Forums and Migration

[Doug Pilcher]

The new forums as you see, are open. Transition has begun. You will find that the "The Hangar" tab on mini-iac.org now directs you to here to this platform where a new account will need to be setup. We are asking for "Given Names" when you sign up. As there is a problem with confirming with the current website your user ID when you migrate since these 2 (two) platforms are not able to cross verify security roles. If you use an alias or ID we are not able to cross check with main membership accounts than we have no way to confirm your status nor update it in new forums.

If we are able to identify you thru an email address, your "Display Name" will be changed to reflect that so we are then able to give your permissions to the correct forums. Members Only, Committee Forums you may be a part of. ETC.

The OLD Forums are still available if you "Hover" over the "The Hangar" tab you will see "Forum Archive" which is the original forums and still active in a read and write state. HOWEVER, conversations are being continued on the new platform and we will make the "Forum Archive" a read only status when the majority of members have migrated.

[Doug Pilcher]

Ok all. As the 2nd stage of this transition. We are migrating away from the existing mini-iac.org website also. We are working now with Dan Carroll and Roy Barrow and Rich Whitlow and Mike Karnes and myself. We are looking at options to bringing the Website to an Open Source platform. Our timeline is to complete a transition by early 2021. If however we find this is not possible other routes will be considered with professional website developers and we will obtain bids. But if we are able to do this using Open Source avenues and willing IMAC programmers to code the site then cost would be minimal.

What I would like is IMAC members at large to consider testing of this new platform once it is up and operational. I have already spoken to Kevin Garland but would like to get a group of 6 or so members at large to help with testing and troubleshooting of this. This notice is very early but I would like to have a few more members ready when the site is ready for this testing.

If you are interested and have a background of IT and web developer testing and or programming, then please contact me directly at my email address of [email protected].

I return you to your Wednesday and hope all are safe and healthy!

[Doug Pilcher]

Ok, another bump here. We had a meeting Wednesday evening (08/19/2020) with Roy Barrow (current webmaster) and Dan Carroll and Mike Karnes and Rich Whitlow and Doug Pilcher and Dave Dupre. Thank You Dave for contacting me and offering your assistance.

We have discussed further how to make a smoother transition from existing website to new website. Platforms discussed were Wordpress and Joomla and Drupal and as a group will consider the pro's and con's of each platform. The goal here is to find the best fit for the needs we have within the IMAC website. Wordpress is a pay platform however there are many "Opensource" plugin's (Free) that may be incorporated while Joomla and Drupal are completely Opensource with plugins. Regardless of where this portion leads there still will be a "Hosting Fee" whether it be a physical server in our possession or hosted on a cloud service along with our Domain costs which would be present regardless. That being the mini-iac.org. The ability to work this route is very very minimal costs to IMAC and relying on willing IMAC members to take this on and donate a portion of their time and expertise.

That said we will still be looking for basically two (2) teams to work this project and have at least partially online by January 1st 2021. The portion we want to have live by January 1st is the posting of scores and points race (IRPS) so that when 2021 kicks off (Covid be ****************************ed!) that we have a fresh place to begin this points race. Then a slow migration of the other portions of the existing website over to the new. History of Minutes and Score Archives and Hall of Fame Records etc. for history. And features as to the individual committees (Sequence, Rules, Education, etc. etc. etc.) So as you see this will be a huge undertaking.

So back to my mention of two (2) teams. We need a developer team with background in coding and the platform build. In the past this has fallen on one individual and simply too much work for one person. So we would like a "Web Team" to work at this together and develop, migrate and maintain. The second team to be involved will be testers of each of the components as they become live. To find possible bugs and errors and proofreading content and so on.

As you can see, this will be no small task and takes "That Village" to make it happen. IMAC like any other organization or club or business needs YOU! Volunteers willing to help with the growth change and building of our club.

Again, If you are interested and have a background of IT and web developer testing and or programming, then please contact me directly at my email address of [email protected] or message me here, if able to help in any of these two teams or committees.

Again I return you to your Friday and again hope all are safe and healthy. 2020 has thrown us a curveball but we can be prepared for 2021 and hope all is back to normal.

#IAMIMAC

[Kevin Garland]

I will for sure help out in anyway with testing purposes. I am not the greatest with coding, but once something is put together I can usually figure it out on how to update the pages. With what is happening in the world today and the very little IMAC events that are going on it is a great time to get this done.

[Dan Carroll]

The overall site software has come down to two options. Wordpress and Joomla.
I'm extensively familiar with Joomla but wordpress is more popular and the likelihood of finding people with experience with it is greater.

Joomla has the advantage that out of the box it has a user model that is very much extendable and the user/group/roles stuff (Authorisation) suits the needs quite well..
Wordpress can do these things too, however it requires a bit of fiddling to make it work.

I'm looking right now at how much work that is.