe section. Don't you think that we should also keep to that 'standard'?

Marco
http://www.schnueriger.net

My problem exactly - when I first set up the regional forums that's the way I went too - but thre's lots that don't "fit" such as Iceland, and the Sahara vs sub-Sahara, and now Central Asia / the 'stans is definitely different problems from SE Asia.

IS Russia - for OUR purposes - more Central Asia or just Asia - or Europe?

Thoughts?

hmm... i was looking on the web for some common standards about that, but I couldn't find anything :-)

Maybe we should ask ourselves, for what we are doing separation of some regions: I think it's because of something like "lies in my interest". In my opinion we should not separate into too many regions (as long as traffic is not increasing too much in those forums).

I also found out that I missed some interesting threads in other regional forums, and I think this will happen more requent if we create more regions.

Ok, my 5 cents: If I take a look at the forums like they are now, I wouldn't change anything, to be honest :-) Except to delete Central Asia and Iceland!

Only question, where does Russia and all the stans belong: to asia, in my opinion.

Finally I found a website: http://www.maproom.psu.edu/dcw/

Marco

I think I like the Central Asia idea with Russia in it. Most people who ride Russia seem to go East, take in some Stans, perhaps even go to Vladivostok and Japan. So, I wouldn't put Russia into Europe. In any case, Europe is pretty full. http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif

China being a virtual no-go area for our purposes divides Asia into a Northern and Southern region, so the division makes sense.

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.

1- whether you stick to the standards like madmarco wrote (5 continents more or less) like other websites;

2- whether you innovate a little because they are new trends/destinations coming out/opening/willing to be discovered more and more by the bikers but with little accurate info and because you want to push those trends/destinations, to answer the bikers needs, to be in advance compared to other websites, to be "precursor/forerunner".

i have the feeling (according to the posts on the hubb for example) that more and more people are interested in central asia russia mongolia china and that they are really looking for good accurate recent info. things change very quickly in those regions too : visas driving rules etc ...

by creating special forums on those new destinations, you ll be in advance or "precursor/forerunner" (just like you were at the beginning of horizonsunlimited i guess) compared to other websites and you ll answer more to the bikers needs. and you ll create a new "dynamique".

the original idea of "ex ussr" forum or russia with central asia forum is that they belong to a same kind of area with common rules or a lot in common + what beddhist wrote. furthermore what beddhist wrote, mongolia could be included in central asia russia forum (or stay in the asian forum), even china, because of the borders those countries have in common.

from my experience in those countries in 2002 (russia, central asia, mongolia), it does make sense, because of the routes we take, like beddhist wrote, and because of the similarities in this region.

if it was my website, i would emphasize those new destinations by giving them a special forum :-)

china : is a bit special at the moment : can we really go officially or those who went were just "lucky" or clever enough to play with the rules or paid a lot of money to stick to the official rules (escort etc ...) ? so, where to put china in the regional forums ??? with asia, with central asia russia mongolia, alone ?

burma (in asia forum) : same story (officially, we can t go, that s for sure) : everybody s looking for some info, some manged to cross, a lot failed.

whatever you choose grant, it should be clear for the users : if you choose to put russia with central asia, then you should write "russia central asia" forum, etc ...
if you put china, mongolia inside this forum, same same ...

iran, pakistan, india : could be as they were before, in europe or asia.

iceland : what s the big interest to have iceland alone ?

ps : grant, i m waiting for your decision to do the moderator job (change the places of the posts).

cheers,


[This message has been edited by vincent danna (edited 25 May 2005).]

Ok, vincent's argumentation sounds reasonable. Let's put russia into central asia, and china into Asia. iran, pakistan, india into Asia.

But one other thing to mention is, that if you move threads, links within other forum's threads may be broken.

Marco

Okay, after much thought and consideration - yes, really http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif we've settled on Northern Asia and Southern Asia.

Thanks for all the thoughts and suggestions guys, very helpful.

madmarco - how'd you like to be a moderator? http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif And yes, sadly there will occasionally be a broken link - that's what the search function is for http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif Moderators can also fix the links if they spot a broken one. When we move to the new software - soon - they'll all be broken anyway, although I may keep the old board readable, just not writable.

Vincent and Chris, feel free to move posts around between those two forums as needed.

thanks again,

Grant

thanx

all right

maybe you should make it clear for everyone, where russia mongolia, central asia, china belongs, maybe by writing it in the titles of the regional forums or somewhere else (?)

if i understood ok :-) , they belong to northern asia, don t they ?

sorry :-) , answer in the bulletin board section :

central asia, russia, mongolia belongs to NORTHERN ASIA

china belongs to SOUTHERN ASIA

Grant, it would be an honour for me :-)

Marco
http://www.schnueriger.net