New Boatnerd Website Launching Soon

[Mr Link]

Hopefully the vessel/fleet info pages are updated soon, as the Algoma Bear and Endeavour are not on there yet and the good ol' Algoma Transport is still listed. Would be nice to see the archive of the scrapped boats expanded as they are added (Cuyahoga, Transport, etc.) and maybe even more, of course with photos.

Updating the vessel histories is on our "to do" list. And creating a salty gallery is something to be considered.

[Mr Link]

I do like the new simple layout of the home page of boatnerd 3.0 over 2.0 even though there many not be allot of photo as before. But the reading of articles is so much easier now, cleaner, and faster.

Suggestion 1: insert on the right side under passages, and on this day, etc, a new box that pulls in your facebook page in a mini browser window. That would allow those who do not have a facebook account to have a sneak peek at what is happening over on your facebook page.

Suggestion 2: when you post a low res photo, set the photo up as a click on link to show the hi-res photo, hence store two copies of each photo, low & high, thus your webpage loads fast with low res and folks can still click on for hi res.

Suggestion 3: Where did the links page go? It's not displayed on the menu.

Suggestion 4: Add a new message area on forums called "AIS Stations" to generate more interest for folks to host stations to expand coverage and discuss equipment.

Thanks for the feedback, which has been shared with the website's development team. I foresee some issues trying to implement some of these suggestions, but we will certainly discuss the ideas.

[JCampbell]

Love the way things are coming along on the site and forum too. Hopefully increase usage of the forum!

Hopefully the vessel/fleet info pages are updated soon, as the Algoma Bear and Endeavour are not on there yet and the good ol' Algoma Transport is still listed. Would be nice to see the archive of the scrapped boats expanded as they are added (Cuyahoga, Transport, etc.) and maybe even more, of course with photos.

One thing I want to mention is that it would be nice to have a salty gallery - I think there was one at some point?

I always liked when users uploaded/sent their photos and we would see them in the port reports, and I do agree that that part was redundant information, aside from having our pictures shown.

Keep up the great work boatnerd crew!!

[Sandpiper565]

I do like the new simple layout of the home page of boatnerd 3.0 over 2.0 even though there many not be allot of photo as before. But the reading of articles is so much easier now, cleaner, and faster.

Suggestion 1: insert on the right side under passages, and on this day, etc, a new box that pulls in your facebook page in a mini browser window. That would allow those who do not have a facebook account to have a sneak peek at what is happening over on your facebook page.

Suggestion 2: when you post a low res photo, set the photo up as a click on link to show the hi-res photo, hence store two copies of each photo, low & high, thus your webpage loads fast with low res and folks can still click on for hi res.

Suggestion 3: Where did the links page go? It's not displayed on the menu.

Suggestion 4: Add a new message area on forums called "AIS Stations" to generate more interest for folks to host stations to expand coverage and discuss equipment.

[Guest]

Will there be better quality photos in the "On This Day" section? The ones there now are very low resolution.

Sorry, as of now we aren't planning to post higher resolution photos.

That's a shame. The higher-res photos were a benefit of the old site.

[Mr Link]

Will there be better quality photos in the "On This Day" section? The ones there now are very low resolution.

Sorry, as of now we aren't planning to post higher resolution photos.

[Ronald Eckstein]

Will there be better quality photos in the "On This Day" section? The ones there now are very low resolution.

[Mr Link]

I'm still wondering what's going on with the history page. It's not intuitive to use. You have to scroll to the bottom to search. It would be better if today's date were at the top...along with the pictures that have been missing.

The history page, also known as "On This Day" can be accessed via two methods. First is via the menus on top of the main page. Click "Boatnerd News" and then "Great Lakes and Seaway History". But it is also linked on the main page, every day. To the right of the News section. There it will show up with today's date. Just click the blue "Read More" button to view the entire page.

Picture links are being re-established as time permits.

[Rob]

I'm still wondering what's going on with the history page. It's not intuitive to use. You have to scroll to the bottom to search. It would be better if today's date were at the top...along with the pictures that have been missing.

[Laura P]

I wanted to take a moment to commend the Boatnerd staff on the new website design. I’ve been using Boatnerd for over 20 years, and this is by far the best it has ever looked. The news page feels fresh and is easy to read, and the color scheme is very easy on the eyes—especially appreciated since I spend about 10 hours a day on a computer for work. I’ve found myself visiting Boatnerd more often simply because of the new design.

I had considered posting this feedback last week while also asking if the information search page would be refreshed, but I’m glad I waited. The updated format makes it just as enjoyable to look at and read.

Thank you for the excellent work, and please keep up the outstanding reporting on all things shipping.

[Bookworm]

You and the crew are to be commended for taking on such a wide-ranging and labor intensive project. Bugs and kinks are part of the process. Thanks for accomplishing the almost impossible!

[AdminJason]

Hey folks! Website admin here.

The other mods have been forwarding your feedback to me and I wanted to take a moment to address those things directly, along with some other ongoing things that are being addressed following the new website transition:

Port Report Pages
One of the guest users articulated it perfectly as far as the reasoning behind doing away with the manual port reports. The information is readily available on-demand through our AIS platform. To make this information more easily accessible, I've added a section on the sidebar of our homepage that has a dropdown menu of the ports and other waypoints that will take you directly to that port listing on the AIS site.

