The Future of Feldgrau?

[Jock]

Hi all,

Firstly, I would like to say I fully appreciate what Jason has done, and what he has given us, and this is in no way meant as an insult to him, or an attempt at a coup.

I just wonder what will happen to the premier German WWII site in the coming years. Many suggestions have been made to further improve the site and its contents, such as the current thread regarding articles, and members who wish to contribute to the site. Also, it has been discussed that we add a 'Heer' forum, which I think is a great idea. I think the lack of one is a bit strange, considering they made up the largest proportion of the Wehrmacht we all know and love.

Jason, you are now devoting your time to a very worthy career, and carry all our best wishes with you, though surely you would be proud to think that something you created has attracted members who can follow in your footsteps and help to maintain and update the site, thus continually keeping it up to date, and in its position as the best community and information source on the web, regarding German forces in WWII.

I think there is many members here who would devote some time to help with the upkeep of the site, and add information and articles. Surely a select group of "Forum Heroes" could be appointed to keep Feldgrau great, and up to date.

Jason Pipes will always be the driving force and creator behind this site, and respected by all, surely we can repay this debt we owe him by helping keeping the site great, now that he has more pressing matters in his life.

Anyway, any comments on this would be appreciated. I do hope I have not over stepped the mark in posting this, and if I receive an email from the commisar asking for my address, then a subsequent visit from him with a nagan, and a request to see the back of my neck, Ill understand.

Cheers,

[Tom Houlihan]

Jock, let me add my two pfennigs worth here.

First of all, I don't think you've over-stepped your bounds here at all. Your concern is for the future of the site, which is good.

Yes, Jason has embarked on something that is going to take even more of his time. I believe he's in the Academy now, which will take up about 114% of his time. Although most of us would prefer to have his influence here, I'm sure we all respect his current situation.

Over the past months, there have been some beneficial changes. The moderating staff (in my humble, but slightly biased opinion ) has done good things. We still draw some light flak from some people, but overall, I'd say there's been an improvement.

My own elevation to admin status has had some effect. Although I haven't been able to get up with Jason lately, I have done what I originall wanted to do with this change. Over the past couple of days, I've zapped over 40 infiltrators, who have been laying various spam traps for our members. If that is the only thing I do with my admin status, it will help Jason a lot.

Changing the structure of the forum, like adding a Heer section, is something only Jason can do. Well, technically, I could do it, but that would smack of a mutiny! Personally, I think it would be a good idea, but this whole shebang is, after all, Jason's. Until one of us contributes 49-51% of the time, money, and effort into the upkeep, those decisions are his. Solely.

I would like to know what else you had in mind for other people to do to contribute? Aside from the mods, I'm not sure what you mean. There are articles that could be written, and monies to be donated for sure, but what else were you thinking about?

Now, as far as a visit from the Commissar, which do you think would be worse? His bullet in your neck, or permanent incarceration in my jail????

Take care, and keep those cards and letters coming!

[Jock]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your reply. Really, other than writing articles and posting them to the site, I cant think of much else right now. But considering that the site is 100% based around articles and information, I beleive the addition of more and more articles could only further improve it.

Also, if people here were involved on a day to day basis, like you guys (the mods) are, and you had the power to edit the site and forum, it would mean that both could become very user driven, which I cant see as being a bad thing, considering the amount of top class men we have here.

Permanent incarceration in your jail?! I've seen 'Oz', I know what American jails are like! Haha, only kidding - it would be a pleasure!

Or would it.....

Cheers,

[Alex Coles]

In the future of Feldgrau, we won't have idiots like HvM, period.

[Tom Houlihan]

Alex, we will continue to be plagued by idiots popping in. Admin and mods will do all possible to limit their influence, but it's the nature of the beast.

What Jock was referring to was the site itself. What else can be done by the members, to build and improve?

Also, in the future, let's refrain from referring to idiots, alleged and otherwise, by name, shall we? It just doesn't seem 'cricket' to ding on them when they can't defend themselves.

[Paulus II]

Hi all,

One thing that we might do (or at least: I would like it to be done. Or do it myself if necessary) is bundle all the info that is hidden all over the forum.
Between all the posts that do not have any facts but only opinions, jokes, well-wishes and all else that is discussed there (however much fun it all usually is ) is a ton of information that is accesible only through the search function. A function that is far from perfect for a deep search of all the bits of info (on the same topic) that are fragmented all over the forum.
Information is only useful when it is readily retrievable while the forum, at the moment, is more of a great pile of snippets without any real order to it.
A daunting task to bring order to this "chaos" and I'm not sure how to go about it within the limitations of the forum but since I've worked the past years in government (municipal and provincial) archives as an Information Retrieval advisor bringing order to vast amounts of information and ensuring the easy retrieval of that info I've come see the benefits of bundling and organising info and would like that implemented on the forum.

