A Lot Happening At MoparStyle in May
New B5 Blue Challenger Look and Feel. I think it is the best of the view styles yet — but you still have 15 others to choose from.
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vBulletin (Forum Software) was upgraded from 3.7.4 to 3.8.2. MoparStyle started using vBulletin in January 2002 — when it was the new version 1.0.1. About every couple of weeks they have to release a new update to keep ahead of the hackers. I've been catching up about once a quarter, as it is a royal PITA to also test and upgrade all of the non-vBulletin features I've written into the application. vBulletin is real big into Social Groups now. If you play around with MySpace or Facebook — those are Social Groups. vBulletin allows people to have private Social Groups and invite their friends to participate. These Social Groups (Secret Societies) operate in the background and out of the public view. If you think you'd like to create a social group at MoparStyle.com — but need more information — click here for vBulletin's explanation and instructions.
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Free Classified Ad Web Sitewas also upgraded. I do this about once a year because the people that write it don't document it well. I've had more problems upgrading that application than any of the others. While the Classified Ad application and the forum application have been written by two different companies — I have them both modified to use the vBulletin membership database — so that you can move between the forum and the free classified ad web site on the same log in. They also share the same look and feel — regardless of the view style you use. The new application allows for six photos, instead of four, to be uploaded with the ad. There is also a little change in the ad display, which most won't notice. A nice feature of the ad is that you can sell multiple of the same items and have it automatically take Paypal on the Buy it Now, and stop when you've sold out the quantity you had set. For instance — I came across a box of 50 MoparStyle key rings that I had made up in 2002. I placed them in an ad for $5 each, free shipping, set the quantity to 50, and allowed for them to be purchased through PayPal. Each morning I printout my PayPal shipping slips and send off the key rings. This is perfect for merchants selling Mopar stuff — and they are encouraged to sell their promotional stuff as well as individual members sell stuff collecting in their garage. There were 89 new ads placed in the last 7 days. The Free Classified ad site is a great place to buy and sell Mopar stuff.
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Portal was upgraded. I also do this about once a year. Few of the members appear to check out the Portal on a regular basis, and that's a shame — but most of the visitors enter the site through the Portal. I intend to spend more time posting Mopar News on the Portal — and dressing it up a little.
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MoparWiki. The most important news is the integration of the MoparWiki into the MoparStyle web site. The MoparWiki uses the exact same application used by the famous Wikipedia, but after 6 months of trying — I finally figured out how to get it to use the MoparStyle user database — so that members can add wiki pages on Mopar topics. The goal is to have a wiki page for every model of Mopar, every important Mopar person, Mopar Reference Data, Mopar Technical papers, Mopar Dream Cars, Famous Mopar Race Cars — in a nutshell — a few years down the road I'd like to see the MoparWiki to have developed into the Internet's largest Informationbase on all things Mopar, in an organized group of categories, sharing a consistent format.
For those of you who don't know what a wiki is:A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked (often databased) Web pages, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and knowledge management systems.
"Wiki" (English pronunciation: /wiːkiː/) is a Hawaiian word for "fast". "Wiki" can be expanded as "What I Know Is," but this is a backronym.
The MoparWiki is a Mopar encyclopedia written collaboratively by many of its readers. It is a special type of website, called a wiki, that makes collaboration easy. Many people are constantly improving MoparWiki, making thousands of changes, all of which are recorded in article histories and recent changes. How can I help? Don't be afraid to edit — anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved and make it better - for example, spelling, grammar, rewriting for readability and removing unconstructive edits. If you wish to add new facts, please provide references, so they may be verified, or suggest them on the article's discussion page first.