On this Day in History Posts
Folks have commented about the lack of photos on these posts, and that's something we've always intended on fixing after we got everything else up and running. The history posts were an absolute mess on the admin backend of the old site, so I copied all of that information over manually to give it a "clean slate" with the game plan being that myself and the rest of the team can chip away at re-adding photos to the posts as our time allows — much like a lot of the other ongoing projects we have, including updating and building out the vessel galleries.

AIS Issues
An unexpected snafu of the new website launch was that our AIS system (which is hosted separately from the main website) sourced all of its photos and images directly from the file systems of both past versions of the main Boatnerd website, and because I wiped our main host clean before launching the new site, all of those image links became broken.

Earlier today, I finished scouring my backup archives of both websites to gather those images and upload them directly to the AIS host, so that our AIS admins can work on getting those fixed.

Feedback Forms
I also have it on my to-do list to set up a feedback contact form on the main website so folks can more easily share feedback and ideas, or report issues and problems, so we can take care of these things.

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All of that said, I appreciate you folks bearing with us. All of us on the website team are working on this stuff in our spare time, myself included. It's gonna take us a bit to get this ship sailing smoothly, but I promise we're actively working on it!

Cheers!

[Guest]

It amazes me how some users can find fault and complain about a freely accessed website that has seemed to have offended some by discontinuing a labor intensive feature such as the Port Reports section. In my opinion, this section has been adequately replaced by the Vessel Passage (Boatnerd Map) section that displays current vessel position information in a far superior method than the previous Port Reports section, that was outdated by the time it was posted. For the most part, the information in the Port Reports section was not historically significant and with the new Noteworthy Passages section any significant passages will be covered in a much better method than with the old reports. As far as the pictures, and most if not all of the information contained in the old daily Port Report section, can be easily found posted daily on a plethora of Facebook, X, etc. social media pages. In the end, I believe that the Noteworthy Passages and Vessel Passage sections of the new website are far superior to the old method.

This is my opinion, and everyone else has the right to present their own. However, please keep in mind that this website is not only freely accessible but also run by volunteers using their own personal time to keep it going. If there are certain features that some users feel should have been carried over then perhaps they should look at creating their own websites or social media pages to present those features.

Well said. Thank you!!

[GreatLaker]

All comments here are beling forwarded to the web team. The Day in History photos may need to be re-added, that is being worked on along with some other glitches.

[Guest]

It amazes me how some users can find fault and complain about a freely accessed website that has seemed to have offended some by discontinuing a labor intensive feature such as the Port Reports section. In my opinion, this section has been adequately replaced by the Vessel Passage (Boatnerd Map) section that displays current vessel position information in a far superior method than the previous Port Reports section, that was outdated by the time it was posted. For the most part, the information in the Port Reports section was not historically significant and with the new Noteworthy Passages section any significant passages will be covered in a much better method than with the old reports. As far as the pictures, and most if not all of the information contained in the old daily Port Report section, can be easily found posted daily on a plethora of Facebook, X, etc. social media pages. In the end, I believe that the Noteworthy Passages and Vessel Passage sections of the new website are far superior to the old method.

This is my opinion, and everyone else has the right to present their own. However, please keep in mind that this website is not only freely accessible but also run by volunteers using their own personal time to keep it going. If there are certain features that some users feel should have been carried over then perhaps they should look at creating their own websites or social media pages to present those features.

[jgreenway]

New website is great but recommend a few tweaks!! History link should take you to "todays" date rather than having to scroll down and find it...also, pictures linked to history date should be readily available with the article. Rest looks good and change always takes a while to get comfortable with. Thanks!

[Denny]

As of today, March 24 whenever I click on a vessel on the AIS Map I do not get any destinations on anything right now whatsoever and yesterday it was working fine for me then! Is anyone else like me having the same issues with the AIS Map and no destinations listed? Also, I agree you with you and some of your comments Rob! What happened to all the photos as now we don’t get anything as far as daily photos from boatnerds like we used to get. Yeah I realize it requires tons of time to edit any photos and to make sure that they are not too large in order to have them posted here on the Boatnerd site. On the News Page, while there are photos posted there everyday with the daily news the photos can’t be enlarged or anything as you try to click on them. I’m sure I’m not alone when I mention how I miss the Daily Port Reports feature everyday and the photos with it as at least then we had something to go on as far as daily Port Activities go. I don’t care for the replacement that they’ve done as far as dis-continuing the Port Reports section goes. I used to go to Ron Beaupre’s Mariatown Vessel Passages everyday on the Port Reports feature to see, read and view his reports from Mariatown and the Iroquois Lock area. Now that the Port Reports section has dis-continued I miss the Mariatown Passages by Ron Beaupre big time! I hope Boatnerd somehow can bring back and keep the Mariatown Vessel Passages as they still have Matt Miner’s Salty Report I still read daily!

[Rob]

I think the new site is unsatisfactory in that I'm unable to easily view the different sections, such as today in history and the accompanying historic photos, which were basically my No. 1 reason for visiting the site. The non-responsiveness to my repeated inquiries to this is a real negative.

[Mn bob]

Thanks Denny for your help, I was able to find everything I was looking for. Also have the destination of the ships on ais now but few pictures show up.take care my friend

[Cynthia T]

Good afternoon!
The new site looks terrific.

Will there be a way to see new/recently uploaded photographs?

I enjoyed, and found very useful, the photo gallery attached to the old Port Report page and would love to find a way to continue seeing new photos.

Thank you!

Cynthia T.
South-central WI