New MOC website – solicitation for comments

[gryphon]

Michigan Open Carry is planning on replacing our current website and forum with a new website.  Our current website and forum are pretty long-in-the-tooth.  Because they’ve been around so long parts of it also contain outdated information.  Rather than try to clean things up we will be replacing it with a new, more modern website with accurate, up-to-date information.

Our intent is to also keep the new website updated with new content including news, legislation, and MOC activities and events.  We recognize that there are many MOC members who do not use Facebook, and this will allow you to keep up with MOC without having to use that platform.

We are soliciting feedback from our members and users.  Feel free to reply here with your comments and thoughts as we go forward in the design and implementation of the new MOC website.  Timing is TBD, but we are currently in the early development stage.

All constructive comments and criticism are welcome.  Thanks for your continued support of Michigan Open Carry.  We’re trying to improve your user experience and make sure you get the information you need.

Dan Griffin
MOC Newsletter Editor

[LD]

Not being a facebook user, I WELCOME this change.

[MI_XD]

Could be great, as long as it is NOT the forum format that OCDO changed to. I have given up on even trying to read OR post to that site ever again.

[Super Trucker]

Hopefully the new site works with VPN's, this site has turned into a burden to try to post anymore. Every other forum has zero issues, but this one has the same lame error message.

Will the new site have basic info such as who is running in an election?

[michaelm_ski]

I like this so much better than facebook ! Keep up the great work with the improvements !!!!!

[gryphon]

I like this so much better than facebook ! Keep up the great work with the improvements !!!!!

The problem was that since most people migrated to facebook, all of our efforts did, too. We're trying to fix that.  We recognize there are many users who don't want to be forced to use facebook to keep up with MOC.

[gryphon]

Hopefully the new site works with VPN's, this site has turned into a burden to try to post anymore. Every other forum has zero issues, but this one has the same lame error message.

Hmmm, I never had a problem accessing this forum through a VPN, not sure why you are.  Has it always been this way or just since Jason changed everything to HTTPS a while back?

Will the new site have basic info such as who is running in an election?

I hope so!

[Pond Scum]

I prefer forums to Facebook.  I would hope we can get more traffic here if the change is made.  I seldom post to Facebook.... and I don't want an account in my name.     

[Neilmrb]

Never use facebook or any other social media. But this a challenge to use but that's why we have a website for all the goings on.

[Super Trucker]

Hmmm, I never had a problem accessing this forum through a VPN, not sure why you are.  Has it always been this way or just since Jason changed everything to HTTPS a while back?

Its only been recent, I forgot about him changing to https, but yes problem started about that time.
I can log in a read the forum, just can't post. The screen shot above is what I get when trying to post.

[gryphon]

I've notified our IT department, but have you ever emailed it@miopencarry.org with this issue?  Since we will be leaving this platform I don't know that they'll do any investigating now, though.

Dan

[IdaBoy]

I also prefer forums to Facebook. You can research better on a forum where on Facebook you can find much unless it is a recent posting. Nice!

[autosurgeon]

So to clarify we are not going to keep a forum like this with tons of sections. What we are doing is building a wordpress based webpage with all the legal information and FAQ in one place. Discussion will be limited to a potential question and answer section ( at this point we are deciding which plugin to use) . Comments on individual articles is not planned as that results in crappy information that is out of our control and requires moderation. Moderating facebook takes enough time from our board members and other assigned moderators as it has almost 10000 users. like it or not social media has taken the place that forums used to fill. 

The reasons we are planning to deprecate the forum is based around the fact it has tons of out of date information and the low usage. We as a volunteer org have limited human resources and in order to continue must allocate those resources where most of our members are located and where new members come from.

As someone who has been involved since the beginning of MOC it is sad to see the forum go in one sense but all good things must come to an end when they no longer are viable and forums across all sectors have been dying for some time. I get it that some of you don't like social media and why. However having old and outdated information just sitting here  is also dangerous. People can find a thread or comment in a google search and not see that the info is out of date and when things don't go so well our name gets attached to that out of date information.


