New look Volume 28 number 1 hits the doormats

[Kate Arbon]

Okay I am clearly being really dense here but I've searched for ages and now I give up - where is the members only area? I remember using it when I used to frequent the forums years ago but I can't find it now!

[craig mcinnes]

Top of the page between downloads and the search bar. Unless you mean the members only forum then it is between B.T.S Tarantula Community Board and Announcements, Notices & BTS forum rules.

[Kate Arbon]

Ah, that explains it. The display was messed up on my screen and the search bar was totally covering it. Had to zoom out a bit but can see it now. Thanks Craig.

edit: Well now I have a different problem. Can't seem to log in. Getting a message saying to use the login and password from the previous edition of the journal, but it's not working.

[craig mcinnes]

Use the username and password found in the latest journal but switch letters 2 and 3 in the password and it should work.

[ralfkonen]

Well done to all involved. This is a fantastic looking journal. I particularly like the real life images next to the drawings in the species description. Is that how its done nowadays? Brilliant

[Christian Elowsky]

The new layout and upgrades really are amazing. I know it takes a lot of work or funding to get these things done. Congrats on the reboot!

[Mark Pennell]

The new layout and upgrades really are amazing. I know it takes a lot of work or funding to get these things done. Congrats on the reboot!

Christian
Cheers mate. Yes a re boot yes a new beginning. More importantly its about moving forward, progression keeping on the ball.

The Internet is killing societies the very thing we all started years ago. Being social sharing and creating contacts. The net has move this to a new level

The bts has created and tried to keep web friendly mobile friendly. Support is hard with the free information online. A lot of which us the old chaps wrote inspired created went out and found. The Internet now takes for granted.

So we move on move forward try to keep going keep inventing keep inspiring.

Your input and support is always welcome and always greatly received. Thanks

Mark

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[craig mcinnes]

So will the web site also be having an overhaul? Given that this is the internet age and most folks first experience of the Society will probably be online, I find it strange that more effort hasn't been focused on the site.

[Peter Lacey]

Well done to all involved. This is a fantastic looking journal. I particularly like the real life images next to the drawings in the species description. Is that how its done nowadays? Brilliant

Hi
For each article we are supplied there there are often an accompanying amount of images, diagrams, drawings, tables etc. We welcome more drawings as traditionally these were the prime source of showing readers what species looked like and the effort involved warrants inclusion. Its nice to see both photography and artistic offerings, they both have their own values.

It has been great to see so many positive responses to the new look, both here, in other forums and various Facebook pages. I was originally asked to "revamp" back in June, submitted a few ideas and was given the approval in early July. Peter Kirk asked me to join the BTS team and jumped at the opportunity to help create the journal. Although dealing with printers is something I havent done for a long time, it's so good to see it finally come to print and see the appreciation. I believe the new design offers us more opportunity for improved quality images in a neater and modern format. This hopefully reflects the new directions BTS have in place, afterall the Mayans were right, its a new beginning

As for social media, all forums seem to be suffering a loss of visitors, and as people require more "live" responses via the likes of FaceBook naturally its going to win in that area. However, forums offer a far better searchable resource and its those forums that seek to take advantage of both areas of activity that will remain alive.

[Peter Lacey]

Ive been alerted to a block of text that went missing from Guy Tansley's article 20 days in Cambodia. My apologies to Guy and the members.
From the bottom of page 44 to the start of page 45 the following was missing, denoted in blue:

We then drove a small distance closer to Skuon to a similar truck stop and met with several of the locals selling fried spiders. These women carried large plates of fried spiders piled in pyramid fashion around the area for tourists and locals alike to buy. We paid them a few dollars each for information regarding their wares and they answered a lot of our questions.

It seems around 10 years ago the spiders were collected around Skuon but in recent years they were supplied from further north around Kampong Thom indicating that, as collecting increased, they had to extend their search further afield. Each seller claimed that they fried the live spiders in the morning and as many as 150 were sold by the end of each day. They retailed at 50 US cents each. The women sellers had both fried and live spiders with them. The live spiders were kept together in medium-sized buckets (that doubled up as a seat) on a few plant stalks so they had something to cling to. Their fang tips had been snapped off and this, combined with them being removed from their burrows, meant they were very docile and didn’t try to bite when handled. We surmised that the spiders could be kept alive quite some time in this condition ensuring a fresh supply (with only the tips of their fangs removed, they weren’t going to bleed to death). We shot video of the interview and took pictures with the live spiders on our hands to prove their docility.

-----------------

The continuation of Guy's article appears in Journal 28 (2) and (3) of the following journals.

[Ray Gabriel]

Can someone send me a PDF please I wont see it until March (I will be back in time for the lectures)

Whats this new Poke?

