Question on new format/layout

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cd

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Am I missing something, or is there no way to bookmark a URL directly to the current page of discussion headers, as there used to be? It seems I have to go to the homepage and then step through at least 6 seperate clicks (skip intro>contents>liftlines>eastern US>april 2003 to Present) to get to most recent discussions/reports, all while the same URL appears at the top. I hope there's some other way, or can be?
 
This is the new link, for the April 2003 - Present <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/2508/2513.html" TARGET="_top">http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/2508/2513.html</A>
 
Well, there's never been a way to get right to the latest reports with any degree of certainty, for any reorganization of the folders (which happened any time one folder became too big) would render the old link useless. However, you can always get straight to the boards by clicking here: <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/" TARGET="_blank">http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/</A> <BR> <BR>When we eventually upgrade to the new version of the board script, this will change, but for now you may use the above link.
 
Thanks for the responses. Franks's link does the trick like the old days, i.e. take me straight to the 'April 2003-Present' page in full screen (no menu at left or First Tracks title area at top)- much better for seeing pics! I don't know why the URL up top doesn't change for me as I click my way from the home page. There do seem to be a few quirks but if you say you're still upgrading I'll just wait and see what happens. Also, I notice just in the last day or so that the order of threads is back to the old way, i.e. the thread at the top is the one that has had the most recent response, rather than the most recently started thread?
 
Frank's link will only do the trick as long as the current folder -- 'April 2003-Present' -- is the latest one. Once that folder becomes too large -- not likely to happen until the snow starts flying, but then again with our recent traffic you never know -- the new "topmost" folder will have a different URL. The <A HREF="http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/" TARGET="_blank">http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/</A> URL is the only one that's safe. <BR> <BR>You're not seeing the change in the browser's address window because the discussion board is inserted into a frameset. This frameset is what produces the blue Table of Contents bar at the top of each of our pages, to allow the reader to easily navigate from one section to another. The address you're seeing in the browser's address bar is that of the parent frameset. Right-click on anything that's not an image in any of the frame panels, choose "properties", and you'll see the true URL of each pane. <BR> <BR>With regard to thread ordering, that was an unfortunate by-product of the realignment combining the two discussion boards. It applies, however, only to old threads. Any threads created after the realignment will have their usual ordering, i.e. a new post to an existing thread bumps that thread to the top of the list. <BR> <BR>Two ways to ensure that you're seeing everything: either register as a user, or use the "New Messages" link in the blue menu tree at left. As a registered user, you can automatically see a list of all new posts since you last logged in. If you use the "New Messages" link to the left instead, you can choose to see all new messages in the last x hours or x days. <BR> <BR>Registering has other advantages as well, including the ability to receive posts by email the minute they're created. You can choose to receive email from all of the boards, none of them, or any combination of them ... your choice. You can turn the email service on and off at will. <BR> <BR>For information on registering, see the 12/08/2001 message in our <A HREF="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/1/1.html?1054605571" TARGET="_blank">System Announcements</A>.
 
Thanks again. That 'right click' trick will give me what I need. I do know about the changing folders and I always have the latest link at hand. Admittedly had got used to the one address as that last No Bull folder didn't change after Jan even though it had far more messages in it than any previous folder!
 
No, it was a good thing IMO! I like being able to scroll through a long period of reports at a glance. No biggie tho.
 
<A HREF="http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/" TARGET="_top">http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/discus/</A>, Marc's recommendation, is the correct URL to bookmark. By drilling deeper, you miss my (and other) western reports <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)">. Before the reorg you would also miss the Lift Corral section when it was separate from No-Bull.
 
No, that was my aim, i.e. go directly to the most recent eastern No Bull reports. That said, I'm sure your western reports are excellent and I will give them a look!
 
On this point, as a east ski lover, I'm not super used to read the western reports, as it's some mountains where I'll probably never go. But the reports are often good, like your last (Tony) of Mammoth, with some incredible pics, for the memorial weekend. There is also 5-6x less messages on the western part of the no-bulls. So I'm used to arrive directly at the east latest page. Of course, I always look if there is no new page, which is rare anyway. With that, it's extremely easy to see the new messages and it's quite faster to reach than pass by all the links. It's why I don't select the option to receive the new messages by e-mail (what I'll possibly do if the trafic of messages decreases this summer). Also, like CD said, without the blue frame, the pics are more interesting to see as you can have the whole pic in your window. <BR> <BR>Anyway, this is just my opinion, but I always did that. (sorry Marc ;-)
 
