The NEW Scream And Fly Site Is Coming Soon!

[Scream And Fly]

Scream And Fly's Future Site Roadmap

Hi All,

I thought it would be a good time to just mention some things about the future of the Scream And Fly site.

Over the years, this site has undergone many changes. We were one of the very first sites to use the VBulletin forum software system - way back when it was in its beta form in 2001. We've been on VBulletin ever since, in different forms.

Currently the Scream And Fly site runs on a very highly-modified version of VBulletin. As you've seen, there has been a steady stream of updates to the S&F site as well as a refresh and modernization of the overall look of the site back in April. I did not want to make any drastic changes when we updated the site's overall theme; I wanted to keep the site's personality intact while correcting layout bugs and smoothing out older graphics. More updates are on the way for this site, however I am also planning on a wider scope for Scream And Fly's website design. No matter how much you modify some things, fundamentally, there is only so much you can do. However, no matter what we do, the overall layout and basic functionality of the forums and how they function will never change.

In May, we built an entirely new server for Scream And Fly at tremendous cost, however the benefits of which are obvious. This was our first (and most important) step for the future version of the Scream And Fly websites. The current Scream And Fly server, quite literally screams. It's a cutting-edge server with a full solid-state RAID array and naturally running the very latest versions of PHP and MySQL.

With this being said, the future roadmap for the Scream And Fly site is as follows:

1. Much improved home page that is easier to navigate, especially on mobile devices of all sizes.
2. Responsive design for all graphics and the layout.
3. Very important: high integration with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms - all configurable by each member.
4. Much easier system of attaching images to posts from any device - computer or mobile. Also batch-uploading of many photos at once.
5. Features to make it easier for members to publish feature articles and reviews, if they choose to.
6. Far greater enhanced classifieds section, while retaining the forums-based system.
7. Optional and completely free cloud file hosting system for all members and accompanying mobile app.
8. Replace the current photo gallery with a much more modern and faster system.
9. Faster performance on any device.
10. Ability of users to customize the site in many ways, according to their preferences, if desired.

It's important to emphasize that I will never change the basic layout of the forums. People have become used to this layout and I would not make any drastic changes to the site that would leave people feeling they're in an unfamiliar place.

I have already begun to lay down the groundwork for creating a Scream And Fly development site on our server, which will basically be the new S&F site in beta form. That will essentially be a working development and testing model of the new site, however it will not be live. As progress is made, I may ask some of you (completely at your discretion) if you would like to help to test the new site and provide feedback to help in its development.

Right now, the new site is at least a year off. I will continue development of the current S&F site in parallel, and there will not be any unfamiliar or sudden changes to anything.

I also want to stress my gratitude to all of the support you have given me and Scream And Fly, which of course makes this entirely possible. 100% of Team Member and Supporting Vendor revenue goes directly to the development and maintenance of Scream And Fly. I am very thankful for all of your support as we approach our 20th anniversary.

Thank you all,
Greg

[Dave Strong]

Thanks for all your hard work Greg. :thumbsup:

Dave :)

[FlowMaxx]

Nice work Greg. Looking forward to the new enhancements. :cheers:

[Glasstream15]

Thank you for all you do for all of us. We appreciate it every day.

[Dirk Pitt]

wow 20 years !!!!!!!

[Bodhi]

I wouldn't even use the Internet if not for this site....thanks for all you do greg

[Frank Molé]

lots of work but well wort it,thanks greg its great here..................... :thumbsup:

[Scream And Fly]

Thank you so much everybody. At the risk of sounding sentimental, I am really touched by the support you've all given me over these years. It is entirely what motivates me to always do my very best to keep Scream And Fly an entertaining as well as informative resource.

Scream And Fly began in 1998, and I can't believe we are approaching 20 years.

The landscape of how we all share photos and information has changed quite dramatically since we began, and it is my goal to keep the S&F website up to date with those new standards, while retaining the basic elements of this site that members have always been accustomed to.

