Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: nprev Aug 11 2023, 03:43 AM

Hey, everybody. Members of the admin/mod team met this week with The Planetary Society (at their request), and the bottom line is that the Forum will be transforming in several ways in the near future. As those of you who are TPS members probably already know they've rolled out a new interactive interface recently and their initial thought was to incorporate us into this in some way. During our discussions we made it clear that above all else we must preserve the high quality of discourse here and accessiblity of same to both the amateur and professional spaceflight communities at large. We feel very strongly that this unique synthesis benefits both communities substantially.

That said, we are also painfully aware that our current Forum software & interface is, in the words of one member of our team, "very 00s". We badly need a more modern, functional, accessible and sustainable platform, and there was considerable discussion as to what the best options for that might be. TPS agreed to investigate a bit from their side...but more importantly, this is where you the Forum members come in.

We respectfully ask all of you to please share your thoughts and suggestions on this issue. In particular, we would like to know your ideas in the following areas:

1. What aspects/functions of the current incarnation of UMSF do you feel are the most important to preserve? By this we mean things like topic searchability, opportunity to engage with subject matter experts. etc. It is likely that the current site will be archived with reachback capability, so this is the perfect time to tell us what you like & what you don't about the way the place functions now so V2 will hopefully be a significant improvement in as many ways as we can do that.

2. What things would you like to see in a future version of the Forum? Should mention up front that years ago we decided to change the name to RoboticSpaceflight.com but for various reasons that was too difficult for us to implement in practical terms with our limited time & skill sets (stuff like link migration, etc.). However, with this new major revamp that change will finally occur. Aside from that, we'd like to know what sort of modernized interface(s) you would like to see, and especially any recommendations in that regard based on your own experiences elsewhere on the web.

And of course any other relevant ideas anybody may have would be most welcome. This is your time to shine; let's hear it!

Thanks to you all for your help, and as always for your superb contributions to our special little corner of the net.

Posted by: Antdoghalo Aug 11 2023, 03:02 PM

Are Yahoo AOL and MSN even a thing still?
We now have stuff like Discord and X amid things called "social medias".
It would be nice to have a place to link those with icons appearing in the name plate.

I like the current layout of the site but a Dark mode would be nice. It's pretty popular these days and it reduces energy consumption by monitors!

Posted by: Hungry4info Aug 11 2023, 04:09 PM

With the caveat that I'm old (now) and don't like change.

Of course I agree with the staff about the importance of high-quality discourse. In resposne to Antdoghalo, this is something that will need to be kept in mind if there's efforts to transition to or incorporate some newer platform. I admin the Celestia discord server, where we also maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio (inspired by this very server), but there's still rather frequent issues where kids post nonsense. The structure of Forums lend themselves more toward thought out email style posts moreso than chatroom type setups - a factor that likely governed the decay of the popularity of Forums into the late-2010's.

The description of the forum as "very 00s" is actually, to me, one of its more endearing qualities. I can log into this site and know that it will be a quick, painless interface that is structured for function more than bandwidth-maximization or graphical effects.

One of my favourite aspects about this Forum is it's age. I can (and sometimes do) go re-read the thread for the Huygens landing on Titan and relive the excitement. The early days of MER, Hayabusa 1, and so on. And there's so many exciting missions that this forum has been there through. It sounds like we'll still be able to re-visit that on the new interface, so I take this as positive news.


An increase in the attachment upload size limit, and a decrease in the image embed size limit. As much as I love some of the mosaics that have been uploaded in the Curiosity and Perseverance threads lately, the up-front bandwidth cost of loading the page and the formatting disaster that happens until the images have loaded have been rough at times. We still use smoke signals to transmit digital data in some parts of the rural united states.

It does seem to me that this forum has been in need of some liveliness injected into it, though. There's a few die-hards that have been in here since the early days, but we've lost some and still others do amazing work outside of this forum. Perhaps some better public outreach is needed. Twitter continues to be a major source of content (processed images, etc) related to robotic spaceflight despite it's *highly* algorithmically-driven transient nature. How do we attract more talent? Perhaps a revamp would help that.

