Is TN going to get a site update or facelift anytime soon? RCpro just opened back up today and the site is a lot better then before. Just wondering if this site was going to get updated anytime soon?

No, we can't change any thing because Leeloo hates change. lol jk. I don't think there will be any major update anytime soon. I think we got one not to long a go. Maybe a few things here and there, but not anything big. I like change and would like a change even tho the site is already great, I just like to see new things.

At this point, we do not need a radical redesign (most sites don't redesign every few months or even every year - for instance, CNN itself hasn't redesigned since 2000/2001), though we are always exploring ways of improving what we have.

None of the other sites at our level (URC, Putz's site, etc.) have not updated in at least 2-3 years, and we last redid our site in December of 2003. Though, I have a possible "refresh" of the site (meaning we update its look a bit) possible for early-mid 2006. That means that depending on what happens between now and then will determin when and if we update the look. I'm also closely eyeing vBulletin 3.5, which vBulletin is in the midst of working on, and hopefully will allow us to do more.

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ThrillNetwork Webmaster/Systems Administrator -- My Official Fansite -- Get Firefox!
Everytime I ride a coaster, it valleys. I've never been on a stalled coaster or had one roll back (except Wicked Twister and what was Superman: Ultimate Escape, which does that by design).

^I guess that means we should follow the crowd and not do anything different than anybody else.

I think the site is fine, it doesn't need an update. Typically updates slow down the site.

How do you tell what level we or other sites are at? What's above our level?

We are a portal/community site, like the examples I listed. In the visitors that we (we being the sites in general, not just TN) serve, the group gets the most traffic as well as the most diverse set of visitors coming into the sites. Also, indicators such as Alexa rankings also indicate their strength. You really can't go any higher at this point beyond portal or search sites themselves (such as Yahoo, Google, etc.).

Also, I should add this too. If you start changing things up with things such as the user interface like RCPro does (they seem to be on v9.0 in 5 years time), you start confusing its core users, and then you get the turnover. In truth, the fewer radical design changes you can make, the better.

For the last design in TN, I not only had researched the previous version's user interface, but even the version before that. Both had very poor navigation structure. From that, we were able to take years of user interface design research (I also did a bit of study on it during college), take what we had, and make a better design. I then had it tested thoroughly with several people before we finalized it and started work on the site itself.

Another site had similar path of design before we did. In the end, no one really liked the narrower content area, it did make it much easier to read and people came to like it. As a result, it hasn't changed in a few years now.

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ThrillNetwork Webmaster/Systems Administrator -- My Official Fansite -- Get Firefox!
Everytime I ride a coaster, it valleys. I've never been on a stalled coaster or had one roll back (except Wicked Twister and what was Superman: Ultimate Escape, which does that by design).

Montu Man, are you looking for a "look" update or like a hardwear update which I know nothing about?

The site is fine as it is now, IMO. It is a lot of work to change even the minor things in it.

Also, TN is constantly being "updated." TN Jobs and The Loop, just to name a few. Not to mention all the news articles. :-p

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Element of Freedom - December 15th

Yea, just recently speedzone was changed, and so was it's forum part, and all of the staff members were change too. one thing that I do wonder about is when the 2006 construction will go up, and when it will no longer say 2004 on the front page.

I don't think that TN needs a change. It looks and works fine as is. Gadvcentral just had major change and I don't like it that much.

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I would like a change, but I'm just like sfft_2108 I like changes.

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http://www.invisionfree.com/forums/graphixnetworks
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I don't really tink a change is necessary anyway, just the 2006 construction forum, sometime sono, or at least he front page to no longer say 2004/2005 construction.

I think one big thing we need is a video section. But the vids should be sent to admin first or else it'll end up like the speedzone with a bunch of crappy uploads and an occasional goodie.

I think it might take up to much space on the server. Is that called bandwidth or something?

Thats probably why we don't have it. Its still a good add-on though.

Nice idea, but without a bigger server, no luck.

Well I just invested a hefty $700 dollars on a new Digital Camcorder. Its really top of the line, and I plan on getting a lot of filmage with it. However, I'm not really going to any parks this summer outside of maybe Six Flags Marine World. I want to get a video section going though, its something this site lacks.

As of now, the server is not up-to-date, and video downloads wont work, we have to stream them off of something else. Hopefully well get some videos in the future, I'll see what I can do with my camera.

As for Speedzone, I don't know exactly what to say. You're going to get some offbeat uploads that aren't as fantastic, but now that school has ended, a lot of people started new projects. Im trying to get mine done, but its going to take a eternity for supports. The way to get people involved in speedzone is to create a worklog. Since many people use NLCC or whatever that site is, they lose a lot of people checking it out. We should get users to update, and provide us with some information here, at the source, to get people into projects coming up. Staff projects is going to be coming soon, along with a video. So just stay tuned, we got some stuff coming along.

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Thornton to Heatley all day, every day.