Can’t we get a change here?
Can’t we get a change here?
What are you actually looking for? You want more polished icons? I’m actually about to upgrade the forum software for some improved functionality. But it’s going to look the same.
Search isn’t great, no avatars to easily ID posters, hitting the bold button never works for me, quoting function not great/useful as implemented elsewhere, and other aesthetic reasons obvious when simply looking at the site.
Search isn’t great, no avatars to easily ID posters, hitting the bold button never works for me, quoting function not great/useful as implemented elsewhere, and other aesthetic reasons obvious when simply looking at the site.
What don’t you like about the search?
Avatars are a no go. I’m not interested in policing the images people chose for avatars. They also don’t actually add anything beyond a username. This forum actually has avatar support. We disabled it.
What, in particular, doesn’t work when you hit the bold button? The text you select doesn’t become bold?
What would you like changed in the way quote/reply function works?
I’m happy to help, where I can, but it needs to be something slightly more constructive than “your forum obviously looks like shit. Just look at it.”
Search isn’t great, no avatars to easily ID posters, hitting the bold button never works for me, quoting function not great/useful as implemented elsewhere, and other aesthetic reasons obvious when simply looking at the site.
What don’t you like about the search?
Avatars are a no go. I’m not interested in policing the images people chose for avatars. They also don’t actually add anything beyond a username. This forum actually has avatar support. We disabled it.
What, in particular, doesn’t work when you hit the bold button? The text you select doesn’t become bold?
What would you like changed in the way quote/reply function works?
I’m happy to help, where I can, but it needs to be something slightly more constructive than “your forum obviously looks like shit. Just look at it.”
Serious question, have you used other forums such as this one:
http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/
The quoting function is excellent. Shows them nicely/easy to read, easy to click on the quote to find the original post and shows the authors of all the quoted text. The quoting of ST isn’t too functional. I see someones text, but can’t really tell who said it, can’t really click anywhere to jump to the post.
When I highlight text and click bold, it adds the bold markup language to the bottom of the post. It’s worked like that for me for 5 years now.
Avatars aren’t just graphical fun things. They’re useful. I personally like being able to tell who posted by seeing out of the corner of my eye. And yes, it gives people an easy way to show their bike, etc. I’d say 99% of forums use them nowadays and the moderators don’t seem to be worried about policing. Being that you can add images to posts here on ST, I don’t necessarily think Avatars are the only thing you have to worry about.
Searching isn’t great. I get every post in every thread (i.e. all of the “re:…”) instead of links to the threads themselves. This makes searching extremely cumbersome.
It’s really night/day when compared to other forums. Off the top of my head, a couple more things. ST tells me there are a few new messages in classifieds that I haven’t seen. It’s almost impossible for me to tell what’s new…what’s updates…what I’ve read. The above forum listed shows this much nicer. Very easy to manage what you’ve seen/haven’t seen.
Also titles+subtitles are nice.
A really long thread doesn’t allow me to jump to a page right away from the main index. I need to go to the thread, then click the page I want.
These posts aren’t to say simply “the website looks like crap” as you think they do. Sorry if they are offending you, but seriously, look around the internet. This forum has a very old look and feel to it. Not all that functional. If I spent more time I could come up with more things. But I’d start by looking at what other sites have done.
FWIW, I remember in 2005 talking about this with Empfield. And 5-6 years later we have the same look/feel.
I’ve use a bunch of other forums - but not big-boards. One reason we use Gossamer Threads is because of the amount of custom work that we have in the forum. And the custom work we can have done.
I do like the quoting on that Big-Boards forum A LOT. And I’d definitely queue up something like that in devel.
Upgrades to exactly what you are describing in the search feature are slated for devel. You’ll just have to bear with me on that one.
I’m taking it that you are using the basic editor? I’ll put a bug in that the bold isn’t working as you’d expect. But as I said, we’re about to upgrade the forum, so that may have been fixed. I’ll check. I’m just so used to writing – that I never noticed. Same with underline/italics. Thx.
Some of the other features you’ve listed are definitely things to consider.
As far as the forum looking and feeling the same as 2005, that’s because it IS the same. Dan hired me in late 2007. And keep in mind that I’m one person. Not that I do all of the devel, but I oversee all of it, and it’s not my full time job. However, since then, the site has grown a ton - training log, new CMS that gave us the new front page, upgrades to that CMS that you’ll start to see more and more improvements to, and then all of the various running store / bike shop / race calendar / databases. And the forum works - and people are generally happy with it - so I’ve focused primarily on adding functionality to the site as opposed to upgrading a system that works reasonably well - though not flawlessly.
The forum is about to get an upgrade, but the basic look and feel is going to stay LARGELY the same. I’m not sure if you run a forum - maybe you do - but my experience with this forum is that you have to be VERY careful with change. We’ve made what I thought were some VERY small changes, and people have FREAKED out. For every upgrade you mention, I also need to consider what that might change. I.e., change is good, as long as people don’t HAVE to use it. So I’m always cognizant of that.
As far as avatars, it’s just not gonna happen. Personally, I think they look like shit. And especially when people use animated gifs, it drives me insane. And I just don’t see that it adds a lot in terms of functionality.
for what its worth, I second that avatars would be a nice addition
understand where you’re coming from though
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I would say, please no avatars. Personally I hate them as well. I also hate it when sites have “default” avatars that most people don’t bother changing. Nice clean text keeps me coming back.
What I do hate is that some of the button have grey background and white text. Like in the editor I am using here currently, the “post reply” button is set up like that. I always have trouble finding those buttons.
