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That is the plan.
They are both as is at this point. Hopefully you won’t mind having a pair of project bicycles on display?
Same car at Hershey in 2003
2003.
Hi Herb,
It would be nice to have more of these on the website. Getting Pierces on the road is very important to keeping Pierce-Arrow in the forefront of the antique car world.
Thanks for your kind words, but they belong to others, not me. I just helped to get this posted and up on the website.
Rich Lange was the driving force behind the video production project. We at PAS owe him a a huge “Thanks.”
Jane
Questions on the PAS Forum at AACA from email and Message Board
Page 3 answers to questions:
Question from David Coco:
I participated in the Zoom meeting, and first want to thank Jane, Liz, and Karl for a very nice presentation. In particular, Liz presents a strong argument for the proposed move of the Pierce forum to the AACA site.
It doesn’t appear to be “proposed”, however, as it is now live on the AACA forum, with our topics, and in the upper left-hand corner “Pierce Arrow Society Discussion Forum hosted by the AACA.” Comments have already started being posted there, from AACA signed in users, so unless this is just a live demo it looks like action has already been taken (see screenshot attached).
Answer:
In order to allow Members to test the proposed plan, they need to be able to see how the system would work, so it is a live demo. We can take this down, but then members would not have an avenue to test the proposed plan.
Question from David Coco:
I appreciate the fact that it might give us some exposure to the general public, but therein may lie the problem. The AACA forum is NOT just for AACA members, it’s open to anyone and everyone who takes a couple of minutes to register.
During the meeting, Jane pointed out that I put my name on my AACA posts. If you wish anonymity, the AACA forum is not the place to do it. Early on I just went by my user name, Trimacar, but it didn’t take long for someone to comment something like “Wow, had a nice talk with David Coco (Trimacar) and he was a big help.” Cover blown, so to speak.
Answer:
Yes, as George Teebay suggested and the committee had planned, we will need to make clear how to use the AACA Forum and how to understand the difference from the old message board versus the PAS Forum at AACA. However, short of the actual interaction with non-PAS AACA members, there is really no difference in regard to anonymity. Our PAS message board is already open to non-PAS members as “read only.”
Question from David Coco:
I equate our forum moving to the AACA site to having a nice little family gathering, all your kin you can say anything you want to, then inviting hundreds of strangers to join the gathering. The cozy tone and feel of the gathering is then lost. Discussions on the AACA are not private discussions, but rather public record and subject to severe criticism. I know, you can delete some postings, but that can have a negative effect on the Society when the censored user complains about the Society elsewhere on the Forum. Censorship is not taken lightly by many users on that forum.
Answer:
We can still keep a fun and happy tone. The tone is set by the end users and the moderators. By working together, we as a group can keep the tone amicable. Not all PAS members find the Message Board to be friendly and open as it currently stands. We too at PAS have “tone” issues.
Question from David Coco:
I have over 8000 posts on the AACA forum, and I daresay I have a good reputation there, but I’ve also been called an idiot and had someone tell me “hope you’re not in the educational system because you’re posting stupid things”. The AACA forum is a great tool for communicating, but it’s also has, at times, an argumentative and confrontational tone. Moving there will change the complexion of the PAS forum to a large degree.
Answer:
George Teebay made an excellent suggestion and it is one that our Moderator-Karl had mentioned as well, we can put a sticky at the top of our PAS Forum at AACA. In this sticky, we can spell out the rules for participation within the PAS Forum. Respect and tone can be addressed here. We understand the need for respectful and civil discourse. And the PAS moderators will be monitoring all posts.
Question from David Coco:
“Who has more knowledge about these issues than the members assigned to propose the best solutions for the Society and all of our members?”
Answer:
Thank you, we are working hard to find a good solution for this situation.
Question from David Coco:
Dave [Stevens], I agree that the people involved in presenting this solution have worked hard and believe what they are presenting is a good solution.
That said, this is a major change in response to a minor software glitch. Personally, I’d prefer to lose a post every now rather than lose the privacy of our current forum. This is just my opinion and is not a criticism of the hard work mentioned above.
