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36 replies

I Need Your Help with the HS Baseball Web :-)

MN-MomMN-MomHSBaseballWeb Owner
Hi everyone! Many of you know me, but for those who don't...

I'm the owner of the HS Baseball Web, and as you may have noticed, I run it with the help of a bunch of great volunteer moderators, as a free service to members and visitors.

I need some help from all of you.

Our monthly hosting bill has once again crept up above $800/month. Part of that cost ($344 this month) covers the very powerful software and technical support needed to handle our large volume of activity, large member base, and capabilities like searching over a half-million posts quickly. The remainder covers storage for our huge volume of stored posts (currently over 700,000 posts, at a cost of $460 this month).

We have tens of thousands of stored topics which are valuable and useful to members and visitors, but I need your help in finding old or unnecessary topics which can be deleted.

Here's how you can help:

1. Pick any specific forum, such as a State forum or a topic like Recruiting Questions.

2. MAKE A POST IN THAT FORUM WITH A TITLE LIKE "CLEANUP - I AM REVIEWING THIS FORUM", to tell other members you are working on it so that we won't duplicate efforts.

3. Read through some of the oldest threads first, and send an Alert for any thread that looks like it has outlived its usefulness. Maybe it's a discussion of a high school season from 4 years ago, or maybe it's an exchange of info which seems to only interest the two or three members involved in that discussion. You send an Alert by clicking the triangle symbol with an exclamation point, in the lower right corner of each post. In the popup window, please include a reason like "Cleanup - Discussion of 2006 HS season".

4. I will receive an email when you send the Alert as described in Step 3, and I will delete the old threads if they do not seem to be useful in educating or entertaining our members and visitors. Smile

Also, if any members wish to help financially with this month's invoice, that would be very much appreciated.

Part of our hosting costs are covered by advertisers and sponsors, who I appreciate very much. However, in most months, part of the cost of running the site comes out of my pocket, and this month my part of the bill is more than I can comfortably afford.

IF YOU WISH TO DONATE TO HELP WITH THE HOSTING INVOICE:

Click the Donate button on the Donations page and you can use PayPal to make a donation online, even if you do not have a PayPal account.

Thanks in advance for your help with CLEANUP of our old posts, and a heartfelt thanks to to any members who are able to DONATE to help with this month's invoice.



Julie
Last edited {1}
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Bulldog 19Bulldog 195,000+ posts
Boy, I'm starting to find out how much work this actually is! Thanks Julie for everything!

I've gotten through the bulk of the Injuries and Recovery Section and I've already cut out 5 pages from the Strength and Conditioning section. More to come this afternoon...

Glad to see we have a great group working on this massive project!
MN-MomMN-MomHSBaseballWeb Owner
Darrell (CoachB25),

Yes, please work on the forums you mentioned, thanks so much!

Thank you, everyone. "Pruning" is a task that I always meant to keep up with, but it is really too much for one person to do. Funny, when I first took over the site quite a few years ago, I felt like I had to keep on top of all the moderating myself, and it became almost a 40-hour-per-week job. After a while I realized that not only could I not do it myself, there were a bunch of members who were willing and capable of helping, and could do a better job than me because they could each focus on a few sections. Our volunteer staff of moderators has grown through the years, and I now serve more as a "consultant" to them, rather than trying to do a majority of moderating myself.

It does take a village to take care of this community! Smile I am truly thankful to, and for, all of you.

Julie

Julie
Last edited by MN-Mom
coach2709coach270910,000+ posts
I think someplace we can do some cleaning up are the

chat room
announcements
tournaments / showcases
help wanted
camps
travel recommendations
I'll see you there

While I think these are important they pretty much outlive their usefulness after a month or so. Maybe go through them at the start of the year and delete everything and start each year fresh.

Also, in my opinion you can combine the "tournaments & showcases" with the "baseball camps". Well after looking at it I guess you could include the help wanted with those other two. You can also combine the "travel recommendations" with the "I'll see you there".

Like I said these are valuable but for example the HELP WANTED is 15 pages long. I think we could do a wholesale slash and burn in there.
coach2709coach270910,000+ posts
Not going to lie but that was one of the coolest videos ever. Really liked that song too. I will say that if we do something like that to those forums I want to be the one to fly the helicopter. I watched something on the Discovery Channel on how to fly one and it seemed pretty simple. But just to be safe I will stay in a Holiday Inn Express the night before.
keewartkeewart10,000+ posts
[QUOTE]Originally posted by coach2709:
I think someplace we can do some cleaning up are the

chat room
announcements
tournaments / showcases
help wanted
camps
travel recommendations
I'll see you there

While I think these are important they pretty much outlive their usefulness after a month or so. "

I would like to say that I am one of those that does do research on this site. 1) Regarding CAMPS: Since there is not many recent reviews of camps, the old ones are helpful, and even the announcements are helpful for planning in the summers ahead. 2) This was Keewartson's first year at East Cobb and the travel recommendations and restaurant recommendations were especially helpful, even though the posts were several years old. Maybe there are no recent posts because the old ones are still helpful?
Last edited by keewart
YoungGunDadYoungGunDadHSBaseballWeb member since 2005
I took typing back in the 8th grade when there was this thing called a manual "typewriter"! I learned that AND shorthand. lol.

My dad told me it would be the one thing in highschool as an athlete that Id learn and be able to use after school. And you know what, he was right! Its about the ONLY thing I learned!

About East cobb, I bet 1/2 the ones Ive deleted in my room have been ABOUT East Cobb! argh
Last edited by YoungGunDad
MN-MomMN-MomHSBaseballWeb Owner
keewart,

Thank you for this feedback:

quote:
I would like to say that I am one of those that does do research on this site. 1) Regarding CAMPS: Since there is not many recent reviews of camps, the old ones are helpful, and even the announcements are helpful for planning in the summers ahead. 2) This was Keewartson's first year at East Cobb and the travel recommendations and restaurant recommendations were especially helpful, even though the posts were several years old. Maybe there are no recent posts because the old ones are still helpful?


It is very helpful for us to receive this feedback from a fairly recent member of our community. I agree that we should try to balance cleanup against the positives of being able to search for recommendations even if they are a bit old.

I have noted this to some moderators individually but I'll repeat it here:

The history of these forums are part of their value and charm, and my goal is not to delete all "old" threads, but just to prune out less helpful ones. If in doubt, go ahead leave the thread intact. I'd rather pay storage for a few extra threads than lose something valuable - or lose our history. Smile

Thanks,

Julie
Last edited by MN-Mom
keewartkeewart10,000+ posts
Off topic: I had to laugh...my stepmother made me take typing and general business in the 8th grade too. I hated it. I hated her. But both classes have served me well (who knew we would be typing/keyboarding so much on computers in the years to come?) Maybe I should call her after almost 38 years and thank her.

On Topic: My background is research... 1st job out of college in medical/phamacology and after leaving graduate school in business/marketing, so I may use the research tool more than some. I am sure topics that have been deleted, that some thought really should have been kept, will be readressed in the future by posters. I will say that old posts...over 5 years or so, I really don't look at.
MN-MomMN-MomHSBaseballWeb Owner
Thanks again to everyone who has been clicking the Alert button to nominate posts/threads for deletion.

I'm working on them but guess I'm a little backlogged (received thousands of alerts, which is good because I'd like to reduce by at least 100,000 stored posts). I'll try to get caught up this weekend. I do glance quickly at each one just to make sure there isn't some obvious history that we don't want to lose.

Thank you!

Julie

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