Questions, answered
The questions I get most, on rides and by reply. Ask another at /help.
- Which website are you talking about? nycc.org, app.nycc.org, tools.nycc.org?
The club’s website is two things.
The public pages at nycc.org. About the club, how to join, news. Anyone can read them.
The rides app at app.nycc.org. You log in, find a ride, sign up, or lead one.
Every time you click Log in, you cross from one to the other. The old Drupal site was the same two things welded together, so you never saw the seam. That welding is also why every change was scary, and why in the end it couldn’t be upgraded at all.
I’m running to replace both. For the rides app I have a concrete option that’s ready now: tools.nycc.org. The public pages come after, shaped with the web and marketing committees. Either way you shouldn’t have to know there are two. One address, one menu, and the front page takes you straight to rides.
- If I vote for you, and you win, does that mean the rides app will be tools.nycc.org and not app.nycc.org?
Yes. A vote for me is an explicit political signal that you are dissatisfied with what you see on nycc.org and app.nycc.org, and that you want the tech that powers tools.nycc.org to replace it.
- What about the public pages? What is your plan for those?
They stay up and keep working while the rides app is replaced. They aren’t broken the way the rides app is, so they come second.
I don’t have a set design for them yet, and I wouldn’t want to pick one alone. I’d look to the web and marketing committees to shape it. I’m confident we can produce something more compelling than what’s there now.
- Are you serious about retiring app.nycc.org? What about all the money and time put into it?
The money and time are gone. Some people have an emotional attachement, and I understand that. But the thing that should matter to you as a member is how easy it is to find a ride you want to join and as a ride leader, to list one.
If you care about the club, picture a new member. They know nothing of the past three years or of board politics. They just want to ride. Which experience impresses them more, app.nycc.org or tools.nycc.org?
- The switch from the old Drupal site to app.nycc.org was painful. Do you really want to put the club through that again?
No, and I won’t. The difficult release in May came down to three things:
- The team doing the work was inexperienced at this kind of launch. That includes the paid engineer and the Director of Technology.
- The team was not open to feedback or suggestions, and drove away nearly every engineer in the club who offered to help.
- The team chose a hard switch over the modern standard which is run both in parallel, move members over in phases. As to why they chose that, see points 1 and 2.
I promise this: a switch to tools.nycc.org will be seamless. That isn’t a hope, it’s already mostly done. Your rides, your ride sign-ups, and your membership status come across. The club’s ten years of ride history, over 30,000 rides, are already in. Day one will look the same. Then it'll get even better
- What about an iPhone app?
Possible, but probably not something I can do alone. Full disclosure: I’m an Android person, and my Apple developer account is stuck somewhere somewhere deep in Apple’s password recovery process. So an iPhone app needs a second engineer. After the election and the switch, I’d recruit one from the club. If that’s you, say so.