One thing has always been my rule since the very beginning - I would never make changes to the site without seeking your opinions first. I've always run the site this way, and always will. Everything I've ever accomplished here has always been driven by the feedback all of you give me. That has never changed.

Many of you take a lot of your personal time to post photos and information solely to help the community here, and that also motivates me to work as hard as I can on S&F. In a way I feel as if you all made an investment in me - both in time, and many of you in money as well - and it is my obligation to do my part to provide a return on that investment. You've all given to this site in so many ways, and when I think of all of the photos and information packed into this site, it blows me away. Many years from now, we will look on these posts and photos with great fondness. I'm very grateful to be a part of it.

Thank you everybody!
Greg


Scream And Fly, 2001:

347813 @jerry (http://www.screamandfly.com/member.php?u=2985)
Progression 24LD used for this article

[olboatman]

I also have to say that if it wasn't for S&F I would not be on the net (or computer for that fact either) every day as I do now. Hell I would still be typing with 1 finger!!!! Thanks again Greg for all your work and speaking for the membership you definately get an "atta boy". Gary

[mr fun]

Dittos on all the excellent work Greg! on that home page in post #8 that Allison in the top left looks like Dockboy ? is it ?

[Scream And Fly]

Thank you so much everybody. I really am so thankful to have all of you as a part of Scream And Fly. All changes to the site have always been guided by your input and feedback, and that will never change. As the new site begins to take shape, I will again give your all the opportunity to help guide its design, so it will ultimately be as good as it can be! The basic framework for the new site is taking shape now, and I will continue to post updates on progress.

Thank you everybody!
Greg

[Baja170]

Good luck making it all happen Greg. That list is mind boggling for me because I know exactly what it takes to accomplish and the expense involved. Good for you man. Looking better all the time, keep up the great work.

That list is the main reason I sold HeliFreak. To much confusion and instability in the heli market due to the separation of pod and boom and "drones" to sink the kind of money it would take to update like you are and way more stress than anyone but you and a few other site owners can imagine.

[dagodiver]

Awesome and thanks.!!!
Has to be a crazy amount of work.

Dago.

[NICE PAIR]

Thank you so much everybody. I really am so thankful to have all of you as a part of Scream And Fly. All changes to the site have always been guided by your input and feedback, and that will never change. As the new site begins to take shape, I will again give your all the opportunity to help guide its design, so it will ultimately be as good as it can be! The basic framework for the new site is taking shape now, and I will continue to post updates on progress.

Thank you everybody!
Greg



347950"Thank-you"

[ghost28]

Omg i remember the 2001 version like it was yesterday....Crazy.....Keep up the hard work Greg....Cant wait to see the updates as they roll out....

[tux974]

Time flys when you are having fun! Great job keeping up with the times like usual!....:thumbsup:

[Scream And Fly]

Good luck making it all happen Greg. That list is mind boggling for me because I know exactly what it takes to accomplish and the expense involved. Good for you man. Looking better all the time, keep up the great work.


That list is the main reason I sold HeliFreak. To much confusion and instability in the heli market due to the separation of pod and boom and "drones" to sink the kind of money it would take to update like you are and way more stress than anyone but you and a few other site owners can imagine.


Thank you so much Will. Heli-Freak is a stellar site by any metric, and your words of encouragement and appreciation really mean a lot. Indeed, it's extremely expensive and stressful as you very well know. A lot has changed in the landscape of social media in the last ten years, and I've made every effort to adapt Scream And Fly accordingly. Nowadays, many people want their 'likes', although I feel we are also heading into 'social media overload' with so many platforms. I definitely have to adapt, and S&F's traffic is exceptional, however the message board platforms have, in large part, not kept up with expectations that people place on social websites. Uploading images on message boards is still a burdensome process on phones, and although I've made many modifications to the S&F site to streamline its interface, it is just not going to have the adaptation potential to meet the demands of the future. Our home page CMS is the other half, and I have a development site set up and running to explore my options with our future home page and its integration with the new S&F message board. I've never been pleased with the current CMS and it took us a very long time to get it running smoothly. It's not modern enough and just not streamlined. The new home page will have to be on an entirely new platform.

