CAP Web Operations - Your Input, Please

[PhoenixRisen]

With the few recent threads on CAP websites, and my own creating of one (still waiting on authorization fron the wing commander to get it activated), I've gotten to thinking about CAP's online situation.  It's like a lot of other aspects of CAP: it's not organized and uniform.  Some squadrons have websites, some are great, some poor.  Some don't have websites at all.

Given that websites aren't everything, it got me to thinking about all the previous discussions on the topic I've seen here (and partaken in), and I went ahead and put my ideas into a Word document.  I really think it would be cool to submit this up the chain to the IT folks in CAP, but I know no one would ever listen to me, being just a Cadet.  ("Pfft, what does he know?")

With that said, I've attached the document I typed up.  At the present time, I wouldn't think of submitting it at all.  I'm just throwing it out there to see what you all think.  (I've used some ideas on there that I've found on here, i.e. my.cap.gov.)  I also realize that if anything like this is ever submitted (by me or anyone else), not everything will be able to get done, and to the exact specification listed / asked.  These are just ideas.

Am I asking too much?  Am I crazy?  Please feel free to throw around ideas I can use to make this better (while I may not submit it now, or even as a Cadet, I'd definitely like to as a SM).

[NC Hokie]

You have some pretty good ideas there but I'm afraid that many of them fall apart with the recent decision to move all national web content to the gocivilairpatrol.com domain.  As for the rest, here are my comments:

1. This would be fine as long as the template is attractive, easy to use, and lightweight.  The current national website is somewhat attractive (although it's a bit too busy for my tastes) but I don't think it will scale down well for squadron use.

2. The move to gocivilairpatrol.com makes this somewhat cumbersome; try telling someone to visit your website at mylocalsquadron.xxwg.gocivilairpatrol.com or xx-111.xxwg.gocivilairpatrol.com.  See the problem?  Being able to forward traffic from your custom domain name to such an address would be a much better solution.

3. I like it and wish NHQ would keep cap.gov (or cap.com if we're being booted from the .gov umbrella) for just such a purpose.  I appreciate the need for gocivilairpatrol.com as a recruiting tool but do not like it as the sole CAP domain.

4. Don't kill the sites, just remove the content and have the obsolete urls forward to the appropriate current site.

5. Sorry, but I don't think that the gocivilairpatrol.com domain is going to go away anytime soon.

6. I'm all for this as long as any existing urls can be forwarded to the new ones.

7. I'm not against this but I'd be more supportive of it if there were some way to prevent users from turning this into their personal email account.

8. Do it.

That's all I got, but I'm sure there will be more from others more qualified than I to speak of such things.

[stratoflyer]

Very good. I too think that there should be a web kit whee the unit just fills in the blanks. It would be extremely helpful to new units and those who lack a solid IT person.

And the gocivilairpatrol domain serves its purposes and seeing how it turned out, it will definitely be here to stay.

Why can't you submit this as a cadet? Isn't that what CAC is there for? Can a senior member sponsor you so to speak and take it up the senior member chain of command?

Maybe a wing king can do this for his wing and get national's attention. Then again, that sounds like wishful thinking.

Great job cadet!

[A.Member]

The fundamental thought behind your idea is solid.  While the general concept of a standardized approach is not new, you're thinking strategically and that is excellent!   What I think you're really looking to do is build upon the existing CAPR 110-1 (see #11).

While I may disagree with certain specifics of the proposal, such as the elimination of domains, you're certainly on the right track.  The best part is that you put some thought into it.  This serves as a basis to work from.   Keep in mind, there needs to be an objective/purpose for a website (ie. what problem is a squadron looking to solve/address by having a site?)  Understanding this will help drive some of your proposals.  As others stated, continue to work through the ideas and move it forward...that is how change can occur.

[Phil Hirons, Jr.]

I really think it would be cool to submit this up the chain to the IT folks in CAP, but I know no one would ever listen to me, being just a Cadet.  ("Pfft, what does he know?")

You are in the field, have a working knowledge of the issue and provide constructive ideas. The fact that you are a cadet is irrevelant.

Some very good ideas here. Some comments.

I would give up on gocivilairpatrol.com going away. I think XXR.cap.gov and XXwg.cap.gov are NOT going away so your concept stands.

