Moving site

[Admin]

Soon Recreational Flying .com will be broken up and moved to different domain extensions. All the Australian content will be moved to .com.au (www.recreationalflying.com.au), the UK content moved to a new site with the .co.uk extension and the US content moved to the .us extension.

 

This will allow Recreational Flying to have content more focused to respective geographic regions and forums such as RAAus content just in the Australian site. If you look at the forums list page the first group of forums under General Forums will be different in each region however the following groups of forums such as Aircraft etc. will be shared across all sites so everyone around the world can help each other when discussing the same aircraft types.

 

Recreational Flying .com for a period of time will simply be a page listing the different sites so a person landing on that domain can select which area site they want to go to. Users of any one of the sites will be registered across all sites.

 

The Classifieds section will be moved to Clear Prop with direct links from the Australian site making Clear Prop not only a Pilot and Aircraft Supplies shop but also a full aviation classifieds site.

 

When it all happens you will just need to change any shortcuts on your PC or mobile device to the site you wish to frequent otherwise you will always see the single page of site links, that is the only impact.

 

Now for the RAAus forum, I am hoping to lock that forum to RAAus members only. The way this may be achieved is by a user entering their real name and RAAus membership number into their site registration details which when done will give them access to the Governing Bodies (RAAus) forum. I have approached several RAAus board members for their cooperation in a method to verify that the site user is a current RAAus member. I am hoping that they will see the merit in having this and I await their reply.

 

This will also leave .com available down the track to develop the Aviation Expo which I really have my heart set on doing but that takes money.

 

All in all whilst I have believed that this site should expand by having a global audience, I have also believed that we need to have a focus on things at home. The above I feel is a great compromise and achieves the best of both...hope you agree!

 

 

[SDQDI]

I hope this isn't a dumb question Ian.

 

Will the forums like general discussion be across all platforms? Or will we be seperate from the likes of phil perry ect?

 

I am guessing that it all still stays similar but just had a worry that we would lose our overseas voices from here.

 

 

[Admin]

Yes, we may lose some overseas voices as they may just hang in their own set of forums. Each site will have the same General Forums Category with the same Forums (Titles) but the content in each will be different across the sites i.e. the General Discussion forum on the .com.au domain will have Australian general discussion content, the General Discussion forum on the .co.uk domain will have UK general discussion content. However as each user is registered across all sites and links to each site in the top right hand column a user can flick between the sites if they wish to. Also with the Aircraft forums being across all sites, if an Australian starts a thread or posts in the Jabiru forum, both UK and US users will also see the thread and can post and everyone on every site will see it and be able to contribute.

 

With anything there are pros and cons but whilst I could be wrong, I think there are more pros in this

 

 

[winsor68]

WHY?

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Ian,

 

I value the input of Phil Perry and SnrPilot in particular and would hate to lose access to their posts. Will I be able to follow them and others like them?

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Hi Ian,

 

Is it possible to have a combination members/visitors Australian site rather than strictly RAAus members only or are you proposing two separate forums; an RAAus members only forum and a separate Australian forum? There is a lot of interesting and useful information here that is contributed by non-RAAus members. If there is to be a single Australian forum, could you introduce a set of filters which denies access to non-members of the members only sections. Could the New (21days) etc. tabs filter results depending on access privileges?

 

In my opinion, it would be a pity to lose the input of non-RAAus members to the forum.

 

Dave

 

 

[Admin]

Ian,I value the input of Phil Perry and SnrPilot in particular and would hate to lose access to their posts. Will I be able to follow them and others like them?

Yes you could stay in touch with them. If they choose to post in for example the UK site, you can click the UK site link at the top of the right column of any site and switch over to the UK site and read their posts

 

Hi Ian,Is it possible to have a combination members/visitors Australian site rather than strictly RAAus members only or are you proposing two separate forums; an RAAus members only forum and a separate Australian forum? There is a lot of interesting and useful information here that is contributed by non-RAAus members. If there is to be a single Australian forum, could you introduce a set of filters which denies access to non-members of the members only sections. Could the New (21days) etc. tabs filter results depending on access privileges?

 

In my opinion, it would be a pity to lose the input of non-RAAus members to the forum.

 

Dave

Dave, may have been a misinterpretation here. The Australian site will be what it is today but only the Governing Bodies forum will be locked to RAAus members only. In fact Ithere may be several Governing bodies forums like RAAus, CASA etc. but the RAAus one will be locked to those that put their real name and membership number into their registration details

 

 

[Downunder]

I'm guessing that the Raaus forum would be a sub-forum in the Australian forum section.

 

A good move in my opinion that will weed out the non-member (and non raa aircraft owners) hecklers....and there's plenty of them!!

 

 

[IBob]

I hope this isn't a dumb question Ian.Will the forums like general discussion be across all platforms? Or will we be seperate from the likes of phil perry ect?

 

I am guessing that it all still stays similar but just had a worry that we would lose our overseas voices from here.

Phil Perry? That'd be a blessing........joking, i was joking...honest!!!!!

 

 

[SDQDI]

Yes you could stay in touch with them. If they choose to post in for example the UK site, you can click the UK site link at the top of the right column of any site and switch over to the UK site and read their posts

I can't see how that can be a good thing Ian?