Maybe someone else has some ideas on this??

Regards,

Paul

[phylo_roadking]

Paulus, technically speaking - amore intelligent use of the search feature is whats needed. Not to be cheeky, but I've noticed its often very much how a thing is asked for rather than what is asked for that makes a search facility truly useful. The problem with the Forum is....it IS a forum! It is always and will remain a hotch-potch of ideas, opinions, facts and other material (shall we say) but thats exactly whats good about it, its free-format way of trapping information. In turn, it just falls on US to be more intelligent about how we get stuff back out of it again. I've seen intelligent people unable to come up with correct search criteria - in turn I've met the George Smileys of this world who can interrogate the Net brilliantly....but be mired down in opinion and prejudice and be unable to give back what they've found, on other forums not just here.

Let me give you an example, a gem; I recently after MANY years stopped contributing to the Classic Honda Four forum embedded on http://www.sohc4.org for owners of Honda four-cylindered motorcycles 1969-1981. Why? I encountered someone in a thread on oil type and frequncy of change, whose opinion was expressed somewhat vehemently. When I pointed out that my experience came from 150,000 miles on the same machine without major mechanical upset, including hard working miles on that bike, but was aware EVERY bike was different and EVERY rider/owner experience was different....I was asked what the **** was I doing riding a bike that old. I replied that I was doing it because I wanted to and using that site for the same reason - which was strangely enough FOR classic motorcycles!!!! This guy sounded JUST like the opinions of our late departed friend H**dz*r in the last legendary thread he contributed to here!

Similarly with our departed Polish friend; his own recorded beliefs were that the SS AND the Heer were criminal organisations, along with his pro-Polish stance. While there was nothing wrong with the latter, there HAS to be something suspect about the motives of someone on a site like THIS with his personal dislikes if not hatreds. We've all at times met that sort of obtuseness on here, and SO much else, but its a penalty we pay to have the site in the format it has. The only problem at present with the Forum is that it IS a Forum, but that is its greatest virtue also; its a segment of the Net that puts the individual back into its format and content. But we have to be here for approximately-similar reasons, and WE have to learn how to get the best out of that format, we can't assume that it will be made easy for us.

[Tom Houlihan]

Paul, while I agree with Phylo, I think your idea has merit. I'm not entirely sure how to go about it, but I'm sure it would take time and effort.

In an overview, I think that basically what you're asking is to go through all the threads, and pull out similar pieces of information, without the editorializing and opinions? For example (at the risk of incurring Sid's wrath! ), pull out all information on Liebstandarte (men, equipment, campaigns, etc.), and put it all together? Maybe add it to the article located elsewhere on the site?

If I'm correct in my understanding, then that is a mind-boggling task. Have you looked at how many threads we have? I know how much effort it took just collecting all the Forum Hero Tales, and putting them together. Searching for all info about Tigers, Waffenrock, Repro uniforms, or whatever would take ages!

But, it would be a useful task, if anyone has the time to do it!

[Andy H]

Paul, while I agree with Phylo, I think your idea has merit. I'm not entirely sure how to go about it, but I'm sure it would take time and effort.

In an overview, I think that basically what you're asking is to go through all the threads, and pull out similar pieces of information, without the editorializing and opinions? For example (at the risk of incurring Sid's wrath! ), pull out all information on Liebstandarte (men, equipment, campaigns, etc.), and put it all together? Maybe add it to the article located elsewhere on the site?

If I'm correct in my understanding, then that is a mind-boggling task. Have you looked at how many threads we have? I know how much effort it took just collecting all the Forum Hero Tales, and putting them together. Searching for all info about Tigers, Waffenrock, Repro uniforms, or whatever would take ages!

But, it would be a useful task, if anyone has the time to do it!

Hi Tom

I think your correct in your assertion as to what Jock is driving at.
It's a problem all popular forums face If we all had a looking glass and we could see what the future held for a forum, then we could have put in place structures etc that would help us index & catalog this information, into a easily searchable database or readable articles.

