General Feedback
This forum is for you to share ideas and exchange feedback with Mountaineers members, guests, volunteers, and leadership. You may vote for or comment on any idea and will be notified of its status changes. Your feedback helps us prioritize projects and improvements for our organization.
If you reached this site wanting to report problem behavior or harassment by another member, please submit a Behavior Complaint Form.
31 results found
-
Climbing leaders need a course in basic geology, see West Ridge Cuttroat report.
Mass wasting, the geological term, should not include Mountaineers.
When I used to guide and teach climbing professionally, I would ask my clients and students to consider how all those rocks in the scree and talus slopes got there. Later as national park ranger, it became obvious that ignorance of basic geology was widespread, as evidenced by the body bags included with our gear.1 voteDeclined ·
AdminJeff Bowman
(Associate Director of Information Technology, The Mountaineers)
responded
Great suggestion Eric. As a volunteer-run organization, the content of our courses is determined by volunteers. We’ve had a number of sessions on local geology offered in the past, and would certainly support more in the future (ex: https://www.mountaineers.org/locations-lodges/olympia-branch/committees/olympia-hiking-backpacking-committee/course-templates/geology-in-your-own-backyard-olympia/activity-templates/geology-in-your-own-back-yard). The best way to ensure this curriculum is included is to work with the climbing committee at your branch, and while we cannot require this of our climb leaders, we can certainly encourage them to learn more about the natural world in addition to their climbing and leadership skills training.
-
Allow leaders to update a student's participation notes after a field trip is closed
Leaders add participation notes to a student's profile if they fail to pass a critical skill and need reevaluation before they can register for a climb. We need to be able to update the participation note to include information when they do pass the skill, but this means we can't close the activity until all students have passed, unless we contact the program center to reopen. It would be nice if we could update participation notes.
1 voteDeclined ·AdminJeff Bowman
(Associate Director of Information Technology, The Mountaineers)
responded
We close activities so that we know that the records are up-to-date and to prevent accidentally editing an activity that is complete. An activity that was closed can be re-opened by staff or a committee admin if corrections are needed.
If a student fails to meet one or more standards at a field trip and needs to attend a make-up session after practicing and improving, their successful completion should be recorded on the make-up session activity. This is so that we can see a student’s progress over time.
-
Create online credit card intake form for credit cards for all rental clients
Hey Jeff,
I'm putting this here to request we make an online form that will allow our rental clients to submit credit card information and to authorize we charge their card for rental deposits and final payments. This eventually needs to be a broader conversation with Gabriella and Barbara because they actual do the charging and I collect the information.
Benefits:
- Reduced time in playing phone tag with clients.Better experience with clients and faster turn-around time between inquery/booking/deposit/final payment
Easier to require CC information to be kept on file for deliquent charges or additional costs. It can often…
1 voteGarrett: For security reasons, we cannot store credit card information on our local computers, local servers, or our website. This is why we have the “Organization & Online Invoicing” project, http://feedback.mountaineers.org/forums/273688-general-feedback/suggestions/17914396-organizations-online-invoicing-sd562.
We can do it on paper, but even that is a “no no” as far as credit card security is concerned. Paper is somewhat acceptable, because the credit card information may be redacted or the paper destroyed.
I just talked to Barbara and there is a possibility of using Acumatica for invoicing until we get the website project done. It’s not exactly what you requested, but it should help quite a bit.
-
Need to add links to Branch websites under the "Branches and Committees" page of the main Mountaineers.org website
Some of the branches, like the Olympia branch, have stand alone websites that provide much more information on their officers, committees, and activities than the main mountaineers.org website. It would be beneficial to all to clearly link the individual branch webpages to their respective branch pages under the "Branches and Committees" page of the Mountaineers.org site.
I wasted a ton of time trying to find detailed info about the Olympia Branch on the Mountaineers.org site only to give up. I was finally told about the olympiamountaineers.org site and voila, there was all of the info I needed. A direct link…1 voteWe added branch home page and committee page features in July 2015. Since then our branches and committees have been moving content form their own websites to mountaineers.org. Most branches and committees have completed this. Our Olympia Branch is in the midst of this content migration and will be done soon.
-
Create @mountaineers.org email address for committees
Currently a number of committees have created Gmail addresses, which are shared between chairs, course leaders, etc. It seems like there should be @mountaineers.org addresses for this
1 voteUnfortunately we do not have the resources to manage and support the number of email addresses this would require. Management includes initial setup, support desk for access issues, and volunteer turnover.
