Thank you Mr. Bailey.
That being the case then: a. Split the discussions into groups. b. Kill a classified after 6 months. c. Kill the links section (put them at the bottom of page 1 of each group, ie steam with steam group).
1 year from now add a RSS feed. Also add the ability for poster to uplink 250k or less photo from their hard drive.
Have "Topic Reply Notification" go to hand held devices (PDA's, IPhones and new stuff coming out this year)
2 years from now start a separate photo archive.
4 years from now pull this string up on the "Main Board" of the Interchange and start over. Gadgets, people and ways of doing things will have changed a bunch.
There is a FCC bandwidth sale going on with Google and some guy that had something to do with a fruit (Apple) involved in the bidding process. Things will change a bunch in the next 1 1/2 to 3 years.

I miss the articles and the briefs. I understand why it might be hard to get people to supply articles, but I would think getting a new brief every week or two would be a worthy goal.

There haven't been many, but I really enjoyed the "guest editorial". The one Bennett Levin did on Erie 833 was a classic. Perhaps the RYPN Board could seek out people to pen thought provoking editorials and have a link to always reach them without having to search.

Someone made a point that they get all the articles and news they need from TRAIN or ARM (sorry I don't remember which one). To me, RYPN is the place I go to get a feel for what others I respect are doing. Most of the projects I am involved with don't fit into the worlds or either TRAIN or ARM.

By the way, my first stop at RYPN is usually flimsies - I think it is important to see how we are reported on by the mainsteam (legacy?) media.

Mark and others,

Go have a look at steamboats.org. The site is a one man show focused on steamboats on the Mississippi River system. After a number of years the webmaster split the single interchange into three separate major categories, later reduced to two. One of the features I mentioned earlier is the Picture of the Week (Hello Bob?).

The similarities between that site and this one are pretty amazing. In an incident similar to one here last year, the steamboat site got into a fit with some interchange comments focused on an incident at an event and Franz had to clamp down a bit. There seems to be a resident panel of "experts" on that site, and there are the occasional comments about who is "in" and who is "out", personalities just as we have seen here.

Overall I think that site is a good model for RyPN 2.0 I am sure that Franz would be happy to talk with you and others.

Wesley

Would anyone care to comment on how many articles actually were submitted in the last year? Were there enough to publish one issue of a print or internet magazine? Did any articles that were submitted not get "published" (posted)? If what is showing in the archives was the sum total for the year, then is there any real need to change the present format of posting articles at random intervals?

MX

Mark -

First of all, I think that RyPN is great as it is. BUT, I agree that it could be better. Here's my thoughts, for what they're worth:

1. At one time, I would have agreed that a new L&RP would have been the way to go, but I don't think so today. What we DO need, is a way to get information that appears in INTERCHANGE in some type of permanent format, for those that want it. I suggest that individual threads be printed on both sides of 8 x 11 standard sized SLICK paper with holes for putting into a standard notebook. They would be offered at a modest price, say 25 cents per sheet, and at a certain time, say at the end of each month. RyPN would modify the threads to reflect a subtitle that might better identify the subject of a particular thread. Such as AFT #1 being subtitled as Reading 4-8-4 #2101 at B&O Museum; The Lost Engines of Roanoke being subtitled N&W steamers/Chesapeake Western Baldwin diesels in scrap yard; Tower Under the Gun subtitled as Grasselli Tower in East Chicago, Indiana. You get the idea. Also, the month/date/year each thread is started. When a thread continues beyond the certain time when the printed threads are offered, the additions are offered in the following period as a page 2 addendum.

This method means that only those threads are printed that are ordered by RyPN readers. You would have to determine if the 25 cents is a fair price, or what the price would be. Also, RyPN readers would only order those threads that are of permanent interest to them. Threads like "great quotes of rail fans" might still appear, but it is doubtful if anyone would pay to get the entire thread printed.

Other features could be offered as part of the printed material, such as a note at the bottom of the thread, "also see .............." (and then a similar thread or threads referenced.)

2. Photos HAVE to be added more easily to any RyPN thread. The current system does not seem to be working, as evidenced by the general lack of photos. If photos were easily added, then more "how to" or "what we did" threads would appear.

3. Articles should appear, and these too should be offered in a printed format similar to point 1 above. Depending upon how many RyPN readers order printed pages, there might even be enough to offer authors at least a modest payout for their efforts.

As I said, my thoughts.

Les

There have been several occasions where I have done a copy and paste of posts in threads in which I have had particular interest. If RyPN were to provide the service proposed by Les it would just mean more work for someone(volunteer, moderator, some other staff member?). Keeping in mind that I know nothing about web page /discussion board site construction, would it be possible to provide a way to print a thread at home or at least save an entire topic thread to one's own computer for later review? That way we could copy any thread we wanted and print it out (if desired) rather than placing another burden on the RyPN staff. If this could be done, could a print article function be added so that various articles and briefs could be saved and printed? Does this get into any form of copyright issues?

