[X] My Assistant

[nprev]

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.

[Brian Swift]

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)

[tedstryk]

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)

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.

[mcaplinger]

Also, I do not have access to enough information about the forum to determine whether or not they are overpaying.

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.