Do you want to relocate SSP Ottawa to another site?
 

Hey everyone. With the forum on the fritz lately, I have been thinking that we need a place to meet if it all goes down. I have sincerely enjoyed discussing, debating, and shooting the shit with y'all over the years. I made a Discord channel you could join preemptively if you like. I'm not going to be active on there or develop it unless SSP bites the dust, but it would be awesome if you joined just so we could stay in touch in the worst case scenario.

SSP Ottawa 2.0
https://discord.gg/rJbGkXHC

I've noticed that too. A few times a day, SSP doesn't open. Joined the Discord. Hope we don't have to use it. O-Train Fans forum died when the Discord was opened. Forced me to join Discord. :haha:

Thanks for the initiative Harley. Much appreciated!

Agreed. I hope to never post on there! I'm glad people are joining though!

You're very welcome.

Ah, this makes much more sense now. Never read the error message and thought it was an issue just for me haha. Appreciate the community so hopefully it goes on here for a bit longer. Good to know we have a backup though. Thanks for that :)

Thanks!

I'm in. Although I tried to use Discord a few years ago and gave up in frustration so I may be uncharacteristically silent.

I can't get over how useful this group has been to learn to positively anticipate the change in my neighbourhood, or, at the very least, be well informed as to what is happening.

A big Thank you to all the regulars who have kept this part of SSP a valuable resource to residents of Ottawa.

Are the SSP tech issues not just transient? Why such ominous language?

I mean, at one point people do wonder if SSP will go down for good.

Nobody really knows what's going on, so best to err on the side of caution.
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...=256356&page=4

Ok, I joined.. My kid's discord seems to be logged into all of my devices.

I don’t think I’ve ever discorded before. I just tried to join now. But it gave me an error. Something about safari not recognizing address.

Harley, I will pm you my email. So if this place folds, you’ve got a way to make contact.

I’m super eager to attend any meetups. Last one was the height of my year.

The discord invite link is no longer valid.

Hey guys, we might have another upgraded option juste like other canadian cities already has. I presume most of you already know that platform but from my side I just notice this week. For toronto, the website is URBANTOROTO.CA
Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton are already part of it. So why not us¿

I think the map feature is really cool to have a great overview.

Why shouldn’t we make the move¿

We should!

Can't they change the name of the website?? Urbancanada.com?? As a card-carrying Toronto and Toronto Maple Leafs hater I find the switch problematic :(

The website name depends of the city:
-calgary.skyrisecities.com
-vancouver.skyrisecities.com

So I presume ottawa would be the same type

Here is the link to the Ottawa forum:
https://skyrisecities.com/forum/forums/ottawa.71/

Hmm, that is a far better forum. Direct image drops make life so easy. If we could have our mods get mod access on there we could get rolling.

Hi all,

This discussion just came to my attention. I have an option for you to consider. The one BGO mentioned above.

I run UrbanToronto.ca and also SkyriseCities.com. SRC is the world version of UrbanToronto and was launched a few years back.

https://skyrisecities.com/forum/

Calgary and Edmonton are quite active and they are both made up of former members of SSP.

https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/forum/

https://edmonton.skyrisecities.com/forum/

We did create an Ottawa section at the time of launch:

https://skyrisecities.com/forum/forums/ottawa.71/

As you can see it currently isn't really active. But it could be if you want to make the move.

All of our sites are a combination of forum and project database. UrbanToronto currently has about 4,700 projects in the database with threads for each project.

Have a look:

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/forums/buildings.5/
https://urbantoronto.ca/map/

We would do the same here. And Mods could easily be transferred over.

Open to talking further (either here or via PM).

Thank you,

Edward

This is awesome Edward! Thanks for chiming in here! I'm looking forward to seeing our community's response.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, especially as a zoomer, but I actually much prefer the layout and UI of SSP. This other site looks kind of cheap and cluttered. SSP is objectively not beautiful, but it’s functional (database issues aside) and it has a classic forum charm. The lack of a file system-like (tree?) directory/navigation is also a big minus for me. That said, I’d be a fan of the map and the ability to share images more easily.

