Ahoy, Mates!

OK, so we're now headlong into this new voyage, and in the past weeks, Model Shipwrights Scale Modeling Magazine is slowly growing, as daily I can see the amount of activity increasing on site, with new faces added quite often, as well as many non-registered users "lurking about in these murky depths"....

I'm curious to know now, your thoughts of the new site, it's new home, and such...What do you think of it so far??...any personal suggestions that you may have to improve the overall satisfaction factor, and also any comments or constructive criticism you may have.

Personally, I think that Jim Starkweather has done a kickin' job thus far in creating a new home for us seadog's, and there is only one direction that we're heading, and that is upward and onward! So, let's use this thread in a good way, and share your thoughts, comments, and suggestions here, and let us know what YOU'RE looking for at Model Shipwrights!

Model On, Mates!
~Gunny

I can say that I'm at the age where I'm becomming increasing adverse to change. I get enough of it at work. That said I am getting the hang of getting around on the site. One thing I'm a bit confused about, and I quess it has something to do with trying to join Armorama and Model Shipwrights together more closely. That is how in forums there are so many threads that have nothing to do with ships. All of the introductions, buy sell trade, general modeling, etc. Sometimes I have to scan quite a bit of the forums to see what is ship related and what isn't. Since I also still spend so much time on The Big A, a lot is a bit redundent. I'm NOT complaining, just saying the one thing I've noticed.

I agree with you, that Jim has done a kicking, I would actually have used a stronger phrase, job on setting this up.

Hi Gunny,

I think is going well, I still can't see the link back to Armorama and get a bit lost with the new terminology.

Going back to Rodger's post I think it's a good idea to have the other elements, general mdoelling etc on the site as many of the techniques and pieces of information that come up are of interest to all.

For me I find the flags confusing but that's just becaiuse I'm not used to them. For the first few months it might be worth putting in a link under the heading of 'How to use the Site'. It might be there already and I just haven't seen it or a semi permanent display to guide people when they first visit. I hope that makes sense?

It's looking good so far, many thanks to all who worked so hard to get it up and ruinning, it's easy to forget about the people behine the scene.

Cheers all.

Al

Rodger, I believe you're seeing cross-site Forums showing up here at MSW - meaning that there are Forums of commonality that appear on both sites, though not all topics are applicable.

I think it is a good idea for a Forum like BST (Buy, Sell, Trade) to appear across sites in the Network to increase the chance of the poster getting a response. The same with others appearing here now.

The caveat is, unfortunately, it is difficult to sort out which thread appears where without the user/member getting really good at picking subcategories within a Forum for creating a thread. I'd wager Jim has all of that kind of subgrouping figured out already, though. More improvement in the works...

My thoughts...

Gunnie

Hey guys, I think the site is awesome. Finally a place for us old salts. I'm getting to know where everything is pretty quickly. As far as linking back to Big A, yes we do need one (even though I really never went feet dry before). I see everything as growing pains. We got us to having everything right there....and it will be right here, eventually. It takes time to set this thing up, I understand. Keep up the great work!

Gator

I'm in agreement with Rodger on this one. How about a compromise, list the non-naval threads below the naval ones, that way we can avoid the 'Brian Beware' and 'Selling t-shirts' threads a tad easier. Aside from that, it looks good.

Frank

Guyz,

I've got to say that I'm comfortable enough with the site that I recommended it to the Ship Model Mailing List (SMML) last night. They're having hosting problems of their own right now. I also suspect that there are a few crewmates here that regularly post there as well.

I for one am rather proud of my Seaman's stripes and hope to earn PO3 soon. I'm normally an airplane guy but I really enjoy the ship side and really favor the easy company of shipbuilders.

Hi Frank,

Good idea, if the other posts were listed below, it would keep the layout cleaner so to speak as the two different styles don't really mesh together. The alternative to that might be to upgrade the other 'post icons' to fit in with the new style.

Cheers

Al

Hello, Gentlemen!
Thanks for the answers thus far, mates...this thread is going exactly in the direction that I had hoped it would, with like a "suggestion box" type discussion between us all...good stuff so far!
~Gunny

Evening Gentlemen - stand at ease,

I don't know if this is a good idea or a bad idea or even a very practical idea but here's a thought.

Would it be a useful to have a links sight. I'm thinking about all the place we go off to to search for information. We don't always bookmark them. Do you think it would be useful to have 'A Chart Room' with links to useful sites listed under ship designations?

John A's recent brilliant discovery of the 'Skills in Surf Site' for the LCMs got me thinking about this.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Al

Hi Alan!
I agree with you 100% on this one, mate...it would be a fantastic addition to the site here to have our own link database...possibly may be in Jim's whole scope of ideas for the site...we just have to be patient, and watch what unfolds!
~Gunny

We already have the database of links (and the engine to do it). The only reason I haven't placed it on the site somewhere is that I need to spend some time on creating some customized code for displaying only a particular section of the links directory.

It's on my list of "things to do"

Currently I am working on a few changes to the way the Latest Posts page works across the entire network of sites. Here is the new "beta" page in development. Missing right now are the gen modeling topics but they would eventually show up in a box on the right attributed to the ModelGeek site.

www.modelshipwrights.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=lp

As for a link to Armorama... the header will be changing at some point soon to have links to Armorama, MSW, and more.

Cheers,
Jim

Your "to do list" has got to be staggering, JIm!
That looks Very impressive, sir, thanks for the update!
~Mark

Hi Jim,

Great- that's sorted. As I said in my earlier post many thanks to all those behind the scene who make this site possible.

Cheers

Al

Looks very good Jim. As always thanks for all your hard work.