June 2009 Update

Wow, kind of dead around here, huh?  Spring is always the busiest time of the year for me, and this year is no different.  I apologize for the lack of updates on the main part of the site over the last few months, I just didn’t have the time, the contributing editors kind of stopped as well, and there weren’t too much exclusive material flowing in.  Look for updates to start up again in the coming weeks.  I also apologize to all of those you sent emails in with questions that I was unable to reply to.  Again, time was a factor and you’d might be surprised how many emails (non-spam) I receive a day related to the site.

The forum side of the site will be updated in the following months with a new version of the software that runs the boards.  The updated boards will add some new features like rep points, and a bunch of other new gadgets/gimmicks to play with and add to the site.  It will be installed once the forum software company releases the code which is currently being tested as a release candidate, which means people are testing the version they plan to release on their sites and looking for bugs.  I decided to wait for them to find the bugs instead of subjecting our site to any.

I’ve noticed a downward trend in visits for most of the local firefighting sites based on site rankings and so forth.  It raises a question about the future of sites like Hoopie World.  Have they worn out their welcome?  It seems some companies don’t allow members to post on forums like ours in fear of ticking people off.  Are there less whackers out there now than there were as little as a few years ago?  Or is there just so many other things to look at on the web and other things to do that people are too busy to visit/post on the fire sites?  Regardless, we’re still moving forward, striving to be the best site out there for Western Pennsylvania firefighting information. I believe we are going to see some major changes to the firefighting scenery over the next few years, especially with Allegheny County and I plan to use this site as an avenue to discuss and cover the changes.  Of course, we will continue to post fire incident and apparatus pictures as well.

As always, send me any suggestions or comments to support@hoopieworld.com or post a comment to this article or in the forums.

Stay safe out there.