Since I keep getting similar emails and questions, here’s a quick guide to how we work and how findings get processed. It should help set expectations, keep things from getting lost, be it in my inbox, in some random Excel sheet or in translation.
First things first
When reporting something (there's a specific mailbox for that), please keep it calm and factual. Until either Els or I confirms it, it’s just a finding. Not a bug. Not a disaster. Not “the end of the world as we know it” (though yes, that's a great R.E.M. song).
What you don’t like might actually be a deliberate choice (yes, we do sometimes make choices on purpose). Or it might be unintended use by you. For example: we provide a rich text editor, but we don’t (and never did) support copy-pasting formatted Word documents. Or, maybe it is a problem—but not quite on the same scale as “the entire website is down.”
Some Theory on Findings
Findings usually get sorted by severity and type.
- Service restoration → “It really doesn’t work.” No workaround exists. Severity ranges from a simple typo (Low) to “the whole site is down” (Critical). Note: It’s rarely “Critical” if only one user is impacted. Critical means everyone is affected.Example: You can’t upload multiple pictures and then you suddenly can’t access the site at all.Explanation: Our WAF (web application firewall) protects security and needs to be configured properly. That's pretty hard for a non-professional, even with AI. What the example boils down are actually two findings:
- High → One user is blocked by the WAF. Restore their service by unblocking them.
- Medium → Everyone uploading files with hyphens gets banned. (Annoying, but you can upload single files or rename your files to not use hyphens.)
- Service request → You need help, or you’re asking for a small tweak (<1h of work).Examples: You want a link to Google Maps with the maps. You want captions to display properly ...
- Change request → Bigger than one hour.Examples: You want tables for all lists as you don't like thumbnails, you want the old visit tab back, you want to visit specific locations, ...
For service or change requests, keep in mind, we simply have more wishes than hours in the day. So how do we prioritize? Honestly, it boils down to:
- Els wants it.
- Nan wants it.
While I may be biased towards my personal preferences, Els has the community in mind, so I think this is a pretty good setup. If neither of us is convinced… well, unless you roll up your sleeves and code it yourself, it probably won’t happen.
What helps us help you
Instead of “I demand X!” or “I’ll quit if Y doesn’t happen!”, try this:
- Tell us why you want it.
- Explain how it benefits you and the wider community or public.
- Be clear and specific about what you mean. Add screenshots if possible.
- Have the categories above in mind: severity + type.
- Preferably, you don't write 5-page letters, but log each finding individually in a separate email.
The better the explanation, the easier it is for us to make the call. And if you can suggest a simple solution, even better. Compare:
- Google Maps has to be supported!
- Can you provide links to Google Maps on the full map view?
The latter was implemented and that fairly fast. The former is not possible given Google's pricing policy.
The good old days…
Yes, we’ve heard it from some of you: “the old site was better.” Nostalgia runs deep in the travel community—one now former member even used the comment function to declare everything terrible and announce his leaving. Side note: Several new users have signed up and have started contributing from the get-go. And we are generally very happy with the current state of the website.
A few points to consider: maps and images on the old site weren’t better—far from it. Look at the core zones Els added and the growing number of POIs we’ve collected. Los Glaciares is a nice example where you finally can grasp the full scope of the site, plus the involved logistics. Personally, the old map had me lost - of all places - in Pécs as the UNESCO coordinates are wrong. We have added PoIs and now it's pretty clear where you need to go.
You can also see members becoming active who weren't active before. We get a stream of new images for our topics. Same as for geo data. The community is also enhanced by having a more widely applied comment function and the thumbnails that put a face with a name. Personally, I have taken a great liking to all these features.
Under the hood, the site is far more capable: we now have a GIS, S3 storage for the huge number of images, and a CMS (Wagtail) with workflow features. Sure, it sounds like buzzword bingo, but these were necessary to overcome the limitations of the old site. Due to the technology stack, the old site was basically frozen in time. Just to give you two numbers: We have nearly 20k pages and 20k images that need to be managed. Try doing that with wholly self-developed PHP/MySQL.
From a project and professional perspective, like-for-like migrations are painful. You end up wasting time migrating legacy features instead of building new, exciting functionality. Priorities change over time. For the go-live, Els defined the MVP. And since then, we prioritize topics continuously. Right now, the focus is on images.
Also, aiming for perfection or completion often means never finishing. Projects need to go live. If we had tried a full like-for-like migration, we’d still be stuck in limbo—and I’m not sure I could have kept up the effort. Perfect is the enemy of done.
That said, if you have concrete feedback about what was better in the old site, we’ll listen and consider it—just be specific so we can act.
Ongoing improvements
We’ll keep developing, though admittedly at a slower pace (I’ll finally get back on the road again, and I can’t keep coding on night shifts forever). But the backlog is full, and there’s plenty that Els and I both want to add.
Some small things shipped today:
- Maps can now toggle between pins and icons.
- Completed countries now show per user in the off-canvas view
And to end with a favourite quote from Bertolt Brecht:
A man who had not seen Herr K. for a long time greeted him with the words: “You haven’t changed at all.” “Oh!” said Herr K., and turned pale.
