Now that the discussion is finally on track as to what the OP was trying to point out....

To the OP, and the others who get it, I hear you.

To others, this thread is about rebuilding, preserving and growing rypn.org, not exhaust nozzles.

I am a newer member and observer here with other various assorted, non-related interests.

I don't have any books, accolades, or stars after my name. Actually I have NO credentials to speak of in railway preservation, other than what I have learned over the years working for a class 1 railroad.

But...

Before you go all Facebooky take a look at the rypn homepage. I suspect most here (including myself) rarely look at. Half of the page in at least two different browsers I've checked is a blank white spot on my screen. It is the same with all the webpages on the site. It has references to 2004!

The very first sentence states, "It's been nearly 6 years since the last article/brief was published. Since then Railway Preservation News has essentially been running on autopilot." And this is dated August 2017.

Would this interest someone passing through to want to investigate more?

The forums here are but a part of the whole of rypn.com The public face IS the homepage. Use the above mentioned white space for the news hiding in the "flimsies" page. (with pictures, of course.)

Everyone here has groups they work with. Have your group webpage, facebook page, whatever, place a link to rypn.org Generate traffic to this site. But first give people something worth looking at.

You have pictures you want to post somewhere? Here is something I did yesterday. (Temporary only)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/163574057@N06/

I can easily add rypn.org to the page. The one photo already has 20 views in less than 24 hours.

Facebook, sure. Other avenues to get ideas and people here? Without a doubt. Bring on your ideas and suggestions. Brainstorming means all ideas are considered.

But it starts here.

Rick - I have already posted to the RYPN vs other platforms debate so please excuse if I post to some of the other subtopics that have come up. Thank you.

I have no data but it appears that, omitting the occasional Len incarnation, the quality of the posts varies along the same basic curve regardless of whether or not it has a "real name" or pseudonym attached to it.

The concept of people spending time and mental energy figuring out the identity of a person posting under a pseudonym is ludicrous to me.

Mr. Day - I have always enjoyed the posts regarding exhaust advancements and theory by you and Dr. Koopmans as they give me an opportunity to reach back into some of my early education (there is a crumb for all you pseudonym chasers out there) and apply it to something I love. As for your explanation of why you no longer post, I do have a few questions if you could please clarify. When you state that the Challenger work is "client, customer confidential" does that mean that, by agreement with UP, your work for them is considered work product and is their property and so you can not divulge the details? Or, as indicated by your comment that, "it is my personal intellectual property", are you attempting to use trade secret law to protect your intellectual property and so UP is not allowed to divulge the details as per a confidentiality agreement you had them sign? Either way, what prevents you from posting performance data such as impact on oil/coal and water consumption and drawbar pull vs. speed? It seems that information can be shared without compromising anyone's intellectual assets in the design of the exhaust. Since you have been so successful with your advancements over the years, such data would no doubt reduce what you characterize as the abuse and ridicule of your work or, at least, render it irrelevant. Finally, you say that, "I will explain the workings of such things as Lempors and draughting in the right time and place". Does that mean you intend to write a book to share you knowledge and experience like Chapelon or Wardale? Thank you and continued good luck with your work.

This underscores another issue in the industry, the "proprietary information" problem. We are pretty poor about sharing experiences and knowledge. I often think that people think that such knowledge gives them an economic advantage, when in fact their capability is what gives them a customer base and work.

More importantly, it underscores an issue of what Rick was really talking about (not the U.K., not exhaust nozzles), the decline of this forum. It's an issue I've loudly complained about in the past.

There were efforts to revive the forum and the front end, and I don't know what happened to them. Part of me thinks that the moderators here do not want to give up their little fiefdom to a new, motivated group. A revived RYPN could use social media like Facebook and Twitter to direct potential readers and participants to the forum.

Actually, I think the current volunteers running the forum would be thrilled to have somebody capable step up and rebuild and maintain the articles section, not to mention do any of the myriad other things they have been doing. It isn't a fiefdom, its a group if unpaid serfs. If I had the technical skills I'd be pleased to help - I don't, so, gentlemen, my editing and reviewing services are yours for the asking if somebody who knows HTML related things handles that bit of it. It's not the whole job but it's what I can do if it will help out.

I'm also not sure we want to open the door too widely. I'd risk losing out on some elements of interest in exchange for a filter based on prospective posters having to do some work to find us, if nothing else as a means of demonstrating their serious level of interest rather than just more convenience based foaming.

Regarding intellectual property - Respect for Nigel, I'm an admirer and have been since before we even met at the Cog a long time ago - and I understand his perspective and it apparently works well for him, so all the best. For most of the rest of us, probably not so much...... nobody is going to get rich even if they have 100% market penetration of a specific form of front end design or any other improvement of an obsolete custom craft piece. There are simply not enough steam locomotives being operated by entities with deep enough pockets to make it worthwhile. Everything I have had shared with me or learned is freely available to anybody else who needs it since what makes any of us stronger makes us all stronger. Like Robert, I'm impressed with that spirit on this board.

