Hello Phil,
Just an idea..
When you first put up the ability for members to add photo albums to this site, it got a lot of pictures quickly. I think this has faded off somewhat and I think part of the reason is the only organization to the photo albums that I can see is by how many pictures are in the album.
I like the album idea a lot but I think it somehow needs more organization. When the albums were first put up, I put in two albums. One of general interest on where I sail (which is still there) and a second one was of specific mods to my particular boat (which I deleted). Turns out that I dont care that much about what specific mods people have made to boats Ive never seen and the same is true of my mods to my old Macregor to people who dont own one. I removed the specific mod album a while ago - didnt think it really belonged in a general interest album area - just extra noise.
However, what I would like is to be able to show pictures of my mods in an album area which was specific for the model boat I have. An example is this one http://forums.macgregor.sailboatowners.com/album.php?albumid=273 for a Mac 26S.
Ie, I could go look under the boat info section for the Mac 26S and find a few albums with pictures and captions of what people have done to their boats. My feeling is this section would get at least a few albums put in it and when someone went to that section, these albums would all be very interesting to them. This is also easier for me to do - I simply load a picture and give it some text. If someone wants more detail, that is what the discussion boards are for. There is already some useful info in these specific model sites - which should stay - just add a section for owners photo albums.
I think this would also make the general album area more interesting - more of pictures of sailboats, areas to sail, people, etc. Less pictures of very specific things about particular sailboats.
One other thing - in the Macregor section, get rid of the 26C. The 26D and 26S are refered to as the 26C and this is confusing - ie, which area do I put pictures in or go to see pictures. Simplest is to just to get rid of the 26C area, put all current 26C entires in the 26S section.
Just an idea..
When you first put up the ability for members to add photo albums to this site, it got a lot of pictures quickly. I think this has faded off somewhat and I think part of the reason is the only organization to the photo albums that I can see is by how many pictures are in the album.
I like the album idea a lot but I think it somehow needs more organization. When the albums were first put up, I put in two albums. One of general interest on where I sail (which is still there) and a second one was of specific mods to my particular boat (which I deleted). Turns out that I dont care that much about what specific mods people have made to boats Ive never seen and the same is true of my mods to my old Macregor to people who dont own one. I removed the specific mod album a while ago - didnt think it really belonged in a general interest album area - just extra noise.
However, what I would like is to be able to show pictures of my mods in an album area which was specific for the model boat I have. An example is this one http://forums.macgregor.sailboatowners.com/album.php?albumid=273 for a Mac 26S.
Ie, I could go look under the boat info section for the Mac 26S and find a few albums with pictures and captions of what people have done to their boats. My feeling is this section would get at least a few albums put in it and when someone went to that section, these albums would all be very interesting to them. This is also easier for me to do - I simply load a picture and give it some text. If someone wants more detail, that is what the discussion boards are for. There is already some useful info in these specific model sites - which should stay - just add a section for owners photo albums.
I think this would also make the general album area more interesting - more of pictures of sailboats, areas to sail, people, etc. Less pictures of very specific things about particular sailboats.
One other thing - in the Macregor section, get rid of the 26C. The 26D and 26S are refered to as the 26C and this is confusing - ie, which area do I put pictures in or go to see pictures. Simplest is to just to get rid of the 26C area, put all current 26C entires in the 26S section.