Answer:
We do understand that this is a change. Minor glitch is a bit of an under-statement, when you consider that we lost 890 posts in May and 570 are still outstanding. We have been losing 500 posts every 10-15 days. Yes, we currently have a patch to recover those, but this committee cannot guarantee that this patch will work indefinitely. We must remember a patch is not a permanent fix, but a patch.
The volunteers of the Website Committee have learned many software packages and the associated plugins to create and maintain our new website. These include: WordPress the overall website base, bbPress for the Message Board, MemberPress for the membership management, Classified & Directory for the Emporium, WordForms for accounting tasks, Events Manager for meet registration, Publications for the library and our publications and other page tools and plugins needed to operate the website that we currently have. The hours spent by all members of the committee are numerous. We would not present this change without considerable effort to resolve this glitch. If it were easy, it would already be solved.
Question from David Coco:
It may very well be a good way to publicize our club, but in looking at the Pierce Arrow forum that’s been on the AACA forum for years, it’s little used. Unless someone is using the “new posts” option when viewing the AACA forum, one has to go looking for the Pierce Arrow forum there, and very few people do so. Moving our private forum to that site won’t make that change.
Thank You, David Coco Winchester Va.
Answer:
If we never try, will we ever know? Should we let the fear of the unknown stop us from reaching for a future and new members? Participation is the key to having an active forum. When the Pierce-Arrow world is behind a curtain, who is out there to teach others about Pierce-Arrow? Put them all together in one pot. It is like Hershey Swap Meet – people come from all over the country and the world to one spot because they know that is where the activity is. AACA Forums is the same – where the most antique car people are talking and where the most activity on antique cars is occurring.
Question from Robert Brown:
Are there any other plugin replacements available that we could potentially use (either free or for pay)?
Answer:
The Systems Committee did this research in the initial website project. Please remember that bbPress is the #1 rated plugin for online forum needs. These options will be presented at the next board meeting. The Website Committee will require sufficient time at this meeting to explain the options and the many impacts to the Website Committee.
Question from Robert Brown:
Is there any way we can ascertain if the current glitch in the free software plugin is even fixable?
Answer:
No, there is not a way to be certain that the glitch is repairable. At this point we do not know if the issue is in the imported old website data (~24,000 posts) or if the problem is in the underlying software plugin. We could be facing an issue with both. The glitch deletes approximately 500 posts at a time. We have researched to see if other users have had this problem, contacted the developer and have found no additional information. If the Website Committee had those answers, we would have a much better ability to plan for the future. Currently, we are at the mercy of the developer of the free bbPress plugin and/or unknown issues with our own imported data.
Question from Robert Brown:
Replacing the dropped messages is very time consuming and labor intensive for our moderators. Is it reasonable to ask the moderators to continue doing it either indefinitely or until a software fix or replacement occurs (with an unknown time frame)?
Answer:
We have had 8 incidents of the glitch. Until just recently, these glitches forced an “all hands-on deck” response by the team and the moderators. This required hours of hand manipulation. There are still 570 outstanding lost posts. Currently, we have a semi-automated process, but we have no way of knowing if this temporary patch will continue to work in the future if the developer of bbPress changes the free plugin software in future updates. Currently, we watch the website throughout the waking hours every day. George and Jane are the two most on call and ready for action. We have made every effort to correct this glitch. Jane spends about 20 hours a week supporting the PAS Website and in member user support. Emails and calls come in everyday, including evenings, weekends and holidays. We all work hard for the sake of the PAS members. To maintain a fully functioning website, the website committee – Rich, George, Jane, and Liz, with essential and invaluable assistance from Donna White on Membership, Dave White as Moderator & PASB Editor and Karl Krouch as Moderator give numerous volunteer hours weekly to the PAS and to the support of the Society’s data and website. This doesn’t even mention the hours of service by Rick Morrison as the Emporium Editor and Roger Sherman as the Arrow Editor. Both the Emporium and the Arrow are linked to the Website. The Website Committee would have this fixed if it were within our power; yet we must deal with the situation at hand.