For the record, several skiers I've talked to say they gave up on No Bull Ski Reports because it took them too many clicks to drill down thru First Tracks home page. Of course everyone understands we're supposed to look at the sponsors' ads, but CD is not alone in wanting to skip straight to the reports. <BR> <BR>Using a shortcut works great, as I suggested to the couple people I know who whined about the start page & drop-down TOC menu. The other sections are only occasionally of interest to me. I can/could just as easily browse up the tree to Western reports or the Lift Corral when I was curious. <BR> <BR>I'm a little concerned that combining the Lift Corral & No Bull may kill the board. I gotta say there's a lot of "bull" in here that is of no interest to me (OK, so I don't have to read more than the header). It seemed a year or two ago that we had a few back country skiers posting conditions, which was invaluable information I've been unable to find consistently anywhere else. <BR> <BR>This season, we seemed to lose even the Tucks faithful (where is Mark Remson posting now?). Now it seems to be nearly 100% lift-serviced ski area reports - which are all great, don't get me wrong. I know there's plenty of tele heads, boarders, and AT skiers ripping up New England during the week when I'm stuck working, and it would be great to hear from some of them about the off-trail conditions as we plan our weekend exploits. <BR> <BR>I realize people don't want to give away their private powder stashes by posting them on the internet, but you can give a report of conditions while being generally vague about the exact location. <BR> <BR>Maybe Marc knows: are there a lot of lurkers who don't post, or were there really only two dozen regulars on the Eastern No Bull board? <BR> <BR>I'll have to wait until next season to see the results of the reformatting - I hope there will be at least the same level of participation for conditions reports. My report from Tucks is already way down the topics list, buried under a lot of Lift Corral topics. I hope that when next season gets underway, the majority of topics will be conditions reports, rather than reminiscing about the past, whining about present ski area operations, or fantasizing about future. <BR> <BR>Reformatted or not, the challenge is to get more regular traffic on the board, and motivate the lurkers to share what they know by posting an occasional sentence or two.
 
> For the record, several skiers I've talked to say they gave <BR>>up on No Bull Ski Reports because it took them too many <BR>>clicks to drill down thru First Tracks home page. Of course <BR>>everyone understands we're supposed to look at the sponsors' <BR>>ads, but CD is not alone in wanting to skip straight to the <BR>>reports. <BR> <BR>Actually, it's not designed to start you with the sponsor messages - if it was, I would not have so readily provided the direct link. Rather, our problem is to figure out how to deliver so much content. <BR> <BR>Most existing ski-related discussion boards are stand-alone, or relatively so. For us, it's only a component of a much bigger picture that serves over 500 Mb of content over more than 7,000 pages. News, weather, feature stories, travel services, video, ...and yes, a BBS...we try to do it all. Maybe too much, I believe at times. Trust me when I tell you that it's more than challenging to provide an efficient yet comprehensive navigation solution for all of that. <BR> <BR>>(where is Mark Remson posting now?). <BR> <BR>Not much anywhere these days, it seems. Mark has been a friend and ski partner for nearly a decade now, as well as one of our staff writers (check out some of the feature work that he's done for us if you haven't already), and he's just not posting a lot these days, here or anywhere. Shifting priorities, I guess. <BR> <BR>>Maybe Marc knows: are there a lot of lurkers who don't post, <BR>>or were there really only two dozen regulars on the Eastern <BR>>No Bull board? <BR> <BR>I can tell you this: in January, for example, we enjoyed 2.6 million hits. The No-Bull BBS was the third most popular section where those 2.6 million hits were accumulated. You do the math. <BR> <BR>>Reformatted or not, the challenge is to get more regular <BR>>traffic on the board, and motivate the lurkers to share what <BR>>they know by posting an occasional sentence or two. <BR> <BR>That is, without a doubt, the objective. lftgly, I'd like to personally thank you for the level of thought that you devoted to crafting that post. We can't be all things to all people, but if there's a better way to skin a cat, I'm very open to suggestion. Sometimes an outsider can see something that an insider can't see, even though it's smack in front of his nose.
 
> For the record, several skiers I've talked to say they gave <BR>>up on No Bull Ski Reports because it took them too many <BR>>clicks to drill down thru First Tracks home page. Of course <BR>>everyone understands we're supposed to look at the sponsors' <BR>>ads, but CD is not alone in wanting to skip straight to the <BR>>reports. <BR> <BR>Actually, it's not designed to start you with the sponsor messages - if it was, I would not have so readily provided the direct link. Rather, our problem is to figure out how to deliver so much content. <BR> <BR>Most existing ski-related discussion boards are stand-alone, or relatively so. For us, it's only a component of a much bigger picture that serves over 500 Mb of content over more than 7,000 pages. News, weather, feature stories, travel services, video, ...and yes, a BBS...we try to do it all. Maybe too much, I believe at times. Trust me when I tell you that it's more than challenging to provide an efficient yet comprehensive navigation solution for all of that. <BR> <BR>>(where is Mark Remson post
 