I would like to see a Technical section as well as a broader use of the classifieds.
When I volunteered to moderate the classifieds, I had envisioned a place for people and groups to post items no longer needed in hopes someone with a need could find what they needed.
Networking is the best way to find the hard to find parts and supplies. I was hoping the classifieds would grow into that. I know there is always something someone doesn’t need and chances are someone is looking hard to find that same thing. Look at e-bay. Who would imagine all of the odd things on there. NO I don’t want classifieds to be another version of e-bay!.
The addition of a technical side of the site is something I feel is sorely needed. Some parts of my day job (running a locomotive shop) would be allot harder if I didn’t have a network of knowledgeable individuals to bounce ideas off of. We all have our “bag of tricks” to help out and you never know when someone has ran into the same odd problem.
I don’t know MX data but he seams to be in the know on Diesels, Preston Cook does, Eric Levin does, as well as several other members.
Steam is also well covered with several “hands on” people.
Who less is lurking here with knowledge to offer?
With time this part of the site could be turned into an e-tech manual for all forms of preservation related endeavors. It would have to be moderated closely to keep opinions out and information in. Discussion on the topic is needed but not criticisms.
I promised my self, Per Marks request that I wouldn’t go into reasons it will or will not work so we will leave that to another conversation.
IMHO railroad preservation is requires allot of maintenance to properly preserve. Be it static or operational. There is no central source of all this knowledge readily available to people that need it!
Yes I will volunteer my time to help in this direction.

I'm going to call one point of order here.

At some point, when someone gets to the point of archiving and possible preserving/publishing information in another form/format, the issues of copyright, or at least right of republication, comes into play.

Just as one example:
Publications by non-profit unpaid magazines (for examples that I have dealt with, ham radio magazines, magic society magazines, and the PRRT&HS Keystone) have been "republished" as archival CD-ROM editions, with all the material now available on a computer screen in a searchable form. 3 CDs instead of four feet of shelf space.

Have you noticed that, in spite of possible demand, you haven't seen the same for Trains, or Model Railroader, or Railroad? Not because the money isn't there--it's copyright. Trains et al pays for ONE-TIME use of photos. Imagine going back and trying to get permission from estates to reuse photos from the 1940s.

We've already had this site shut down once by someone threatening a lawsuit over a forum participant's words. In spite of the fact that said words are still in the archives somewhere in all probability, I will wager that it will only take one soul complaining about either those words or the rights to preserve his/her words to upset the apple cart, as the saying goes.

If we were to pursue this project any further as an archive/publication, I would recommend that the contribution of ANY material other than snide Interchange commentary by bozos like yours truly be processed through a "disclaimer" form that lets the contributor relinquish or restrict rights to the material as appropriate.

Of course, by thinking about this too hard (hey, what can I say, I'm an editor and writer), I may have just effectively killed any possibility of any of the above ever occurring, but so what? We have more to fear from the lawyers and their clients than we do from the scrappers or asbestos........

Here's another idea, just to prove I'm not all nay-saying:

What about the possibility of aligning ourselves with another publication that already exists and shares our purported goals?

Possible candidates:
NRHS Bulletin
R&LHS Railroad History
Railfan & Railroad
Railroads Illustrated
TRAIN or ARM publications
Trains

I'm not going to pursue this discussion further because, frankly, every avenue that I can think of that stands a realistic chance of success also has a potential conflict of financial interest for me (seeing as I write/photograph or could write/edit for the for-profit ones for pay).

But wouldn't it be nice if, instead of bashing the NRHS, we found a way to work jointly with them for mutual benefits? If not them, the R&LHS? Railroad.net?

It occurs to me that if I want a printed copy i just have to tell my printer to make me one. I don't see multiplying the complexity and time requirements of the site operators for the purpose of becoming a part time non profit print shop. The need isn't there. Is there a mechanism that could automatically format a "printer frendly" version that could be easily added?

Nobody got paid for their contributions to articles and briefs before the change of management. There were many more. Money isn't the issue - but I don't know what is. Certainly, the managers don't seem to be actively discouraging contributions.

Technical articles and briefs don't really need a seperate page - presumably the articles can be searchably tagged with some descriptive wording when archived and made seperately accessable by category - like "boilers- technical' or "bearing materials - technical" or "databases for membership recordkeeping" or whatever. Won't take too much of the technicians time.

Might behoove VMT to offer a locomotive hulk on the classifieds in exchange for heavy moving. I take about a weekly look at the classifieds when I remember since they don't get much traffic. Good underused resource which needs to reach critical mass to perform correctly.

