We are about a day away from launching the ship site, ModelShipwrights.com. In this news story I outline some of the changes we can expect (and not expect).

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Just one question. When you say each of the sites will have its own forums does that mean we would have to go to each site the check all of the forums or will we still have a main forum page like we have now?

Will softskins remain hidden under Armor or become a seperate site?

Cheers
Cliff

Jacob,
If I put up a poll you would find that a majority of regular users (people who visit the site daily or even hourly) you'd find that most us the Latest Posts page to see what is new in the forums and not the main forum page. I myself only visit the main forum page for Armorama when I need to access a forum that is not listed on Latest Posts or if I am coding something.

So the answer to your question is that yes you would need to effectively click the other sites home link (which will be in the upper bar as they are now) and then go to the forums page. Keep in mind though that the ship site has 14 forums of it's own. Trying to put all 5 sites forums on one page would be rather... crowded.

But take heart! There will definitely be a way to see all the most recent posts on the entire network from one location. Or even to filter the results so that only the sites you are interested in show up. That stuff will just come later.

Thanks,
Jim

When I say "Armor" of course I mean....

ALL GROUND BASED MILITARY SUBJECTS OF THE 20th and 21st CENTURIES.

Lol...

Jim

Oh yes, I sense some 1st of April too... :-)

Well no, this has been underway for months...Jim

Does this include personel? I mean figures?

It includes 1/35th and 1/48th armour related figures yes. Obviously if it's historical or aircraft related then you'll find it on the appropriate site.

Vinnie

Unless they're Aircraft related and I nab them for the forthcoming Aircraft site...

All the best

Rowan

Well...then I guess I just sit down and hope it gets good. I´m not sure if I understand everything written about it, but for me, the mix of evertyhing here is the nice thing about Armorama. Please don´t make the special Armorama feeling we have here dissapear by dividing it... I put my trust in you guys to accomplish it...
Cheers Andreas

Ps. You couldn´t have chosen a better day to publish it?

This is a bit tongue in cheek, not wishing to incur the wrath of Jim and the chaps but does this mean that you will be giving us German Armour fans an individual site and while your at that Vinnie needs one just for his 251 topics.


John

What about photos?

. Will there still be one main gallery, or a seperate one for each site?

. If only one main, will we be able to "cross-post" (ie: figures to dioramas, etc.), like to illustrate a certain technique common to various forms of the hobby?

Art

i have a bad feeling about this.

I am afraid I do too especially as softskins are still to be dominated by armor. May be time to start my own site I think

I think that we have to trust that Jim and the staff know what's best for Armorama. So long as I can still see at a glance what's new in all the forums - I read and post in Figures but also sometimes in Armo(u)r, 'planes and ships!

I understand that there's a danger in the existing site becoming too big and heavy - even with my 2mb link it sometimes takes so long to load pages that the connection times out- but the sense of belonging to the overall community is my main reason for being here - this is my modelling club not just a website.

Personally, I'm quite excited about this MAJOR move that our Commander in Chief, Mr. Jim Starkweather, is about to make with his brainchild, ie Armorama, and I as a supporter of Armorama, do also support Jim's decision's at all times...Time will tell just exactly what will come about of this, but overall, after all the smoke clears, I think that the site will still be a complete, enjoyable experience, as always.

In the past, any changes to the site since I've been here have always been for the better, and I'm sure that this will be the same scenario. I think that we all should just sit back, and give 'er a chance, before really forming any opinions...There's alot of wisdom in Jim's latest news story, and as he said, Armorama is definitely on the upswing, and from where I'm sitting, there's no end in site!

This is THE ultimate modeling website and judging from the rate of growth of the ranks here, many other modelers agree! And Jim, as always, I will again remind you that I am willing to volunteer my services to the site in any capacity that you may need!

Sincerely,
Mark

I personally think this was inevitable and had to occur as the subscriber base grew. Sure there is that possibility of having individual silos but from a management perspective, it would be easier. This happens everywhere if you look around you....similar to large companies, you get divisions / departments with the respective heads of departments leading each one and in turn reporting to the CEO.

The question i have for this, Jim is whether there would be an integrated point where all sites come together (ie: Front portal page)? First thing that came to my mind was that there had to be some form of portal that would then lead the members to their individual sites?

i'm not going to pretend that i fully understand what the site will look like when the dust has cleared, but glancing at the front page i see an article named 'avoiding OD burnout' that concerns sometimes building non military models to break up the monotamy of olive drab.

will we ever see such articles again if we only use the armor site?

i understand the rationale behind the changes, but i equally feel it fragments and pigeon holes the community into our respective 'boxes', and makes it less likely that we will come across the odd piece from another modelling discipline (for example, sci fi) in our visits to armorama.

i still think this is a fantastic website with a great community, i'm not knocking it in any way.

I, too, have a bad feeling about this ...

I am afraid the community will be fractured, this happening mostly down in the general-modeling forums such as Scratchbuilding, Campaigns, Tips, etc, and the non-modeling forums like Junk Drawer, History Club, etc.

While I understand there may be technical issues, I hope the new look preserves the community .... Perhaps the "common forums" could be maintained as such and not duplicated on the "topic" websites ...

The current Armorama front page (which I do use rather than the :Latest Posts page) could then just be links to the topic sites ...

Waiting & seeing ...
John

Without going into all the technical details, yes content from one site will be able to be seen on another. In case some of you haven't seen it before, examples of this are www.tfactory.org and our IPMS-UK site, ipms.armorama.co.uk. Both of these sites are still in the early phases of development and are at present not utilized by their respective clubs. But there is no reaon that given time and effort they will both become sucessful at their objective (as a club HQ). The articles on these sites are currently all syndicted from Armorama, however in the future there will be just as much reverse syndication of articles going on. So if the FIgures site reviews a WWII figure it can be syndicated on Armorama as well and a link for the article will appear here in the appropriate area.

And yes there will be a portal site where all this content can be gleaned at one place.

Say it with me people... change is good... change is good... (for those that have been here a while you will know the humor in this).

Cheers,
Jim

thats not too bad then, i also use the front page and not the latest posts function.

So if i wanted to start up an ipms.armorama.co.nz for example, how would i coordinate this with armorama? Would i have to somehow organise the webhosting, CMS installations on my own accord and then establish the syndications with you or is that covered on your end as well?

I ask this only because i presently have some webhosting space and 10GB (i think) of bandwidth which i hardly use and wouldnt mind putting it towards armorama's cause. I realise 10GB isnt much in the grand scheme of things but at present its hardly used at all.

Starts singing like Cheryl Crow

"A change will do you good" :-)