Just my 2¢

I'm with ya.....mostly due to inertia and nostalgia, but I also prefer the look of SSP. I guess we will see where things end up naturally.

I can get used to a different aesthetic. A couple of great thing about the other forum is that it actually works all day, SSP is becoming unusable. Posting images right in the thread is such a massive timesaver, especially for someone who posts as many images as I do.

I think it really hurts participation on this forum how clunky it is to post images. It was a barrier to me starting to contribute. The other one also seems to work better on mobile. That on top of the database problems...I say move.

I love what this forum has brought to me but I am so for the move to SkyriseCities. I feel the image posting, map function, and having a central landing page for each project would bring so much value.

Think of how many times someone posts here.. "Hi, new to the forum, couldn't figure out to post a photo but..."

I posted about this exact thing over 2 years ago.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=248623

I am for the move to SkyRise. The page being down and functionality has been an issue. Loved the 2005 forum days, but probably best to move on.

Are we able to migrate the chats? or at least the last couple pages worth?

Echoing this as well. SSP is a nightmare to use on mobile and the process for posting photos is so cumbersome that I've mostly stopped posting pictures on here all together (usually will post on the rail fans discord instead since its so much easier).

On skyrise, I like that each project has a summary page that organizes the project renders and a summary of the construction photos so you don't need to scroll back through many pages to see the latest version.

I for one would be down to make the move over and if that ends up being the general group consensus, I would be happy to help out with building out the projects on skyrise.

I don't bother trying to post pictures (I wish I could occasionally), and the ads on the mobile version are so annoying that they can block three quarters of the screen and they are popping up constantly.

Good tip for you : get Firefox mobile browser and install the uBlock Origin add-on. It's a fantastic browser, and I haven't seen an ad on mobile in years. It's kind of life changing :haha::cheers:

On the image posting side of things, just wanted to throw out there that I’ve been able to save a little bit of trouble by getting ChatGPT to automatically format the links for me. It sounds gimmicky, and it kind of is, but it removes the annoyance of posting multiple images.

I use https://postimages.org/ and then copy the direct links and past into ChatGPT with a pre-existing prompt to add the img bookends.

Alright, so when do we make the switch? I don't want to visit two sites but I also don't want to leave too early!

Dzingle Bells and I have been starting to populate it with projects (so far just the latest renders and construction updates). If the mods can be moved over then they can start adding projects to the database and map, which creates the summary page

Thanks Harley for the great suggestion. :)

I welcome the opportunty to look at alternative sites which may provide a better experience for those of us who like to share construction development information in our communities with like-minded forum members.

The very first thing I noticed upon visiting a few SkyriseCities pages on my Windows 10 notebook is just how much of each page is devoted to static banners, headers, footers and menus. This clutter greatly reduces the real estate devoted to the actual content I want to read and the photos and schematics I want to see. SSP may be old and outdated, but the content is foremost on my screen and easy to read. It doesn't seem to me that your site is as user-focussed as it could be. I see a need for a usability assessment.

Also, when I tried accessing the main page https://skyrisecities.com/ on my phone (Chrome on Android 14) it simply doesn't load. Only Urban Toronto would launch (https://toronto.skyrisecities.com/). When I clicked on the menu for another city (Calgary, Edmonton, etc) the page launch just fails with an IP address error. This doesn't bode well for a successful user experience.

I could be wrong, but it appears on the surface that SkyriseCities is a proprietary platform, meaning that it won't benefit from open source community updates as time goes on. This isn't an issue if the SysAdmins are skilled and active, but over time data security issues can creep in if they aren't constantly updating all the dependencies in the code, as per software development best-practices.

After perusing the entire site, it seems to me that SkyriseCities is more of a business than a community-run cooperative of enthusiasts, as it offers news coverage, sells services, and appears to generally profit from the community-supplied content. As such I have to wonder how much software development investment is being devoted to improving the experience of the end user, the very people who are populating the site with the content that forms the basis for this business.

Would I jump up and immediately move from SSP (with it's long history of valuable archived content) to start afresh at SkyriseCities? I think I'd need some sort of show of support that it's a better experience that the devil I know at SSP.