Posted by: stevesliva Aug 11 2023, 05:00 PM

Mostly I reiterate what was just said by Hungry4Info. The web2.0 look and feel isn't really broken, though yeah the 20yr-old limitations and social media links are past their sell by date.

wrt the forum software, a few years back airliners.net upgraded from something yet more 90s and proprietary than this forum, to... something that still uses BBcode. So they're creaking along with something that looks much the same. Users there cried bloody murder but there were some unforced errors like "oh we're going to do the technically hard stuff like migrating user accounts and ignore the UX until we go live." Users give no credit for the backend pain.

wrt vitality -- I have never been a big twitter user, but it seemed like a lot of the community went there, and is there. (At least until twitter potentially self-immolates). I have always hated twitter's threads. As soon as they're multiperson, they're short and frayed. Honestly I'd maybe post a few "hey I saw this on twitter" things for discussion here but OTOH I assumed that was more NSF's bag. (Where they can then try to top each other with discursion on minutia.) This site now serves a few niches that I'm not all that active in. But in its way that's vital enough. All that to say I'd be fine with having more Twitter topics in old-fashioned forum format but I'm completely aware that might flag me as being too stogy to use twitter the right way. So the questions are: do you want more stuff back from twitter to here? do you do that in a twitter-aware or twitter-averse manner? does twitter's active efforts to dilute its value factor into what you decide?

(a history note: I thought: Am I crazy? is twitter *new?* It launched in 2006... so solidly younger even if now also middle-aged. But also airliners.net and nasaspaceflight ... those old forums continue, too)

Oh, one more comment. The 'Q&A for noob' thing seems to have gone hard into stackoverflow or reddit/disqus sorts of places: https://space.stackexchange.com/?tab=month ... ironically that site also seems fairly moribund. But it's web3.0 umsf++ at least. As soon as the user base can help moderate with upvotes. But only if you want to have some sort of those functions (twitter's breadth, SO's Q&A) do you incorporate them into wherever you go from here.

Posted by: volcanopele Aug 11 2023, 05:12 PM

A forum to look as a potential option in terms of software is https://arachnoboards.com. This is a tarantula hobbyist community that is based on XenForo. This would allow us to preserve the structure we have today of forums, sub-forums, and threads, the ability to host images (potentially, we may still prefer off-site image hosting to keep costs down) in a gallery, mobile responsiveness (the very 2010s idea that the format of a website should shift based on the size of the screen), and the ability to 'like' or react to a post, which can provide feedback without adding to the noise.

Discord did come up and it is growing on me as an option, but as an addition, rather than a substitute. It has the "ever present now" problem that most social media sites have, BUT having an actual functional chat room would be nice actually.

Posted by: mcaplinger Aug 11 2023, 05:29 PM

I could imagine that behind-the-scenes administration of the software is a hassle, but I personally don't think it's missing any particular feature.

If "accessible" is code for increasing the number of participants, I question if that should even be a goal. One has only to look at nasaspaceflight dot com for an example of what happens when the commenting community is large; SNR suffers and knowledgeable participants leave as they are drowned out by nonsense.

Posted by: ngunn Aug 11 2023, 07:44 PM

The forum does everything I want it to and always works without fuss. For this I am eternally grateful to the admin team. From where I sit there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I paricularly appreciate when members with specialised knowledge take the trouble to share it in everyday language for the benefit of interested lay persons like myself. Perhaps there has been rather less of that recently, but the reason could simply be that everyone's busier now and there is a greater proliferation of places for online communication. I don't see it as evidence that a revamp here is needed. So to the question 'What kind of hole would you like in your head?' my reply is 'None at all, thank you.'

Posted by: Decepticon Aug 11 2023, 08:32 PM

Dark Mode.

Posted by: scalbers Aug 11 2023, 09:40 PM

Hi - yes more outreach sounds good, as well as larger image attachments.

Otherwise I like the deep history of this forum and the simple interface.

Ideally a new site (if needed at all) would integrate the previous history of posts in a seamless manner.

