Ready To Decloak? (Make us visible in the navigation menu?)

[Gary Lewis]

Guys - What do you think?  Is this a keeper?  Are we sufficiently "structured" and "staffed" to removing the cloaking?  In other words, decloak?

If so, I think I should also make it so that non-registered users can see what has been written, but cannot post.  Otherwise why would they want to join.  Agreed?

Are We Ready To Decloak? In other words, have a link in the navigation menu on my web site? And let non-registered people view the contents?

Yes

No

This poll is closed.   

This poll ended on .

[CountryBumkin]

This your forum Gary and you (and your Mods) are doing all the work so no one else need to have any say - but since you asked...

Since this is a "professional truck forum" (in my view), I would not keep the "personal items" in the left side-bar/menu. "Youth Classes" and "Trucks I have known" makes the site seem more like a personal website than a Public "forum" like I see from the sponsored sites.

Maybe you want this to feel like a friendly personal place for friends to go for info - and not a "facts only - straight to the business" forum like some of the others. That's your call.

If I was doing this site, I would put the 1980-86 links on the left side (with all the sub-links below it like Electrical. Brakes, ETVM, etc. for easy access), and then perhaps have an "about Me" link with your personal Bio reason for the site, and truck projects.

I hope my opinion does not offend. Again, it's your site, do it your way.

And thanks for the work you put in to help others with their trucks.

[Gary Lewis]

Offend?  I think you may have solved the problem I've been struggling with for some time!  I haven't liked the navigation menu at all, and have actually thought about creating another site for the other stuff.

So, before I go moving everything around let's see if we agree what it would look like:

• Home
• Bullnose Forum  (I realize this isn't quite right alphabetically, but it seems like it should be first)
• Bullnose Gallery (ditto)
• Brakes
• Cooling Systems
• Driveline
• Electrical
• Engines
• Exhaust Systems
• ...
• ...
• TSB's
• Underhood
• Personal
• Trucks I have Known
• Projects
• Youth Classes

I first listed the above with no "Home", but then realized that http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/ has to go somewhere, and it doesn't seem right to drop the user into the forum, and certainly not one of the topics like Brakes or Personal.

Anyway, I'm game to move everything around as I don't like the way it is and I believe you are onto something.  So, help me sort this out, please.  And then, will we be ready to decloak?

On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 10:47 AM, CountryBumkin [via Bullnose Enthusiasts] <[hidden email]> wrote:

This your forum Gary and you (and your Mods) are doing all the work so no one else need to have any say - but since you asked...

Since this is a "professional truck forum" (in my view), I would not keep the "personal items" in the left side-bar/menu. "Youth Classes" and "Trucks I have known" makes the site seem more like a personal website than a Public "forum" like I see from the sponsored sites.

Maybe you want this to feel like a friendly personal place for friends to go for info - and not a "facts only - straight to the business" forum like some of the others. That's your call.

If I was doing this site, I would put the 1980-86 links on the left side (with all the sub-links below it like Electrical. Brakes, ETVM, etc. for easy access), and then perhaps have an "about Me" link with your personal Bio reason for the site, and truck projects.

I hope my opinion does not offend. Again, it's your site, do it your way.

And thanks for the work you put in to help others with their trucks.

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NAML

[Gary Lewis]

Ahhh!  I missed that what I called "Personal" should be "About Me".  I like that better.

But I'm still working through what to do for "Home".  What about if http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/ took you to the page currently named 1980-86 Ford Trucks?  I don't see any need for the info currently on the Home page, other than the contact info, which could move to the bottom of the 1980-86 Ford Trucks page.

[Gary Lewis]

Or, what if the forum page was "home"?  Then everyone following the link would see the forum.

[Ford F834]

I think that is an awesome idea Gary.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, let's make sure we are on the same page before I start working on it:

• Bullnose Forum (takes the place of Home and is where http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/ takes you)
• Bullnose Gallery (not sure that is ready for prime time, but we don't have to decloak it yet)
• Brakes
• Cooling
• ...
• ...
• TSB's
• Underhood
• About Me/Contact Me
• Projects
• Youth Classes
• Whatever

On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 3:47 PM, Ford F834 [via Bullnose Enthusiasts] <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think that is an awesome idea Gary.

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NAML

[Ford F834]

What ar you looking to put in the Bullnose gallery? Is this for survivor pics and such or something else? Brochure scans?

[Gary Lewis]

Good question, and the simple answer is that I don't know.  A gallery is a free option, so I thought I'd give it a try as maybe it could be like the FTE albums, only better.  But I'm underwhelmed.

So, do you see any value in it?  We can leave it hidden and just not use it, or decloak it and let people play with it.  But my take is that we should focus on getting the forum itself visible and used, which also means getting the navigation menu sorted, and then worry about the gallery.

But, it would not be for brochure scans as we have a place for that on the web site - Literature.

[ctubutis]

Gary Lewis wrote

Offend?  I think you may have solved the problem I've been struggling with
for some time!  

I went through these exact pains, Gary.

Sometime around Y2k I purchased 3 .lt domain names from the registrar at Kaunas Technical University on Kaunas, LT.

I have:

tubutis.lt
tubutis-family.lt
tubutisfamily.lt

I did it that way because they didn't allow surnames as domain names at the time, so I got the two *family domain names and added the lastname.lt sometime later.

I've had them all working to various degrees at one time or another but you have to remember that this was pre-WordPress, something around the HTML v2.0 to 3.2 days.

I had a friend who was a web site designer finally make some graphics for me but figuring out the organization & navigation was challenging. I was setting up for each of us a web site, e.g. http://susan.tubutis.lt with anSMTP e-mail address of, say, [e-mail].

I never really implemented any of it in a full-time fashion, I do that stuff for a living in a production fashion and don't want to mess with it when I get home - so I never really pursued who would host my DNS & SMTP nevermind the physical site hosting (virtual machines hadn't arrived yet, lots of heavy iron to run that stuff and so I never did it).

Anyhow, I'm rambling again... but I know your pain. ;)

[Gary Lewis]

Chris - I understand about the domain names. I've been torn as to how to use this one.

Initially this site was for whatever I wanted to write about. But time seems to have determined that because there are currently 371 pages, and of those 340 are about Bullnose trucks. So, if 90+% of the content is about these trucks I guess I should realize that I'm going to document them and make access to that information easier.

As you can see, I've already made a change where all of the non-Bullnose stuff is under About Me/Contact Me. Now I need to make this forum both visible and the top page so that's where you go when you come into the Garagemahal, and that's easily done. And the final change will be to out-dent or promote the topics like Brakes .... Underhood so they show in the navigation menu.

But still we have someone voting not to go live. Mike - Was/is that you?  If so, will these changes sway your vote?

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, I've done the majority of the editing and promoting to get the navigation menu as discussed.  All that is left, and I'm awaiting a few more votes, is to move the forum into the "home" position and make it visible in the nav menu.  That takes a couple of clicks and we are live.  Oh yes, and making the forum readable w/o registering.

But we have one hold-out on going live, so.....

[CountryBumkin]

Looks great!

[1986F150Six]

I vote that you decloak and that non-members be able to read, but not participate.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, guys.  You may have missed the "poll" at the top of this thread.  As I write there are 5 votes to go live and 1 vote not to.  But, even as an admin I can't tell who voted nor what way they voted.  So, I was hoping that the work that's been done to the nav menu would sway the nay-sayer, and I have gone ahead and taken us live.  AKA decloaked, meaning turned the cloaking device off.  

Please let me know of any anomalies.  I know that the links in emails were bad for a few minutes, but I think that's been fixed.