 

If you take the off topic forums for example I rarely go there now, even though I enjoyed some of the topics, just because it is an extra click away. It seems to me if you split us up into country divisions it will just put an extra step there which a fair proportion of us won't jump over which would IMO divide us.

 

I thought the idea of the World Wide Web was to bring us together, splitting us up seems to be a step backwards.

 

I don't mind the idea of an RAA members only area but even with that I think you have good ideas but IMO it would be better off being run by the RAA or an uninvolved person just to remove any (real or perceived) conflicts of interest.

 

 

[SDQDI]

Phil Perry? That'd be a blessing........joking, i was joking...honest!!!!!

Can we get rid of the kiwis too:wink: (also tongue in cheek!)

 

 

[Bernie]

Not overly keen on being locked out of certain sites here Ian . As my avatar suggests I don't fly as PIC any more , but If I cant see what's going on with the RAA there's no way of making a decision to re-join .

 

Just my thoughts .

 

Bernie .

 

 

[Admin]

WHY?

In case you missed the post in one of the other forums:

_________________________________________________

 

It is interesting to note that I believe that discussing the RAAus Constitutional Reform has had a dramatic negative impact on our site's rankings. We had been ranked at around the 425,000th web site in the world and now we have slipped to around 660,000th in the world. Still miles ahead of RAA's new site ranking at 2 millionth and slowly falling back. Remember it is so much harder to increase in rankings as your ranking increases. To put that into perspective, Google is No 1 and the first 500 is all the Google sub sites and all the other high usage sites...FEDEX is around 480. Now these are general sites and for a specific subject site such as recreational aviation based in Australia to be ranked so high in the whole world is an incredible achievement...especially to have been at 425,000th.

 

 

You can see by the graph that in early March when the whole constitutional change started to get a lot of momentum we took a big hit. This tells me a lot especially when a lot of strong debate takes hold of the site. I believe we need to consider getting back to our roots, talk about recreational flying, our aircraft, our trips and the fun and joys of recreational flying whilst promoting the more social aspects of flying. Anyway, you will see some changes coming soon to this site with this in mind.

 

__________________________________________________

 

Also...

 

• International users have no interest in reading the forums in the first category (General Forums) because they are saturated with Australian content...so why not make the same group of forums that they can use for threads and posts relative to their own country, the same as they are now saturated with Australian content.
   
   
  
• International users have no interest in sections like Airfields because they are currently just Australian ones, Clubs as they are also Australian ones, likewise with Events and Classifieds. If I provide ones for other countries it becomes a hinderance to all users having to select which country they want to view.
   
   
  
• Attract more International users and keep them coming back to the Aircraft forums of the site
   
   
  
• Having the .com.au domain extension will make the Australian version more recognisable by Australian recreational aviators
   
   
  
• Freeing up the .com domain extension will allow for the world wide expo to be developed there some time down the track...because I really want to do that
   
   
  
• Having different domains allows for more advertisements specific to the country down the side panel which helps pay the site costs
   
   
  
• Having the site Australian focused provides an environment that will promote more of the social aspects of the site as it is localised and seen as a more personalised
   
   
  
• Locking the RAAus (Governing Bodies) forum to RAAus members only will assist in that forum's reputation
   
   
  
• and many more minor reasons to "why"
   
   
  

 

 

 

Cons:

 

• May lose some International visitors to the Australian focused site as those International users will contribute to their own country site
   
   
  
• More site management by myself
   
   
  
• More costs as a CDN will need to be implemented if we keep the server located in Sydney as it is now
   
   
  
• no other cons that I can think of
   
   
  

 

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

425,000th down to 660,000th is a massive drop, but it occurred as a crash around the third week of February, and has remained basically flat ever since.

 

I thought the Governing Bodies section was only open to members on this site, and if so it's hard to see how the limited number of site members could have made that shift.

 

I don't know the reason, but could the final months of the US Presidential choices in which not only has there been massive traffic launched by the Republican and Democratic campaigns, but commentary from almost every single piece of US social media there is have bumped their high volume visitations up, displacing us?

 

 

[Admin]

Turbo, I can't see any other contributing factor. One could say it was possibly all because of me as I finished one contract at the beginning of December, lived at home in Melb from then and started a new contract in Canberra at the end of Feb...even those dates line up. However, there are other site metrics that I monitor such as number of visitors per day, number of registered users logging in per day, locations of visitors and registered users, number of posts and threads per day, number of likes etc etc etc. When looking at all the metrics together it is my analysis that the subject of the constitutional reform has had a negative impact on the site...maybe not to the degree as shown in the graph nevertheless still a large negative impact.

 

By doing what I am suggesting I believe that the changes will help isolate any negative impacts to just one component of the entire Recreational Flying web service. I could well be wrong but I personally want to also see more growth and leaving things as they are with a "Do Nothing" attitude, I also foresee that we will not see any great future growth...are we currently at our peak with what we have now?