Posted by: nogal Aug 11 2023, 09:42 PM

After reading through the replies, I fully agree with the need to "preserve the high quality of discourse here and accessibility of same to both the amateur and professional spaceflight communities at large" and the ability to access the old data. I also mostly agree with what has been said regarding current format and simplicity of use. I spent my professional life in IT and I believe in simple interfaces (but not in dumb functionality). However, the ability to access and use the forum on mobile or other devices should not be disregarded.
What kind of users is this forum aiming for? I do not want to disparage social platforms but I never had a personal use for them. Now that I'm retired they're an extremely small part of my way of life. Will the new environment require an increased moderation effort?

Functionality I've missed most: a secure (https) connection; the ability to attach files to personal messages.
I think it is very important to maintain a well defined degree of independence, from TPS or whomever. I was a member of TPS for 30+ years. No more, as I fundamentally disagree with some of the actions taken in recent years. I understand that running UMSF has costs, at least site hosting, domain names, storage, and some administration. That is also in the equation. If a patron can't be found, will contribution from forum members be an option?

Thank you for starting this discussion.

Posted by: nprev Aug 11 2023, 11:02 PM

Thanks to all for the comments thus far. Forgot to mention that better mobile accessiblity is a primary goal as well, and ideas along those lines would also be very helpful.

Re exposure: TPS definitely wants UMSF content (especially imagery) in front of the general public more, and in fact they mentioned a sort of how-to for aspiring image processors as a possibility. We balked at this a bit since of course everyone--and I do mean everyone--on here is on their own time and generally for their own recreational purposes.

We also repeatedly stated that TPS membership should not be a prerequisite for Forum membership. We'll stick to that.

As far as going our own way without TPS...well...we would need around US $10K/yr to do that plus some real live no-kidding qualified IT people to maintain the backend functions, which may well cost a whole lot more. TPS is paying all the bills right now via their own donations. We've asked for IT volunteers in the past but that hasn't received any support. It could be done, of course, but a whole lotta things would have to fall into place in very short order.

Back to the discussion!

Posted by: djellison Aug 11 2023, 11:13 PM

UMSF was born in a time before Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Mastodon, Slack, because back in '04....dedicated forums to a specific subject were the only place discussions of reasonable quality happened.

The manifold options for discourse today have inevitably fragmented communities of this kind. That can't be undone. People aren't going to come flooding back ( nor would that be a good thing ).

I handed the keys to TPS ~13 years ago after moving to the USA to take a job at JPL so as to eliminate any possible perceived conflict of interest. Back then - Emily was still at TPS, I was a member of TPS, it felt the right place for it to call home. But it's never been clear to me what TPS's intent was regarding UMSF specifically - or their online presence more generally. I let my TPS membership expire long ago for that (and other) reasons.

I question how realistic it is to expect TPS to invest any meaningful technical effort into a new platform when they failed to do the very basic things that would reasonably expected over the past 13 years like....leveraging the modern features of IP Board.....keeping on top of things regarding server maintenance....moving the URL to the new one proposed over a decade ago etc etc. I have it on reasonable authority that one competent SA with a day of work could complete the migration to the new URL with ease. If TPS couldn't even find a way to make that happen, expecting something far more significant seems, at best, ambitious.

FWIW - I find the interface to be snappy and sufficient as it is. The vast majority of modern Web UI just ends up being clunky, slow and gets in the way of the content. NASA is AWFUL at this, TPS has been heading down the same path to the detriment of their own website.

If TPS is happy to keep paying the bills with the help of donations they should just keep IP Board updated, look at some of the more modern UI options, expand attachment limits if the server capacity allows and leave well alone. This place is 6 months shy of turning 20 years old. Is it a massively popular website? Nope. But it still just about does today what it was started for in 2004. There's still nowhere else like it. It ain't broke. I don't think TPS should try and fix it. If they're insistent - then UMSF should simply move out from the TPS family, find more affordable hosting options and be a place of its own once again. To be frank - I simply don't trust TPS to do the right thing based on the choices they've made regarding their own online presence.

Finally - a massive thank you to nprev. That UMSF is still around at all right now is thanks to his dedication to this place and I can not begin to thank him enough.

Posted by: Paddy Aug 12 2023, 08:47 AM

I visit the site twice a day and must have read every post and looked at every picture for something like fifteen years, so I guess I must like things just as they are. Change rarely seems to deliver on its promises whilst unintended consequences are pretty much guaranteed. I rather miss the whip-rounds. They gave lurkers the chance to justify their existence and to hold / express a view.