I will definitely keep you up to date on everything. You've created the very best RC helicopter website there is, which I still visit every day. I completely understand your feelings in regards to multicopters. I've never really been a fan of drones, aside from their use as a photo and video platform. I fly my helis whenever I can though.

Thank you everybody, for your tremendous support. I say this over and over and I will repeat it again: none of it would be possible without our Supporting Vendors, Supporting Members, and Team Members. None of it at all. I cannot stress enough how important Team Membership is to this site, especially now.

Thank you everybody,
Greg

[Baja170]

Jimmy Knowles pointed me to your reply, I had not noticed it. Jimmy is one of my boating mentors and I never would have met him without your site. Thank you.

What you are saying is exactly what I was deliberating with HeliFreak. It is so hard to make a piece of software do what it is not designed to do. I was facing the same dilemmas you are. The school of hard knocks and bad experience pouring good money after bad has taught you well. vB cannot do what you need and you ARE going to have to go to software designed for what you want. I agree 100% about social media overload and feel the same way you do. I think you are very well in the position to make better decisions than I did at this point. When you sell a site and owe your programmers 50K that is a clear sign that trying to make software do what it is not designed for and being forced to scale to your traffic load and have room for growth I made some poor decisions and wasted a lot of money. I am glad you are ahead of me, I really do enjoy the site and I have made a lot of friends that have proven time and again to be invaluable to me. Like I said, people have no idea. I have no idea how you have time to do so much photography, my site consumed me 7 days a week for at least the last 10 years. I had to be in a field at an event with no cell service to ever get away and even then, there were always things to do. Just think, how many of you members can clearly identify what your product is and who your customers are? Probably less than you would think. It is not easy and it is comforting to be a member here and know the delicate balance you have to achieve between your customers and your product to actually make it worth your time and keep up with people's expectations. The fact that you can never please everyone makes it even harder and more stressful. I have no idea how you do it but I can tell you that you are doing better than I did and I am very happy for you. The fact that you have time to fly is a testament to how much ahead of me that you are. Good for you!!


If I can help in any way please let me know. Thanks again for the great site!!

Thanks Jimmy for pointing me to Greg's reply. I have a hard time finding things on my phone without my reading glasses sometimes.

[JamesGang]

Hey Greg,
I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done for all of us who frequent your site. I noticed last night my team membership had expired so I re uped it to be what little help I could to you. A number of years ago when a friend of mine, Bob "Big Johnson" told me about this site, I was immediately hooked. At that point it was just about the boats. Soon came the attendance of an event and as Will stated, then the new friendships started. This site suddenly made our boating world small and brought many with similar interests together in a way that's not valuable, its priceless. Can't thank you enough. Keep up the great work.
Jim

[Scream And Fly]

Jimmy Knowles pointed me to your reply, I had not noticed it. Jimmy is one of my boating mentors and I never would have met him without your site. Thank you.

What you are saying is exactly what I was deliberating with HeliFreak. It is so hard to make a piece of software do what it is not designed to do. I was facing the same dilemmas you are. The school of hard knocks and bad experience pouring good money after bad has taught you well. vB cannot do what you need and you ARE going to have to go to software designed for what you want. I agree 100% about social media overload and feel the same way you do. I think you are very well in the position to make better decisions than I did at this point. When you sell a site and owe your programmers 50K that is a clear sign that trying to make software do what it is not designed for and being forced to scale to your traffic load and have room for growth I made some poor decisions and wasted a lot of money. I am glad you are ahead of me, I really do enjoy the site and I have made a lot of friends that have proven time and again to be invaluable to me. Like I said, people have no idea. I have no idea how you have time to do so much photography, my site consumed me 7 days a week for at least the last 10 years. I had to be in a field at an event with no cell service to ever get away and even then, there were always things to do. Just think, how many of you members can clearly identify what your product is and who your customers are? Probably less than you would think. It is not easy and it is comforting to be a member here and know the delicate balance you have to achieve between your customers and your product to actually make it worth your time and keep up with people's expectations. The fact that you can never please everyone makes it even harder and more stressful. I have no idea how you do it but I can tell you that you are doing better than I did and I am very happy for you. The fact that you have time to fly is a testament to how much ahead of me that you are. Good for you!!