-
Allow activity posting while new route is pending review
For short notice trips and to reduce frustration in posting trips, leaders should be able to post an activity for a new route/place as soon as it is requested. The current wait period for review/approval of a new route significantly discourages posting of short notice trips and adds significantly to the time requirement for posting trips.
1 voteThanks for the suggestion, Will!
We cannot do this for a few reasons, mostly related to the user experience for our members and guests.
Members would get an error message if they try to view a route/place that has not yet been edited an published. This would happen if an activity listing used an unpublished route/place.
If we did allow Routes & Places to be published before they were reviewed, those viewing it would find them lacking vital information.
Since launch, nearly 1,000 new Routes & Places have been added. Some of them have been quite good, but the vast majority were missing vital information and needed a significant update to be ready for our members and guests to view them.
Also, of these new Routes & Places, more than a third of them were duplicates.
I am not sure what we can do about the turn around time for…
-
"My Activities" should be visible on the landing page after the login
I'm internet savvy but didn't discover "My Activities" and other menu items that are currently hidden behind the login name, until recently.
Make the site intuitive like http://www.Meetup.com. It shouldn't require training.1 voteThanks for the suggestion. The “My Activities” is in the profile menu in the upper right section of our website’s header per website best practices. Unfortunately, there’s just not room to expand all of the items in the profile menu to the header. The My Profile menu will have a bit more prominence in our mobile design, so when you’re using a smart phone or tablet the My Profile menu will be a bit easier to find.
-
Sea Kayak specific route template
As part of the noted December reworking of route templates, a distinct template for Sea Kayak activities should be developed. Among the changes that should be made would be recognition that multiple launch sites might serve a given water body so the land manager will vary. The entry for land subdivision is usually meaningless and should be omitted. Parking permit requirements again depend on the launch site and so might be moved to the sea kayak activity template. Maximum party size might also be relocated to the activity template. National Forest District is not needed. The GPS maps are problematic.…
1 voteWe’ve made improvements to the routes and places to add defaults each required field, made revisions to space capacity, and made it so everything is not required. Leaders will soon be able to edit the default to their route/places to change difficulty, distance, etc. We also added some sea kayaking-specific field to activities that should help. Due to the functionality of the Plone website package, we cannot make different requirements for specific types of routes/places.
-
Make Events easier to find
Events should be listed next to LEARN EXPLORE AND CONSERVE on the main homepage.
1 voteEvents can be found in the header on every single page of the website. The upcoming events are featured in a calendar box in the middle left of the homepage as well. We are working on improved functionality for events, including the ability to RSVP and see the events your are registered for, however we do not plan to add an additional menu item to the main navigation for events.
-
Review Participation Notes
On the "My Activities" page there's a "Review Participation Notes" blue button. It seems like these Participation Notes should have their own section on the left sidebar, similar to "My Feedback". Or it could be combined with the "My Feedback" page and use the same date filtering etc.
0 votesWhen making changes to the website, we have to consider the wide implications of reorganizing information. Participation notes are only available to leaders and group administrators – participants cannot see participation notes created by leaders. The participation notes are designed as an investigative tool for leaders for an incident, accident, or behavioral issue. It’s included on the My Activities page so leaders can easily see successful trip history as a way to screen participants pre trip. Leaders should only look at the participation notes when a red flag was noted in the past or a person’s trip status includes ‘needs improvement. Due to the special use case of this information and the small pool of people able to access this information, we feel the participant notes to not warrant a special tab, and we are going to keep the current structure at this time.
-
Add cancelation date range
Issue:
I'm a trip leader. A couple days before a trip I don't want anyone new signing up for planning/logistics reasons. The solution for that is to have signup close a couple days early. But then people signed up can't cancel from my trip without emailing me and having me do it (or the Program Center do it), which is a pain for me to do. Since someone can't be signed up for 2 trips at the same time, they might need me to cancel them ASAP so they can sign up for another trip, but I might not be…0 votesWe definitely understand where this idea is coming from but at this point we must decline the idea for the following reasons. 1) We had many leaders from across the organization request manually roster manipulation after registration has closed and this is in contradiction to that widespread request. 2) We are concerned that this is too complicated for our members and leaders since Member Services already spends a decent amount of time explaining what registration open and close dates are and how they work and this idea makes the process a little harder to remember.
- Don't see your idea?