Posted by: Toma B Aug 12 2023, 12:51 PM

I'm OK with the current iteration of this forum. I think it looks just fine.
One thing I don't like about planed changes is renaming it to Roboticspaceflight.com, I think that Unmanedspaceflight is a much more original name and is famous in some of my local community.

Posted by: Antdoghalo Aug 12 2023, 10:18 PM

I second djellison. I used to be on a site called "Wikimapia" and it was a thriving place until against huge pushback, they decided to move on from mid 2000's web design to scroll and space wasting 2010's design more so meant for mobile. A lot of people left the site after that and it was abandoned. I would like to see UMSF remain with it's 2000's look because it was a crossroads between excessive clutter of the 90's early 2000's and the excess empty space of the 2010's. Plus I am a big fan of the era before every box had to have rounded corners. By keeping the 2000's look, it makes UMSF feel unique.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Aug 13 2023, 06:56 AM

Several points to ponder here. Generally I support Doug's comments.

This is the best place on the internet for a sensible discussion of planetary exploration as revealed by imaging. There's another excellent forum which is chiefly concerned with engineering and policy issues. Social media as a whole have become terribly fragmented (especially with the descent of Twitter). There's just no better place to be than this.

As far as web design is concerned, simple is better. Modern web design is atrocious. All the basic principles of good design have been abandoned (check out many of the 'new space' websites for examples). If someone tells you a website needs to be updated to keep up with the times - run fast. Most likely they are just hoping they will get the job. UMSF is fine the way it is.

As for who runs the server and how it is funded, I don't have any preferences or suggestions. There's no doubt nprev has done an excellent job in recent years. I want to thank everyone who contributes images and discussion. I think one especially important thing the forum can do these days is to draw attention to the scattered fragments of news from different sources so everyone can keep up to date.

Phil

Posted by: JohnVV Aug 13 2023, 12:13 PM

my only concern is that if facebook,twitter,discord,... icons are added is that they allow for tracking of the visitor to this site and possibly on the rest of the net -- a bit of a pet peeve of mine


as to the look i like the current style BUT the backend should be upgraded , things like a " dark mode" would be nice and larger attachments would help .

Posted by: tedstryk Aug 13 2023, 09:21 PM

To be clear, the status quo isn't an option. It costs the TPS upwards of $5000 a year to host the forum, and they are only willing to support it as is for another six months to a year. So to keep it the same or similar to how it is, it would require us to find someone else to host it and/or pay for it ourselves.

Posted by: StargazeInWonder Aug 13 2023, 09:37 PM

Things I could imagine being better: The ability to upload images with larger size. It's weird now – not a big problem but weird – when someone posts a large image and my browser initially renders it at the massive size, but then suddenly shrinks it back down and requires a click to a new window to view it at the previous size. I think it makes more sense to have a thumbnail from the start, instead of the current big->small->big sequence. But this is a minor quibble.

Things I could easily imaging becoming worse: Pop-ups, ads, cookies, requests for notifications. That is a plague around the Internet that this site has avoided. Especially when ads have running video in them by default and/or reduce the effective content window to a fraction of the full window.

Things that could go either way: There are currently content policies against human spaceflight, astrobiology, and obviously many off-topic things like politics, UFOs, etc. As a whole, these policies keep out a lot of noise, although there's nothing inherently about the first two of those that makes it impossible to discuss them reasonably. My point here is not to argue for or against a change, just to note that any change in the setup, ownership, amount of new traffic, etc. might bring about such a change or increase the need for moderation. The beginning of a new program of lunar exploration over the next couple of years might attract interest (positive? negative?) for imaging work, etc. that would blur or break down that boundary.

Change tends to occur with certain objectives in mind, then brings unexpected consequences.