CAP.com is taken. Three letter domain names on .com are out of CAP's budget.

I would add services NHQ could provide.

• User validation would be a huge time saver. Your e-services account goes inactive so does your squadron ( or group or wing) access
• The basics you mention (unit location, meeting time...) would be nice and they should be in the NHQ database

Like the thread on our branding, you've opened a strategic discussion.

[RiseAbove]

NHQ might benefit the users by rolling out a "capData" API not unlike Google's "gData".  Provided that the client could provide valid authentication details, the capData API could provide unit rosters, ops listings, flight release authorizations, etc.

Some of what is listed has already been accomplished through SIMS and the WMU, but adding a gData like service would allow squadron's IT departments to pull information from MIMS without worrying about SIMS' or WMU's updating with the MIMS DB.

[PhoenixRisen]

Your post.

NC Hokie,

In regard to gocivilairpatrol.com, do we know for sure that's where subordinate squadron sites are headed (i.e. sq123.xxwg.gocivilairpatrol.com)?  Even if the visual CAP.gov site goes away, I would still hope to think the domains stay ours so we can keep the plethora of squadron / group sites that fall under the domain.  IIRC, this is how Wisconson wing operates.  They use wiwgcap.org for their website, but still have use of wiwg.cap.gov for things such as e-mail (which they utilize Gmail for).  You can even still type it in your web browser, it simply redirects to wiwgcap.org.

Even still, maybe this will just turn out to be like "US Civil Air Patrol".  An idea that will be turned around sometime down the road.  (While I do now see the benefit of gocivilairpatrol.com as a recruiting site and know it might not be going away, this "realization" that might occur could strictly be that putting member stuff on gocivilairpatrol.com isn't the way to go.  It could be done (as said before) like the military services have.  Army.mil and goarmy.com, etc.  CAP.gov and gocivilairpatrol.com.  Perfect fit.

Even if it isn't a change made by the IT group initially, what's to say I can't keep it in my proposal (or have anyone else propose it) for them to remove the member things on the site?  Change can happen when someone speaks up.  (One can dream, can't they?   )

As for the e-mail situation, how does WIWG do it?  They utilize Gmail with @wiwg.cap.gov, and it seems to work fine.  IIRC, the WIWG webmaster is a member here, though inactive.  If he doesn't see this thread, I might contact him to get a few details about how they utilize Gmail.  After all, like I mentioned before, it's free for non-profits, provides a ton of space per account, and can work with the .gov domain.

[PhoenixRisen]

I would give up on gocivilairpatrol.com going away. I think XXR.cap.gov and XXwg.cap.gov are NOT going away so your concept stands.

CAP.com is taken. Three letter domain names on .com are out of CAP's budget.

As said in my previous post - I now see the benefit of gocivilairpatrol.com (to mirror the military service's use of two different websites).  I would still try and petitiion to revert the member information back to CAP.gov.

[jimmydeanno]

CAP.com is taken. Three letter domain names on .com are out of CAP's budget.

Can't they just take it because the people using it are squatters? 

[lordmonar]

Why can't you submit this as a cadet? Isn't that what CAC is there for? Can a senior member sponsor you so to speak and take it up the senior member chain of command?

This is not what CAC is for.....but there is no reason why a cadet can't contact the National IT guys direct.

I like the idea of a unifired domain name plan...How about use your charter number?   PCRNV069.CAP.gov for squadrons, PCRNV.CAP.gov for wings, PCR.CAP.GOV for regions and CAP.GOV for national.

We keep the GOCIVILAIRPATROL.com for the time being and just redirect the CAP.GOV to it.

I too like the idea of a web page tool kit.....but I would not go so far as to mandate it.   You can't forsee everyone's wants and needs so don't try.  But build a basic template so those who are not web savvy can cut and paste and get their information on the web.

If it is good enough squadrons will start to migrate to new format.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

gocivilairpatrol.com is a great idea for RECRUITING.

But cap.gov and cap.af.mil should remain for everyday CAP business, just as the Air Force has airforce.com for recruiting and af.mil for their everyday business.