Hi rocketphish and all.

I'll answer your questions as best as possible.

1. UrbanToronto began in 2002 strictly as a forum. It was essentially a group of people who weren't happy with SSP. While we liked tall buildings we were also very interested in how these buildings related to the urban fabric. Hence the name. The early days were not great from many perspectives. Terrible software (remember ezboard?), poor moderation and so forth. I took over fairly early on and set out to improve things, switching to vBulletin and later to Xenforo which is what we use today. Over time we added the news, databases and map. And later we launched SRC for cities outside Toronto. Calgary and Edmonton were people from SSP that were basically in the same boat you are in now. 

2. Not sure about the issues loading SRC. I have no issues and we have the traffic to prove that it is working just fine in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. I'm not an expert on browsers, so I'm not sure why Chrome on Android 14 doesn't load. I can ask my tech person.

3. SRC and UT are the same platform. Just branded differently. Everything in the backend is the same. We looked at UrbanCanada or UrbanWorld when we launched SRC but the urls were not available. Hence skyrisecities.com.

4. The software is not proprietary. The backend (news, databases map etc.) is built using Drupal. It is open source. The forum uses Xenforo, which we find to be far superior to vBulletin. We consistently upgrade to new versions as needed.

5. Yes it is a business (as is SSP) but was built by people like me whose roots are here. I understand how SSP works and why it is special. The reality is I took a community like this and greatly expanded it by adding a lot to the user experience. UrbanToronto has 4,700+ projects in our database tracking all projects across the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area. It takes resources to ensure all of this is done.

I understand there is a trade-off especially with the historical posts. But I'm confident that the user experience will be significantly better. And I'm quite open to working with you and J.OT13 or others to ensure everyone is happy with the move.

Open to any further questions (here or via PM) from any of you.

Edward

Why not start a poll?

I think this would be best moving forward.

That discord link has expired for me.

I use discord daily so it would be a good resource to have at a bare minimum.

Thanks rocketphish for your thoughtful response.

This has been a very engage and active community. Possibly the most active of all Canadian SSP Forums. I do worry that if we move to another site, we might lose a lot of forumers in the transition. In fact, this may already be happening.

The issues with SSP have been minor annoyances for me. Probably not enough for me to pack it up and leave.

We already have a lot of history here. We can go back quite far to find info, even if it's not the easiest. Starting from zero on another site would be a big step.

That's my two cents, but if a majority wants to move, than I would likely do the same.

I'll add a poll. Hopefully I don't get booted out of the forum for encouraging a potential mutiny :haha:

Before we vote, I would like to hear more from people with experience on skyrise, and if the grass is truly greener, or if we would just exchange some familiar problems with new problems.

I can speak to this a bit since I've been testing out Skyrise - these are some of the things I've noticed so far:

Pros

• Modern interface is much easier to navigate
• Mobile friendly, responsive interface making it much easier to read on smaller devices like phones (no tiny 'next page' buttons and no need to zoom in to read comment)
• Photos:
  • Much easier to upload photos - no need to host elsewhere and copy into each post. With skyrise you just drag and drop the photo into the post.
    https://i.imgur.com/Cfi28F7h.png
    
  • Photos resize automatically in threads, so need to worry about the resolution of your images when sharing (no massive photos that are several times larger than everything else on the page)
    https://i.imgur.com/i1aN5YUh.png
  • Gallery view for posts with multiple images
    https://i.imgur.com/2k7IMQRh.png
    
• Building database which is tied to each forum thread. Each building has a summary page that shows the building info, map, project renders and member photos of construction
• Post times adjust to your time zone (not sure if this is the same for everybody, but SSP displays everything in GMT -8 for me)

Cons

• Nowhere near the same historical engagement as SSP - I could see this being harder in the short term, but once projects are up and running it might be less of an issue. As a parallel, this has already happened to some extent for the transit projects - much of the conversation has moved over to the rail fans discord and there isn't nearly as much activity on the transit threads here.
• Migrating projects - certainly would be no small feat, but if a few people are willing to help with this, it might not be too bad.
• The interactive map view of projects doesn't seem to work for me - maybe Edward can speak to this

To me, there are a lot of benefits to moving, many of which I think would result in more engagement and content shared from the community, but I would understand if people would rather stay on SSP. Curious to see how the poll goes!