If I can help in any way please let me know. Thanks again for the great site!!

Thanks Jimmy for pointing me to Greg's reply. I have a hard time finding things on my phone without my reading glasses sometimes.

Thank you so much Will. Reading your reply definitely reassured me about not being alone. It's very tough as you know. Heli-Freak (http://www.helifreak.com/) is a massive site, and I fully feel what you must have dealt with. It's a spectacular achievement though, and your effort really shows. I visit it every day. It's the best.

You might recall that many years ago, Scream And Fly's home page was a separate affair. Back around 2007 I began to explore options to integrate the home page with the forums, but that is where I began to encounter the major nightmares. The original plan was to use a highly-modified Wordpress-based site, then custom code the bridge to VBulletin. But that in itself was a hugely expensive proposition and it also presented many potential issues down the road with security and committing to such a complicated marriage of platforms. We even went so far as to have the Scream And Fly Wordpress-based site finished, which cost us over $5000 for the custom theme. Then, VBulletin released its beta for VBulletin 4 Publishing Suite. That combined the CMS with the VBulletin forums software, and it held a lot of promise. That is what made us change course, and I decided we would use the VBulletin CMS Publishing Suite as our base platform.

Well, as you and many people know, the VB CMS never materialized even close to what many people hoped for in terms of its reliability and overall level of polish in the interface. But once we committed to that platform, too much money had already been spent and we had to move forward with it. It took several years to get the CMS working well enough to use, which is why to this day so many of our old articles were never ported over to it. Then, a year after we committed to VBulletin 4, suddenly VBulletin 5 Connect is introduced, and that alienated many users. So we were suddenly on an outdated platform and VBulletin was labeling it as "End Of Life". That move caused a big shakeup among many of the owners of large message forums, and of course played a role in the development of Xenforo (which was a split of old VBulletin devs). Interestingly, most of the Internet-Brands (who owns VBulletin now) sites are based on VBulletin 3. So it's odd that they're pushing VBulletin 5 when their own sites are running VB 3. It makes me really wonder. Quite honestly, I've often felt that Scream And Fly's forums were at their very best when we were running VB3. VB3 is very fast and certainly much, much less buggy than VB4.

We've taken VBulletin 4 platform pretty far, and I also have a lot more changes and updates for it in our pipeline, but in parallel the big plans are for the next Scream And Fly platform, and that will be extremely expensive. I have fully resigned myself to the fact that I will likely be selling my boat to offset the development costs. Many people really have no idea how expensive it is to run a site this large, but I wouldn't expect them to unless they did it, as you have. There is really no way for most people to know what's involved unless they themselves were doing it. I know you certainly understand, and I am so thankful that you have given us so much support.

This is why I have to repeat over and over how grateful I am to our Team Members, Supporting Members, and Supporting Vendors. There is no way this site would exist without them. No way at all. Not even for a month. The costs involved in just keeping our data lines are extraordinary. I think it would shock most people. I know you wouldn't be shocked though :)

I would like to actually contact you with some of my ideas on the plans we're making.


Hey Greg,
I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done for all of us who frequent your site. I noticed last night my team membership had expired so I re uped it to be what little help I could to you. A number of years ago when a friend of mine, Bob "Big Johnson" told me about this site, I was immediately hooked. At that point it was just about the boats. Soon came the attendance of an event and as Will stated, then the new friendships started. This site suddenly made our boating world small and brought many with similar interests together in a way that's not valuable, its priceless. Can't thank you enough. Keep up the great work.
Jim

Thank you so much Jim. I really appreciate that very much! I am always here if you or anybody has suggestions or if you need help with anything.