Why should CAP regulations and other stuff be posted at gocivilairpatrol.com? Recruits and prospective members don't need that -- it's a minor-league complication. (Incidentally, I hear HWSNBN's rump organization and the International Disaster Corps or whatever they're called does that.) Keep the inside-baseball stuff at cap.gov or, better yet, cap.af.mil.

There should be a delineation between PUBLIC information and INTERNAL information.

[PhoenixRisen]

This is not what CAC is for.....but there is no reason why a cadet can't contact the National IT guys direct.

Is there an actual national-level IT contact for CAP, other than "webmaster@cap.gov"?  I remember seeing somewhere online some type of staff directory, but don't remember where it was, or even if it was current.

I like the idea of a unifired domain name plan...How about use your charter number?   PCRNV069.CAP.gov for squadrons, PCRNV.CAP.gov for wings, PCR.CAP.GOV for regions and CAP.GOV for national.

IIRC, this is how the CGAux does it (with their form of a unit number in place of a charter number).

My personal take on it is - it's already somewhat confusing for someone not familiar with CAP to get our domain figured out (when I joined, I looked at sq144.cawg.cap.gov and thought, "CAP.gov I understand, but WTF to the other two?").  With it's current set-up, squadron / group being a 3rd level domain, the wing-level domain (2nd level) can be viewed as a "fallback".  If you don't know (or remember) what unit you're looking for, just go to the states website (which would be part of the squadron's website, already).  Using charter numbers for specific units would get rid of that, entirely.

If I were a new member, the last thing I'd think to do - if given a website like PCRCA123.cap.gov - would be to turn it into cawg.cap.gov to get to the CAWG site.

[PhoenixRisen]

gocivilairpatrol.com is a great idea for RECRUITING.

But cap.gov and cap.af.mil should remain for everyday CAP business, just as the Air Force has airforce.com for recruiting and af.mil for their everyday business.

[snip]

Keep the inside-baseball stuff at cap.gov or, better yet, cap.af.mil.

If I remember correctly, the reason why we have CAP.af.mil is strictly because the stuff we have on the NTC website is required to be on a .mil domain.  I also remember asking why we (as CAP) don't just use CAP.af.mil as our website, and remembe hearing that it's because we aren't a "military organization", and thus, don't rate having our main site (info that's on CAP.gov) on a military site (please don't let this turn into that kind of discusstion, i.e. "we need to be more military).

(Can anyone confirm / reconfirm this?)

If this is the case, and we really can't have our main site on a .mil domain, why even redirect CAP.af.mil to CAP.gov?  Just make CAP.af.mil unaccessable, and keep the stuff required to be on the .mil domain on ntc.cap.af.mil.  Having a blank-ish site that simply redirects to different places doesn't present a good image, at least IMO.

(If I'm not making any sense, please let me know.)

[BuckeyeDEJ]

PhoenixCadet: IIRC, everything was moved to the .gov because security requirements for the .mil domain were strengthened -- and the interactive stuff CAP wanted couldn't be on the .mil, so it was moved to .gov.

[SarDragon]

CAP.com is taken. Three letter domain names on .com are out of CAP's budget.

Can't they just take it because the people using it are squatters? 

Type in the URL and see where it goes. It's a site where you can buy caps. Yeah, the hat thingies. That would be a tough squatting case to sell.

[lordmonar]

If I were a new member, the last thing I'd think to do - if given a website like PCRCA123.cap.gov - would be to turn it into cawg.cap.gov to get to the CAWG site.

Here is an idea.....don't let squadrons host their own web site!!!!!

If are going to mandate stuff.....mandate that the wing will provide a few pages per squadron...one for news/photos/recent activities.  One for squadron organisation and contacts, and one for local files/pubs/misc.

Squadron calandars will be consolidated with the wing calandar so no need for a seperate calandar page.

Then we solve the newbee and oldbee problem of finding your page.

www.state.CAP.GOV as in www.nevada.CAP.gov or www.california.CAP.GOV

list all the squadrons (by group) on one side and link to your one or two pages.

There is no real need to have pages and pages for each squadron....especially if they all start just reposting regs and forms that can be gotten off CAP.gov.

[PhoenixRisen]

If I were a new member, the last thing I'd think to do - if given a website like PCRCA123.cap.gov - would be to turn it into cawg.cap.gov to get to the CAWG site.

Here is an idea.....don't let squadrons host their own web site!!!!!

