Hi all,
Just a comment about joining SBARC online (and yes, Jay was elected SBARC President last night and I'm joining as promised.)
It is possible that the comments I've heard about being able to join or pay membership fees online are wrong. If so, please correct or ignore some of the statements below.
There is nothing obvious on the home page about joining SBARC, a somewhat careful reading is required to find that link. The Donation/Membership button is somewhat confusing as to why it is there, or who it is for.
So I try to join online, and first thing I see is the Membership Button labeled donation with no dollar amount for joining.
Okay, try something else.
I search around and find the join SBARC information that says to write a check and send in the filled out PDF file.
This implies that either the wording is wrong, or people cannot join online.
This morning, I said the heck with it and blasted through on the donation button and will give the application to Dave at the club station.
Nice touch on making the downloaded PDF to allow typed in responses before printing!
I did notice there is no space for short comments. It may or may not be appropriate to mention there that I am an ARRL Santa Barbara Assistant Section Manager.
Thanks!
Marvin, KE6HTS
P.S. - Parts of the PDF form on the website show some garbage with my browser (FireFox), i.e. total description and amount. The downloaded form looks fine. Second, the PDF did not print out with all of the fields filled in as typed.
On 11/16/13 9:08 AM, Marvin Johnston wrote:
It is possible that the comments I've heard about being able to join or pay membership fees online are wrong. If so, please correct or ignore some of the statements below.
There is nothing obvious on the home page about joining SBARC, a somewhat careful reading is required to find that link. The Donation/Membership button is somewhat confusing as to why it is there, or who it is for.
So I try to join online, and first thing I see is the Membership Button labeled donation with no dollar amount for joining.
Things aren't often as easy as they seem. Consider the different classes of membership, price drop after 6 months (but just for new members), capturing areas of interest, and the like. There are lots of corner cases -- someone joining in July as a family member at the same address as an existing member (who, how to cross-reference), someone becoming licensed who wasn't (change of membership class with no money involved), changes of mailing address, etc.
There are also specific requirements for taking payments online (search "PCI compliance" for the gory details) which can usually be handled with a hosted service such as PayPal or similar.
A simple shopping-cart system could probably handle a lot of this but there are many variables and the Secretary and membership chairman need something usable that integrates with their needs. It's more complicated than a simple website tweak.
Fillable PDF forms in my experience are close to but not ready for prime time as a universal cross-platform tool, often because of incompatibilities with some PDF renderers and plug-ins.
Thanks for volunteering to improve it! :-)
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
My comments weren't oriented towards fixing a problem per se, but rather pointing out some areas that need to be clarified.
I've been taking online payments for some 15 years or so, and know enough to let someone else handle those gory details (PayPal is just one such solution.)
Thanks for volunteering to improve it! :-)
Be REAL careful what you ask for :).
Kidding aside, we have some good people in SBARC who are more than capable of addressing the issues... Michael Reynolds is the first person who comes to mind as he has done a very good job of maintaining the website.
Thanks!
Marvin
On 2013-11-16 12:22, Jay Hennigan wrote:
On 11/16/13 9:08 AM, Marvin Johnston wrote:
It is possible that the comments I've heard about being able to join or pay membership fees online are wrong. If so, please correct or ignore some of the statements below.
There is nothing obvious on the home page about joining SBARC, a somewhat careful reading is required to find that link. The Donation/Membership button is somewhat confusing as to why it is there, or who it is for.
So I try to join online, and first thing I see is the Membership Button labeled donation with no dollar amount for joining.
Things aren't often as easy as they seem. Consider the different classes of membership, price drop after 6 months (but just for new members), capturing areas of interest, and the like. There are lots of corner cases -- someone joining in July as a family member at the same address as an existing member (who, how to cross-reference), someone becoming licensed who wasn't (change of membership class with no money involved), changes of mailing address, etc.
There are also specific requirements for taking payments online (search "PCI compliance" for the gory details) which can usually be handled with a hosted service such as PayPal or similar.
A simple shopping-cart system could probably handle a lot of this but there are many variables and the Secretary and membership chairman need something usable that integrates with their needs. It's more complicated than a simple website tweak.
Fillable PDF forms in my experience are close to but not ready for prime time as a universal cross-platform tool, often because of incompatibilities with some PDF renderers and plug-ins.
Thanks for volunteering to improve it! :-)
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV _______________________________________________ SBARC-list mailing list SBARC-list@lists.netlojix.com http://lists.netlojix.com/mailman/listinfo/sbarc-list
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Jay Hennigan -
Marvin Johnston