Growing the Forum

[Dzingle Bells]

Has there ever been any interest/thoughts/discussion about merging this forum with the UrbanToronto/Skyrise Cities site? They already have pages for Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver. I don't frequent the west coast ones much so I don't know how active they are but the Toronto one is tough to keep up with there is so much content.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this forum and I appreciate all the volunteer time and work that already goes into it keeping it organized and adding photos regularly. It is an awesome way to stay up to date with everything going on in the city from down the 401. I realize that any switch would include added work but think it would really be a great resource to have.

The map feature is something that I feel adds a huge benefit to someone browsing the forum. Also being able to have a "summary" page for each project that has all images and renders in one album rather than having to go clicking through pages.

We already have an amazing community, I think we should have a website that can show us off.

[UrbOttawa]

Originally Posted by Dzingle Bells

Has there ever been any interest/thoughts/discussion about merging this forum with the UrbanToronto/Skyrise Cities site? They already have pages for Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver. I don't frequent the west coast ones much so I don't know how active they are but the Toronto one is tough to keep up with there is so much content.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this forum and I appreciate all the volunteer time and work that already goes into it keeping it organized and adding photos regularly. It is an awesome way to stay up to date with everything going on in the city from down the 401. I realize that any switch would include added work but think it would really be a great resource to have.

The map feature is something that I feel adds a huge benefit to someone browsing the forum. Also being able to have a "summary" page for each project that has all images and renders in one album rather than having to go clicking through pages.

We already have an amazing community, I think we should have a website that can show us off.

I’ve been thinking this for some time as well. While there is some nostalgia to the early-internet style forum of SSP, it’s an absolutely awful user experience on mobile (web is alright, but still leaves a lot to be desired). The SSP community is really amazing but I find the platform can be so frustrating. As you mentioned, it seems there is a lot of functionality on skyrise that would be really useful.

IIRC there is/was a skyrise section for Ottawa, but I’m not sure how active it is. I would imagine if some of the more frequent contributors such as JT, Harley, Waterloo, rocketphish etc wanted to make the switch that it could start to thrive.

If there ends up being more widespread interest in this, I would be willing to help get the ball rolling with projects.

[Dzingle Bells]

I would also be more than happy to help out get things up and running,

[ars]

Originally Posted by UrbOttawa

I’ve been thinking this for some time as well. While there is some nostalgia to the early-internet style forum of SSP, it’s an absolutely awful user experience on mobile (web is alright, but still leaves a lot to be desired). The SSP community is really amazing but I find the platform can be so frustrating. As you mentioned, it seems there is a lot of functionality on skyrise that would be really useful.

IIRC there is/was a skyrise section for Ottawa, but I’m not sure how active it is. I would imagine if some of the more frequent contributors such as JT, Harley, Waterloo, rocketphish etc wanted to make the switch that it could start to thrive.

If there ends up being more widespread interest in this, I would be willing to help get the ball rolling with projects.

Regarding the user experience, this forum is using forum software from 2004 and it really shows

I put in a suggestion for the admins to migrate to something more modern(whether that's vBulletin 5 or Xenforo), but the suggestions have fallen on deaf ears.

[RideauRat]

Originally Posted by UrbOttawa

it’s an absolutely awful user experience on mobile (web is alright, but still leaves a lot to be desired). The SSP community is really amazing but I find the platform can be so frustrating.

it's the hyper linking images for me.

[UrbOttawa]

There might just be hope!

From the general Forum Issues section:

Originally Posted by Dylan Leblanc

Hi, there was once a mobile version of the forum but I don't think it works anymore. The problem is that the forum software needs upgrading. This has been on my list of things to do for way too long. I will hopefully get to it this winter, then we'll have a mobile version of the forum for everyone to use.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by ars

Regarding the user experience, this forum is using forum software from 2004 and it really shows

Yes, it's awesome!

[ars]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Yes, it's awesome!

Not when you use a modern platform elsewhere and then come back to the archaic forum software being used here

The modern forum platforms are more user and mobile friendly, whereas this old version of vBulletin is hostile to both

[DEWLine]

Apparently, our city already has a section there...

https://skyrisecities.com/forum/forums/ottawa.71/

[RideauRat]

it's really outdated, and migrating everything to another forum would be a lot of work, i fell all this forum needs is image upload

[SidetrackedSue]

As someone running a really outdated forum elsewhere, I understatiand the terror of updating or moving.

Inertia is hard to overcome, especially with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude.

All I care about is, if we are moving, that we all hold hands and cross over together. You folks have taught me so much about my city and about buildings and have taught me to appreciate (a little) of the disruptions my neighbourhood is going through.

[J.OT13]

Don't want to create a new thread for this conversation. This was brought up in the past however, we never really came to a conclusion.

What goes in Downtown and City of Ottawa? What goes in Suburbs? Can we rename, and should we rename them?

Downtown and City of Ottawa, I use to read as Old Ottawa, but now I lean towards inside the Greenbelt. And what about the Quebec side? Where's the line? I think I put anything Hull, Plateau and Aylmer in Downtown and City of Ottawa, east of the Gatineau River in Suburbs.

Thoughts?

[Dzingle Bells]

I don't have an answer but just want to note that there are definitely suburbs within the Greenbelt.

Inside Greenbelt and Outside Greenbelt could be a nice differentiator?

[skyscraperaccount]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Don't want to create a new thread for this conversation. This was brought up in the past however, we never really came to a conclusion.

What goes in Downtown and City of Ottawa? What goes in Suburbs? Can we rename, and should we rename them?

Downtown and City of Ottawa, I use to read as Old Ottawa, but now I lean towards inside the Greenbelt. And what about the Quebec side? Where's the line? I think I put anything Hull, Plateau and Aylmer in Downtown and City of Ottawa, east of the Gatineau River in Suburbs.

Thoughts?

What us in Kanata think of as Downtown and what those living in ex-Ottawa Downtown consider 'downtown' differs greatly....I think the Greenbelt give a natural dividing line and can be used to deliniate a inside/outside the GB...maybe we can finally stop using suburbs as a derogatory term on the board with this change.

Ottawa-Gatineau -> Ottawa - Inside Greenbelt
Ottawa-Gatineau -> Ottawa - Outside Greenbelt
Ottawa-Gatineau -> Ottawa - Outside Urban Boundary - Rural
Ottawa-Gatineau -> Gatineau (Dont know enough of Gatineau to split it more...maybe East/West?)
Ottawa-Gatineau - Transportation (encompasses both sides)

[J.OT13]

I agree, the term "Suburbs" is quite broad and probably shouldn't be used as a title for any one sub-forum to avoid confusion.

I would vote against a rural sub-forum as we'd have very few threads in it. Better to keep it with outside Greenbelt.

If we give Gatineau it's own sub-forum, I'd lean towards one for the entire City of Gatineau.

[Harley613]

I like:
Ottawa Inside Greenbelt
Ottawa & Environs Outside Greenbelt
Gatineau & Environs

Something like that.