.... Suggestion .... harvest the website ‘dead wood’ content ....

[nowhitebits]

Ok!  So I may be on a hiding to nothing here.  Also, I am sure to raise a few eyebrows, if not the blood pressure of some members. Never mind .... here goes ....

Would someone like to inform us all why the majority of the older posts and topics, cannot either be deleted or at least archived?  Some posts are approaching a decade in age and very likely to be redundant presently.  Therefore, holding onto the ‘dead wood’ just makes the website look old and tired .... a bit like me really!

That’s it, I’ve opened myself up for the incoming keyboard warriors onslaught, so now those who dislike change can ‘shoot away’ .... lol ....

[andreas]

That's the same on most forums.  You have to look hard to find 10 year old posts.  In the General Discussion section, the first 5 pages of posts are this year's, so I wonder how you're finding very old posts unless you've nothing better to do than just search for them.

[Phil B-C]

Top of the page, above the date, click on "Show unread posts since last visit" and you will only see new posts ?

[nowhitebits]

.... thank you chaps for your advice, however, it hardly addresses my “Dead wood” submission, yes? ....

[STEPHEN]

As ever, there are two sides to every story. Old entries contain a lot of information, albeit possibly out of date, but they could provide the spark  for a more up to date discussion on the particular topic involved. On the other hand, a lot of entries are now irrelevant. On a somewhat related point, I wonder how reliable are the postings for travel to/from the airports on the main website.     Alicante ia autumn 2009, Murcia ditto, Almeria May 2010.  Whatever about the timetables, I'm sure the prices have increased.

[Phil B-C]

Actually, there are three sides to his particular story. 

You are forgetting that in order to clear the "dead wood", someone has to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to read every single posting on every single topic for the last 7/8 years and decide if it's "dead" or not.  Then deposit said "dead wood" in the archives and subsequently justify their decision(s) to those who later disagree (which someone always does). Who decides ?

Perhaps if members would like to update the "dead wood" with more up to date information, then we might have a starting point.  Other than that, using "show unread posts since your last visit" seems to fit the bill for the time being - that's what I do and that's what it's for.

 

[Roy]

I agree in general with Stephen on this.  There are all kinds of things that could be done to improve/update the VPF Forum and website.  However it is is dependent on volunteers to do it.  So it is a question of priorities and what VPF website and Forum users find most useful and not what in an ideal world it would be nice to do.

As an example I volunteered to walk all the streets to do a complete check and update of the Vera Playa map on the VPF website.  I have also done the same for the Puerto Rey map which was several years out of date.  Thanks are due to Phil who ha the technical know-how to transfer my written updates to the maps on the website.

Yes, the information on the VPF website about how to get from the airports to Vera Playa is out of date. But even if updated is there a real need for it to be there at all?  Doesn't everyone these days if they are driving from the airport use a SatNav (or TomTom as the Dutch say) or use a navigation app on their mobile phone?  Does anyone nowadays travel from the airports to Vera Playa on public bus services?  If so it is easy to get up to date information on Google.  There are also now commercial coach services from both Alicante and Almeria to Vera Playa.

The local bus services from Vera Playa to Vera and to Garrucha and Mojacar seem to me to be well used by Vera Playa visitors and locals. The local bus timetables can be found with some difficulty on the Spanish bus company's website but it is easier to use the link on the VPF website. So that for me is something that should be a priority to keep up to date together with information on fares which have to be paid in cash  (no London Oystercard or similar electronic fare payment systems on local buses yet).

Roy

[andreas]

Other than that, using "show unread posts since your last visit" seems to fit the bill for the time being - that's what I do and that's what it's for.

 

Exactly!  I use the "unread posts" facility on all the forums I'm a member of.  It's simple, quick and easy.  As I said earlier, you'll only find old posts if you go out of your way to look for them.

It's also perhaps a little unusual for a newcomer to the forum to start off by criticising the forum!  Maybe wait a few weeks....

[Alan - The Webmaster]

A number of interesting points and views in this thread.

nowhitebits, I wonder why you came up with this thought in the first place, is it because when you open a thread you see the oldest post at the top. This is the defult setting of the forum but can be changed so that the order is latest post at the top. This then means that you always see the latest first and you don't have to scroll through the "dead wood" to see the latest posts.

If anybody wants to know how to do this please let me know.

You are quite right there is some very old data/information on the forum and website. When the forum was first opened a decision was made that nothing would be deleted so that a full history would always be available, maybe that decision needs to be revisited. The information available on the main website relies on volunteers to keep uptodate, sadly despite requests in the past volunteers are in very short supply (Roy thank you for your valued contributions). I would just like to point out that two of three administrators of the site and forum do not reside in Vera Playa and the third has made many contributions in the past but is now more interested in the VPF Facebook page. If anybody would like to join the staff and help us to maintain both the site and forum then applications are always welcome.


As Phil has already commented, it would take a lot of time and effort to read, make decisions and archive the necessary material, at present there is only myself and Phil to do this and personally I have much more important things to do with my life at the moment. By the way I've just had a look and there are 12209 posts on the forum.

Any volunteers, please don't don't knock me over with the rush


Alan

[Roy]

Alan, thanks for mentioning me in your post.  I will PM you with some thoughts on other contributions I could perhaps make to the VPF website.

Regards, Roy

[nowhitebits]

.... thank you for the many valid points raised in response to this post.  Perhaps the most rational suggestion might be to simply ‘restart the engine’ ....

[RobnDee]

Given the choice, my vote would be to keep the old posts - that may still be of use to someone.

[nowhitebits]

.... I’m typing this with a big smile on my face so please do not throw your teddy out of the pram ....

Do you keep all your old newspapers too Rob? ....

[uninhibited]

I must say yours is a rather obnoxious approach.......

[RobnDee]

No I don't keep old newspapers, because I can refer to old items, news or interesting journal articles, on-line.