C-Forum

There are so many events now, I wonder if it would be possible to have a drop down button / window pop up with a schedule of events? I sometimes look at headings and then hunt through the thread to find the dates and location of the event. If everything whitewater related could be gathered and put in one simple spot, it might be easier to plan excursions and other events. I would suggest including non- C boat related whitewater events as well, (Gauley Fest, Moose festival etc.). If it was easily accessible on this discussion board without going to another section of the website it would be handy. What do people think?

We actually used to have a Calendar of events - Mike W did a TREMENDOUS amount of work inputting data from numerous sources, and we had several organizations send in their info (all the slalom races in the US, etc...). Anyone registered here could also input an event.

The problem? No one seemed to use it, and a newer software version was incompatible with it (phpbb is free software - lots of what you see here is modified by the ever so capable Kenneth, and some of it is created just for our site).

If enough folks think this is a good idea we're happy to consider it - but we want to make sure if would be helpful (so post up here if it would!).

We (Kenneth) put a tremendous effort into the code for our conversion database after folks wanted converted kayaks in the "museum" as well - and I agree it is a GREAT idea, and very helpful - but we never got many submissions. That mod was broken with the new phpbb version as well, it is partially back up and running.

So if you have ideas, or like the ones listed above, let us know! With community support and interest we're happy to make the site more helpful... but we don't want to spend time on the site for a feature that no one will end up using (we'd rather be paddling;) ).

Right you are on your preference to be paddling. And not being a tech person I have no idea as to the work involved, so I'll throw out this concept with the same lack of awareness- be brutally honest if I'm 'out there'. Is it possible to form the calendar like Wikipedia where anybody can edit it? This way the workload of inputting events could be shared amongst many. Is the software development too complex for something like this?

That is essentially what it was - there was a C Calendar link to the site where folks could edit to add an event in the same manner they posted to the forum.

It took Kenneth a little while to make it integrate with the site, but seemed a good use of time. If folks want to see it again and will use it we are happy to do it - I like CBoats being great site to see all of the events (pick a weekend, and see all the events going on in the US or world, not just your neck of the woods - and perhaps set a trip around them:) ).

I hope I didn't come across as being snippy about it - just frustrated it wasn't used more.

I didn't read the snippiness, and I caught the frustration. Hey- as far as this website management thing goes- better you than me! I'm surprised people didn't take to the calendar- so let's hear from people- can we take a poll?

Just a techy hint here. People don't like registering their events on 10 different places.

I'm leaning towards the use of google calendar (or alike). you create a calendar and give me permissions to read it. I include (merge) your calendar and mine on my website, and whatever you add to yours, is displayed on my website as well.

I'd recon you could add ACA calendars, calendars of whitewater centers and alike, easily, as long as they put their stuff in the right technology, once!

Jakke,

I agree! The problem is most paddling clubs seem to still use Excel spreadsheets... or worse MS Word!

I think adding the entire calender we had here to a personal one would make the personal one unusable. Now just adding certain events, that would work nicely.

Keep the thoughts coming!

Kenneth and I need to confer on the intricacies of the Calendar (is it doable with the current phpbb, how long will it take, does he have time, anything I can do to help) before I put a poll up - I want to be sure we can do it again if we're to offer it up:)

Thanks Great idea - If people use it. Maybe a different slant may be a generic calendar that has the event listed in the month it usually takes place and a link to that events webpage. That way it could be set up and used yearly. Not sure if Paddle events all take place around the same time each year.
ex on the month of March- would be ALF with a link to the GDI Facebook page or somewhere that people can get specific dates.

August would have Gatineau Fest list
Sept - Gauley Fest

etc etc, then maybe people could add new events as they came up

Jakke, I like your idea of Google calendar integration. Simply out of curiosity I'll take a look at what that would entail. I have a feeling that it wouldn't "play nice" because that would mean moderators being in charge of maintaining it, instead of a free-for-all approach - and I think it will only work if we can let everyone add events.

On the one hand, people certainly don't want to have to enter their events in too many places. On the other hand, what we saw with the old calendar was that folks that knew of an event would add it to the calendar - it wasn't always the coordinator of the event. Of course, that's also problematic when the event changes but the calendar isn't updated.

I haven't looked at calendar options for phpbb in a while, but the last time I did there simply were no good options. Maybe that's changed. Originally I was searching for "phpbb calendar plugins" but maybe I need to search from the other direction and look for standalone calendars that just happen to be integratable (given some work) with phpbb.

On a personal note, it's entirely possible that the first calendar wasn't a huge success simply because it didn't integrate with the site terribly well. Sure, there were obvious links in the header of the page and in the forum navigation header, but wouldn't it be easier if there was just a little calendar widget that you could click on and popup with the ability to add/edit/view without leaving the cboats page you were on? Anyway, just saying that I'm sure there are better ways to integrate a calendar to convince people to use it.

Kenneth, all you have to do is create on your account a calendar, and give access to another account and/or url to display your calendar. From that moment on, you can put in your calendar whatever you want, it's forwarded to the "subscriber" of your calendar too.

Jakke,

Whatever we do we'd want integrated with the site here to make it easy for all to use, whether they are a Google user or not (not everyone is... just like not everyone is on FaceBook). The other thing to remember is we have several thousand registered users (and these are folks who have logged in at least once...), so we need to be sure things scale up OK.

I liked the old calendar format (pick a month, week, or day, and have an idea what is going on paddling wise in terms of festivals and get togethers). The problem was keeping it updated (which was a lot of work, which again Mike W did a great job of it for several years), and getting folks to add additional events (not many were added).

We're looking in to it though, as I personally really liked it, and if the community wants it and we can do it we'd like to!

Adam,

You're absolutely right, not everybody is google user, and I think it's very valuable that you take that into consideration!

On the other hand, if the current system is not really working, you might have to give some to take some. Taken that it's about events, you're promoting, it's a good thing that google and the likes pick up these events. The more you give to google, the more you get back, in that vision using google calendar is not a bad thing. That's using the functionality to achieve the goals you've set. I'm not the biggest G fan myself, but I do use it, and am tempted to give as much as possible info to google about the things I want high ratings on google, meaning using youtube, google calendar, google maps, ... . Other things I try to keep out of google as much as possible (which is a hard thing to do from time to time)

But once again, I think it deserves a compliment you guys are taking into consideration those users (and there are probably still quite a few out there) who are not on facebook, google, ... . Plenty of services/websites just go for the big player and expect the world to adapt, here C-boats adapts to their users. Very, very much respect for that!

Just added my experiences and insights to this very specific usecase.

The easiest solution, Google Calendar. Embed it in the website, but people can also add it to their own respective Google Calendars as overlays. I have a separate calendar I maintain for every release in the southeast so I can, at a glance, see how my schedule compares to the releases.

This is a good subject. TSRA's board has been wanting a way to link calendars for major events without someone having to fill out our form to add an event on our site calendar. I like this discussion.

Having investigated the Google calendar option, the down side is that there's no way to moderate the events. If I make my calendar public and allow people to subscribe to and add events, there is no stopping a "bot" or malicious user from adding bogus events and that's an added burden on us admins and moderators. It's a shame, really, because it is actually really easy to integrate the google calendar.

In the past, the calendar was only accessible to registered users of CBoats, and that's how I'd like to keep it.

It is an interesting situation... on the one hand, opening up the calendar to be more easily accessible to the outside would probably result in a more active calendar. On the other hand, we then have to deal with fake events and spammers. Anyone have any experience with public google calendars and mis-use of said calendar?