if the user picks #bikefit, then Slowman and a few trusted gurus could add additional tags, if they saw fit. If #aero, then the resident aero gurus could add tags.

Or maybe posts only get tagged if they reach a certain view and/or upvote / like / +1 count. In that case, I think it makes sense to leave tagging in the hands of the admins. That way is probably easier. Maybe.

Maybe. I dunno, really. I obviously haven't thought it through completely, so I'm just writing what comes into my head as it comes up.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

- Some sort of obvious warning when replying to a post that is over a year old. Would be nice to also have some blatant indicator that a post you are reading is over a year old, red highlight over the date maybe.

- Better handling of embedded images and lines of text that should be wrapped but are not. Large images should not mess up the post width when loading.

- Button to reply to the original post even if you are at the bottom or on another page.

- Have same menu options in the header and footer of threads.

- Search results that can return threads instead of posts. Then allow you to further search (refine your search) in a thread for the content you are searching.

- Like button (also shows users that liked a post). (Note, not up or down votes and not used to sort threads/posts to the top)

- Link on the thread list that lets you go to the last page instead of first. For example, if you are not logged in and want to see the latest week in pictures posts it would be nice if you didn't have to load the first page before jumping to the last. Generally, would make reading when not logged in better.

- Better mobile support.

..

Great move - I feel ST is kind of stuck in the 90s a bit in terms of design. Take a look at some examples out there that may give you some ideas on design and give you what most people are asking for

Vanilla Forums example
Jive example

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Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

"Link on the thread list that lets you go to the last page instead of first"

you do kind of have this now. at the far right of the thread row is an arrow pointing right. clicking on that arrow takes you to the most recent post.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

vanilla forums is nice. we serve between 6 and 10 million pages a month, depending on the month, on slowtwitch, and a very large chunk of that is the reader forum. there is no way i'm going to do business with any reader forum, CMS, or any software that we pay for by the month, pricing based on impressions. but i take your point, it's a nice platform and one with admirable features.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

A lot of this.

Don't make it suck Slowman. There's a lot of people who are perfectly happy with ST as is.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

looking at their features page, it seems that you may only need their "starter" or "advanced" package (but with more impressions.). I don't see any info about the price for more impressions if you go over, but I'm guessing they would make you a deal. In your shoes, the one thing I would consider a benefit of the "monthly service" model is that I don't need to worry about hardware, software, backups etc. for the forum (which as you say is the bulk of the traffic) and the monthly cost is at least predictable if you strike the right deal. And if you structure your ad sales based on forum activity then your sales scale with your costs too. I think you could also sell more targeted advertising by having sub groups (which today would be difficult to navigate but with a nice interface would be slick). For example, you could have an Aerodynamics group where Pearl Izumi finally hands over some cash for all the sales we've generated for them (no joke!), or even race-based groups where you can sell to advertisers who are local to that race. Or a nutrition group where Ben Greenfield can pay you to advertise magic bracelets and tri-ripped-spartan-fat-adapted-super-human-keto supplements.


But my point is, that with a more flexible, better designed forum, you potentially create more opportunity for ad revenues. You would probably also drive higher user engagement through the better design. Lastly, paying monthly might make sense if the numbers work out (it also may not, but it's worth exploring).

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____________________________________

Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

Funny. It never really occurred to me in the last 14 years that the arrow image was a link let alone separate from the last post user link. :)

It is nice to be able to jump to someone's profile, but is this really something you are going to do from the thread list? For the last posted user? Only time I've ever thought to look at someone's profile is after I read something crazy they wrote. (i.e. inside a thread) From the thread list clicking on a user profile link, at least for me, is always a mistake as I meant to open the thread instead.

..

Please don't add a lot of sub-categories. It is annoying and kills a forum faster than anything else.

My suggestion is random drug testing for forum users.

"I don't see any info about the price for more impressions if you go over, but I'm guessing they would make you a deal."

based on their pricing, i'm going to be at their highest tier, and that's several thousand dollars a month. i'd rather put that into development. i don't want a deal. if they want my business they ought to price it that way in the beginning.

"I think you could also sell more targeted advertising by having sub groups"

that's all stuff i can do now. we have pretty sophisticated ad software, and i can stick zones and code anywhere i want, i can target in any way i want, keyword, geo, time of day, day of week, and the forum software i use has nothing really to do with the ads i serve. the most sophisticated forum software isn't going to supersede my ad software. as for back-ups, etc., i don't need that either, because i've got back-ups and redundancy through my current web host.

as to your point about the sales we generate for specific advertisers who aren't slowtwitch partners, i am keenly aware of these companies (not specifically the one you mentioned, who is not really near the top of my list of freeloaders). this is another topic. i know who the freeloaders are. believe me, it chaps my hide to see companies participate in the triathlon economy, reap the benefit of that economy, and give absolutely nothing back. and i don't mean companies whose primary marketing strategy is freeloading off this forum community, rather companies that don't give back in any meaningful sense. i keep a mental list of who the freeloaders are. no, i don't make it public, which i think would be unseemly. but i occasionally have private chats with them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hello Slowman and All,

I don't think your efforts to tailor the ST forum to mobile devices will be wasted if you go that route.

I see so many people hugging, loving, and watching their mobile devices.