Maybe if we all pitch in with some briefs or articles when we do something interesting it will generate some more activity. "I did this" is self promotion, which is OK but not informative. "Here's how I did this, here's why I did it this way, and here's how it worked out" is informative. let's be informative.

dave

I'd like to see enhanced search capabilities. Like a Google that only searches rail related topics. As an example, lets say you wanted to find some pictures of historic trolleys. Now, you can enter this search string:
archives site:www.tmny.org
click Search Images

and you get a bunch of thumbnails. Now try making a reasonably broad railway topic search in Google without limiting it to a site and you can get thousands of unrelated hits.

Of course I knew tmny.org had scanned some of its picture archive in making this example, but creating an easy to use capability like this in RyPN that crawls just railway sites would make things easier than searching in Google's current Universe.

As stated above, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I find that there is a desire to change things just for the sake of change.

I do not need another magazine and that is not what I see this site as being. Since I am concerned with history and the restoration of historic equipment, I like to read about other's ventures into the same areas.

I do not like post hogs here or any other site I frequent. This site is only one of two I frequent that doesn't limit the number of posts that any one person can put up in a day. As again stated above, important topics are pushed to the twilight zone or page two as it is known.

So to that end I would again suggest that maybe a seperate section where those who want to post multiple links to other sites with information or photos can go. I would suggest a seperat section titled "links" that a viewer can go to if they want to view these links.

I like what is here as it does provide a forum for stimulating discussions.

Later!
Mr. Ed

Someone else mentioned establishing a separate forum for tech to make searching easier. I agree that the search feature could be improved. However, I don't think a separate forum is the way to do it.

Consider a hypothetical "call to action" thread on locomotive XYZ 123 being in danger. Somebody asks, "how would you go about moving this thing, anyway?" Someone posts their experience moving locomotive ZYX 3210, and this subthread drifts off to become highly technical. That sort of info would be invaluable in somebody's later search on moving a locomotive -- but it wouldn't be in the tech forum.

Similarly, the "here's what we're doing" posts from the Strasburg often drift into highly technical subthreads. I like reading the updates, but a lot of the tech goes way over my head. With everything in one forum, I'm more likely to see a slightly technical post that might interest me, but I can just skip over the minutiae posts I don't understand. However, that minutiae is valuable info that somebody might need, so it needs to be searchable.

One possible way around this would be to set up some sort of category system for individual posts, i.e. tech, call for action, question, project update, photo link, etc. Then the search engine could include a feature to include and/or exclude specific categories. If each POST is categorized, then thread drift wouldn't be such an issue.

My point is that the forum is very easy to read as it is, covering a good variety of topics. It could be a lot easier to search, though. The trick is making searches more powerful without adversely affecting the ability to read the forum.

As for "junk" posts, the category system could help with that, too. Most folks who post useful info wouldn't find a category popup menu a big inconvenience. Those who post "junk" or spam probably wouldn't notice the category popup, though. Have a default category for them, and allow an option to include and exclude categories in read mode, also.

This post category idea is not fully formed. Someone with more programming knowledge than me would have to work out exactly how to execute it. And we'd have to figure out the categories, how to prevent abuse, etc. But at least it's an idea to enhance the ability of future RYPN users to access the wealth of knowledge here.

Since the supply of articles and the feasibility of seeking a print version was discussed, let me just comment that the production of articles tends to be a byproduct of the other projects you have going on at the time. A year or two ago I was working on several projects for special events and in the process developed a lot of additional infomation that helped out in writing articles for RYPN. This year there have been relatively few calls for special events, so most of my attention has gone to somewhat less technical writing projects on more current topics.

Some of my articles from RYPN have indeed appeared in printed magazines. You did not see them because they were in the journal of the Tugboat Enthusiasts Society (TES) which requested permission of Hume Kading and myself to include them in their magazine. Marine enthusiasts are much less photography oriented due to the relative difficulty of gaining access to mobile floating equipment. They welcome technical articles and are willing to sort their way through unrelated topics (like locomotives) to seek the information they desire. Subsequent to the articles being published I started helping that group out with other projects. That has absorbed some of my time but is well worth it, since they have a substantial interest in diesel engines.

Compare that experience with some of the single-railroad historical societies that want you to completely rebuild a successful slide lecture program just for a one-time showing, so that it only features photos of locomotives owned by their favorite railroad! Could you justify doing that much work for people whose interest goes no deeper than the color the locomotive is painted?

PC

Having several categories would help. The WW&F Ry Museum has its own forum which utilizes the same phpBB software, and it works quite well. At only a fraction of the number of registered users (currently 169), the WW&F forum has over 7000 posts after a little over a year of operation. www.wwfry.org

Someone else suggested RyPN having the ability to host images -- making it possible to upload images directly to the Interchange from one's computer. I think THAT would be the single best improvement.

Beyond that, how about just one printed issue per year? And put it out as, "L&RP Year in Review."

Stephen