I have also been trying to make popular pages more user friendly for people new to hurling. Generally this means linking simpler content, having some background text, and providing videos.

I also intend to expand to cover more topics. Things like kits, materials, more basic simplified tuning information, longer machine type descriptions. I might even make a section for sling shots, spoonapults, and other odd designs.

The blogs are being moved to forum topics where posts can be commented on and feeds can be generated.

Competitions

There is now a Competitions section of this site which will have information about the different competitions. The competitions have topics which generate feeds just like the blogs.

Machines

The machines pages have been moved from the machines section of the site to the device types, but a list of the machines is still available on the machines page.

2007

August

August 20, 2007: Machines and Pictures

Yesterday I added the machines section of this site. I think it will work really well. I added one machine and will continue to add more. I also made a flickr group for hosting images for us. It is great because with one line of text we can generate an image gallery with all the images with a certain tag. For examples see the Mini KA or the King Arthur page. I will do this for all the other types as pictures get uploaded into the flickr group.

August 19, 2007: New Organization and Improved Navigation

The entire site here has been completely reorganized. The structure is nor hierarchal through parent pages which automatically generate page lists and the site map in the navigation bar on the left and on the main page. Also check out the new glossary. It needs much more content, but should be really easy to extend.

August 18, 2007: Reorganization

Yesterday and today I reorganized all of the device type content. Here is a quote from message on the front page about it.

This site is undergoing a reorganization of information and pages. A good organizational method has been found; to see an unfinished example view the trebuchets page. Eventually all the device types will be organized that way. A page like that will also be added for general multi device things like tuning or arms. Device specific information on these subjects will be on the device's page which will link to the general page. The general page will also have a link to a list of devices with specific additional information for them by linking to the tag page for that topic or using back links. This system should allow for vast amounts of specific and general information to be available while keeping it simple to find what you need.

August 14, 2007: New Theme

I just finished getting a functional new theme done; it is light on dark which I prefer. Because it has some issues, I only applied it to personal pages. If all goes well it will likely be applied to the whole site.

August 13, 2007: More Content and Site Plans

I wrote the tuning information for King Arthurs on the tuning page and wrote and added the slings page. We seem to have quite a bit of content here. We might even develop some plans or construction tips for the different aspects of designs such as the slings page. Things like how to build torsion bundles and such. I also am planning on adding some information on KA triggers to the triggers page soon to stick to my goal of having answers to all people's general question on The hurl here; I might start adding information to this site and posting links to The Hurl rather than answering posts there in some cases. Still no new edits from anyone else. To cut down on the test I have to write I'm starting to refer readers to other sites whenever possible. When I have more time, or other people add some content these referrals will be changed to references and alternate sources; I would like to have this site be complete and not rely on other sites to fill gaps in its content partly because these other sites can not be updated by us like this wiki, and partly because it is easier on the readers, and multiple sources of information is always a good thing. Nothing major happening traffic wise on the site lately, just less page views per visit, but longer visits. It is probably because the pages actually have content that takes time to read now.

August 11, 2007: More Content

I think all of the pages have some content now, but there are still several empty sections. I just finished writing up most of the Arm Designs page which is looking quite good I think. Traffic has been growing consistently too. Lots of hits from Google searches (about 12 percent of total hits) which surprised me. Only 45% of visits have come directly from The Hurl, so I'm not just leaching off of it. Good to know, however one of my main motivations for creating this site was to have a location to direct people's questions too, and add answers to general case questions. 204 visits from 154 visitors so far. I hope this site has been useful for at least some of those people. As always more content would be better, and I will continue working on it. I'm still surprised and a bit disappointed that I'm the only one one working on the site, but that may change with time.

August 6, 2007: Content

I have been adding content frequently, and we now have quite a bit. I seem to be the only one working of this site, which is ok, but it will grow much faster with some help. The site has been getting decent traffic: 181 visits from 81 visitors. Not bad!
Probably the most complete and useful pages are:
Links
Tuning
Abbreviations
Site-Faq
Useful but quite incomplete:
bundles
Hurling-Devices

To get a list of pages that need content click the "under-construction" tag in the side nav bar.

There are also the personal pages, currently just this one, and my other blog about hurling rather than this site.

July

July 26, 2007: Activity

We have been getting some traffic on the site (quite a bit actually) but very few contributions. In face I have done well over 100 edits and updates (Well, half of those were just me figuring out what I was doing or fixing stupid typos), and other than mine there have been two, one fixing a typo and one improving the formatting on a page. I'm guessing the main reason for the lack of edits and such is because no one really wants to add content, or more likely editing the pages does not look easy. Editing and creating pages is really quite simple, but there are a few things to get used to, so feel free to play in the sandbox where you can freely mess with content to get used to it. Just press the little edit button in the bottom right. Also, all pages have every version changed so if something gets screwed up it is easy to fix so don't worry, just revert to previous version. If you can't get the formatting right it's fine. I will get it formatted all nice in a day or so.
Some activity stats: 35 visits from 18 people not counting me. Not bad, but we need more content. I'm not an expert on everything so I'm starting to run out of stuff to write.
I made several pages with an outline that just need the all or some of the content filled in. Just flip through the top part of the left hand site nav bar.
If you have any questions you can ask them on the forms.