 

 

[gandalph]

I can't say I'd be happy to know that the RAA was sharing private identifying information or allowing access to parts of their membership database with another organisation (the usual governmental and legal requirements excepted - though their trampling on the privacy rights of individuals doesn't fill me with joy either) . Neither can I see much positive about requiring members of this site having to forego the anonymity provided by their forum user names to access the proposed locked sections of the sites such Ian proposes.

 

I think the ability to speak your mind here without running the risk of the lynch mob turning up at your door one dark night is something we would want to preserve. The downside to that argument is that there will always be the loony fringe who post here simply to stir up controversy. But the "ignore" button takes care of them.

 

The graph that Ian has posted might show a chronometric link between the drop in visitors and the RAA constitutional debate gaining traction in the forums but it doesn't necessarily demonstrate causality. As others have said there could be a raft of other factors at play.

 

 

[kodiak74]

Before you go ahead with the changes I think you should read this article about the Alexa site rankings -> Alexa Rank Dropping Fast in April 2016 - [Case Study]

 

Apparently Alexa changed their ranking metrics earlier in the year - which has seen a downturn in many sites rankings - and the bottom line is Alexa gives incorrect traffic estimates. So I wouldn't put my faith in the downturn having anything to do with the nature of the discussion - its merely a coincidence.

 

I think part of the appeal of the current site is the mix of aviation stories from around the world - visiting multiple sites to get the same stories would not be the same experience, and the extra effort would be a barrier to most people. I think anyone frequenting forums will appreciate that the discussion/visits/traffic ebbs and flows based on current events, end of financial year, elections, and other worldly events, and that fundamentally the growth of a site will be limited to the growth of the aviation community, both here and overseas.

 

Another effect of splitting the site is that you will dilute the traffic to each sub-site - thats not going to improve rankings at all !! Not to mention the extra overhead of administration, hosting, patching, etc that will be associated with running multiple sites.

 

I applaud your efforts in providing and maintaining this forum, and being in the IT industry full appreciate the effort and commitment required to do so, however I believe in this case you are wrong to consider breaking up the site.

 

My 2 cents.

 

 

[Admin]

Thanks Kodiak, very good and informative post. An alternative is to provide country specific discussion forums but I tried that before, perhaps we were not ready then but maybe worth a try now with an extra of having an option of being able to turn off the other country new posts.

 

The stats show on average 500 registered users are logging in every day...not the same users as some many users may only log in once or twice a week. The stats also show a drop in number of posts for that Alexa period yet the discussion on the RAAus constitutional reform gained many many new posts per day. This means to me that with so many RAAus posts yet a drop in posts overall is that the RAAus discussion came at a high price of general posts. One would have thought that the daily post rate would have been extremely high with the extra RAAus posts but in fact there was a large drop overall.

 

Another interesting stat is that we experienced an increase in new user registrations between April 8th and end of April but then a massive dip, lowest this year for the first 2 weeks of May. New registrations are now starting to climb back again, still not to normal but still slowly coming out of the big dip.

 

The bottom line is I believe there is far more potential in the site but I just have to find the element that is preventing it from achieving it, admittedly nothing else comes close to this site but what is causing it not to achieve something greater??? Perhaps its even me but how would I know?

 

 

[MarcK]

Ian. Just be sure to be clear if the real name and membership number are not considered " personal information" and if so that you have the correct policies and procedures in place to be compliant with legislation.

 

I am no expert but have had to do basic training to Identify potential issues and this feels like one to me.

 

I would not hesitate to provide that information if needed it just an ass covering exercise for yourself .

 

M

 

 

[Admin]

Thanks Marck, I think I have but thanks for suggesting it and I will look into it to ensure that the site complies

 

 

[red750]

Hi Ian, Just a little aside. As a retired old phart, I spend about as much time on the Men's Shed forum theshedonline.org.au as I do on this site, and have a similar number of posts. Although it has 17,000 registered members, only about 70 are regular contributors. Beyond Blue, who run the site, had decided to close it down as from 30 June.

 

 

[IBob]

Can we get rid of the kiwis too:wink: (also tongue in cheek!)

Nah, mate. We'd just skulk round bein' Awstrylyan 'til someone made us say fush & chups...)

 

 

[Admin]

HEY, my wife Corrine is a fush and chups girl, from Auckland and my daughter was born at the Waitakere Hospital in Auckland...aaaaahhhh memories

 

 

[IBob]

HEY, my wife Corrine is a fush and chups girl, from Auckland and my daughter was born at the Waitakere Hospital in Auckland...aaaaahhhh memories

Aye, a fine thing a fush & chups girl may be, should you find the right one....)

 

 

[Dinga]

For what its worth I'll have my say.

 

I love this site, and I love reading the input across the varied Geographic locations all in the one place.

 

One thing I am confused about is that I see plenty of mention throughout the site and this post with regards to RAAus but I am right in thinking that this site is an independent site right? And yet I never see any mention of the likes of say HGFA who have a larger Microlight membership than RAAus.

 

Anyway, enough said, change will happen regardless so no point in me spending hours getting hot under the collar about changes that I don't agree with, when its all done and dusted I will re-appraise and if it loses its appeal then I'll just stop visiting.

 

Thanks for the great site to date.