Changes to the site.

[TommyBNSF]

It's not a bad idea. I'll give it some thought and see if there's a good way to implement it if we decide to do something like that.

[TommyBNSF]

It kind of goes back to what I suggested to you in private, and I'll pitch this idea to everyone else; making a color coded system of sorts to show which crossings are considered cool or rate and which ones are common setups. Say for instance the white text on town pages can continue to be used to indicate common crossings, another color could indicate medium interest crossings, like gateless crossings or mechanical bell crossings, and then a 3rd color for really cool crossings ie 8" lights, teardrop bells, rare gate mechanisms, etc. We already use white and grey text for active and abandoned crossings respectively, so we could expand that and draw more attention to crossings with neater equipment or unusual setups, like the CSX crossing at IN/OH state line. Any thoughts from anybody else? I'd love to hear from more people.

[TrickyMario7654]

It kind of goes back to what I suggested to you in private, and I'll pitch this idea to everyone else; making a color coded system of sorts to show which crossings are considered cool or rate and which ones are common setups. Say for instance the white text on town pages can continue to be used to indicate common crossings, another color could indicate medium interest crossings, like gateless crossings or mechanical bell crossings, and then a 3rd color for really cool crossings ie 8" lights, teardrop bells, rare gate mechanisms, etc. We already use white and grey text for active and abandoned crossings respectively, so we could expand that and draw more attention to crossings with neater equipment or unusual setups, like the CSX crossing at IN/OH state line. Any thoughts from anybody else? I'd love to hear from more people.

I like that idea, it helps find more rarer crossings on this site, and keeps all existing pages on the site.

[ToledoRailfan]

It kind of goes back to what I suggested to you in private, and I'll pitch this idea to everyone else; making a color coded system of sorts to show which crossings are considered cool or rate and which ones are common setups. Say for instance the white text on town pages can continue to be used to indicate common crossings, another color could indicate medium interest crossings, like gateless crossings or mechanical bell crossings, and then a 3rd color for really cool crossings ie 8" lights, teardrop bells, rare gate mechanisms, etc. We already use white and grey text for active and abandoned crossings respectively, so we could expand that and draw more attention to crossings with neater equipment or unusual setups, like the CSX crossing at IN/OH state line. Any thoughts from anybody else? I'd love to hear from more people.

I personally think that would be drifting too far from what Mike intended the site to be. I think adding to the site (database section idea) is better than significantly changing something that was always part of the site (main section ('Signal Pictures')).

And plus the main section ('Signal Pictures') would still be too overcrowded.

[TommyBNSF]

I made an example of my idea for the crossings in Bryan, OH.
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Ohio/A-K/Bryan/

Green = Very interesting
Yellow = Semi interesting
White = Common Setup

I know people's interpretations of what would be considered very interesting and somewhat interesting can vary, so there's no "one size fits all" to it, but I think this page is pretty accurate to what most consider each of them to be.

Also Seth, I will keep your idea in consideration, but given it's going to take a lot more work to implement, it probably won't be done anytime soon. Plus, I'd like to get more people involved with they think we should do to improve the site.

[ToledoRailfan]

I made an example of my idea for the crossings in Bryan, OH.
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Ohio/A-K/Bryan/

Green = Very interesting
Yellow = Semi interesting
White = Common Setup

Thumbnails kinda do that job already.

[TommyBNSF]

True, but it would help give more exposure to the cooler crossings within the site. It's basically double incentive to know that this is something special, that isn't common.

[freebrickproductions]

You guys might also want to remove this thread from 'Error Reports'. Kinda odd having one thread in two topics.

That's just a shadow topic. It basically serves as a redirect to this thread.

[freebrickproductions]

RE: Page Quality
I was looking at some of the pages Kight did in his last two updates (#809 and #810), and noticed that on most of the pages he himself made or updated, he didn't even bother to caption the images. However, I don't know if this was intentional or not as the empty caption boxes underneath the images remain, but it seems like he couldn't give enough of a to finish the pages in one way or another, though the ones he put up that were made by someone else (or the one for the wigwag in Marion, IL that he made himself) are much more well done and feature actual captions to them. I'm honestly quite glad that the site has since grown out of these dark days, personally.
Here are the pages that Kight made/updated in his last two updates that lack captions on the (at the time) new images:
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Missouri/Cuba/McLeod/
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Missouri/Berkeley/JS/
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Missouri/Overland/Walton/
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Missouri/St_Clair/Main/
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Iowa/Muscatine/Sampson/
http://www.rxrsignals.com/Illinois/R-Z/Shipman/Bachman/

Also, I remember ToledoRailfan mentioning something about seeing how the site traffic has changed over the past few years. I haven't seen it myself (Gillson said he'd look into it, IIRC), but I'm pretty sure that a graph would show a drop in about 2011/2012 when Kight was one of the admins, with a steady climb afterwards.

[ToledoRailfan]

I really was referring to the days when Mike was still alive.