In regards to the VPN issue that is out of our control and likely a problem with the specific VPN or its settings. I use a VPN through Cloudflare from my phone and laptop and home PC with no issues.

Finally as an alternative to facebook and this forum that is going away we do have a MeWe group that we made as a backup when facebook started down the antigun road awhile back in case they booted us. We are planning to start posting in it again and would love help with maintaining it. See link to sign up and join the group. https://mewe.com/group/56af8659e4b053de9d0a7dc7

About MeWe https://mewe.com/faq

[autosurgeon]

Another Link to Our MeWe group https://mewe.com/join/michigan_open_carry

[hevymetal]

Happy to hear we are getting an update. If there is anything you might need help with just let me know. I'm an old man in the IT industry.

[Super Trucker]

So to clarify we are not going to keep a forum like this with tons of sections. What we are doing is building a wordpress based webpage with all the legal information and FAQ in one place. Discussion will be limited to a potential question and answer section ( at this point we are deciding which plugin to use) . Comments on individual articles is not planned as that results in crappy information that is out of our control and requires moderation. Moderating facebook takes enough time from our board members and other assigned moderators as it has almost 10000 users. like it or not social media has taken the place that forums used to fill. 

The reasons we are planning to deprecate the forum is based around the fact it has tons of out of date information and the low usage. We as a volunteer org have limited human resources and in order to continue must allocate those resources where most of our members are located and where new members come from.

As someone who has been involved since the beginning of MOC it is sad to see the forum go in one sense but all good things must come to an end when they no longer are viable and forums across all sectors have been dying for some time. I get it that some of you don't like social media and why. However having old and outdated information just sitting here  is also dangerous. People can find a thread or comment in a google search and not see that the info is out of date and when things don't go so well our name gets attached to that out of date information.


In regards to the VPN issue that is out of our control and likely a problem with the specific VPN or its settings. I use a VPN through Cloudflare from my phone and laptop and home PC with no issues.

Finally as an alternative to facebook and this forum that is going away we do have a MeWe group that we made as a backup when facebook started down the antigun road awhile back in case they booted us. We are planning to start posting in it again and would love help with maintaining it. See link to sign up and join the group. https://mewe.com/group/56af8659e4b053de9d0a7dc7

About MeWe https://mewe.com/faq

I have been a paid member since 2010, after reading this I believe that will change at the end of this cycle. If it were not for "gryphon" being so helpful here on the forum I most likely would have stopped a few years ago like most everybody else I know.
After all the disappointment in last few years like not knowing who is running in an election, I now see it is because the board is busy catering to 9550 SQUATTERS (read as NON MEMBERS) on bookface and couldn't care anyless about the members that do not use that platform. Of the 450ish paid members, I guarantee not all of them use bookface, you saying that they are not worth the time to keep updated puts things into perspective for me. Thank you for that!

Also the VPN I have used for 2 years now has no issues on any other forums or web pages I frequent, funny how it only malfunctions on one site.

[MI_XD]

I have been a paid member since 2010, after reading this I believe that will change at the end of this cycle. If it were not for "gryphon" being so helpful here on the forum I most likely would have stopped a few years ago like most everybody else I know.
After all the disappointment in last few years like not knowing who is running in an election, I now see it is because the board is busy catering to 9550 SQUATTERS (read as NON MEMBERS) on bookface and couldn't care anyless about the members that do not use that platform. Of the 450ish paid members, I guarantee not all of them use bookface, you saying that they are not worth the time to keep updated puts things into perspective for me. Thank you for that!

Thank you for stating what I was also thinking, and posting it before I had the chance. I have been a paying member for a similar amount of time, have travelled to Lansing for several 2nd Amendment Marches and also to some MOC seminars in the area.
And I too am NOT a FacePalm user.

