General Feedback
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10 results found
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Three day head start for basic students who don't yet have 3 climbs
Good afternoon Jeff,
Jim Nelson asked that I get in contact with you about a website feature we would like to explore in support of the Basic Climbing Course. We would like for the website to be able to flag Basic Course students who have not yet completed three climbs and give them a three-day head start in signing up for Basic climbs. As soon as a student has three successful climbs, the flag comes off and they have the same priority in signing up for climbs as prior-year Basic course graduates.
This change addresses two long-simmering concerns:
- It gives…
15 votesHi Climbers,
Thanks for posting your suggestions on the feedback site. This has been an issue for many years, and this is not a problem with a technology solution – at least not right now (take a look at another Feedback idea with a healthy number of votes in opposition to pre-filling rosters before a trip is posted- http://feedback.mountaineers.org/forums/272594-leaders/suggestions/6939679-future-activity-sign-up-dates-modifying-registrat).
Every option proposed has implications for every activity across the entire organization. If we allow trip rosters to be filled with students, we limit the availability of roster spots for course graduates like basic climbing students (who will leave The Mountaineers when climbs aren’t available to them). Whether we decide to favor students over general membership is a policy decision that needs to be made at a higher level in the organization, not by staff or a single committee. Because website/technology solutions apply to every activity we offer we need…
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Add a new Activity category called "Other".
This could be a catch-all spot for new ideas that don't yet fit an established category. A good example is the Olympia Branch Gear Swap. It is desirable to run it as an Activity because: 1. The intent is to have sellers register and pay for tables. and 2. Folks have now been trained/accustomed to searching activities for things to do. Given the creative, entrepreneurial nature of members and branches, new ideas do come along and need an outlet, rather than be discouraged just because they are a square peg. Over time, examples that had persistence would become candidates for…
7 votesFor items like your Gear Swap, the proper category is an Event. Events can be set up to have people rsvp for a table or to simply attend. If we want to collect money connected to events we currently use Eventbrite. Event listings allow us to post the event in multiple calendars. Events can be easily downloaded to your personal calendar, and offer complete customization. We want to be able to market these cool new ideas and event listings allow you to have titles and text and photos how you want them rather than being stifled by the activity template listings.
Activity templates do not have the same functionality as they include leader’s notes, mileage, etc. Trip specific categories don’t make sense for an event like the gear grab. The Event category also allows members to register guests without having to create a separate profile for a guest or have…
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Allow overlapping activities
The website doesn't allow for overlapping activities, for example two 3-day climbs of the same summit which would summit and camp on different days.
For example, one climb of a mountain could be on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and another climb could be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. One climb thus summits on Saturday, the other on Monday.
Since there is no conflict of having two parties travelling along the same part of a route at the same time, the website should allow registration of activities that don't exactly overlap.
A warning is probably still in order since the trip leaders must make…5 votesIn order to minimize our impact on the land and on other users, per our Outdoor Ethics Policy, we do not allow overlapping Mountaineers groups unless there are additional land manager permitting considerations (that specifically allow us to have multiple groups), or the activity takes place at an in-town facility where reservations are managed by the facility staff. I’d suggest that you find another day to post this climb, if you want it to be an official Mountaineers activity.
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Display activity start time next to date
Display an activity start time prominently along with the date, and as a mandatory field. It wastes time to go through several screens only to see that no time is listed, or the start time won't work for your personal schedule.
3 votesThe current meeting time and place field is rich text to allow leaders to explain start times. For example, sometimes a leader puts in both start time at trailhead and where and when they are meeting at a park and ride.
Our leaders requested this flexibility so it would be a pretty big change to switch this to being a single field or adding another field that leaders need to complete is not practical. -
Rename "Exploring Nature" as "Nature hikes"
I'm a new member, having been unable to hike for years because of joint replacement surgeries. I am starting out with nature hikes because they are often less strenuous. It took awhile to find the right page, because the hikes were labeled "Exploring Nature." It would be easier to find this page if it were called "Nature hikes."
1 voteDeclined · AdminJeff Bowman (Associate Director of Information Technology, The Mountaineers) respondedThanks for your suggestions Susan. We selected the “Exploring Nature” title for anything that falls into this category, which does include hikes but also includes other things like photography outings, Mini Mountaineers trips, and forest bathing. Some of our hikes are categorized as Exploring Nature but all of our Exploring Nature activities are hikes. For that reason we need to decline this idea.
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Add Kilometres to the "Length Units" on the posting activity page.
We should have this option- we can post the km on the Pace. It makes absolutely no sense that we can't post the distance of the pace they are moving at with the same measurement
Maybe we should get onto the '70s and make this an option?1 voteDeclined · AdminJeff Bowman (Associate Director of Information Technology, The Mountaineers) respondedThanks for sharing your idea. Unfortunately, we need to decline this. As the overwhelming majority of our courses take place in the United States, where the standard unit of measurement is the imperial system, we’ve designed the website to work within this system. We do not have capacity to expand to kilometres at this time.
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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) respondedWe 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.
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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…
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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.
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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.
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