Help Needed - BYC Breed Pages Cleanup

[Nifty-Chicken]

We did a ton of checking and re-checking and don't think anything was lost in the conversion, but it's hard to know for sure (that's why we spend a lot of time and checking in the "sandbox" demo before conversion).

There really are only two places the content could be:

1. The breeds / reviews section
2. Articles

It is slightly possible that the pages/articles might be in the system but either not showing up in your "Articles" section of your profile or maybe not assigned correctly to you. Do you remember at all any of the text that was used in the article that we could search for in the database? Best case would be if you knew an exact phrase.

Worst case: We have backups of all the stuff from before conversion, so if we can't find it on here I can maybe dig up some of the info from the backups.... it's just not an easy process.

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Has the Breed Page Cleanup project been completed yet? I can find no links at all on the Cochin page to all the variety sub-pages that existed before the conversion. There is one link that says "More related threads and articles", but when you click on it, it says it can't find anything, and offers up various photo albums to look at.

Several Cochin breeders had written excellent pages/articles on the different varieties, with excellent photos, but I can't find where they are attached to the breed page.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Short answer: Sorta

Long answer:
The main cleanup we was in preparation for the conversion, and that's done now. The goal was to remove duplicates, choose the "best" main pages, etc. All "sub-pages" got converted into "Articles" and are listed under the member's profiles as articles they have written.

There is still a lot that can and should be done to improve the breed pages, but it's a project that got put on the back burner because of the complexities of the conversion and then going into the busy season.

Now that the "busy season" is cooling down (BYC always hits our peak at the end of April) we would love to start looking into ideas and next steps for improvements to the breeds section of the site.

Unfortunately breeds is an area where I have very little skill and experience, so I'll need to lean on the community for help managing and cleaning up / improving the breeds section.

Fortunately with the new system we have a lot more flexibility in what we can do, how we can do it, and who can do it.

So, any volunteers!?!?!?!

 

[Coopa Cabana]

Short answer: Sorta

Long answer:
The main cleanup we was in preparation for the conversion, and that's done now. The goal was to remove duplicates, choose the "best" main pages, etc. All "sub-pages" got converted into "Articles" and are listed under the member's profiles as articles they have written.

There is still a lot that can and should be done to improve the breed pages, but it's a project that got put on the back burner because of the complexities of the conversion and then going into the busy season.

Now that the "busy season" is cooling down (BYC always hits our peak at the end of April) we would love to start looking into ideas and next steps for improvements to the breeds section of the site.

Unfortunately breeds is an area where I have very little skill and experience, so I'll need to lean on the community for help managing and cleaning up / improving the breeds section.

Fortunately with the new system we have a lot more flexibility in what we can do, how we can do it, and who can do it.

So, any volunteers!?!?!?!

Is there a quick and easy way from your end to re-attach the "articles" back to the breed pages? Or do you need us, as breed groups, to collect the articles, give you the links, and then you can re-link them?

I guess then it would be up to the members of the individual breed threads to re-collect and re-submit them to you. And maybe that way, you wouldn't be hit with everything at once - you'd probably get just a couple of collections of articles per breed every few days. And then you could load/link them and test as you go.

I would volunteer to re-collect the Cochin articles, but that's the only breed I'm familiar with.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Great questions!

At this point there aren't really any "quick and easy" ways to move forward, but honestly, even if there were we may not want to apply them. One of the reasons we went this direction at conversion is because there were a lot of complaints suggestions that we do a better job at qualifying the information before linking and promoting it.

So, even thought there aren't quick/easy ways to get to where we want to be, there are some cool things we can do to help make the process easier and quicker than starting from scratch or manually digging for stuff.

While I recognize that I tend to be overly cautious and analytical, I would like to have a bit of discussion from this super smart community on a goal of what and how we want the breeds section to look like and then come up with a game plan to reach that goal.

Once we have a goal and a high level plan I'm assuming (based on previous projects) that we'll proceed like this:

1. We have 2 - 3 "Project Managers" that work together to oversee the project and keep things on track.
2. I work with the PM's to determine the best tools, permissions, contests, etc. to allow them and the community to help us reach our goals
3. We promote the crud out of the goal and the plan and make some magic happen!!

 

[Pele]

Hi, I know I'm a bit late to the game, but I would love to be able to help with the breed pages in any way that I can! My qualifications are that I'm a super research geek, and that I love and research the heck outta chickens.

Are we still just reviewing the pages and PMing, or would you like us to just focus on what we'd like to see/change on the breeds page? Let me know, I'm excited about this project!

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Woot!


Thanks so much for posting, we've got a few things in the pipeline that might be a great chance for some help!

 

[Pele]

Ok, I'll wait with bated breath!

 

[ChicKat]

Mia Culpa!!!!

I know I'm late to the party--- never-the-less...here's my 2-cents worth.

I added a page for Cream Legbars---because I kept going to the breeds section...and never finding Cream Legbars. WHAT???????? but there WAS information added by someone under Legbars. Probably that is the 'correct' approach, BUT for someone who goes to a page for information about a breed, and sorts alphabetically, finding a blank makes one think there is no information. the page I put in points to the other page, so that someone coming to the listing can be directed to the other page. (Like in book indexes sometime. abc - see xyz. sort of thing.0


The APA doesn't have Cream Legbars because they are imported and it will be years before the APA will recognize them...(if ever, I suppose)

Although it is fabulous/wonderful to have high standards, if I want information about chickens---this is the top source (yea BYC!). If I want to advise someone to get a gold sexlink -- and they want breed information--- it is missing because the hybrids are not a breed. yet, the information would be valuable there IMO.

So-- are the breed pages an online poultry show for the APA members? presenting only perfection or near perfection, OR is it an encyclopedic reference where people in the forum can find information about chickens of interest even if not recognized by APA and not even a BREED. :O)

I prefer the latter approach. Just wondering what the objectives are....and if there would be a way to satisfy the person new to chickens who has only the name to go by. I think that the standards of perfection are great, and I think a link to a club organization or particular breed page would be good...but I hate to see information omitted. Thanks!!!

 

[BYC Project Manager]

We've been putting some extensive time into preparing to update/improve the breeds section, with a lot of help from some highly knowledgeable members as well.

Our discussions led to the decision to *almost* completely update the breeds section, with completely separate pages for the different sizes in breeds. Take, for example, Cochins (because they're a cool breed and I can't think of another one at the moment). There are large fowl Cochins and bantam Cochins. They are the same breed but have very different specs, uses, housing requirements, etc. So to eliminate a bunch of mess in the breed descriptions, the consensus was separate them. We will have Cochin Large (or Cochin Large Fowl) and Cochin Bantam. Colors will be listed on each page as a "Variety" list.

Also we talked about adding the classes and dates the breeds/colors were accepted into the APA/ABA, and paraphrasing the Standards. (The SOP cannot be copied without consent.) "Class" will be added as a "detail" and the class names as "values." Dates each color was accepted will be included by the color in the variety list.

We want all breeds to have a page (or two), regardless if they're accepted by the APA/ABA or not. Pictures don't have to be birds that meet the SOP (though it would be nice to see examples that do). These pages are, as ChicKat said, supposed to be "an encyclopedic reference where people in the forum can find information about chickens of interest even if not recognized by APA and not even a BREED."

I think that about covers it... Basic game plan there.