If are going to mandate stuff.....mandate that the wing will provide a few pages per squadron...one for news/photos/recent activities.  One for squadron organisation and contacts, and one for local files/pubs/misc.

Squadron calandars will be consolidated with the wing calandar so no need for a seperate calandar page.

Then we solve the newbee and oldbee problem of finding your page.

www.state.CAP.GOV as in www.nevada.CAP.gov or www.california.CAP.GOV

list all the squadrons (by group) on one side and link to your one or two pages.

There is no real need to have pages and pages for each squadron....especially if they all start just reposting regs and forms that can be gotten off CAP.gov.

I dig it.  It would make things a bit easier all around (for those looking at the websites, and those managing them, too).

[A.Member]

gocivilairpatrol.com is a great idea for RECRUITING.

It's a great idea that is very poorly executed.  In addition to the problems you list below it has one incredibly major flaw...it never explicitly tells you who the h*** we are or what we do.  There is no fact sheet.  Nothing.  We have a letter from the commander but the more important stuff that kind of tells visitors about us is buried at the bottom of the page.  Incredibly poor from a recruiting standpoint.

But cap.gov and cap.af.mil should remain for everyday CAP business, just as the Air Force has airforce.com for recruiting and af.mil for their everyday business.

Why should CAP regulations and other stuff be posted at gocivilairpatrol.com? Recruits and prospective members don't need that -- it's a minor-league complication. (Incidentally, I hear HWSNBN's rump organization and the International Disaster Corps or whatever they're called does that.) Keep the inside-baseball stuff at cap.gov or, better yet, cap.af.mil.

There should be a delineation between PUBLIC information and INTERNAL information.

Agree 100%.

[jimmydeanno]

CAP.com is taken. Three letter domain names on .com are out of CAP's budget.

Can't they just take it because the people using it are squatters? 

Type in the URL and see where it goes. It's a site where you can buy caps. Yeah, the hat thingies. That would be a tough squatting case to sell.

It's not though - it's a fake, it just does a search on whatever type of baseball hat you're looking for and directs you to another website...

[stratoflyer]

I don't think that squadron websites should be part of a wing's domain. It should have its own address and be easy to put on recruiting materials. However, it's be nice if all the information is hosted on the wing servers so that squadrons only have to pay for the domain name.

[SilverEagle2]

I don't think that squadron websites should be part of a wing's domain. It should have its own address and be easy to put on recruiting materials. However, it's be nice if all the information is hosted on the wing servers so that squadrons only have to pay for the domain name.

I disagree. Squadrons and Groups are subordinate units to the Wing and should be part of the Wings domain. This removes the burden of paying for the domain name. However, if properly maintained, each units webmaster would have full access to their OWN unit site and content with supervisory rights given to the Wing. This keeps consistency, fluid movement, control, and maintainability.

I see nothing wrong with a Unit.Wing."whatever"."whatever" domain structure.

Then again, I come from a 4 letter state and the URL would not be all that big.

I.e. Utah wing is www.cap.utah.gov and a squadron should be www.Bountiful_Senior.cap.utah.gov

If you are hosting on Wing space, then it should be on the Wing domain. So much easier to maintain, find, and support.

My 2 cents

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Squadron, group and wing Web sites should be set up hierarchically off both cap.af.mil and cap.gov, depending on what services are offered on the individual units' sites.

Examples:

Clearwater Comp Sq, Group 8, Florida Wing could be either clearwater.flwg.cap.af.mil or clearwater.flwg.cap.gov

And a wing headquarters could be hq.wvwg.cap.af.mil or hq.wvwg.cap.gov.

A region? ser.cap.gov or ser.cap.af.mil.

But every wing should go off a common domain for recognizability and organization. Some do, like in Great Lakes Region, but some -- including my wing, Florida -- don't.

After all, do you want to do a Google or Yahoo search to find a unit, or be able to click through to find it without doing a search... or be able to make an educated guess and come up with it?

[NIN]

Where have I heard some of these ideas before?

Or some other similar ideas.

Hey, run with it.

[PhoenixRisen]

Squadron, group and wing Web sites should be set up hierarchically off both cap.af.mil and cap.gov, depending on what services are offered on the individual units' sites.

