Watch Jefferson CountyUpcoming Changes - Beta Testers Wanted
We're Moving!
We'll be making some changes and moving Watch Jefferson County to a new server over the upcoming weeks. As part of this move, much of the site is being redesigned and updated. One of our primary goals is improving page load times, especially for those of you with dial-up internet access.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions! What works well for you? What would you like done differently? Would you like larger maps? A different Group display? To display reports on your HOA website? Different colors? Please let us know.
Members can reply to this post, anyone can use the Contact form.
Update:
We're almost ready! Here's a few of the new features:
- Online searchable Jefferson County crime data dating back to 2001
- Better community group access
- Search reports on the map interface from the main page
- Report notifications can be received via text messaging
- Faster page load times
- Simplified menu system
- ...and much more!
Update:
We're looking for a few beta testers to troubleshoot our new site. The ideal beta tester will be a Watch Jefferson County member who is familiar with our current site.
We would like several beta testers with IE6, IE7 and Firefox browers. If you're willing to help out, please send an email via the contact tab and let us know the following:
- Your OS
- Your Browser & version
- Your internet connection details (i.e. Cable, DSL, Dialup...)
- Your Watch Jefferson County username
We're also looking for potential volunteers to help with manual geocoding of incident reports. Many of the incidents in our database have been automatically geocoded. The remainder need to be done by hand. Volunteers will be added to our new 'Location Team' and will have the option to edit locations when viewing incidents on the new site.
Comments
I am concernered about the
I am concernered about the pets, especially dogs left out in this frigid weather is there anything that can be done about this. Also will I be contacted about the new server information.
Carrie
Thanks very much for your
Thanks very much for your feedback! We will send an email to all Watch Jefferson County members when the transition is complete. The current web address for Watch Jefferson County will continue to work as well.
If you see pets that appear to be in danger from the cold you may want to share your concern with their owners. Should that fail, you might try Animal Control - (728-3289). I'll find and post some cold weather pet care information on our site as well.
Come on people! There are
Come on people!
There are over 300 members and another 500 that check in once in a while to see what's going on and no one else has any suggestions, requests, comments or complaints?
On that note...
The site may not be as conducive to discussion as it could be. I wouldn't mind making more comments, but a short dialogue could end up taking up the whole "recent comments" column on the right, with every comment having its own title and discrete space - maybe not every comment should be highlighted as such, but instead there could be groupings, perhaps with some kind of indication that a new comment has been filed. Also, I'm not sure when a comment should really be an active forum topic or vice versa - or is it all the same? Perhaps a little more clarity about that. I do find this site very valuable and would be interested in hearing/sharing more views about reports/topics. Also, I would be interested in more status updates/follow-ups on reports. Thanks!
p.s. to "on that note"
Just wanted to add, per the comment I just posted, that I realize there already are "groupings" of comments in the report headings, so I guess I am seeking greater ease of use of the site to have discussions, but I am sorry that I don't have more specific suggestions. Anyway, this is a case in point, where I wanted to add this p.s. but had to go through a sort of formal procedure to add it instead of via a more relaxed appraoch, and now there will be two of my comments with titles in the "recent comments" column, which perhaps is a little too formal for me and kind of discourages me (except for right now!) from entering comments. OK, I'm done for now. Thanks again!
Change that would assist LE
I have an idea that might already be possible with the current website but I'm not sure how to do it. I'd like to be able to pull up a map with only the same crimes/concerns and/or a list of the same with locations. For example, if I'm looking for a trend or increase in destruction of property complaints, I could pull up only those crimes. This would assist the Sheriff's Department in quickly locating trends. This would allow us to better utilize our resources and direct patrols to combat these trends.
The only way I know I can do this now is going through all of the reports and spotting the trends myself. It is possible but time consuming... I imagine that the computer would be able to do it a lot faster with a simple program.
Thanks!!
took another look...
I looked again at the browse reports menu and saw that you should be able to pull specific reports (i.e. Vandalism). However, when I try to do so, I still get the full list below. Not sure if it's because of all the website maintenance that is occuring.
Also, it would be nice if I could pull incidents that occured within a distance from a specific address/location. From what I see, it appears that I can only pull reports that are a distance from where I am registered. If this is possible, please let me know.
Thanks again.
The new site...
I am not very clear as to how the “Groups
Beta Testers Wanted
Windows XP Home Edition
-Version 2002
-Service Pack 2
Firefox 2.0.0.3
DSL (Frontiernet)
UID: Ronald Kelley