Even while I've been somewhat absent the last couple of months from the normal goings on--not that there's been a whole lot going on herpwise or forumwise anyways--I've been working pretty hard on improvements to the site.  I'm going to throw in a lot of instructions, reminders, and updates in this post, so please read it for the parts that are most applicable to you.  The order I lay things out may not be that well organized, but I'll try.

Site Software Updates
The two major pieces of software I use to run the site (for the forum and wiki pages) have recently been updated.  The forum update was more significant and I had to redo most of the color scheme.  If you see anything bluish or otherwise not a color consistent with the site, please let me know.

More generally, if you ever come across anything that looks broken or out of place on the site, please let me know.

Site Pictures Moved to Flickr
After waiting over 2 years for someone else to write a decent script for using Flickr with the wiki, I finally gave up and wrote one myself.  The script ended up being of only moderate difficulty, but moving all of the pictures from the current host to Flickr was like moving an ELEPHANT.  Over 7000 pictures!!!

Among other things, it should make it more inviting for people--hey, like YOU!  --to contribute pictures to the site by simply adding them to the Herps of Arkansas Flickr Group.  Instructions are posted to the group.  I really need some guinea pigs to try it out and give me feedback on the process.

Navigating/scrolling through pictures on the site should be improved, too.

There are still some issues to work out.  In particular, I'm still sitting on lots of other people's pictures that were previously submitted to me or to the site and are currently offline.  I'll be resolving how to bring those back onto the site in the next little bit.

Making Contributions to the Site
Consider this my annual plea...  While many of you more knowledgeable people like to stick to the forum for 99% of your visits--and that's fine--the rest of the site does get a lot of traffic by other people and, in short, it continues to need some help in development and improvement from you.

One of the big helps would be for user contributions in writing the species accounts.  I got the snake and lizard accounts written a couple of years back, but now I just seem to get myself too tied up in technical development to work on the rest.  The rest being most of the turtle accounts and all of the frog, salamander, and alligator accounts.  They don't have to be full write ups, just add a snippet of information here and there from what you know...and they will build and improve over time.  That's basically the wiki way.  Even proofreading what's already done is a help!  (I found and corrected three old misspellings myself just this week!)  Log in using your forum username and password to edit the pages.  And yes, I WANT you to add, edit, and improve the site.  I still can't get why people are so afraid to touch it...so, don't be; just get in and do it.

Another help would be to contribute photographs to the site.  Just add them to the Flickr group, as mentioned above, or send them on to me and I'll get them in.  Don't worry if they aren't National Geographic quality, I think at this point more is better.

I'm also looking for some help in keeping the site calendar updated.  (And honestly, I'm giving some serious thought to just abandoning it altogether...but we'll see.)  If you have a gmail account, let me know and I can add you as an administrator.  Just having a person from AHS and CAHS adding their own dates would be helpful; even better if someone from the State Parks is out there.

Making the Most out of the Site
There are a lot of new and not-so-new features of the site I don't think people either know about or take full advantage of, so here ya' go...

Have you downloaded and printed your tri-fold herp checklists for 2012?  These are really handy to keep track of your herp species finds.  You might come up with some clever ideas, too, but I check off and jot down the county for each first species find of the year and add some notations as to which herp species I need better pictures of and the like.

A "share" widget has been added to the homepage (top-right column).  I tried to come up with an assortment and order of buttons that would best match our visitors, but if you have suggestions for something else, please let me know.

I also recently put together a Herps of Arkansas Facebook Page.  I've disabled the interactive features, since the intention was to give people another way to find the site and direct them here.  If the page helps you share and promote the site, then good for it!

There are a lot of subscription (RSS) feeds available on the site.  If you don't use--or even know about--RSS feeds, you might want to look into it.  I use a Firefox add-on called Brief for my RSS reading, but Google Reader is another popular choice.  Each forum has its own individual RSS feed, if you want something more selective.  On the homepage right-hand column, I've offered several feeds (such as all forum posts, photos, calendar events, and page updates).  At the bottom, I've put together an aggregate feed that will give you EVERYTHING in one.  If you have any of these feeds in your reader from way back, you might check that they are still functional since I've modified a few of these recently.

Site Trimming
For a number of reasons, I've severely trimmed the site.  The following pages and groups of pages are no longer accessible from the homepage and are essentially due for termination:

http://herpsofarkansas.com/Herp/EquipmentAndTechniques
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Herp/Paraphernalia
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Profiles/HomePage
http://herpsofarkansas.com/TripsAway/HomePage
http://herpsofarkansas.com/Nature/HomePage

If you have any information and/or personal pictures you would like to salvage from these pages, you need to take care of it.  I haven't scheduled for permanent deletions until the end of 2012, but these will eventually go bye-bye forever.

AHS Link
The AHS link on the homepage now directs straight to the AHS forum rather than to the AHS wiki pages (which are no longer accurate or timely).  If needed, the following link can be used to direct people to the AHS page archives:

http://herpsofarkansas.com/AHS/HomePage

If any AHS representatives need further clarification, please feel free to contact me.

Still Coming
After all of that, I still have all of these on the burner...

* Odds-n-ends herp pics from the waning part of 2011
* A Perkins report
* A St. Louis Zoo Hellbender report
* A 2011 year in review report
* A 2012 goals and targets report
* A skeleton draft of the AR Herp Atlas
* A generic AR herp Powerpoint presentation

Ugh!!!  I may not see sunlight this year, let alone getting out in the field a bit.   

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I invite your feedback should you have any.