Concerning Facebook - my two cents.... I'm one of those that look at Facebook only as a tool to promote content on your website or for events. FB and a good website are not interchangeable. I wouldn't recommend integrating FB into your website as some businesses seem to like to do. You have to ask yourself why, what do you want to achieve? You want "Likes" on your web pages? That just gets users more FB and misses the point. You want public comments from "Friends" on all your web pages? Use CMS for your website instead.

Go ahead and have a FB page but use it to drive traffic to your site. Traffic and good site design with relevant content will drive your search ranking up and make the site easier to find.

So far as this BB goes, using FB to do the same thing would be clunky at best. Sure, BB forums are old school but there's a reason they're still plentiful on the web and the software enjoys continuous development... It works very well at what it does. Frankly, I can't think of a better replacement.

For the RYPN website as a whole, I'd be happy to toss in my opinions or suggestions and go so far as to help in development and coding. Oops, I might have volunteered a little bit.

I found a solution. Premade plugin for the phpbb forum software used by the website. https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/extension/postimage/
These photos would be externally hosted, but I’m sure there are solutions made for internally hosted photos as well. Just takes a quick google search by whoever is maintaining the forum.

I would imagine though that the forum software in place probably needs to be updated to a more up to date version to get some enhancements that I’m sure have been added to phpbb over the last several years since it was last updated.

Yes, typing "END" is a good way to get people to shut up. And that's what basically happened/happens, and you wonder why people don't find RYPN. THAT is a classic example of what I said earlier.

FB has issues, as those who see/watch/read news might be aware of. It requires some knowledge in setting up your feeds, friends, contracts, etc. properly. The recent issue with FB gathering all contact information, phone information and texting information is indicative and should be instructive of that.

Another forum is TrainOrders. That also has what some might perceive to be a "clunky" interface.

I have been in IT for over 45 years - and have been a programmer, operator, administrator, DBA, Webmaster, etc. The one constant is that users are lazy and they will do the absolute minimum to secure their information and to obtain information. They are far more likely to ask a question than to go searching for the answer (which can usually be found in a simple google search).

As I said before, the medium is not a problem. The constant "get off my lawn you punks!" comments, such as the UP steam comment *IS*. It will serve to drive away far more people than it attracts. Saying "shut up, it's over, we don't have to explain" is as bad as it gets.

In listening to the news relative to Facebook this week, one thing becomes apparent. While web sites such as RyPN have some element of ownership, Facebook is quite another story. You really don’t own the page that you are posting to on Facebook, the data is potentially perishable. You are at someone else’s mercy. An advantage of RyPN is this sense of control, or as much as you can have with a dedicated web page.

A second key point is that RyPN is not out to make money on any of us. Analytics and other tools are not at play here, tracking our every move, our comments, what we search for within the RyPN site in order to sell us something or to sell our activity to advertisers and such. Again, there is a sense of privacy, at least compared to the open window of Facebook where every key stroke is sold to the highest bidder.

Keep in mind Facebook sales are flat, although still in the over 2 billion user mark, they are essentially a dying business model at this point. Several competitors have popped up which the younger generations seem to prefer, and Facebook is now seen as the medium of grand parents. Its no longer cool.

Again, RyPN gives some sense of ownership, some sense of privacy believe it or not, at least compared to facebook and google who I would say are the two worst offenders.

The bottom line would appear that there is a need for RyPN. It has been shown to be key in several recent saves and it a wealth of easy to find information via the search function. I would tend to suggest the following and would be happy to help:

1) Some sort of connection to social media might help with exposure of RyPN. Not sure how that would work, but the exposure would be useful.

2) I would not change much with the current board operation. Its clunky only compared to Facebook. NGDF and Chaski are just as clunky and both thrive.

3) Moderation is key. Keeping the focus on preservation efforts is key.

4) I wonder if there is some way to create a CD that could be sold to help fund the site containing all the posts of the past how many years. I find it interesting that when I have an odd preservation question that I search for answers for via google, that many times it brings me to an ancient RyPN positing. As a community, we must preserve this information. This is probably my biggest concern relative to RyPN. How to save the archives? And can those archives be sold to make a buck or two? What great reference material to have on one’s computer, especially if for some reason RyPN ceased to exist.

Again, willing to help.
J.R. May

For the few that are interested, I have prepared a revised text on the calculation of multiple front-ends:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... st_orifice
It contains the inclusion of the Buckingham similarity explanation of which modern textbooks on fluid dynamics devote at least one chapter.
This explains the behaviour of scaled models of front-ends which lead to double chimneys and multiple orifice versions.
It also uses the diffuser test data of McDonald and Fox which appear to be a joy to use in spreadsheet type calculations.
This text contains the theory on which the changes of f.i. the GWR King 6023 and WCR#9 is based.
Since my 80th birthday is nearing, this is my last contribution to the subject.
You are invited to falsify the approach, so far I have only received opinions on my earlier texts, not a shred of evidence for any improvements.
Kind regards
Jos

That URL didn't work for me, try this one -

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... 9/download

sorry, corrected in the original post

Thank you for all your hard work and best wishes for whatever you wish to pursue in the future.

Indeed, thank you, Sir for all that you have contributed to this work !!!

Don't let age stop you ... it didn't stop you with the original thesis, either.