Remember - you can't break MoparWiki, all edits can be reversed, fixed or improved later. So go ahead, edit an article and help make MoparWiki the best information source regarding Mopar topics on the Internet! So basically a wiki page gets started on a Mopar topic by having another wiki page feel that it is important enough to have a page created on it. From there (any and all) members add bit's and pieces to to complete the puzzle — ensuring that they are using facts — not old memory guesses — after all the information needs to be accurate to be trusted. Others come in and help fix spelling and grammar (although it sure would be nice if contributors would run their paragraphs through Word's spell/Grammar check first), fix format violations, and correct errors. Each topic has a discussion tab association to it — where disputes on various conflicting "facts" are discussed and hammered out. The Wiki has a group of volunteers called Sysops, who are most familiar with the operation and goals of the MoparWiki — and they rule on disputes, or roll back bad information to the previous state. It is somewhat of a long process, which first requires the more bold leaders to immediately participate — before the less helpful followers feel it is worthy of their participation.
There are two major benefits to having a MoparWiki. The first is to create a historical encyclopedia of information. People can learn about famous people like Big Daddy Don Garlits, Walter P. Chrysler, Ronnie Sox, Richard Petty, Virgil Exner, or Mr. Norm Krause. They can learn about Dream Cars like the Daroo or the Thunderbolt; or facts on production cars like the Airflows, or the Desoto Adventurer. Tech papers on using F/J/M front disc brakes to swap onto an A-body; introduction to drag racing — first time at the track; or swap in a 8.875" rear-end. Learn what Vendors like Indy, Keisler, and Laytons specialize at. Reference charts on things like engine head castings, or the various 50s Hemis. The information that can be contained in a seasoned MoparWiki is endless.
In addition to the help, facts, and interesting reading — the benefit to MoparStyle is the shear number of Mopar people who had never heard of MoparStyle drawn to it from their Internet searches getting great hits in our MoparWiki. The more people who visit — the more people who register. The more people who register — the more people who participate. The more people who participate — the more technical and racing threads we'll have. The MoparWiki can be the biggest boon for MoparStyle ever — if just a few of the leaders will roll up their sleeves and be the ones to show the followers that this is a good deal. From the best of this group of leaders — I'll need to select about a half dozen sysops to spend a couple of hours a week reviewing the additions made — and helping to keep the information accurate (through the discussion page on the topic) and format followed.
To make it easy to have a format that creates and index, and for things like bulleted lists, the wiki application has its own Markup language — similar to BB-Code in the forums. This is not a complicated computer programmer language — but a very simple way to learn to format wiki pages to look professional. Having a couple of Cheat Sheets open at first — will soon have you memorizing these simple format items. The Help in the wiki if very robust. A few examples of a MoparWiki topic, which have been started — but are never really completed, are below:
If you are a registered member of MoparStyle — you have to do nothing else to get started — you are already registered to edit wiki topics. BUT FIRST — for a little practice on the formatting, why not use your member page to get a handle on editing. Each member has a page at the MoparWiki. Click your handle at the extreme left of the navbar at the top of any wiki page — and you will be taken to it. Open a tab or two with the formatting cheat sheets from wiki's Help link — and create a page telling the world about yourself. It makes for good practice. I whipped up a quick and dirty member page on myself in about 30 minutes — not knowing anything about this software, but to get a feel on how to do things. If a dumbass like I can do it — anyone can.
Please Participate. The world is full of know it alls that do nothing to help out — but only criticize the work of others. Real leaders ignore people like them and do something to help themselves and others. If everyone spent just one hour a week in the MoparWiki, editing the areas that interest them — we'd be the biggest Mopar Informationbase in a year — or even less. Be a doer — and not an apathetic naysayer. Participate in something worthwhile — like this MoparWiki. www.moparstyle.com/wiki
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NavBar - I made changes to the NavBar to make it easier to navigate this and a few other sites. In the top NavBar — all of the links are categories with drop-down menus. In the MoparStyle category, the links will take you to the Portal, Forums, Free Classified Ads, Wiki, and the gift Shop.
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Near Future – I've got a lot planned for the near future. The return of the Photo Album Application, getting the look and feel of the wiki to match the rest of the site, an automatic reward system that honors the members who participate the most — using criteria like threads started which become hot, threads replied to, thanks, and other participation factors. I plan to clean up the Portal, find some old history and tech papers — and get them in the wiki, and try to find sysops (high level moderators) from those participating at a high level in the MoparWiki.
Administrative | Old Hippie Announcement | 
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