Admin

When entering the classified click the button that says "Set Location". In the pop up window enter your address like just the street, suburb and city and click search and it will find it on the map. This is to prevent shonky type classifieds

The Classifieds are only just one section of the entire site so when you add up everything this site has to offer then being a First Class Member is so very little to support the site and have even more benefits...and let's not get personal to what an individual may get out of it but also what the site does for the whole recreational aviation industry especially those that are learning so it is very little cost to help those coming up in the industry

Hi All

It gives me great pleasure in announcing that Recreational Flying now has a very powerful feature rich new Classifieds system.

It is FREE to list your non-commercial classifieds. There are 2 packages available when you list a classified. Standard site users will automatically be defaulted to a standard package but First Class Members are able to select either the Standard Package or the First Class Members Package.

Standard Package:

Classifieds are listed for 30 days

Classifieds can not be relisted

Classifieds can not be featured

Classifieds can not be bumped up

First Class Members Package:

Classifieds are listed for 90 days

Classifieds can be relisted up to 4 times

Classifieds are automatically featured in the Classifieds Section

Classifieds can be bumped up every week

(this is one way of Recreational Flying saying thank you to First Class Members)

When a classified is created, a thread is automatically created in the Classifieds Forum for everyone to see including Google and other search engines.

You now have up to 7 different categories to choose from in which to list your classified.

I hope you find this new site feature a great asset and remember, here at Recreational Flying Classifieds ARE FREE.

To access the new Classifieds section, click Classifieds from the slide out menu bar

It should be faster than before Bernie. The whole server is dedicated to this site, it is not shared with anyone else, it is highly spec'd and located in Sydney. I can't do anything more in terms of the server without huge cost which would only see big benefits to just a few. The server is only one component and no matter how good I make it the weakest link is from the server to you which is out of my control. But, as you know having been on the site for such a long time I am always trying to improve things for everyone in any way I can

To keep you updated on this...

The choice of options has now been narrowed down to 2 different vendors, 1 with a full 3D Virtual Expo solution and the other a non 3D expo that is bespoked developed to suit the requirements that were presented to them. These have been decided after going through our requirements with the possible vendors, analysis of product demonstrations and cost benefit analysis.

Now that it has been narrowed down to 2 options, these are now being circulated to potential expo stand exhibitors around the world. This process will take several weeks to gather feedback and interest to which option best suits potential expo exhibitors.

If you are an aircraft or aviation product manufacturer or distributor, please socialise the 24/7 world wide virtual expo concept with your head company and let me know so I can forward the information to them.

Hopefully within a month's time I should be able to communicate a favourable status update to all if this is going ahead and what the end result will look like.

Attached are the requirements that I am working to

Project Requirements - Recreational Flying Expo.pdf

Project Requirements - Recreational Flying Expo.pdf

Project Requirements - Recreational Flying Expo.pdf

Remember if you are already on a fast connection you probably wont see much difference, if any, than before. I am an Optus cable at 100mb (10mb per sec) so I dont see any difference

So far the majority are saying that it is quicker which is great.

Sue, 5 secs compared to all other sites except the ABC who have a larger budget than me, is also great to hear.

What I have done is grouped all similar code together and ran the page load in a sequence that optimises the order of executing each type of code. There was a lot of experimenting on my local development version of the site but it looks like it was worth the time and effort.

However, sometimes when doing this some snippets of code may need to run before other snippets which is why I need to know if things are working correctly...thanks for your help in making the site better

Oh, incidentally, the next experiment will be to look at CDN (Content Delivery Network) which will place all the site images on local servers around the world making them load faster no matter where the server of the site's text components which load faster than images are located

I am currently testing a possible improvement in the performance of the site by changing the order of when the different types of code within the site is loaded each time you open a page.

I am very interested to hear if you notice any difference...thanks for your help

If its an aviation club I can set all this up for you here as a club members only forum.

If its not, stay away from phpbb and most of the free ones. Stay away from vbulletin unless you know how to code as it is buggy. IPB is still useing ancient technologies

I will pm you about looking after the site

Looks like the right decision was made here at Recreational Flying by still allowing the Off Topic forum but removing its What's New to its own tab on the What's New page...best of both worlds for everyone...thanks for all your comments, I listened and acted on to try and keep everyone happy...isn't that democratic in a dictatorship

The Thruster Owner's Support Group (TOSG) is available at www.tosg.com.au

TOSG is BACK...

