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[moved] We need a new home page, Chris

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Tesladownunder

Fri Aug 17 2007, 11:32AM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

I believe we need a new home page for several reasons.
1 It is not clear what this forum is. In fact many forums don't say what they are. We should be smarter than them.
2 We need a welcome statement not a featured project or an outdated notice that registrations are disabled.
3 It needs to be clear how to register. I am not sure what the current requirements are.
4 We should forget the idea of a news page. Perhaps a brief "site announcements" somewhere might be OK.

I propose:
1 Remove everything on the main index page main column.
2 Have a brief opening statement and welcome.
3 Show a few nice photos as examples.
4 Give a very brief idea of who we would like to join and brief rules.
5 Direct them to some interesting threads as examples.
6 Explain the registration process.

For example:
----------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ---

4HV

Welcome to the 4HV forum.

This is a community of high voltage enthusiasts from the occasional amateur to experienced professional.

Topics that interest us include:

1187350330 10 FT0 Tesla18week2fullbright600

Big Tesla coils

1187350330 10 FT0 Tweak Aug910fulllcoilz1

Constructing Tesla coils

Tinkering with Solid State coils such as DRSSTC's

Other high voltage supplies

1187350330 10 FT0 Hveasterexplosion1000a

or just plain havin' fun with high voltage (safely)

Plus a range of other topics including electronics, lasers, magnetism and computers.

And just a few tips. We are polite, try to spell properly and write in good sentences.

We are happy for those with no experience to join. Much help is available but we like people to try to help themselves too. If you can't get the answer from Google to a HV problem, try us.

Be aware that we are not into pseudoscience - free energy and the like. Don't go there.

Interested?

Jump into the forum or go directly to some big topics like:
** Add your Tesla coil here ** with photos and details of over 200 Tesla coils.
Musical solid state Tesla coils - a hot topic on the net.
DRSSTC thread Technical TC discussion

4HV announcements:
17th August 2007 All quiet today. Too bad if you have shares in Banks.

------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------- -
So, there it is. I invite comment and suggestions. If this seems to be a desirable change then wording and pictures can be discussed. Chris will no doubt have input or may be happy to have some sort of group consensus to save his time.

TDU

Steve Conner

Fri Aug 17 2007, 12:16PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Tesladownunder wrote ...
3 Show a few nice photos as examples.

Yours of course

Seriously, I agree, the home page hasn't been updated in ages, and TDU's photos are certainly nice...

Tesladownunder

Fri Aug 17 2007, 12:42PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

I used my photos because they were accessible to me and illustrate the point. The other two were also on my file. A poll can easily sort out favourites later.
It needs to be brief not a huge gallery. (although that works for my website but probably not here).

I haven't been following the DRSSTC stuff closely but how about a link to a showcase DRSSTC thread and other interesting topics that represent what we do?
How about the registration process? How does that happen now?
What do other people feel about the current home page?
TDU

thedatastream

Fri Aug 17 2007, 01:00PM

Registered Member #505 Joined: Sun Nov 19 2006, 06:42PM
Location: Yorkshire!
Posts: 329

I also agree with Peter.

I would imagine most membes are like me and have a link in their favourites set to the forum page. However newcomers would generally start on the front page where, other than the side bar, there is no other obvious link to the forum. Since the forum is our greatest asset, we should advertise it so.

A "what we are" (I shall refuse to call it a mission statement) and a "what we are not" statement would also be good as well as some nice pics.

Since my web design skills are limited, I will defer to others on suggested layouts.

Good suggestion that man

Bjørn

Fri Aug 17 2007, 01:33PM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

How about the registration process? How does that happen now?

If you are not logged on you have an option to sign up instead of logging on with a suitable set of warnings.

In general I think this is a good idea. I don't think we need a lot of pictures of flying sparks. The first one looks pretty good to me for the purpose.

The wiki is in need of the same treatment. It is probably less fun but I think it is even more important.

ShawnLG

Fri Aug 17 2007, 04:21PM

Registered Member #286 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399

I think this site needs to be updated as well. I would like to see "Electromagnetic Radiation" changed to "Ham Radio, RF & Optical Engineering". Also the discription words such as EMP and HERF removed since they are not popular subjects anymore since post 9,11. It also helps prevent kiddy bubomb kids from finding this forum and it will attract ham operators.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Fri Aug 17 2007, 04:45PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

I know the admin's are going to hate me, but why 1 photo.... why not a small slide show.

(HEHEHE that'll keep 'em busy for a while)

Dr. Drone

Fri Aug 17 2007, 05:10PM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
Location:
Posts: 1673

A Mission Statement would be nice:

â€œDelight our visitors, members and guest by relentlessly delivering platform and technology advancements that become essential to the way we built and test high voltage projectsâ€.

Cheers,
Christopher

Marko

Fri Aug 17 2007, 10:52PM

Registered Member #89 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145

Hey, that is a great idea. I also think homepage needs to be fixed in some manner.. I wonder what chris thinks

Tesladownunder

Fri Aug 17 2007, 11:52PM

Registered Member #10 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424

Christopher Miles wrote ...

A Mission Statement would be nice:
â€œDelight our visitors, members and guest by relentlessly delivering platform and technology advancements that become essential to the way we built and test high voltage projectsâ€.

Christopher, if you were talking to a friend is that really the language you would use? I think we should keep it simpler.

thedatastream wrote ...

A "what we are" (I shall refuse to call it a mission statement) and a "what we are not" statement would also be good as well as some nice pics.

I couldn't quite phrase it well while keeping it simple. In some respect the pictures give the mission statement.

BjÃ¸rn BÃ¦verfjord wrote ...

In general I think this is a good idea. I don't think we need a lot of pictures of flying sparks. The first one looks pretty good to me for the purpose.

While I like that picture as it is mine, it doesn't reflect what we do here and I don't think it is right for a single photo. Only a few people have a TC of that size and no-one is using a rotating breakout point except me. Really the most active discussion is around DRSSTC's but they still form the minority. In the 6 photos I tried to convey the flashy stuff (big TC of mine and the exploding easter bunny in the last photo) but also the fact that we make HV and Tesla stuff and tinker with it.

ShawnLG wrote ...

I would like to see "Electromagnetic Radiation" changed to "Ham Radio, RF & Optical Engineering". Also the discription words such as EMP and HERF removed since they are not popular subjects anymore ...

By optical you mean laser I guess so we should say that. I must admit, I have usually put my laser stuff in General because I didn't want it in with HERF/EMP. But that is a separate issue to the homepage issue.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog) wrote ...

I know the admin's are going to hate me, but why 1 photo.... why not a small slide show.

Not a bad idea depending how it is done. Most people looking at a forum to see if they want to join might want to go straight to look at the forum without waiting long to look at pictures on the way. There is also a bandwidth issue for 4HV if the homepage is left on and a download time issue if you want to have a slideshow on 56K and still show reasonable size eye candy.

Marko wrote ...

Hey, that is a great idea. I also think homepage needs to be fixed in some manner.. I wonder what chris thinks

LOL - Chris will think you didn't read the title of the thread.

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