Greg

[Baja170]

I was still running vB 3.x.x super highly modified when I sold. I know exactly what you are saying, we tried vB 4 and it just never worked out. Keeping vB 3.x.x security patched was a nightmare in itself. When it cost thousands to manually very tediously apply what for stock sites takes 4 minutes and the running of an automated patch, you know you are way past the point of diminishing returns. Things got so complex that there was no way I could do it myself anymore because when you break the site to patch a hole that automated scripts that the script kiddies can readily exploit you know you are in over your head. (To the non programmer, crappy hackers that just download scripts that all they have to do is run them and type in www.sitename.com (http://www.sitename.com) as a target. AKA, NOT a real hacker or even a programmer, just a punks that is trying to prove he/she is L33t.) vB 3.x.x is not nearly as fast as you think. I am not even sure what it is running on now as I believe the RCG guys run a highly modified version of 4.x but not 100% sure. I still have vB 4/5 licenses for 3 other domains but I never plan to run the software again after the rollercoaster it has been. If every security upgrade does not cost you thousands now and you can still do it yourself you are way ahead of me complexity wise. I stopped working on my own site back in 2007 and had paid programmers working on it until I sold.

Sure, I'll PM you my phone number and would be a lot happier to talk to you confidentially now that I am not embroiled in the struggle to keep my site going anymore. Before I sold, that would have been the last thing I wanted to talk about with the owner of a cool performance boat site. ;) It would be fun to talk to someone who is doing a lot better job than I did and I would be happy to detail to you the biggest mistakes I made that compounded the costs a good bit and my stress exponentially over the years.

I definitely know what I would not do again. Sad thing is the HF programmers were working on a completely custom coded mobile version of the site (style) that is client platform independent and it looks like the buyers chose not to do anything with it at least so far. It looked very cool and was very fast. They were working on adding ads and upload functionality the rest was done and I was really excited about it. (No admin or moderation) We were also going to migrate to a lot faster more secure WWW daemon I can't remember which one to keep things fast. The RCG guys employ full time programmers on their staff and I am very surprised how fast the site is under their watch, they do an EXCELLENT job. I am sure when they bought the site their programmers had something to prove and they delivered 110%, they definitely rock with vB and mySQL. The owner does not like me at all but they if they would talk about it which I doubt they will to anyone, they would be the best people on earth to talk to. Good luck with that.

The whole thing is like when you take your boat to the ramp and short out your battery trying to help someone at the ramp every time you try to take out your boat for say, a year or two or more and never get your boat in the water, for those who are not programmers. You always get the guys you help going but at your own personal sacrifice of doing yourself in each time you try to go out. Well not quite that bad but I definitely know where the sayings "one step forward, two steps back" and "wisdom" or "good experience is learned from "bad experience" or "bad decisions" "unwise decisions" etc came from.

You have a PM Greg.

[Scream And Fly]

Thank again for your help and insight Will. I really consider it an honor to have you here. When you first mentioned that you were the creator of HeliFreak (http://www.helifreak.com/), I couldn't believe it. You will easily see a "Scream And Fly" registered there.

One of the main requirements for the new Scream And Fly site is increased interactivity with the members. For example, we will have a section on the home page for articles by site members. If any member has an idea for an article that might be a product review, event coverage, or historical experiences, they would be able to submit it for editing, and it will be published on the home page. RCG does something very similar to this.

We are also adding a buyer and seller rating system. This is long overdue. There will also be measures to prevent it being abused in any way. Only buyers and sellers directly involved in any transaction will be able to leave and receive feedback. I will only implement this once I am 100% pleased that there is an absolute minimum of potential for abuse.