I just gave a farewell to one of the other forums that brought me knowledge, as this one has. OCDO.org has changed their software to something that has no rhyme nor reason to it's layout, and I have not been able to find nor read the threads that I was familiar with. Sounds like another Farewell will be in order if this group feels it needs to forget about it's members.

[JSteinmetz]

I feel the need to chime in here - I've been part of MOC since nearly it's inception. While I have a tendency to lurk in the background most of the time, I do keep current on the goings on. I assist with the IT work (through three different IT directors, to date), and the goal here is not to alienate anyone. I refuse to use Facebook myself - I can't stand the format nor the inordinate amount of time most people seem to spend on it. The goal with the new website design is to gather all of the information that is spread out currently (between FB, the web site, emails, forum, etc), and put it all into one organised area. I am an avid forum user myself under most circumstances, but when looking at the amount of traffic our forum had 10 years ago versus the _maybe_ one question per month that gets asked, it really does not make sense to keep the forums up and running. The majority of the postings on the forum in the past few years are by gryphon (or are responses to his post), and contain the same information as the newsletter or other emails provided each month. With the new website format, the goal is to provide the same information but all in one centralised location - making it much easier to locate and reference the correct/current information you are looking for.

We are currently looking at options for a Q&A sort of thing, but that isn't set up yet. We do not want to leave comments sections open on all posts on the new page, or we will end up with more moderation (false information, spam, armchair quarterbacks, anti-gunners, etc).

The whole point of gryphon's original post here was to ask for questions/comments/constructive criticism. The board is generally concerned with trying to keep all members in the loop (again, I am not part of the board, but attend as many of the online meetings as I can - once a month for an hour or less isn't really that bad), but there are other ways to do so without keeping a depreciated forum running.

If anyone has comments or questions, I will try to check this board daily (as I used to years ago), and will respond as I can. Gryphon does a hell of a job with the newsletter, and despite my not using FB, the information can all be found in other manners, so I really do not have a problem archiving the forums.

[JSteinmetz]

Hopefully the new site works with VPN's, this site has turned into a burden to try to post anymore. Every other forum has zero issues, but this one has the same lame error message.

Will the new site have basic info such as who is running in an election?

The VPN issue is interesting also - it has to do with improperly formed https requests through the VPN service. I also have an IP Vanish account set up, and I tried it this morning and it works fine for me. It would be something you could contact them about directly - possibly something wrong with the client set up on your computer? I run Linux, and don't use their client, so I don't really have a way to test that, unfortunately.

[Super Trucker]

The VPN issue is interesting also - it has to do with improperly formed https requests through the VPN service. I also have an IP Vanish account set up, and I tried it this morning and it works fine for me. It would be something you could contact them about directly - possibly something wrong with the client set up on your computer? I run Linux, and don't use their client, so I don't really have a way to test that, unfortunately.

As I said in another post, it is funny that 2 windows 10 computers and one Galaxy S8 all using that VPN do not work on this one forum, but work every place else. Tapatalk worked fine, but nope that disappeared as well. Post from an android phone now with the vpn app off, because it won't work with it on. I don't change the settings on the vpn, they are whatever they were when I started using it 2 years ago. It used to work here, but doesn't now. I promise you I did not change anything on three different devices.

Why contact the VPN if the forum is going away?
That would be like wasting years trying to get the MOC board to have meetings on weekends so I could attend them (I rescheduled deliveries twice while scott webb was president to try to attend a meeting and both times the meeting were cancelled, so it came to a why bother situation). I am not going to lose money for something that seems as though my input doesn't matter.

Not everybody sits at home with all sorts of free time on a week day evening, many truck drivers are waiting to make deliveries of everything people own, some of those deliveries are in areas where cell service is bad, which I have said since they started the online meetings. I gave up because obviously nobody cared, it was a majority were happy situation and I was the minority.

After last years election candidates being top secret, I got a little mad, now that I see a BoD member post that they are to busy moderating a worthless service for non paying members, to post any information here for actual membership.
That speaks loudly to me about priorities!