Wouldn't the information on the average squadron website be a part of what can't be on the cap.af.mil site?  (Per your previous comment.)

PhoenixCadet: IIRC, everything was moved to the .gov because security requirements for the .mil domain were strengthened -- and the interactive stuff CAP wanted couldn't be on the .mil, so it was moved to .gov.

If that's the case, maybe it could be different if we had the simple "basic information page(s)" for each squadron.  I'd personally like to see the cap.af.mil domain be used as a main page versus CAP.gov (my personal opinion is the more we're like the Air Force, the better - again, just my opinion - please don't turn this into a discussion about that).

Edit: Correction of "mail" to "main".

[BuckeyeDEJ]

Squadron, group and wing Web sites should be set up hierarchically off both cap.af.mil and cap.gov, depending on what services are offered on the individual units' sites.

Wouldn't the information on the average squadron website be a part of what can't be on the cap.af.mil site?  (Per your previous comment.)

Well, yes and no. Depends on whether the content on the site meets with the level of security required for the .mil domain. If there's any sort of interactive feature outside of a link to someone's e-mail, I'd bet it goes .gov.

That's why e-services is on the .gov, if I remember correctly.

PhoenixCadet: IIRC, everything was moved to the .gov because security requirements for the .mil domain were strengthened -- and the interactive stuff CAP wanted couldn't be on the .mil, so it was moved to .gov.

If that's the case, maybe it could be different if we had the simple "basic information page(s)" for each squadron.  I'd personally like to see the cap.af.mil domain be used as a mail page versus CAP.gov (my personal opinion is the more we're like the Air Force, the better - again, just my opinion - please don't turn this into a discussion about that).

Bingo. That's why I left the .mil option open in my earlier post. Most likely, it'd be on the .gov, but hey, we can hope, right?

[PhoenixRisen]

Someone needs to infoltrate NHQ/IT and stop this madness, now!

[a2capt]

Have not these people ever heard of mirroring a domain?

Maybe they have.. and the same problem with .mil overtook the .gov content. If not, just mirror it. What the heck do we need to type, repeat, relay all that for? I know, come 15-Feb. a redirect will do most of that, tell folks "go to CAP.gov" .. but you can't relay a specific URL on a redirect, on a mirror you can.

Anyhow, the whole gocivilairpatrol.com site is WAY too much multimedia content and too much effing marketing to also be a functional, utility to perform everyday work, look up regs, etc.

It's just nuts.

..and they *STILL* have that BONEHEAD document storage system that has files given totally whack job names.

..and BTW, capnhq.gov still has the "business end" of things on it, so..

I've largely given up on wing level IT anyway with the squadron web site and have taken to just moving it to another host, when we're done with it, we'll put a redirect on our wing web space until such time as the wing puts in PHP and MySQL that they said over three years ago, was "coming soon".

I've even offered to help with the issues only never get a response. So many times.

[PhoenixRisen]

I've largely given up on wing level IT anyway.

I've given up on all of CAP IT, period (with the exception of a few webpages).  All levels from NHQ (with thier current problems), to wing (CAWG site sucks), to group (CAWG Group 7 site has had a "Site coming soon" tag on it for almost a year now.  I'm still "staying tuned" like asked.), to most squadrons.

Meh.

[Eclipse]

John 8:7

[PhoenixRisen]

John 8:7

I'm hardly saying I'm perfect - but really, I can't do much about it except throw my ideas out there.  If they actually handed me the keys to the whole thing and let me get 'er done, that'd be a different story entirely.

[FlexCoder]

a2capt & PhoenixCadet,

Why fight the system, only leads to a deadend...select a good domain and let's walk instead of talk and develop a top notch custom unofficial National or Wing website.  I have access to a lot of new technology, biometric encryption, RIA interfaces, 3d interaction and so on.  And anyone else that wants to join our development team, invitations are open for cadets and seniors that are experienced or newbies wanting to learn. 

A lot of CAP IT's are run by old veteran communication officers and most of us know how difficult they can be to work with.  I have dealt with the same class of do nothings in Georgia Wing IT as well.   If you think California Wing website sucks, check out Georgia Wing website, it is worse.  I have offered help too and get the same repeated message "coming soon" or we already have enough volunteers handling it.   5 years and still nothing, except a worthless out dated website that is no use to anyone.   We are tired of certain officers in CAP not being held accountable and allowed to hold their positions for years that do little to nothing for the members.  And if one continues to offer help, you get the silent treatment.   Most of us just want to make a positive difference for the members and help CAP but instead get ignored.   

