The UPA Site

[Garden Peas]

@MinxFox , do you have any kind of update for us about the UPA forum?

I went to access some old information over there today, trying to see if I was remembering something correctly, and it's just gone. I searched a variety of ways and also checked the new web site and the public facebook page -- nothing.

I'm sad, because there was a lot of good information over there, some of which I would have made an effort to save, and there were posts and threads I had written that I never thought about the possibility of just vanishing.

Any idea what happened and if we will ever get it back? Thanks!

 

[Garden Peas]

And further venting about the UPA's "new and improved" website, what the dickens happened to the photo pages? There's like next-to-no photos now!

We had a lovely and fairly large image database... where did all those wonderful photos of the varieties go???

For crying out loud, what happened???

 

[new 2 pfowl]

I'm sure you know that the UPA website is a work in progress...
But in the meantime don't forget Our Very Own Fabulous Image Database!
http://peafowlimagedatabase.weebly.com/

*It now has a search function! Doesn't quite work correctly yet but will soon I hope!

 

[Garden Peas]

I'm sure you know that the UPA website is a work in progress...
But in the meantime don't forget Our Very Own Fabulous Image Database!
http://peafowlimagedatabase.weebly.com/

*It now has a search function! Doesn't quite work correctly yet but will soon I hope!

Thanks, new2, I'll go look over there.

I'm just pretty frustrated -- idk what happened, and don't have an inside scoop, and was missing for most of the last year. But I had been a dues paying member of UPA for several years before that and a regular contributor over there on the UPA forum. Never even got a dues notice when my dues ran out and membership lapsed. Had info I had posted on the forum that I would have downloaded and saved if I had known it was going to be taken down. Irritating to lose all my old contributions with no warning. Confounding to find all the old website database photo stuff just gone from the website. Where did all the old photos go? Where did all the forum information go?

I know @MinxFox is a dedicated pealoving young person who is trying hard, but I'm not sure whether she's getting help & support. Right now, my suspicion is that UPA isn't a work in progress, it's an organization in shambles, at least that's how it looks from this distance, without any more information to go on.

 

[MinxFox]

Sorry everyone I have been awfully overwhelmed lately with this semester of college wrapping up and I have a ton of crazy final projects to create such as an LED shirt whose lights are motion activated.

I hate giving the excuse that I have been busy though...

UPA Forum
The UPA forum was on a very old server. For years while the internet has been progressing and evolving what ran the forum has not been changing along with the internet. No one really was updating the technical side of the forum (from what I gather at least). So one day the forum became so outdated that it just stopped showing up. I don't think anyone really expected that to happen. I read the blank white screen of the forum that basically just said "Error...." and some other words/code I didn't understand, and I just guessed that maybe the forum got hacked or something went wrong. Just because I said that some people wanted to put me in charge of fixing the forum because I guess I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. In reality, I have no experience with the technical side of forums. Luckily when they found a new webmaster they gave him the job to fix the forum. His idea was to integrate the forum with the UPA website. I am not exactly sure how much he has done trying to fix the forum and update it. I am not even sure if that data is lost forever or if it is recoverable. We lost the forum basically because we probably did not have anyone with a tech background to keep it up to date.

Photo Pages
You are right the photo pages are missing. I thought what would happen is all of the old pages would be put onto this new site, but at the moment I do not see everything that the old site had. I also would like to see all of the old convention pages back as well. I really love looking at the old convention photos. One of the things I wanted to do is start trying to get more peafowl photos for those photo pages, but since they aren't up that is definitely a setback.

Quote from Garden Peas:
As far as not being notified when it was time to renew your membership, one of the now ex board members was slacking on sending out those notifications. We have since voted them off the board and we have two people working on Membership & General right now as a lot of things had been neglected in that area.

I will be honest it is EXTREMELY difficult sometimes working on the UPA stuff. Sometimes there are days I don't even want to bother with it because I get a feeling of being utterly overwhelmed by it all. The organization is slowly rising from the rubble that it had become. There was neglect in a lot of areas, and all of us are having a difficult time uncovering just how many areas that were neglected and need updating and overhauling, etc.

I am not saying it is overcoming the issues just to take a positive spin on it because I am a BOD now, but that is literally what I have learned since becoming a BOD member. The UPA is like a garden. At first when it was planted it was all nice and new and exciting, and then people started getting too lazy to weed the garden and it got overgrown with thorns and now we have to come in and weed out the bad plants from the good ones and get cut a little in the process so that one day, the good plants will bloom and be beautiful again and attract more people.

I hope this does not discourage anyone from the UPA. I have met so many wonderful people through the UPA and I have learned so much through it. I have also gotten some unique opportunities as well. We are working hard to improve it even if some areas look rough right now.

 

[Garden Peas]

Thanks @MinxFox , I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads BYC (and who ever read the UPA forum) knows what a dedicated, hard-working young person that you are.

It's hard to recover from years of neglect, and it's hard to keep organizations going with all volunteers over lots of years. Here's hoping the information can be recovered. Keep your eye on your schoolwork first -- don't try to fix what all the other folks leave to you, or all the work will flow in your direction. Your education comes first!

I do very much appreciate the update and information. Thank you!

 

[MinxFox]

Thanks Garden Peas I sent you a PM as well.

Thank you for sharing your concerns on the site (or the UPA in general) and please always feel free to do so. Your feedback as a member is the most important thing. When the magazine comes out I want everyone's feedback as well.

 

[casportpony]

Here is the UPA forum as it was in May of 2015.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150525051956/http://upaforum.com/

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Never mind, that doesn't work.

-Kathy

 

[Garden Peas]

Nice try @casportpony , that's an interesting link. I fiddled around with it for a few minutes over the weekend -- apparently there are some individual pages (conversations) saved, but only a fraction of the whole thing, and it's just hit-or-miss as to which ones.

When I have more time, I'll try to figure out what shows up.

Thanks for trying.