[JSteinmetz]

Well, I apologise for trying to suggest things to help with the VPN issue. Forums are commonly used with two or three underlying software packages, and I had assumed MOC was not the only forum you were having problems with. My intent was simply to provide a suggestion to help take care of a problem.

I also have problems attending all the meetings. I have three kids, and weekday evenings are extremely hectic for me. It is not uncommon for me to miss several meetings in a row during the school year. (It gets much easier for me once school is out and there is less going on.) I do still attempt to make as many as I can - even if I can only attend for half of the meeting, it is still my way of connecting.

I joined MOC and became a paying member because I believed in the organization. I did not join expecting to get something out of paying my dues, but realized that the membership fees go towards the operating costs of MOC. and that the intended purpose of MOC was not only to keep our rights protected, but also to introduce the information to new people - both law enforcement and citizens. The citizens have en masse moved over to social media. Therefore, MOC needed to follow suit and do the same. While it takes me a little bit more time to find out what is going on now, I do understand the need for MOC to do so. The ideas being pushed forward currently about the new web site are intended to provide the correct information in a more manageable manner. Again, no one is trying to slight the paying members, but MOC needs to be able to grow and reach new people as well. You have been here long enough to see the good MOC has done, and how much attention is being paid to us now versus when this whole thing started not that long ago.

I realize you are upset, and I hope you understand that these posts were not intended to 'fan the flames', but to explain my personal viewpoint on all this as well as the actions of the board. This was no easy decision for them to make - the discussion about it lasted about 45 mins or so during the meeting, and there was a several day email chain afterwards making sure that everyone was on the same page.  The reason this thread was started was to get opinions from the membership (paid members of course), keep them informed, and see if anyone suggested a different/better way to handle the problem.

[gryphon]

SuperTrucker, you probably know that TeamSpeak is available in an Android app as well if that would help you listen to/attend the Thursday meetings, but that doesn't help you when you are in areas of poor cell service as you said you sometimes are.  The new newsletter, the current one we started in 2016, is an effort to get all the BoD meeting info to the members who cannot (or otherwise do not) attend.  Out of 444 members, only maybe ten to twelve ever attend the meetings.

[Super Trucker]

Well, I apologise for trying to suggest things to help with the VPN issue. Forums are commonly used with two or three underlying software packages, and I had assumed MOC was not the only forum you were having problems with. My intent was simply to provide a suggestion to help take care of a problem.

I also have problems attending all the meetings. I have three kids, and weekday evenings are extremely hectic for me. It is not uncommon for me to miss several meetings in a row during the school year. (It gets much easier for me once school is out and there is less going on.) I do still attempt to make as many as I can - even if I can only attend for half of the meeting, it is still my way of connecting.

I joined MOC and became a paying member because I believed in the organization. I did not join expecting to get something out of paying my dues, but realized that the membership fees go towards the operating costs of MOC. and that the intended purpose of MOC was not only to keep our rights protected, but also to introduce the information to new people - both law enforcement and citizens. The citizens have en masse moved over to social media. Therefore, MOC needed to follow suit and do the same. While it takes me a little bit more time to find out what is going on now, I do understand the need for MOC to do so. The ideas being pushed forward currently about the new web site are intended to provide the correct information in a more manageable manner. Again, no one is trying to slight the paying members, but MOC needs to be able to grow and reach new people as well. You have been here long enough to see the good MOC has done, and how much attention is being paid to us now versus when this whole thing started not that long ago.

I realize you are upset, and I hope you understand that these posts were not intended to 'fan the flames', but to explain my personal viewpoint on all this as well as the actions of the board. This was no easy decision for them to make - the discussion about it lasted about 45 mins or so during the meeting, and there was a several day email chain afterwards making sure that everyone was on the same page.  The reason this thread was started was to get opinions from the membership (paid members of course), keep them informed, and see if anyone suggested a different/better way to handle the problem.