I also preferred the No-Bull and Lift Corral separate. One reason drilling to the discussion page rather than all the way to the No-Bull works is because of the last posting date feature. You can see what's new and go there. <BR> <BR>With regard to online skier-submitted reports, it remains a mystery to me why they are so poorly patronized. There appear to be about 3 of us who post regularly on this site from the West. <BR> <BR>The first such site was Southland Ski server here in SoCal. Number of reports posted: 141 in 94-95, 323 in 95-96, 251 in 96-97, 363 in 97-98, 156 in 98-99, 78 in 99-00, 124 in 00-01, 36 in 01-02 and 21 in 02-03. SoCal local skiing conditions were excellent in 97-98 and 00-01 but totally snowmaking dependent the other seasons. But the site also takes Mammoth reports, and we know they have 5-6 months of decent skiing every season. So the trend is discouraging and doesn't exactly correlate with Internet usage in general. <BR> <BR>Northwest Ski Reports get pretty good patronage, but I have never found a decent source of skier-submitted reports anywhere else in the West. I have always hoped that this site would become the "national" site for online reports, but it seems that very few skiers are willing to put up reports.
 
Curiously, I was for the merging of the 2 boards, until the day before it came true. <BR> <BR>I find really sad that the reports like the Lftgly one are not to the top and with many more messages on the discussion. Looking the place, looking the pics, looking the date (june 8), it's really incredible and if I'm dying to not be there, I want to thanks a huge lot Lftgly to send me feedback about how it was with some pics. <BR> <BR>On the other hand, I extremely liked the conversations like the ones we got in the last weeks and it was fun to see appear some new writers that were reading for a while, without write. Those conversations were less possible, with 2 separated boards, cause "all in 1" is the best thing for many "interneters" <BR> <BR>For this summer, it's Ok, there is just few reports (especially as La Reserve season is over on my side and Tucks is slowly dying on Lftgly side) so the people don't expect to see many snow reports and it's less a problem. Next winter, I don't think the Liftlines conversations will be so much popular, cause the readers and writers will have real better things to do than talking of memories or future. The ski reports will become back super popular and probably more than last season, with the new writers that the liftlines discussions will have bring, I hope <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":)">! <BR> <BR>About the number of clicks to enter the boards, I know that First Tracks !! Online is a wide magazine, not only for the no-bulls reports, but as the no-bulls remain the 3rd most popular feature, they could have a direct link to the East and West page, from the home page. It's rare that we have to look in all the links before to reach our favorite room and with that, it would be super fast to see if there is some new messages in both rooms (for the ones who are not members). (this is just an idea like that). <BR> <BR>About Backcountry, may be we're too much to talk of the lift-serviced ski areas. Skiing and "Hiking and skiing" are 2 totally different activities and our reports may be just push them off the room (don't know). I enjoyed very much the backcountry reports (I gave you the #1 no-buller of the year price, Lftgly... in the huge conversation lol). This showed me a totally different sport that I began to practice a lot since early march with the backside of la Reserve. Now that I learned some important things, I will certainly buy some equipment for that sport and next year, you should see some real backcountry reports of mine, although there is no mountains like Mt Washington near here and anyway, I don't think that looking to reports of the backcountry mountains in QC would interest you that much for the conditions !! <BR> <BR>About the private stashes, it depends of what you want. If the financial situation of Orford was good, I would never talk about Contour, Chevreuil and the other ones. Actually, I prefer talk of them if that could bring few more skiers than to see the mountain simply close forever. <BR> <BR>On your point, Tony, I also really wonder why the West people don't share their ski experiences. I guess the snow conditions are less something looked in the west, cause there is always some spots where you can ski in powder anyway. lol
 
Sorry, but I also think that the report and discussion was better seperate. I just started writing and didn't have much time in the past to follow what was happening. Now that I am on parental leave, I do find the time to write... this might change next year when I am balancing between work, family and skiing, let alone writing about it.
 
Sorry for bumping this header to the top (hopefully it'll be temporary), but just have to say I generally agree with LG's comments. I think the ratio of lift-served to backcountry reports is generally reflective of the percentages of those activities amongst skiers, but more of either is always welcome. That said, I for one didn't post as many reports this year since I ski mostly at the same places and, because I can pick my days carefully in terms of weather and conditions, I found so many of my reports were reading the same (blah blah, trails a little scraped, trees great, if I told you where I'd have to kill you blah blah ;) ). On the other hand, I do find that alot of the descriptions of off-trail conditions are useful whether or not lift-served as I'm typically trying to determine such things as where the rain/freeze line fell and what it means in terms of surface crust etc. <BR> <BR> As for signal/noise ratio here, I suppose one man's "whining (or) fantasizing" is another's discussion, but I'm all for these reports leaning toward being the straightforward factual resource/listings they have been in the past. Since the changes here came right at the end of the season I suppose the real test will come later in the year.
 
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