Glasses or goggles that expand a field of view larger than most any TV screen are desired by those smart phone users and industry will provide that device .... before too long.

Envision a future were the glasses or goggles are the primary device and can receive data from various transmitting devices located in your pocket, at store fronts, automobiles, airplanes, desktops, and so on.

http://recode.net/...orky-to-be-believed/



.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

This. My internet connection at home is the shits. Fancy websites with lots of graphics or complex code annoy the crap out of me because they are so slow. Slowtwitch works great on my crap connection.

^Ditto

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<We all know that light travels faster than sound. That's why certain people appear bright until you hear them speak>

A mobile version would be nice, but otherwise leave it alone. If you put any more ads on the site, I'll probably start using AdBlocker.

Oh yeah, auto-hyperlinking has been available since like 1996... it's about time the forum did it.

How about a way to list "sick" or "vacation" under training log?

I would like to see why (when I look back at training) I didn't work out for a week or 5 days in March or Feb based on such things.

"If you put any more ads on the site, I'll probably start using AdBlocker."

we try to be pretty good about ad overreach. no takeovers that you must get rid of in order to read content. no floating boxes or any of that crap. and no third party networks. no links at the bottom of the page taking you to the 10 worst plastic surgery disasters. no adsense code enabling the creepy ads that follow you around the internet like a stalker.

on the flip side, i did build an "adblock identifier" which allows me to block adblocker, that is, its blocks access to slowtwitch for those deploying adblocker. well, not automatically. i have to one-by-one ban these users. but i don't actually ban anybody for using adblocker, because those who have adblocker deployed on slowtwitch are so few. which is gratifying to me.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I have adblock on most of my machines but try to "whitelist" slowtwitch because the ads don't bother me like other sites. Ghostery as well.

bless your heart ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Just want to echo that from the user side, one of the things you've done well is delivering ads. I like how they sit off to the side and don't get in the way of content. On other sites, I never click on ads because they piss me off. Here, I actually click on them, from time to time.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Has this been mentioned? An iPhone and iPad app

You realize a mobile site is optional, right? Desktop browser defaults to full site, mobile browser defaults to mobile site, but you can change that either way and have the forum remember your preferences (cookies on client side, or your login on server side).

We need newer VBB/UBB/whatever forum software, and yes definitely a mobile site.

Try this on a desktop web browser:

http://arstechnica.com

Then go there on a mobile device. That's how it's done!

Please no. Stop thinking in terms of downloading apps for consuming internet content. You already have that app. It is called a "web browser". The browser you use was coded by hundreds of smart people over a long period of time and has a good track record. It is stable and as secure as they can make it. An app published by some web site would be coded by one person over few weeks and would be riddled with problems. Not to mention when you run their code they could do whatever they wanted to your device and you'd never know. That's not an issue for ST because we know them and trust them, but for all those other web site apps? Have you ever asked a question: why is it that so many web sites are so insistent on installing their app? What's it to them?

What we need for ST is mobile CSS.

Having spent a bit of time actually thinking about my side of things on ST here is a list of things I'd want that aren't currently on the site:

1. Editorial content as a thread by default
By this I mean rather than going to the homepage and hitting refresh and looking for a new article I want the "Publish" function on your side to simultaneously post the article to the Homepage and then create and post it to a forum thread. This way I can stay in my centralized place on ST and not have to keep 2 tabs open.

2. Enhanced Mobile/Tablet experience
This has already been discussed but I'm going to add +1 to the vote.

3. Embed Video and Photo into the thread.
When I put in a URL that is YouTube, Vimeo, etc just show it inline. Same for URLs that end with popular image formats (jpg, jpeg, gif, png)

4. User Avatars / Thumbnails
I'm here often enough to know who the posters driving the content are however I remember back to when they were just letters and numbers from "strangers". I like that we get to know one another on here and it actually is great how it's like the Tri community but it would be nice to put a visual cue in there.

5. Advanced Search features and options.
I find myself using Google to search the forums (using a +Slowtwitch) because the results here are so bad. Again this has been discussed so you're already aware of what needs to be done here.

6. Post comments to the Editorial work with ST credentials
This is an edge case but I hate not being able to post to the editorial content because I don't have Facebook. I know I'm likely the minority on that but still some kind of option to join those discussions would be nice. #1 on this list should fix it.

7. Where to workout section
I think it's safe to say a lot of us travel and venture to places to run swim and bike. As a frequent traveler I'd love to know where the top ranks places to do my training are. As of now I use other apps/sites but it would be an interesting sub-forum or section.

8. User Contributed Garmin "course" files
I'd love to have the ability to load my Garmin headunit with the "course" I'm about to race. This way it give me some guidance if I've never done that course before. I'll also get details like elevation gain and decent loss. This is again just a bonus I'd like.

9. Tables in the post
I often want to copy and paste some details from an excel file or Google sheets and the forum does not support the use of tables. This would make life a lot better for the organization of information. Example is when giving out a workout with column Distance, Effort Level, Duration.

I think that covers all my pains and the gains I'd like to see here on Slowtwitch as a user. Thanks again Dan for engaging with the community on these changes before you go ahead and roll them out!

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"

Something that integrates with Tapatalk app ----- a lot of the forums I read are in that platform.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

Which you can reproduce easily by using the new frameworks like bootstrap, angular.js, etc.