Moving site

[Admin]

Thanks Dinga, no final decision has been made and it is great to get quality opinions to consider that help towards making a decision.

 

 

[Nightmare]

The name of this site is Recreational Flying, not RAA or HGFA or any other organization. Am I right in saying any recreational aviation that gets you in the air is welcome here, whether VH, RAA, balloon, GA, Trike, Ultralight, glider or Cessna?

 

 

[MarcK]

I think this is a big call. Reading Ian's comments on how the traffic dropped when there was discussion on the constitutional reform I assume that he thinks / knows that's driving the O/S traffic away. In my case I can understand not visiting if that topic was driving most of the discussion on the site for me it's not relevant And I honestly can say I have read only a handful of posts about it. I'm just not interested I like the bits about flying not about governance. If the other content drops off during these Heavily discussed topics it will effect visits from people like me.

 

But fencing out /exluding /separating our O/S visitors is a risk. It has the potential to further reduce interesting content on the "Aussie " sites and potentially reducing traffic further. The other thing I think worth considering is will you have the "critical mass " on the O/S sites to generate the content needed to not only generate new traffic but to not bore your existing members and drive them away? I would think that the o/s users that are here already would probably keep using the Australian site to maintain the connections they have with the subscriber base.

 

Also after giving it some thought what's the point of excluding people from the RAA forum if they are not visiting anyway? Hiding the reason people are not visiting won't make them come back. It just excludes people from even more content and may compound the problem a little.

 

I have made a few assumptions on the motivations Ian has on this one sorry if I am too far off base.

 

It's a bloody hard disision to make and I'm glad it's not me making it. Good luck

 

This is much more interesting than constitutional reform..

 

M

 

 

[Admin]

Ok, here is an option that 'may be" worth considering:

 

The site stays as .com

 

The Governing Bodies forum is not locked to RAAus members

 

The General Forums category of forums be broken up into:

 

• General Forums (category)
   
  Site Announcements
   
   
  
• Just Landed...Welcome
   
   
  
• Australia/NZ General Discussion
   
  Trips/Events/Spare Seats
   
   
  
• Student Pilot and Further Learning
   
   
  
• Aircraft Incidents and Accidents
   
   
  
• Governing Bodies
   
   
  

 

 

[*]UK/Europe General Discussion

 

• Trips/Events/Spare Seats
   
   
  
• Student Pilot and Further Learning
   
   
  
• Aircraft Incidents and Accidents
   
   
  
• Governing Bodies
   
   
  

 

 

[*]US/Canada General Discussion

 

• Trips/Events/Spare Seats
   
   
  
• Student Pilot and Further Learning
   
   
  
• Aircraft Incidents and Accidents
   
   
  
• Governing Bodies
   
   
  

 

 

[*]Other Regions General Discussion

 

• Trips/Events/Spare Seats
   
   
  
• Student Pilot and Further Learning
   
   
  
• Aircraft Incidents and Accidents
   
   
  
• Governing Bodies
   
   
  

 

 

[*]Other Forums

 

• Aviation Laughter
   
   
  
• Aviation Videos
   
   
  
• Suppliers (paid ads)
   
   
  
• Aviation Classifieds (Link to new Classifieds site - Clear Prop)
   
   
  
• Off Topic (Link to new "Whats Up Australia" site)
   
   
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have tried once before breaking up the forums like this however after a few months the geo based forums didn't really get used, perhaps the time is right now to give it a try.

 

The only things to consider are:

 

1. If a user goes to the Airfield section they would have to select their own region first before seeing their airstrips
    
    
   
2. If a user goes to the Resources section they would have to select their own region to view clubs and schools OR a whole new Clubs and Schools section would have to be developed but again a user would have to select their own region
    
    
   
3. I am not sure how I can adapt the Events section for multiple regions but I feel that will require extensive development in code changes to allow this and again a user would have to select their own region when going to the Events section
    
    
   
4. I am not sure how to handle the "New" feature because currently with the high Aust userbase International users who may not want to know what's new in Australia will be bombarded with Australian content and vice-a-versa.
    
    
   

 

 

Any thoughts on the above?

 

 

[MarcK]

I would leave general discussion alone as a single point of contact and then split off your regions only on specialised content. Such as governing bodies and trips events and spare seats. Student pilot and further learning I would leave as a whole of site thing because the only real diff would be local procedures aircraft still fly the same on the wrong end of the planet. And incidents and accidents I would leave also. Not only is a gossip colum it's educational implications would be relevant anywhere.

 

The numbers points at the bottom of the page make sense to me. As for the new section for now cater to your subscriber base until you have the mass offshore to justify the full split?

 

M

 

 

[facthunter]

The discussion on the RAAus is pretty acrimonious and when it gets detailed and personal is rather off putting to most. We also seem to be fairly good at getting rid of rather knowledgeable people. Recreational flying IS a GENERIC term. No BODY has exclusive rights to own it. I think there is a limit to the quality of discussion that can generally be had on a forum, without a lot of empathy and direction of purpose being applied We should be more together than separate . ALL pilots are airmen ideally, and all planes obey the same Newtonian laws. Nev

 

 

[storchy neil]

hey ian take pity on this old bloke leave the computor come back and don't know were i:im stupid: is :loopy:neil