I love SSP because of the very active forum. I visit it almost every days. I dont post nothing by the fact its not user friendly.

I bet there's a lot of people like me that are not active on the forum for the same issue.

The move would make me more active for sure.

Historical - indeed you'll lose the historical data. Not sure there's a way to solve that. That would be a problem for me as well.

Migrating - we would help with that. Specifically in creating databases for all the projects with accompanying threads.

Map - the map for Ottawa isn't really set up yet. We would need to do a few things from our end first. That would include setting up the database, the map and activating https://ottawa.skyrisecities.com. If we go ahead with this then that url would link to a page like this with all of the same sections: https://calgary.skyrisecities.com. We wouldn't have news initially but maybe over time.

UrbanToronto.ca (20+ years now) is the same everything including backend. Any of you that have used UT (or SRC Calgary/Edmonton) might pipe in with your experiences. We get a ton of traffic on UT and I think most are quite happy. https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/forums/buildings.5/

I see no evidence that the proprietors of SSP have any intentions of improving or modernizing their platform. Even basic maintenance is deferred and then deferred, again.

For me this means that SSP will one day self-destruct and everything we value about it today will be lost forever.

When will SSP grenade? I don’t know. But we all know that it could happen tomorrow.

I feel that a proactive migration is in the best interests of our community. At least we can save what we can as we gain experience with the new platform.

A reactive posture risks the permanent loss of our entire community.

I vote oui.

I use UrbanToronto quite regularly and it is much easier and more convenient to use than SSP.

I won't repeat what @UrbOttawa has summarized below but they have done a great job at listing the benefits of Skyrise.

Regarding the issue of losing historical data, SSP does have all the data but I find it quite difficult to find when I actually need it. A few examples of SSP having the data but not being able to find it:

1. Finding Photos - Let's say I want to find a specific photo that I know was posted in the Claridge Icon thread. The only way to find it is to click and scroll through all 116 pages until I see it. On Skyrise, there is a central database page where you can see an album of all images that have been posted in the forum section about that project.

2. Searching - I don't know if I'm doing it wrong, but I have never had luck with the search function on this site. For example, when searching for the Claridge Icon thread to see how many pages there are on it, I searched "claridge icon" and it didn't come up (see below snip). That seems like a pretty glaring issue for finding historical data on SSP.
https://i.imgur.com/qzZN91R.png

3. Lack of a Map Let's say I know roughly where a project is in the city but I don't know the name or address, or as I showed above, the search function doesn't work. Edward mentioned we could get the map set up which I feel is one of the most useful parts of UrbanToronto.

I voted yes. https://ottawa.skyrisecities.com has a really nice ring to it. I would rather be on an actively maintained platform with easy image upload.

Yesterday I uploaded a couple pictures to skyrise from my phone, which was incredibly easy. I understand why longtime users want to stick with what they know but I think it’s kind of crazy to keep using this archaic software when a much better version is available. The transition would be difficult but ultimately it would increase engagement due to how much easier it is to use.

I have begun creating threads for projects and uploading images, but I am just continuing where we left off here. I can't imagine creating a new synopsis for each project yet at this point, it would be very labour intensive. I also missed some formatting that will need to be changed once mods are in place.

I've noticed that, Mr. Hoggytime ;)

Given that a workable solution that provides project continuity is important to me, I experimented by creating a couple of new threads over at SkyriseCities. In the initial post, which summarizes the project (basically a copy of the project summary post from the SSP thread), I've displayed a Discussion History link back to the originating SSP thread, so that it is as easy as possible to go back and find the original information if needed. Does this work for you folks?

https://skyrisecities.com/forum/thre...roposed.37205/

https://skyrisecities.com/forum/thre...roposed.37203/

That's a fantastic way of doing it, and far more elegant than 'just continuing the conversation' as I was starting the threads.