Posted by: scalbers Aug 13 2023, 11:49 PM

I run my personal website on a hosting service "Justhost". Perhaps a forum can be set up at a site like that (as Doug suggests)?

https://my.justhost.com/cgi/help/forum

More phpbb options here. Could be a bit of effort to import this board into phpbb though in theory it can be done. This is a low cost option.

https://www.phpbb.com/hosting/?sid=285f0be271363eeb838a56da1dea0dd2

Invision boards like this one are a bit more expensive:

https://invisioncommunity.com/buy

Another possible forum name is "uncrewedspaceflight.com"

Posted by: Tom Dahl Aug 14 2023, 12:01 AM

As a daily-reader and occasional-poster, I have been happy enough with the mechanics of the UMSF forums software. A very important feature to me is the ability to see a list of recent topics and replies, as provided by this forum's "View New Posts" feature. I think the long history of posted content is a very valuable asset. I believe topics that are years or even decades old should remain eligible for new replies (something that some forums prohibit via an auto-locking feature after some amount of time, such as six months). The more that this forum's existing content becomes harder to access and disjointed from any new "active" forum system, the less I will be happy. Ideally the current content could be migrated more-or-less intact to the hypothetical new forum system (sadly, I suppose that is very unlikely to happen).

The basic organization of a forum - a persistent hierarchy with categories, topics, and replies, is much preferred over an infinite-scrolling chronologically-based presentation (such as used by X/Twitter and Facebook's feed). I would not use UMSF if it adopted a "feed" style presentation. A change in forum software might cause me minimal disruption, or it might cause me to cease using UMSF, depending on the nature of the new software.

Attracting new members is fine in-and-of itself, but odds are that a major increase in membership (specifically in members who post) would probably decrease the average quality of posts. That would be bad, possibly fatal to the forum. I appreciate the fact that The Planetary Society (of which I am a member) wants to expand its reach and impact. But I worry about the apparent focus by TPS on image-processing. To me, that is not a primary reason why I visit this forum. I like seeing "space images" posted here, to be sure, but other information such as mission updates, discussions of spacecraft operations and engineering challenges, are just as interesting as imagery to me.

Posted by: Explorer1 Aug 14 2023, 01:46 AM

Having lurked since the Mer.rlproject.com days, I would agree with basically all of the above posts; especially the historical value of the threads here (despite the inevitable broken links over the years). The ability to resurrect old threads is especially useful, given the speed of both spacecraft development and trajectories often being measured in years. Any successor should have that. I have no opinion on any name change, but keeping the SNR ratio high is as important as ever these days.
I certainly don't post often for those reasons, except for some particularly burning question I cannot satisfy myself.
Coming up on the 20th anniversary of this place, I certainly hope it goes on for another 20 (the Uranus and Neptune subsection needs some activity!)

Posted by: stevesliva Aug 14 2023, 04:07 AM

So, what are they willing to pay for? Might make the options more clear.

Posted by: nprev Aug 14 2023, 05:31 AM

Thanks again to everybody for your thoughful replies and opinions...and thank you very much, Doug, for your kind acknowedgement of me here. You built it, man; I'm just the unskilled handyman trying to change lightbulbs and unclog the drains.

To clarify, what we're doing right now is gathering your inputs to formulate a response back to TPS of what YOU the users value, want, and need. We'll continue this data acquisition effort for another week or so and then send that response to them. As to what they will or will not do that's an open question right now, but we expect that this effort will inform that.

If we can't reach an acceptable agreement with TPS then it is still conceivable that we could go our own way if we can identify a cost-effective and sustainable way to do so. One thing I'm hearing loud and clear is that while growing our exposure/membership may be desirable to TPS, it is most definitely not a goal of Forum members--but maintaining a high SNR, intelligent, rational, respectful discourse, and an accessible, update-capable database of previous topics all absolutely are goals highly valued by our community.

I wholeheartedly agree,

Posted by: Brian Swift Aug 14 2023, 07:57 AM

Like button, view counts (basic analytics), mobile friendly, dark mode, opt-in to notifications, friendlier search capability, some thought given to API access in the event RSF becomes popular enough that someone would want to create an App for it (or integrate into some existing app), need to still maintain unmannedspaceflight.com domain name to prevent breaking historic external links into UMFS, ability to serve large images intelligently (initial image appropriate resolution for device type and bandwidth, click for larger image, un-pinch to zoom to full-size image), also serve videos, sound files, 3D models, ability to export into an archive everything you've posted, make it easy for non-members to just consume content, have a feed/topic that just shows aggregation of new pictures/media added across site, have a unified calendar of upcoming space events the members could contribute to, open up to to more topics (eg allow calendar to have all upcoming launches even if crewed), act as hosting site for web based space themed apps (eg if someone wants to build a WebXR mars virtual environment, or improved catalog of data for some some mission), include the "share to" buttons (those who like to think they aren't being tracked online are already taking measures that they think counter the tracking), accessibility in terms of ADA compliance.