The sections on the new home page will be as follows:



Features
Event Coverage
Feature Boats - articles about member's boats (remember the "Flying Machine of the Month"? Similar to that, but much more comprehensive
Evaluations
Speed 101 (a return of this section from many years back, for basic performance tech articles)
Image Galleries - both by users and event coverage from us
Feature Articles by Members
History - in-depth features on classic boats, engines, and anything relating to history
Buy and Sell Marketplace - for both members and Supporting Vendors: The new site will retain the current forums-based classifieds, but will also add a dedicated classifieds system with buyer and seller ratings, full galleries, and other information. It will be entirely free for all members. This feature was originally going to be added to the current S&F site, but I decided it was best to just add it to the forthcoming, new site.
Live Video - live video feeds from events as they happen. This is something I'm really excited about.


And relating to the current site, we now have auto-saving enabled. If you're typing a post and your computer locks up or there is any other interruption, you will be able to go back to the site and press a button to restore previously-typed content.

Thanks again everybody!
Greg

[olboatman]

Greg These upgrades sound great! Really lookin forward to some "live video streaming". Thanks again for a GREAT site!!!!!! Gary

[Scream And Fly]

Greg These upgrades sound great! Really lookin forward to some "live video streaming". Thanks again for a GREAT site!!!!!! Gary

Thank you Gary. I'm very excited. A lot has changed with how socially-driven sites operate and what their users want so I want to make sure the S&F site is always fun and easy to use. We broke a lot of new ground back in 1998 when it all started, and back again in 2001 with the launch of these message forums. The current S&F site is dated now though, and we can only take it so far with upgrades.

The new site is in active development now, and after discussions with our main developer, it is looking like we could plan for a launch before spring. The live video idea is something that I've been investigating for years. When we upgraded our server in April, that was really the final barrier to making that a reality.

Here is how the live video will work: we will have several live broadcast video cameras, and during the season I will send some of those to people that will be at events, so there will be multiple feeds happening at once. Additionally, members that want to participate in streaming live to the S&F site will be given a camera that they will take along for rides on boats, or to events. It will really be a lot of fun.

It's going to really be a lot of fun :)

I'm grateful for all of your support for S&F. I must mention that because everything is entirely possible because of it. Thank you. :)

Greg

[JPEROG]

Greg,

Come up to the run on Aug. 5th at Crystal Cove and I will assist you with some fund raising efforts. Wallets seem to loosen up in the parking lot after midnight LOL...

Joe

[Scream And Fly]

I wanted to update you all.

The new Scream And Fly home page layout is ready to go. You will all absolutely love it. There will be many more sections, and it will be designed to be easily read on a computer, phone, or tablet. It will just be everything that this site needs to be to make it as good as it can be. I'm very excited about it.

The decisions are now being made on our new forums. The basic layout you are all familiar with will stay the same. I don't want members coming in here and thinking they are in a completely different site. Everything will be intuitive, and MUCH easier to do. Adding photos to posts will be as easy as drag-and-drop, right into the post. Copy and past images right in, the same way with text. As many images as you want into one post. And it will be this easy from a tablet or phone too.

I'm very excited, and I think we will be on schedule to launch during this summer.

I am so thankful for the support you've all given me and Scream And Fly. Without your support, this would just be impossible. The development of such a large site costs a lot of money and I am so grateful for this community for keeping Scream And Fly moving forward.

Thank you so much everybody.
Greg

[Dave Strong]

Thank You Greg. :)

Dave

[FMP]

Will we retain our threads, post and picture logs etc

[WillySteve]

Thanks for all your hard work Greg!
I've been in the boat with you guys since '08 and have ALWAYS considered this site as THE PLACE TO GO.....Great Folks and Great Info!!!!
Count me in for joining every year till the end!!!

[Krazymaan]

All together including paying, non paying, vendors, etc. Just curious to about how many members are there on this site?

[Capt.Insane-o]

I remember scream and fly when it was a black page with bright green fonts.

[FUJIMO]

I remember that too...:)

[sick_nick]

a video library would be cool to have i have a few videos i took down from youtube due to the copyright infringements. would be cool if we could post them on here somewhere other than a thread with a youtube link. There's some amazing videos on youtube that deserve to be on this site because they capture the true spirit of scream and fly and performance boating!