Scoutbase is dead

[marcush]

has anyone found the stage badge clipart?

[Richard]

Thank you Sir - we did try.
You're quite right in that none of us had met before - but we came together with a shared vision of an on-line resource for Leaders and just got on with it, I guess we thought that's what Scouting is all about. We were all Leaders who happened to work in IT - a mixture of analysts and techies. Lots more folk from around the country joined in to help us as editors and content providers ... we must have been one of the biggest virtual 'firms' going at that time :-)
But that's what it was - 'that time', and things move on. It was after all the SA's site, and clearly after eleven years our original vision no longer met Gilwell's requirements.
As someone said ... RIP SBUK.

I was actually looking back at the wayback machine, and stuff on uk.rec.scouting, oh it took me back.

Chris is very clear that you, the Scoutbase team & yes the Scoutnet team were all visionaries in what you achieved.

You guys were doing all that work as volunteers, when only the Geeks saw the vision and potential of the internet.

Now that everyone, including the dictators (Not a reference to TSA , but the trouble in some countries) and even Simon Cowell realise the power of the internet (he has a facebook page today!), Scouting using the net seem just so obvious.

My only cautionary note in all of this, is that it has taken TSA 10 years to realise it can use its army of VOLUNTEER IT professionals and Hobbyists alike to create/improve websites/web systems without always reaching for the cheque book, co-ordinated through HQ. I'm sure we have Wayne to thank for that

[big chris]

has anyone found the stage badge clipart?

OK... so you've all gone screwy at gilwell? yes?

There can be no other explanation...

check for gas leaks, lead in the water etc... something is wrong...

I search 'badge clipart' (that is reasonable, yes?)

all the links are scoutbase links... none of them work...



have we paid for this crud? If not, may i assume we're withholding payment?

Oh... and if it is in-house... Giwell needs to look long and hard at what a clusterfuff has been made of this.

[Penny E]

I wish I was clever enough to be able to capture screen shots, Chris.

I might need a whole series of them on file if I am to find all the things I looked for on Scoutbase almost every week.

[big chris]

I wish I was clever enough to be able to capture screen shots, Chris.

I might need a whole series of them on file if I am to find all the things I looked for on Scoutbase almost every week.

cmd + shift + 4 om a mac and it saves to desktop... am sure it must be similar on a PC

[MikeJ]

I wish I was clever enough to be able to capture screen shots, Chris.

I might need a whole series of them on file if I am to find all the things I looked for on Scoutbase almost every week.

There's always bookmarks - well assuming that you can find the things in the first place

Scoutbase has always been a great site for finding things, it was just so easy. It will be missed.

[big chris]

ok... maybe clipart is wrong...

search badge image...

the first item is "queen jane" - click on it...

here is the page...

https://members.scouts.org.uk/cms.php?pageid=2035

Gilwell computer dudes... this shizzle ain't ready...

[Richard]

Im not defending anyone/anything, but this has been in Beta for 6months+

Has anyone not noticed these issues before?

Have they been reported?

It was put out as a beta for a reason...........

[ChrisA]

11 years? Got to be more than that. I remember being shown it as a Scout at Jamboree Cymru in 1997 - although it may well have been a copy on a local disk!

Yes, quite right, but as far as the original SBUK Team is concerned it was from 1995 when we put the first ****-shy up for comments at Gilwell Reunion, to September 2006 when the Team resigned.

I don't know if TSA has kept anything in the way of an SBUK archive. But if you want to read about the history of SBUK, then the Wayback Machine is your friend : http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...outbase.org.uk. ; go for Dec 16 2005 > about us>history

[frazzle]

Im not defending anyone/anything, but this has been in Beta for 6months+

Has anyone not noticed these issues before?

Have they been reported?

It was put out as a beta for a reason...........

I tried to submit comments a couple of times, but struggled with the comment form. I suspect they never went; I never got a reply or an automated acknowledgement. I think one of my first comments was "This is not at beta stage - this is an alpha!". The content has grown considerably since they launched it which made any sort of user testing rather hard.

I sort of gave up when I wanted a form C2 (to change group name). My search returned 1800 hits, and none of the first 20 were any good so I phoned the info centre. The very nice man took me straight to Scoutbase and to the form (and clearly implied I was foolish for going anywhere other than Scoutbase and clicking on Forms). Interestingly I can find this by navigating the menu (with a lot of luck) but not with a search.

How about using google for searching - preface the search with scouts and suffix it with -scoutbase (to exclude all the scoutbase hits which are no longer any good). Found form C2 but no luck on the staged activity badge clipart!

[ChrisA]

I was actually looking back at the wayback machine, and stuff on uk.rec.scouting, oh it took me back.

Thanks Richard, I'm sure the (ex)Team will be chuffed to know that we're responsible for a wee bit of Scouting nostalgia ;^)

My only cautionary note in all of this, is that it has taken TSA 10 years to realise it can use its army of VOLUNTEER IT professionals and Hobbyists alike to create/improve websites/web systems without always reaching for the cheque book, co-ordinated through HQ.