RayG

[Peter Lacey]

The new species is P. rajaei from Sri Lanka
ive edited the original document for print so I can supply this with the amends as above

[Mark Pennell]

So will the web site also be having an overhaul? Given that this is the internet age and most folks first experience of the Society will probably be online, I find it strange that more effort hasn't been focused on the site.

What would you like to see here... ??? we host many articles and downloads, the Membership can access a wealth of information and over the many years we have change adapted the site to fast and more efficient. The forum and the classifieds and for the that matter the gallery are all accessible via mobile devices.

I constantly ask for contributions and we also put together a team to keep the gallery updated and correct. As a society we publish a journal which is the main focus and site is a advert for the society.

Its hard to keep people interested they seem to be more interested in using social network site like facebook than participating here.

The members area has over 30 back issues to download the classifieds allow keepers to buy sale trade, the gallery has hundreds of images.

Let me know what you'd like to see here and I will do it... as long as it does not detract for the societies aims and the journal.

Mark

PS the amended PDF of the journal with the correct version of Guys article is online in the members area, and for immediate download for new members.

The codes to access the members area, are the ones in vol28 no1

[Mark Pennell]

check your mail Ray

Mark

[craig mcinnes]

Hi Mark

Ok my suggestions which I appreciate I may well have missed the mark with some but wrong ideas are still better than none in my book.

Forum layout

The forum has a nice look but it is cluttered up with (IMO anyway) with too many seperate forums which can be quite off putting and in need of a good tidy. For example -

Announcements, Notices & BTS forum rules

General and Journal News Information on forthcoming BTS Journals and general news -Basically consists of announcements of new journals which gets posted in the BTS Discussion forum anyway as well as any other news. So is it worth keeping?

Free BTS Journal - Why not put this in downloads or even the home page rather than be another forum header?

Chat room - Put the rules in the Rules and Regulations forum. Any planned chat nights get posted in the BTS discussion forum.

E-store - There is already a button at the top of the page for this.


B.T.S Tarantula Community Board

BTS Downloads - Already a button at the top of the page.

Donate to the BTS here - E-store again. Perhaps have a button at the top of the page if need be? Also where is my blue user title?

BTS Annual General Meeting - 1 post almost 3 years ago says it all really. Any AGM news gets posted in the BTS Discussions forum. Of course this could be quite a useful place to post the minutes of the AGM so that members don't have to keep chasing the committee for a copy.

BTS Theraphosid News - Seems to get used but perhaps just needs to be a sub-forum in BTS Discussion forum.

BTS Exhibition May 2013 - A sticky on the BTS Discussion forum would do.

BTS Lectures & Dinner 2nd March 2013 - As above.


Photographs - Could really just be broken down to the following unless of course there was something particularly special about 2006 & 2007 -

B.T.S Theraphosidae Gallery

BTS Tarantula pix & videos

BTS Exhibition & lectures (really this could just be a post in the BTS Discussion forum for each event)


B.T.S. Classifieds, Trades & Breeding Directory

Fine as it is


Forums, societys , and other recommended sites

A good idea but some of the links such as the MISC and The Australian Tarantula Association no longer exist or have been moved. Also i'm pretty sure it should be 'societies' rather than 'societys'.


The Theraphosidae Gallery

Showing correctly ID'd specimens of each species as well as undescribed species found in the hobby is a great idea. It is a mammoth task and as you say you have a team for it however, it is still out of date. For example Cyriopagopus sp. blue rather than Lampropelma violaceopes, Selenobrachys philippinus rather than Orphnaecus philippinus, no Augacephalus ezendami, Grammostola aureostriata rather than Grammostola pulchripes etc. Some changes are new, some are years old.

Articles and Downloads

There certainly is a few articles and papers in the downloads section however there are an absolute ton more available online. Why not make as much of it available to forum members as possible? I'm sure the BTS could probably sweet talk a few authors into hosting some papers currently unavailable freely online on the site as well. Why not aim big?

Classifieds

They're just horrible to use and to look at. Why not just have them the same format as rest of the forums on the site? That way people can tell at a glance of the forum main page if there is any new posts and more importantly it would be a lot easier to use.


Forum content

From a discussion with Stuart Longhorn on the BTS facebook group I discovered that the forum didn't even have something as simple as a basic sexing guide. Which then got me to thinking why, given the calibre of the committee and some of the members, is there not really any informative how to type posts on the forum which has been going for quite a few years now. Things ranging from getting your first tarantula, basic care, housing, anatomy (basic through to advanced taxonomic terms), breeding etc. Of course the obvious answer is that you want to save all the good stuff for journal articles. But why not combine the two? Publish these sort of things as an article in the journal then after say a year or so put an internet version on the forum like you have done with Ray's incubator article.

Anyway just a few ideas to mull over but nothing spectacular that will give you the traffic of these facebook groups that seem to be killing off forums.

*EDIT*

Oh yeah the new format journal looks good with some nice articles too. It's not a proper BTS journal without a Ray Gabriel pokie article.