Top 4 changes and the reasons they empower members

ALS Forums Responsive v2.0

You might have noticed recently that the website has undergone many changes. It looks different, works a little different, and perhaps you're curious why.  

In this post we'll cover all the changes to the website and the reasons behind the changes.

The primary focus for making changes was two-fold:

  1. Create a better experience for smart phones and mobile device users
  2. Give membership the ability to help build a better resource

The top 4 changes:

  1. Blogs moved
  2. Drupal-powered front-end
  3. Content creation abilities for everyone
  4. Memoriam section to pay tribute

Why change?

Create a better experience

Responsive web design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience-easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling-across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

The old version of the website had many limitations for viewers using mobile phones and other small screen devices.  Small hard to read fonts, tiny navigation that was cumbersome to click and the need to constantly zoom in and out to read the page.  

The new theme found both on the front-end (sans /forum/) and within the forum ensures that the website renders appropriately and friendly for any device the visitor may use.  The new theme for the website uses what's known as "Responsive Website Design" (RWD) to ensure an optimal viewing experience.

Users on small devices may notice some elements have been removed but this is to ensure that the content of threads and posts remain at the forefront of the user experience. Content is king and with this new responsive theme we hope that members and visitors alike will have an easier time interacting with the website, participating and contributing (more on this next).

Allow members to help build a better resource

ALSforums has always been a content-driven website made up of an incredible group of individuals that share information and build a resource of information for people affected by ALS. Remembering my friend Al Pettit, the content he helped create by answering people's questions many years ago is now helping people he never had the chance to meet. To this end, new features have been added to the front-end website to empower visitors and members to add content that can be helpful to current visitors and future generations of visitors.

Any visitor can now submit content to the front-end of ALSforums. This content, like the forum posts, will be available to future visitors. All content submissions will be tagged with the original author giving credit to the members that take the time and energy to help the community. In addition, similar to the forums, other visitors and members can comment on all content using the comment form that's located at the bottom of most pages of the website.

As always, our website remains moderated.  All content submissions and comments will be moderated to ensure they're on point and made in good faith. If content submissions become popular, which is the hope, we'll need to find community members that may be interested in moderating the front-end of the website. These individuals will help improve and moderate all content submissions made by members and visitors.  If you think you'd be interested please post a comment below or contact us.

The top 4 changes

1. Blogs moved

The blogs that used to be located within the forum have been moved to the front-end of the website and can be found here.  

All previous blog posts and comments were migrated to this new location. The blog look and feel will be improved moving forward, but with these changes, will provide a better experience for bloggers and visitors.  Note, at the present time any linked files or images contained in blog posts previously are missing. These files may be migrated over in due course (I hope).

The reason for moving the blog was due to the fact that the mobile responsive theme in the forum was not compatible with the blog system, as such, it was either move the blog (I did), delete the blogs (unacceptable), or have the theme switch from new to old when people visited the blogs (not appropriate for our goal to improve user experience).

2. Drupal-powered front-end

The biggest change is the move to a content management system (CMS), powered by Drupal for the front-end pages of the website.

Moving to Drupal has given us the ability to link the vBulletin forum membership with the front-end CMS system. This allows anyone logged in to the forum to simultaneously and automatically be logged in to the front-end Drupal system of the website, in turn, giving every member access to create content on the front-end pages of the website (non /forum/* pages). 

3. Content creation abilities for everyone

The move to Drupal has given all members the ability to create content for the front-end of the website. Forum discussions are great, but it does have some limitations for certain types of content. With Drupal, we're able to build specific content types for items such as news and memoriam pages. 

Many visitors to our website are actively reading the latest news about ALS and MND. If you have time, it would be nice if you could create a news article here on ALSforums along with your commentary. If you'd like to post a news article you can follow this link (or use the admin toolbar from the top of the page when logged in).

4. Memoriam section to pay tribute

We've added a Memoriam Wall to the website. Moving forward we'd like to have every member remembered. Perhaps we can send out a request to past membership requesting they add their loved ones.

If you have any suggestions how we can start to build this Wall I'd love to hear your thoughts. Currenlt the only individual that has been added is Al Pettit.

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