Sounds good, and of course I'm some four years out of date now, but the trouble comes when the volunteers have to interface with the full-time staff. IT volunteers often have a tiresome tendency to insist on standards (and often not IT ones), and on ensuring that any new features are fit for purpose before they go live. (You wouldn't credit how much time we used to spend on trying to ensure that site navigation was user-friendly). I guess that sort of approach is out of fashion nowadays.
(Gosh, don't I just sound like an old-fashioned IT git :-)
As our DC said to me at a recent District meeting :
"... things have changed since you were last involved...".

[Walsallwizard]

which was acknowledged by Wayne et al at the very informative GSL/DC conference that I attended.....being addressed, but it will take a while.

Sorry but it shouldn't be taking a while it should work! If the goolge search engine failed to work how many would use it?

ScoutbaseUK worked, it did the job very well. Scouts.org is a pain in the neck, links that do not work, a search engine that can't handle a typo (Type in Scout you get 4402 results, misspelt as Socut and you get nothing), pages that fail to load, lock outs, the whole thing is very frustrating.

Was Scoutbase still up to the job? Possibly not!

Is Scouts.org up to the job? Nope

Will it ever be???....

I thought I would do a member search to get in touch with an old friend I know he is still scouting so I did a member search with no results. Mean while over on Facebook put in his name and up he pops in less than a blink of an eye. If these things do not work people won't work with them and they will always have a bad reputation no matter how good they become.

I think Scouts.org will be like Skoda cars, they may get a good product eventually but they will always be remembered for being rubbish

[Richard]

I tried to submit comments a couple of times, but struggled with the comment form. I suspect they never went; I never got a reply or an automated acknowledgement. I think one of my first comments was "This is not at beta stage - this is an alpha!". The content has grown considerably since they launched it which made any sort of user testing rather hard.

I sort of gave up when I wanted a form C2 (to change group name). My search returned 1800 hits, and none of the first 20 were any good so I phoned the info centre. The very nice man took me straight to Scoutbase and to the form (and clearly implied I was foolish for going anywhere other than Scoutbase and clicking on Forms). Interestingly I can find this by navigating the menu (with a lot of luck) but not with a search.

How about using google for searching - preface the search with scouts and suffix it with -scoutbase (to exclude all the scoutbase hits which are no longer any good). Found form C2 but no luck on the staged activity badge clipart!

Thats interesting, I wasnt making the comment as I was part of the process, but without focus an Alpha / Beta is going to drift and fail. I've had a play and frankly there are some incredibly obvious things that are a pain to find.

1 reasonable knowledgable Scouter with a day of time (paid) could find many mistakes that are obvious, and have them resolved.

That search function is simply crap, or how do you say it not fit for purpose.

As for the links/navigation, why do I always have to click on that stupid menu, why is it so huge? Why cannot I click a link in the page itself, for the main menu items?

Course I, like everyone else didnt bother with the alpha/beta whatever its called. Now Scoutbase is dead it simply brings into focus these issues.

The real question is will they be address this week, this month or this year?

Thanks Richard, I'm sure the (ex)Team will be chuffed to know that we're responsible for a wee bit of Scouting nostalgia ;^)

Sounds good, and of course I'm some four years out of date now, but the trouble comes when the volunteers have to interface with the full-time staff. IT volunteers often have a tiresome tendency to insist on standards (and often not IT ones), and on ensuring that any new features are fit for purpose before they go live. (You wouldn't credit how much time we used to spend on trying to ensure that site navigation was user-friendly). I guess that sort of approach is out of fashion nowadays.
(Gosh, don't I just sound like an old-fashioned IT git :-)
As our DC said to me at a recent District meeting :
"... things have changed since you were last involved...".

That comment was ultimately around this pool of IT people they are getting involved. Time will tell if it will work, fingers crossed.

[big chris]

aaargh...

so... on monday i needed the factsheet on class c water...

i clicked factsheets and searched the page for "class c" - i think... anyway... i found it in seconds...

i wanted to find it on a different computer...

I went to scouts.org.uk...
i logged in...
i went to members resources (that's three actions - going to scoutbase used to be one action)

i made it to activities

then water
http://scouts.org.uk/supportresource...cat=26,407,356
and now...

where on that page might one go for the factsheets on water?


aha! found it... you have to pick an activity you want to do and then it is at the bottom of the page..

sigh... I know this is moaning but this is a huge stinking pile of crap...

not tested... seriously... not tested at all, surely? A huge leap backwards in functionality.

we need to find stuff quickly... i need to know that when i tell a new cub leaders to look for a factsheet (olden days - click on the 'factshee't link) that she will find them.

I will find myself doing the work now... i can't inflict this **** on my leaders.

[Chris Lambert]

I went to scouts.org.uk and searched for class c waters. The fact sheet was result number 5 and results 1-4 could have been relevant.