Obviously, some of the preceding are "spared no expense" ideas.

Also, I think this survey is highly subject so sampling bias. For a broader view, could also send a bulk email asking for feedback from people who were active contributors but left (eg query database for users with a few hundred posts spanning a couple years who haven't logged in >18 months).

Also curious about cost breakdown of $5K/year (reasonable for 2 hours of IT support a month, seems high if just for vBulletin cloud hosting)

Posted by: climber Aug 14 2023, 08:53 AM

Hi all and thank to Doug and Nick,
This is the only place with no ads where you can find easily what you’re looking for. Just keep it as simple as it is.
This place is more like a book than a website. So please NO like button (even if I really miss it sometimes)
I, as some of you here, used to be a TPS member but not anymore and I fear they can change UNMSF the same way.
I used to donate here when it was necessary and asked for and ready to do so again instead of loosing Doug’s spirit (no pun) when he created it.
The improvements I’d like to see have already been pointed out by others.

Posted by: jasedm Aug 14 2023, 02:14 PM

Hi everyone, and heartfelt belated thanks to all the admins and mods who have kept the forum clean, orderly, relevant and free of bile since inception.

I've been here since 2006 and a lurker before that. The current format, forum rules and quick accessibility keep me coming back.

I echo many of the comments so far:

1) It's very useful to be able to track back on threads that are a decade (and more) old - it gives a very good perspective on how hard-fought and difficult it is getting probe missions off the ground (thinking particularly Webb and New Horizons here).

2) The formatting and layout are very simple, but in a good way - this place doesn't suffer from lack of flashy graphics, animated avatars, pop-ups, advertising etc.
Formatting for categories and topics is a huge bonus, avoiding the need for endless scrolling prevalent elsewhere.

3) I can only speak for myself, but I have and would be more than happy again to contribute (annually?) towards the running costs of the forum to keep it functioning as the erudite and respectful place we're all used to. It's interesting that a number of members here have unsubscribed at TPS - I rarely go there now. As Doug intimated, it was a marriage of convenience at the time and TPS (although a non-profit organisation) has a remit for advocacy and lobbying that run contrary to the 'flavour' of UMSF

We could do with a wealthy benefactor with a passion for exploration. My vote would be James Cameron. Perhaps the forum could incorporate robotic oceanic exploration as a sub-forum - useful when we get under the crust at Europa.....

#Roboticexploration.com

Posted by: stevesliva Aug 14 2023, 03:56 PM

I was begging the same question because almost anything useful would require more person-hours, not fewer, if that's a person-hours accounting. If that's so it sounds like the features that might be within the budget are: none. I want to be clear I'm not jumping to that conclusion, and nprev made it clear that we should not jump to that conclusion yet.

That said, thank you Nick, Ted, anyone else for doing the work to clarify this.

Posted by: john_s Aug 14 2023, 04:52 PM

I agree with most of the comments above (other than better image / large file management I don't see a lot that needs improving), though I do think the forum name needs to be updated to reflect the times. I miss many of the old regulars, and the chattier vibe that the forum used to have, but don't know why that has changed, so can't comment on how it might be improved. It would be nice to hear from more of the folks who don't post much anymore, about what has changed for them.

If the budget is a problem, it would be great to have a place to be able to donate to keep the forum going, complete with information about how much is still needed to meet the annual costs (one of those fund-raising thermometers...). I would happily contribute to keep the place ad-free. If it becomes ad-supported my interest in would likely decline.

Huge thanks from me too, to Doug for creating one of my favorite places on the internet, and to Nick and all the others who have kept it going, and the quality high, over the years.

John

Posted by: brellis Aug 14 2023, 08:07 PM

I've greatly enjoyed the wonderful images and discussions here, hope it all can continue in whatever new context turns out to be. I agree with the sentiment that not much needs to change just for the sake of change.