The Website Committee
Questions on the PAS Forum at AACA from email and Message Board
Page #2 of answers to questions:
Question from Jim Chase:
I also want to thank all involved; the presentations went very well. I have been a member for 34 years but am definitely not an active contributor to the club, much more a user parasite whose only interaction is via the website
Answer:
All are welcome and important regardless of how often we hear from you.
Question from Jim Chase:
I think the AACA website can work fine, I will make whatever changes made work for me.
I do have one question that has been bugging me however. I feel that the activity on the message board has dropped significantly since the change. I don’t know if that is true or just a wrong impression. If so, do we have an idea whether this is due just to the change discouraging people or other factors? Personally I don’t feel the occasional glitches and pauses are a big factor in this.
Answer:
Regarding the use of the message board. We imported 23,278 messages/replies from 12 1/2 years of service from the old website. The math breaks down the average post rate back then at 5 total posts a day. This could be from one member or several. Regarding our current message rate – Members have mentioned that they now are finding their own answers instead of running the technical question out on the message board. As this project progressed, that became a big goal of this committee – give the members easy access to technical data that helps them with their car. We first did this, as you have mentioned, with the PASB Library we created along with the Technical Article Search Tool that has become a huge online member benefit. The Owner’s Manuals Library and recently the Bernie Weis online archive are now available online as well.
Our message board continues to be a popular website section, but we don’t have as much historical data to do a real comparison since the site has only been live barely 6 months and 2020 has been a “Cancelled Car Event” year so not as many people are focused on their garage projects.
But, from other numbers, it is logical to assume that people are getting their info from the new online resources of our website instead of the message board per se.
For the upcoming Board of Directors Meeting on October 11th, we are preparing a full website metrics report. Google Analytics tracks all sorts of information on the new website’s use. Here are some highlights that you may find interesting from the last 30 days (8/20-9/20):
Our 2017 PAS Membership Survey posed the question “How often per month do you access the PAS website” and the highest result was “1-4 times a month” at 15% of the membership. That was 150 members per month in 2017. In 2020, we average 186 members, which is an average of 21% of the membership. That is an impressive 40% increase in membership use.
In addition, these statistics show that the new website has significantly more membership activity and the trends strongly suggest that our members are spending more time on the website doing different things than just message board posting.
We can conclude that members are finding more reasons to go to pierce-arrow.org because it offers them online technical libraries, research archives and online technical article index capabilities which were not previously available. These statistics support your own mention of your use of the searchable PASB Library! The online technical information allows members to research on their own instead of asking for help right off the bat.
Question from Jim Chase:
Like any change to software (I hate updates) I found the initial use a bit off putting but once navigated feel like it works very well and am very satisfied with it. As I have said before, the searchable PASB’s is a huge benefit to me.
Answer:
This is great to hear. It was a goal to create a searchable PASB index useful for our membership. Liz and Dave White worked tirelessly to complete this index.
Question from Jim Chase:
I will say that posting to a site with a much larger potential audience is perhaps an advantage but also a bit intimidating. When we get into collegial debates on subjects (think ethanol or oil additives) it could expand and get out of hand which happens on so many websites.
Answer:
Remember we will have Karl Krouch (PA) and Dave White (CA) as moderators with full moderator access and the PAS needs members to survive in the future. This is the largest old car audience in the world! Let’s win hearts and minds for Pierce-Arrow and PAS!
Question from Jim Chase:
I guess if I had my selfish druthers I would prefer the more private sight, however, since this is a volunteer organization I think the top priority should be whatever solution is the least burden to whomever is donating their time to keep it going.
Answer:
This project has taken years to complete. The original Systems committee began in 2017. Thank you for recognizing that this is a huge amount of PAS Volunteer time. Before the launch, we were spending 30+ hours a week EACH in order to expand the website’s content and oversee the construction of the site in general. Our website contractor is a car guy and the scope of the project grew because the PAS volunteers did the grunt work so there was ZERO cost for PAS in adding extra capabilities like the PASB searchable indexing. That was 4 weeks of 4-6 hours a day of database entry and a lot of long distance phone calling with PASB Editor Dave White as we recorded all 6422 records. All of this was done within budget and really became a labor of love by the committee.
