2026 Freezing Saddles Platform Issue

This topic has 12 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 20 hours, 7 minutes ago by secstate.

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November 12, 2025 at 3:00 pm #1138331

Henry
Keymaster

Fellow members of the Cabal:

As you discuss the launch of the 2026 Freezing Saddles registration, I just wanted to let you know I will not have access to the BikeArlington Forum after Dec 31, 2025 and will not be able to trouble-shoot any user problems. Development staff from the Mobility Lab can help with technical issues as needed, but there will not be any staff who will monitor the daily posts.

As I have discussed with a few of you, this might be the time to complete the migration away from the BA forum. Usage on the forum is just a trickle of what it was and now exist primarily to support FS.

I don’t know all the technical requirements in setting up a new forum (perhaps on the FS website) or even just organizing things on Strava (since are ppl already there) or Facebook (since many ppl are there, too, though I know some ppl will hate this).

Anyway, just wanted to let this be known and get the convo started. It could still be hosted on the BA forum, but probably just for one more year.

Henry
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November 23, 2025 at 12:41 pm #1138341

cvcalhoun
Participant

I’m happy to take the lead in setting up the new forum for next year on the freezingsaddles.info site. If anyone has suggestions for WordPress forum plug-ins they particularly like (or dislike!), please let me know here or via the contact form on my site.

November 24, 2025 at 7:35 pm #1138348

jrenaut
Participant

I would be willing to help but NOT if the platform is WordPress.

@Henry, what are the chances of getting a database dump of all the forum-related tables?

November 24, 2025 at 7:58 pm #1138352

cvcalhoun
Participant

@jrenaut, out of curiosity, why not WordPress? It would have several advantages in terms of simplifying getting people onto the forum in the first place, because they could automatically be added when they registered for the competition or signed up for the mailing list. We’ve had complaints for years that there are way too many steps required to register, and I’d love to be able to eliminate at least a few of them.

I don’t mind not getting help (I’ve already got a sort of test forum set up), but am just wondering whether there is something I should know.

November 24, 2025 at 8:03 pm #1138353

jrenaut
Participant

One of the reasons forum usage has dropped off (not the only reason, certainly, but one) is that this platform is not made for forums. It’s clunky and weird and dated and it sucks to use.

November 24, 2025 at 8:20 pm #1138356

cvcalhoun
Participant

@jrenaut, I have never actually seen a forum on or off WordPress that isn’t a bit clunky. But I’m also not sure how you run this contest without a forum. A lot of people refuse to have anything to do with Facebook. Strava forums make this one look advanced by contrast. And don’t even get me started on things like Discord.

I’d be happy to get you set up with a membership to my test forum if you want to look at it. Or if you have samples of ones you think are less clunky, I’d be happy to look at them. I just want to make sure this competition doesn’t die next year due to lack of a place to run it.

November 25, 2025 at 8:44 am #1138366

merlin
Participant

I think at this point people expect something more like Discord. Discourse is another option. You can log in using your Google/other account, so don’t need an additional username/password. For a few $ we could spin up a hosted one for this year if we wanted, switch to self hosted next time.

November 25, 2025 at 1:12 pm #1138372

jrenaut
Participant

I was thinking about one of the Fediverse platforms (Lemmy, Hubzilla) but that might be too steep a learning curve. I think a decent mobile app is a must-have, especially since so many of the games have a “post a photo” component.

One of the big goals of Freezing Saddles is to build community, and that requires a platform that’s easy to use to connect to that community

November 25, 2025 at 2:01 pm #1138376

cvcalhoun
Participant

@merlin and @jrenaut: I’m certainly happy to back off if you two want to take the lead on creating a new forum.

November 25, 2025 at 2:20 pm #1138377

Henry
Keymaster

“@Henry, what are the chances of getting a database dump of all the forum-related tables?”

I think it’s possible, but would need to confirm on Monday with Ahmet about what’s involved.

November 25, 2025 at 4:43 pm #1138380

merlin
Participant

@cvcalhoun I 100% don’t want to, but forum usage dropped to almost zero last year, and a lot of group rides didn’t get shared. There just isn’t a good mobile wordpress experience and that’s what most people use. We could spin up a Discord with just a few clicks and make a lot of people happy.

November 25, 2025 at 10:30 pm #1138386

cvcalhoun
Participant

@merlin, I am happy to have someone else do it, so long as I know someone is. I posted elsewhere about what I would see as minimum requirements for a forum for this group.

December 14, 2025 at 5:26 pm #1138562

secstate
Participant

Discord has potential to outlive the competition and become a partial replacement for the BAFS forum more generally. There could be channels for #TrailConditions, #MarylandEvents, #DCEvents, #VirginaEvents, etc., as well as for the individual Pointless Prizes (in their own folder), and people could subscribe to notifications for all, some, or none. It’s accessible by app or by web interface. I’m in a few discords and have found them easy to engage with. They don’t have the permanence of a forum thread, necessarily, but it’s an improvement over X, Reddit, and Facebook in terms of keeping topics accessible even if they’re lower traffic.
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