Thanks!

Posted by: marsbug Aug 15 2023, 12:31 AM

One of my favourite things about the place is the simplicity of layout. I think there's a good (and hard won) sense of accessibility of threads on any given topics, without losing how complex those topics are when you dig into them. Good luck to the admin team and staff, I know from experience that projects like this involve a lot of hunting down bugs, I appreciate the effort!

Posted by: PFK Aug 15 2023, 09:03 AM

Some thoughts folks.
As a humble chemist I've not had much to add here over the years, though visit it most days. On some occasions I have been able to add something from a science background and have also asked for, and received, help in the past. I have pointed work colleagues and others with a vested interest to the site before now; how many have kept with it I don't know. People from other disciplines can help through expertise - I remember a powder Xray guy from, I think, UCL indexing the raw Xray data from the first such measurements from Mars for example. I've no idea whether or not he stuck with the site; the notion of trying to assess that data from people whose activity has dropped is an interesting one. Many may be like me, but for many the lack of login-in might just show they never visit.
Of course one issue is that at any one time there might not be much going on in terms of big name missions reaching their peak. So that's where something directing new or semi-lapsed members to things might be good. As with others I enjoy revisiting the build up to events; in just the last few months I went back through the immediate timeline to NH at Pluto and then Ultima and revisited, for the umpteenth time, the Huygens landing. Great stuff, and genuine historical records of events that are forever drifting further back in time - in less than 18 months it'll be the 20th anniversary of Huygens for example. So many of the students who'll start at my Uni next month, and who have a genuine space exploration interest, weren't even born! Add to that the amazing, custom made imaging we see then you've got a genuine resource. BUT it does need signposting - took me a while to figure out the start of the really crucial timelines for the events I mentioned.
So without compromising simplicity, I think some method of directly linking newcomers to the start of the really crucial phase of some of those stories so they can "relive" the excitement would be good (not just to the thread but to appropriate posts); same for the best images.
This site is a goldmine of info and of contributions from people actually doing the science (witness Alan coming on the NH threads). That in itself should attract people who are genuinely interested and won't just add to unwanted nonsense. They will also have their part to occasionally play with genuine insight into their respective fields. But it has to be "welcoming" in terms of directing them to things that showcase the site's greatness and they should feel able to ask a genuine question and get more than "google is your friend" as the answer.
As was mentioned in a thread a while back, never underestimate the value, away from pure science, that the efforts of people here involved in the missions themselves and in image processing can have. Given all that's gone on, and is still going on, over the last few years, the ability of these endeavours to take people away from the hassles of Earth should never be underestimated. This site can help with that enormously; keep it simple as many have said but also don't hide your light under a bushel!

Posted by: Explorer1 Aug 15 2023, 02:21 PM

I agree with PFK, some sort of 'greatest hits' list of the historical threads would be very useful for newcomers, though how to organize it may be tricky. Saving for posterity is the priority, and switching them to their own subforum may make navigation difficult (in addition to choosing which ones qualify).

Posted by: climber Aug 15 2023, 05:45 PM

Re Alan coming on NH trait, I met him back in 2019 in Zurich and introduced myself as Climber from UNMSF… and he told me he knew me (!) with a bright smile and we talked like people sharing the same passion. This is what I don’t want to loose here

Posted by: tedstryk Aug 15 2023, 09:33 PM

I was not able to get any clear explanation of this. Also, I do not have access to enough information about the forum to determine whether or not they are overpaying.

Posted by: mcaplinger Aug 16 2023, 03:54 PM

The small amount of research I've done (which is probably old news to some of you and might just be wrong) seems to say that this forum is now locked in to using Invision, where costs range from $1K to $7K annually depending on volume ( https://invisioncommunity.com/buy ). Going to a cheaper hosting vendor would likely require porting all of the content to an open-source alternative like phpBB, which is certainly possible but will cost extra money and/or time.

Posted by: fredk Aug 16 2023, 09:49 PM

I agree with most here about not sacrificing S/N ratio, keeping it in a forum rather than feed format, and, crucially I think, keeping older threads (including posted images) "alive", so they can be relived or added to. I also agree with many that the current format "ain't broke", and I've seen little functionality at other sites that I'd like to see here.