Not need to apologize, you said it was my computer, even though I had already said in this thread that I highly doubt it was, a BoD member also said the same thing. That is only one minor thing I am disgusted about.

I like you joined back when there were problems and many of us made an effort to help, I was at the Taylor city council meeting with 20+ other members until damn near midnight trying to get their cops to pull their heads from their collective butts, have spent a couple weekends at cabelas working tables on the nra weekend etc, that is what I feel being a member is about. 

To be a member you should believe in and be proud to be part of a group, at this point I am not. 

As to the world going to social media, look at the membership numbers since the BoD went dark here, not much change.
Jan 2017 - 415 / Jan 2019 - 444.
I personally know at least a dozen that have left without saying anything, because as you can see, when you do say something it goes absolutely nowhere.
If members don't matter, why have an organization?

I am really not trying to fight with you, just pointing out flaws in the current thinking of the organization. I am done discussing this as it obviously is not accomplishing anything, the BoD have decided what they want and we are not part of that decision.

[Super Trucker]

SuperTrucker, you probably know that TeamSpeak is available in an Android app as well if that would help you listen to/attend the Thursday meetings, but that doesn't help you when you are in areas of poor cell service as you said you sometimes are.  The new newsletter, the current one we started in 2016, is an effort to get all the BoD meeting info to the members who cannot (or otherwise do not) attend.  Out of 444 members, only maybe ten to twelve ever attend the meetings.

Thanks gryphon, as mentioned I gave up on the meetings years ago after being told most people were happy with how they were being done. Weekdays at bed time are difficult for many people to attend a meeting.

[JSteinmetz]

I do understand your concerns/reservations. Unfortunately, like you implied, it seems like less and less members want to take an active role, and would like more to sit on the sidelines.

Let me ask you this - what suggestions do you have for the current forum? (Keeping in mind the problems with lack of usage and outdated information.) What would the benefits be of keeping the forum active versus having the same (but updated) information easily available on a web page?

Nothing has been done that can not be undone, and the BoD would not have a problem listening to suggestions, I am sure. That was the point of this thread in the first place.

If you prefer to have this conversation in private, pm me your current email address, and we can do it that way.

[smellslikemichigan]

will the new website have a streamlined way to integrate posts shared on social media? i saw that MOC is running a membership renewal sale on facebook but don't see any mention of that on this platform.

[CitizensHaveRights]

I saw in an email from MOC that memberships were half off on 2A March day (Sept 10), so I re-upped at the tent on the Capitol lawn.

I did not know that one year memberships would be $1 individual and $2 family.
There were lots of dollar bills flying in the cashbox at the MOC tables.
I'd hope it put us over 500 members, looked like there were 300-400 people at the March and there's not much excuse to not be a member for a dollar.
Too bad it only looked like 100-150 actually marched.

[gryphon]

will the new website have a streamlined way to integrate posts shared on social media? i saw that MOC is running a membership renewal sale on facebook but don't see any mention of that on this platform.

The new website is under construction.  I don't know if it will contain RSS feeds or not.  I will ask at the next monthly BoD meeting.  You are welcome to attend.  You should be receiving an email notice every month.  If you are not, let me know.  Sometimes we have an incorrect email address.  Sometimes it's just a typo.

Thank you for bringing this up.

[gryphon]

I saw in an email from MOC that memberships were half off on 2A March day (Sept 10), so I re-upped at the tent on the Capitol lawn.

I did not know that one year memberships would be $1 individual and $2 family.
There were lots of dollar bills flying in the cashbox at the MOC tables.
I'd hope it put us over 500 members, looked like there were 300-400 people at the March and there's not much excuse to not be a member for a dollar.
Too bad it only looked like 100-150 actually marched.

I was out of town on vacation this year so did not attend the 2A March.  I hope it went well.  My wife told me that a big rainstorm came in half-way through.

Memberships had a big discount at the march, for sure! 

[Norm]

Will we have to sign up all over again?

[gryphon]

I think so.  Looks like the new site is still a ways off.