Also though you may have a 1000 bits of info on say the LSSAH, what % of that is actualy correct & accurate? Its gets very subjective. Equally you may have a post or two on a most obscure unit/subject, and that information may not be anywhere else on the www, but given that it has only one or two posts it won't get the attention it really deserves.

The best you can hope for, is that a few individuals give there time to collate such information, on whatever subject they see fit and present it to the site as an article. In addition to have the best search functionality possible on the site.

Sadly popularity has its price, and though the information may not be lost, its just the preverbial wood from the trees scenario.

Regards

[Tom Houlihan]

The best you can hope for, is that a few individuals give there time to collate such information, on whatever subject they see fit and present it to the site as an article. In addition to have the best search functionality possible on the site.

Agreed! So, two key points.

First, is there a way for Jason to "upgrade" the search function? Is there a better one available that will work in a venue like this?

The second is more of a challenge. Who is willing to pick a subject, and start culling information from the various threads? Not opinion and subjective material, but maybe like some of Ron Klage's stuff? How many threads are there dealing with structure and equipment levels of various units?

Someone pick, say, 5th Panzer, and find all the verifiable information on it. Put it all together in one place. Who knows? If enough people do this, we may have to create another section!

[Waleed Y. Majeed]

I think Jock's suggestion of helping the site(s) in any way one can
is a fantastic idea. I would truly miss this site if one day it was gone!
The friendly atmosphere between most members (most of the time),
the information shared, the help and guidance by fellow members.

As for myself there's not a lot I can offer. What I always will be willing
to do as support is help with any graphics/layout/favicons... ( ) etc.
Admin(s) and moderators only need to ask and I'll see what little
I can do for the benefit of Feldgrau.


waleed

ps. (congrats Tom... "Ghost" ).

[Paulus II]

Hi Phylo and Tom,

I agree with both of you that the format of the forum should remain the same and the free input for all members should also not be affected.
While the search function does have it's merits when used properly you never have the quarantee that you get ALL info that there is. Besides that the search button must be used 'smartly' (for lack of a better word) and therefore is not equally userfriendly to all the members.
I can easily implement a program in an archive that is both userfriendly for all and carries the guarantee that ALL info will be found BUT......how to do that with the forum is beyond my experience and knowledge. . Not even sure if it's possible at all.
Going back through all the threads and posts (yes, I did have a look ) and putting all that together as Tom suggested would be the best thing but would also take years to complete. Does the investment in time and effort weigh up to the endresult? In this case probably not!Maybe we could have a thread (as in: sticky) where members can put links to the really interesting info and that could be used as a database for future reference or added to an article elsewhere on Feldgrau. A bit like the spam sticky that is out there already.
This way all members could help in getting all information together (mostly quotes from books and documents) in one thread and that could be edited/indexed by a moderator or administrator for future use.
Something like that would make searches easier, more efficient and more complete. It would require some effort by all members and someone to keep track of the thread but maybe (yep....maybe ) it could be workable.
I'm sure the library (of Congres??) that expressed interest in saving the site for future generations would apreciate such an effort .

Paul

[Tom Houlihan]

Maybe we could have a thread (as in: sticky) where members can put links to the really interesting info and that could be used as a database for future reference or added to an article elsewhere on Feldgrau. A bit like the spam sticky that is out there already.

You might be on to something there!

Stickies for major subjects, like UNIT COMPOSITION, with links to Ron's posts. PERSONALITIES, with information about people. WEAPONS SYSTEMS with threads about, well, weapons systems.

There's something there, I'm just not entirely sure what....

[phylo_roadking]

Tom, on a technical note it might also be worth speaking to the server admin people. The now-legendary "SCL" problem would indicate data on their server is held in SCL tables, and a better SCL query tool might resolve any issues over whether the search function here returns everything it could.

[Andy H]

Maybe we could have a thread (as in: sticky) where members can put links to the really interesting info and that could be used as a database for future reference or added to an article elsewhere on Feldgrau. A bit like the spam sticky that is out there already.
This way all members could help in getting all information together (mostly quotes from books and documents) in one thread and that could be edited/indexed by a moderator or administrator for future use.

Hi Paulus

Do you mean just links from within Feldgrau or outside it aswell?

If its just links within Feldgrau how do you ensure people dont post the same link? Each thread has a unique number but you can't search by it, only by the wording. That wont be a great problem on the lesser well known thread topics, but using the LSSAH as an example you could have hundreds +

Regards