One of my few complaints is about large embedded images. Of course, being hosted on external servers, loading them doesn't affect the UMSF server, but loading a large image before javascript reduces it to a thumbnail is still inefficient. I don't know how to deal with that though, apart from encouraging people to post thumbnail links to the full-size images or somehow auto-generating thumbs on the UMSF server. Maybe somehow the UMSF server could enforce an image-size limit for embedded images?

No-one's mentioned threaded vs flat format. In my experience (eg with https://www.dpreview.com/) a threaded forum wouldn't make sense for UM/RSF.

And if it means "going it alone" I too would be willing to help however I can...

(And I have no problem with a dark option, but it won't save energy on ordinary LCD monitors without backlight dimming zones...)

Posted by: stevesliva Aug 16 2023, 11:19 PM

There is an "Options" dropdown upper right that would allow you to see the "Outline" view of this topic. (You will see that this post is a reply to yours)

Google search results for this site seem to use that view.

FWIW the forums at dpreview appear to support a "flat" view. That software seems to waste acres and acres of screen space, though. A compact flat view is essential. I agree.

mcaplinger provides some good data on cost and our apparently proprietary forum software. With "free" like phpbb, honestly the costs of maintenance and admin might outstrip what IPS charges. Tough nut.

Posted by: MahFL Aug 17 2023, 12:32 AM

Sadly change is inevitable...

Posted by: rlorenz Aug 20 2023, 11:03 PM

I like the simple, clean layout. It's (relatively) easy to find old contributions. Good SNR and forum format.

Dont change the name (since it's a negative anyway, it isnt exclusionary).

I dont have strong feelings about dark mode

Posted by: vikingmars Aug 29 2023, 07:46 AM

Dear Nprev,
Thank you for keeping us informed of some of your forecoming decisions.
I read all the posts with the good ideas.
As a Charter member of The Planetary Society, having witnessed most of its developments since its beginnings, and if I may suggest,
I would really keep the name "UMSF".
Over all those past years, UMSF became a worldwide 'brand', known for its community having a lot of experience and known also by planetary exploration specialists.
With best regards,
Olivier

Posted by: deedan06 Aug 30 2023, 07:46 PM

Hi, I'm new to this forum but I've been watching for a few years. Honestly there is not a lot in this forum that needs changing. Sure, its old, but even a young person like me can see that it has its charm. However the forom is in need of maintainance badly. The things that are broken do need fixing. It is not acceptable for a modern website not to use https. Also the forum ignores gmail addresses for some reason and just doesn't send them the verification E-mail.. I don't know why it does this, but a bug like this is counterintuitive if you want to get new members. So yeah, thats the thinks that are broken and that I'd personally like to be fixed.

Other than that, I do worry about the lack of new members. The only new member this year that actually posted something besides me is RAB. This place is shrinking. I've been watching this forum since the perserverance landing and while there are a few dedicated members there is hardly anyone new. Maybe we should make an collective twitter account to advertise this forum and get those parts of the community to join us, but maybe that would be to many new memers, as it is obviously not good if this place gets run over.
One last question. What was the planetary society like in the past? Right now they seem like a second NASA PR-Team which nobody needs, but apperantly they weren't always like that. How did they use to be?

Posted by: StargazeInWonder Aug 31 2023, 01:31 AM

FWIW, I was a charter member of the Planetary Society when it launched; I wasn't terribly involved, but from the mailings, there was a spirit of advocacy, like they were trying to sway policy towards more exploration… maybe increasing public enthusiasm so as to make it more likely to get more missions funded. This was in the era when Viking, Pioneer Venus, and Voyager had already been funded but it wasn't clear where things were going, and the absence of a U.S. mission to Halley seemed like a sign that things were going in the wrong direction.

That was a long time ago; I'm sure there have been more than one twist and turn along the way.

Posted by: Barnard Aug 31 2023, 09:42 PM

Please keep the UMSF name. It's a solid, solid brand that people will gravitate towards when something is happening.

Just upgrading to a new invision board like the following would be a good way to modernise. https://www.rllmukforum.com/ they also run the board there as LTD company.