[Eclipse]

Start with a Unit website that meets the need of the local commander, has an elegant, easy to use design, and pushes the capabilities.

[FlexCoder]

Eclipse,

A unit website won't fulfill the needs of the members on a whole.  Developing a unit website would have no impact on the current situation whatsoever. 

[Eclipse]

Eclipse,

A unit website won't fulfill the needs of the members on a whole.  Developing a unit website would have no impact on the current situation whatsoever.

I don't recall the members on the whole asking for your help.  There are plenty of us who are fine with the way things are today because it allows us to excel if we see the need, but further, allows us to disengage if we don't.

Would I like to see some more coherent identity management, sure, but be careful what you ask for, because the answer you get may not agree with your opinion.

Developing a unit website would give you some credibility in terms of what can be done, and...wait for it...would give your unit a website.

The domain schema exists today, no need to fix it.  The last thing I want is to be strapped with a cumbersome domain like
unit.group.wing.cap.gov.  In a world where 1/3 of the users in the US still enter AOL keywords, 35-letter domain names and email addresses lose or confuse your customers.

The need is being fulfilled, it always is in CAP.  The rest is a nice, and the nice, generally doesn't get done in CAP because people have other things to do besides CAP.

If more members concentrated on making their personal AOR the best it could be, and stopped worrying about other  units, echelons, or trying to "fix CAP", we'd all be better off.

[FlexCoder]

Eclipse,

I don't know why you have to personally attack me in most everyone of my posts on here.  I am not out to get you!

There are plenty of us who are fine with the way things are today because it allows us to excel if we see the need, but further, allows us to disengage if we don't.  Would I like to see some more coherent identity management, sure, but be careful what you ask for, because the answer you get may not agree with your opinion

Why are their a lot of CAP website complaints posted on here from other members if it isn't a problem?    It's not solely my opinion but a combination of other CAP members fed up with the current situation.  "Coherent Identity Management" - If you would like to see more CAP branding, why wait for others, go out and get it done.   How can members focus on fixing their own unit sites when there is no direction, protocol or plan from the top. 

The need is being fulfilled, it always is in CAP.  The rest is a nice, and the nice, generally doesn't get done in CAP because people have other things to do besides CAP.

The need is not being fulfilled in regard to the CAP websites & IT project management/structure for the Wings & Units

people have other things to do besides CAP

I here that excuse quite often from one's who would rather just go with the flow than take a stand!  Many of us have devoted a lot of time & effort into CAP and only want the best for it. 

[FlexCoder]

"People are not excellent because they achieve great things; they achieve great things because they choose to be excellent."

Great Quote from SilverEagle2's Member Profile - Sums this up in a nutshell!

[CAPPAO]

The Southeast Region Web site is one of the best I've seen:

http://www.sercap.us/

In fact, 3 of the 6 Wings in SER have now adopted the same format:

http://new.flwg.gov

http://mswg.us/

http://www.prwg.us/

But for a real treat, check out the SER Twitter page and sign up!

http://twitter.com/SERCAP

[PhoenixRisen]

The Southeast Region Web site is one of the best I've seen:

http://www.sercap.us/

In fact, 3 of the 6 Wings in SER have now adopted the same format:

http://new.flwg.gov

http://mswg.us/

http://www.prwg.us/

But for a real treat, check out the SER Twitter page and sign up!

http://twitter.com/SERCAP

In regard to the actual visual design of the site, IMO, MDWG (and NCWG) have the absolute best.  (They're the same.)

http://www.mdcap.org/

It's somewhat similar to the AF's, yet distinctively different.

(Makes mental note.)

[SilverEagle2]

"People are not excellent because they achieve great things; they achieve great things because they choose to be excellent."

Great Quote from SilverEagle2's Member Profile - Sums this up in a nutshell!

And the man who said it was truely exellent! Hope he feels the same about me.

Good dialog here. I am in the process of seeing what we can do in Utah and glad you guys are giving some good ideas and thoughts.