I like the way this forum is set up at present. I have used 4 other forums and this is the best one.
I like that it is nice and clean. Avatars to me a ok, but the distraction they create isn’t worth having them.
Simple is best. Would use the same style as this forum if I was ever to set one up.
G.
I am new here, and have found SlowTwitch to be an excellent resource on so many levels and I hope that I am not being too bold by joining in on this coversation.
I am experienced forum administrator and have a lot of experience in administering and developing forum boards. Here are a few examples (gaming websites) that I am working on. I primarily do graphics work and some coding.
http://vandrunken.com/forums/ (This is my personal forum that I use to test and play around with different skins and graphics)
http://tacticalgaming.net/hq/ (This board is in development therefore not all the links are working and the graphics are almost complete)
http://tghq.org (I have done many of the graphics on this site and is currently live with a community of over 1600 members.)
Both of these boards have been developed using Invision Power Board and would be my recommended board of choice. It is not free, but it is very powerful and has an excellent support system in place if/when you run into an issue or have questions.
I can tell that there has been quite a bit of custom development on ST, my favorite being the Bike Fit Manager in my profile, very cool. The site is easy to navigate and for the most part well laid out.
A few shortcomings that stood out for me were the following.
1. Forum Organization
- lack of sub-forums/visual separation of topics: For example, we have 172,000 threads in the Triathlon forum. Triathlon is a pretty broad subject sonsidering that it is the main topic on these forums. By creating subforums beneath this forum, it will help organise, and simplify not only the visual appearce, but it will help when searching. Some sub-forum examples: Swimming, Cycling, Running, Nutrition, Gear, Races, etc.
Here is a mock example of how I would organize the forums
General Discussion (For everything not related to Tri, everyday discussion)
Triathlon
- Swimming
- Cycling
- Running
- Gear
- Events
Classifieds - For Sale
- Looking for
Jobs
Lavender Room (I’m not even sure what this is for as I haven’t looked yet)
2. Outdated graphics
Everything from your logo, to the images used for the forum links (Main Index, Profile Settings, Messages, etc.) to the flat boxes I am typing this post in. This style is very outdated and needs a facelift. If you guys want help in this department. I am your man.
- Forum features
Features that other boards have that would be very nice to have
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Conversations - kind of like the PM system he have here but on steriods (I know, PED’s are frowned upon around here
) For example, Jordan and Dan are PMing each other back a forth and all of a sudden think that I should be part of the converstaion they have been having back an forth for the past week. All you need to do is click my name, add me to the PM conversation and I now am included in all future comms which includes the conversation history so I can get up to speed quickly. -
New Content Search - With a single click, you get an organised list of all threads that have been posted in since your last logon. VERY USEFUL considering this is a very busy board.
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User permissions controls - By sorting users into groups, you can create forums can control what each group/member can see(or not), post, reply, upload/downlaod, create new topics etc.
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Signatures/Avatars - i know you guys are against this but these features can be controlled and locked down if need be.
Again, I hope I am not posting out of place, I am merely trying to provide some contructive criticism and offer my services and give back to the community.
Cheers,
Dan
P.S. Here is a quick logo re-vamp I did in 10 mins. Feel free to use it if you wish.
We use Gossamer-Threads to power the forum, and we are very happy with it. Not interested in changing, especially not with all the custom work we have done.
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We aren’t going to create sub-forums. Excessive sub-forums are a disaster. Does a question on what bike to buy belong in the “bikes” subforum or the “gear” subforum? if I want to know what kind of training to do for Ironman Couer d’Alene, is that a swim question or an event question? Triathlon is a broad topic with a ton of overlap. Trying to come up with specific subcategories to conveniently pigeonhole various categories is a futile task. I answer this request several times a year. The answer is always the same and for the same reason. No. Here’s a thought exercise to prove a point - take all of the first posts on just the first page and tell me what categories they belong in. Now read all the threads in their entirety and see if they still belong in that same category. See the problem?
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I’d like for someone - anyone - to explain to me what the ROI on shiny graphics is. Shiny graphics don’t scale well - phone users, as evidenced by the problems we have with posting - represent a significant portion of our traffic. Do you know what happens to beveling, shadows, etc. when you shrink an image down to a tiny screen? Our logo, thank you very much, was re-designed by a very capable graphic designer in 2007. We wanted something simple. And basic. I’m still not sure how a bit of beveling and rounded corners is going to improve people’s user experiences. If you want to see an exercise in effective web design, go to Google’s homepage and ask it it a question. If ever there was a testament to basic graphics and flat boxes, that’s it. You can put lipstick on a pig… Or you can focus on not having a fat sow of a website.
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As for forum features, I think some of those things have potential. But on a relative basis, I’d say the only thing I think is reasonably useful in the short term is new content listing. I’m not interested in setting specific permissions for 37,000+ users. We actually have that ability already, but we don’t use it, because it’d be way to much work to manage. As for upgrades to the PM system, I have some planned, but trying to replace email is not something I’m particularly interested in. I’d much rather have a search for PMs than the ability to add another person into a conversation. Otherwise, sure it’s a neat feature, but even Facebook doesn’t allow you to add in a user midway through a DM conversation.
Thanks for the logo work, but here’s what I think you failed to consider - what happens when you scale YOUR version?
Here’s our current logo vs. your redesign at 32x32px.
Rappstar,
It is obvious that you are happy with the way things are so I am not going to argue any of the points you made as I see this going no where fast.
My offer still stands, if you want my help, I am willing and able.
Cheers,
Van
P.S. Netiher logo looks good at 32x32.