The TOSG website is back up and running. Remember though that it is an old site and needs a lot of work done to it to not only update the content but to also update the technologies used like mobile phone use with responsive design etc. I am available to do all this in partnership with anyone who wants to, and is capable and diligent enough, to manage it and get TOSG back up and running as a FULL Thruster Owner Support Group.

Note: If anyone wants a Owner Support Group created for any specific type of aircraft please let me know.

TOSG can be found at www.tosg.com.au

I will look into it tomorrow

Ok, I have spent some time looking into all possibilities and I believe I may have an interim, or possible long lasting solution...cost me $10 for the external code rather than try and write it myself, but here it is...

Now, the Off Topic forum threads and posts have been removed from the What's New list however, there is a new tab at the top of the What's New page that when clicked will display all the new Off Topic threads and posts:

Also, as search engines do not have access as a logged in user does, the Off Topic forum, it's threads and posts, can not be viewed by a non logged in user i.e. you have to be a registered user and logged in to see them

Hope you like the solution, let me know if you do or don't...thanks

As I said in my opening post, the site userbase is very divided on this subject. Those that are against the idea have voiced their concerns in posts and those that agree have done so by the number of likes/agree on the opening post.

Seems to be another one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't scenarios.

However what we are basically saying here is that with the right coding the only real operational difference is:

• The off topic threads are not displayed in the what's new
   
   
  
• Clicking the off topic forum will display more forums to put off topic threads in
   
   
  
• When looking at off topic forums then you can see what's new in off topic
   
   
  

Personally, I really don't see any major issue as it actually, in my opinion, enhances the site for both sides of the argument

The Off Topic site would have very little moderation at all...just no attacking the man (or woman) and no foul language.

I do appreciate all forms of feedback, both pos and neg as that helps to see the whole picture.

If a new site was created, the forums could possibly be:

Politics

Sport

Religion

Sex

Culture

Laws

Technology

Cars

Bikes

In the news

Jokes

Other

A quick and dirty way of achieving your goal would be to pick several of the worst offenders and lock them out of the off topic forum.

I am thinking that anyone that creates an off topic thread will just see it disappear...I would code the new site that a thread can just be moved out of Recreational Flying into the Off Topic site and all users will have the same registration/login across both sites.

The Jokes forum would remain for aviation jokes.

Moderation would be a key element and a user cultural change would be needed however if by chance that Google then pick up the off topic threads in the other site that may increase it's usage from non aviation users and a greater range of topics could be the eventual outcome making the new site more popular.

The Bounce Rate is a key metric used by web developers and it needs to be kept to a minimum. The search engines take the Bounce Rate and the Time On Site metrics as a key element to their search engine rankings. Search engines self learn and if they are sending many people to a site that bounce only after a few seconds they lower the rank of the site. They want to be seen as a good resource that helps people find what they want not send them all over the place for nothing

Can you just filter the "New" posts so the OT ones don't show up?

The main 2 benefits to Recreational Flying are:

1. Because of the site's high ranking, Google and other search engines are permanently on the site and the less aviation words that are used in posts dilutes the site value to the search engines making it hard to improve the site's figures

2. I have notices the visitor bounce figures slowly increasing. This is when a person enters say "gun" into google and this site comes up in the search results. The person clicks on the link to here, sees it is not what they are after and goes again. This is bad for the site.

Hi all

As many have commented and with my own thoughts I am considering doing something with the Off Topic forum. This site is about recreational flying yet every time I wake up in the morning and check the site I am bombarded with off topic threads and posts. The userbase seems divided on the benefits of having an Off Topic forum however it is becoming an overriding component to the site's focus.

I have an idea that I would like to get your opinion on.

I create a new site that has a list of forums relating to different topics. The Off Topic forum here will link to that site for easy access and having a separate site may generate more traffic in the long term from non aviation users as well. The new site will cover all the average Australian general chat subjects including politics, religion and sex and frees you up to post anything thats on your mind whether it be road laws, culture, the young ones, guns, jokes...anything that's on your mind and that you want to post about.

To get to it you just click the Off Topic forum here or go directly to it. The recent posts will not show up in What's New here leaving this site to focus on aviation...kind of having the best of both worlds.

What are your thoughts?

Ft, you are again trying to fragment a thread but no one seems to be biting as around 60% of users have you on their ignore list so they don't even see your posts any more so maybe you are just posting to yourself and filling up the database. As a suggestion, perhaps you may like to stop trying to turn threads and increase the quality of posts