People like you make all this work worth it and thank you for appreciating the breadth of this project. We have travelled down many roads and spent many hours to make the best decisions for 100% of the Society.
More answers to come, stay tuned. The Website Committee
Questions on the PAS Forum at AACA from email and Message Board
Page #1 of answers to questions:
Question from Dave Stevens:
Would the change make us more, less or the same in terms of resistance to HACKING?
Answer:
Less open to hacking as the open conversation would be held off the PAS Website and remove that threat from our website.
Question from Dave Stevens
If a member posts proprietary information, can the Moderator Delete the post?
Answer:
Yes, they can delete or hide the post.
Question from Dave Stevens:
Do we want to be an Inclusive or Exclusive Society, an Open or Closed Society? ( I have been hugely involved with the Society for 25 years primarily because it has always been an open and inclusive organization. Am I wrong?)
Answer:
We should be Inclusive and Open if we wish to follow the mission of the PAS, which is to promote the history of Pierce-Arrow and Pierce-Arrow Automobiles.
Question from Dave Stevens:
Who has more knowledge about these issues than the members assigned to propose the best solutions for the Society and all of our members
Answer:
The Website Committee has a well-informed team with a diverse background. One member in particular with an illustrious background in Tech.
Question from Bob Jacobsen:
To be in favor of the proposal, I would require the Obituary section to be deleted from an AACA accessible forum. I am concerned about vulnerability of families of deceased members (outsiders tracing and harassing them for purposes of trying to buy their Pierces when their defenses are down, etc.) I don’t think we need obits on the forum because they are already in the secure Emporium, but notifications are part of the cozy feeling of the present message board.
Answer:
Agreed, we put this in the list as it is currently in our Message Board. There is a section in the Emporium for these Obit notices and that could replace the Obit section on the forum easily. We simply have to use this option on our website. I think this is simply teaching members to look in a different location for the information. On that issue of other options, we have a perfect place in the Emporium for members to put out Buy/Sell, Wanted, Leads and New posts for private membership viewing. Here members can private message others about Emporium posts as well. This can keep the sales inside the PAS website as well.
Question from Bob Jacobsen:
One search advantage the AACA site apparently has: you can go to ‘Activity’ then ‘My Activity Streams’ then ‘Content I posted in’ and it will bring up all your previous posts automatically, no matter the subject.
As far as I can tell, the PAS website message board requires you to search by your name in each of 8 categories individually to see what you have posted. (General, Buy/Sell, … Obituary.) Perhaps that is not true or could be changed to enter a last name overall search.
Answer:
Yes, these are nice features at AACA. Those options are not available in the bbPress package.
More answers to come, stay tuned. The Website Committee
Hi Ken,
I forwarded this to Chris Diekman, he chairs the PAS Parts & Services Directory.
Jane
Great work!
Agreed and Bravo to Dave and Diana Stevens.
Congrats Karl & Mary!! Beautiful car and award is well deserved!
Constructive comments are always helpful to the Website Management Committee. The email address for specific comments is [email protected] and is listed on the Contact Us page of the website, under the About Us tab on the main website page.
We are all volunteers in the Pierce-Arrow Society. We work hard to help this system function and to teach members how to use the new website. There is a document at the top of the Message Board page and also on the Help Desk page here at https://http://www.pierce-arrow.org/help-desk/ that gives instructions and tips for using the Message Board/Forum.
Reviewing this will likely answer many questions you have or you may always contact the committee directly at [email protected]
We hear your frustration, yet we have no way to address general comments of “I don’t like this”. There are many, many changes that have been made to make our website better for our members and there is a learning curve in any change. Our “Message Board” format now is much like many other car clubs, such as AACA. Yes, it is different but using it is the best way to become more familiar and comfortable in the new Message Board/Forum.
We will be happy to address your specific issues if you would like to forward them to us at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Website Management Committee
Jane Barclay, Chairman
Rich Lange
Liz Horne
George Crane
