Community, Knowledge Base and Advanced User Guide - the way forward

[leehack]

I am yet to see mention of an SEO forum, how can that be? is this not one of the first 2 or 3 that should be setup?

[leehack]

There always appears to be some negativity towards more forums from actinic. Admittedly these can make a page longer (especially when the top 1/3rd of your screen is fiilled with 2 useful buttons). In fact look at the top of the page:

1 - We are told where we are
2 - KB link
3 - Forum we're in
4 - Thread we're in (think i'm gonna put a sign on each door in my house to help me along too)
5 - What i am doing (i.e. replying to thread) - thank God someone told me this
6 - Google search bar
7 - Welcome
8 - My name
9 - When i last visited (mine says hurry up and leave you tw@t)
10 - I then get a load of links
11 - Then i'm told where i am again and the thread title
12 - Woohoo, getting somewhere, where i actually do something now

THE WAY FORWARD

Community and KB buttons halved in height, no need to be so big. Place the search box in the middle of them along with my name in case i forget it.

One single line for breadcrumb trail and one line for forum navbar.

That's the top sorted.


EXTRA FORUMS

I understand the desire to keep these down to a minimum, but eventually every couple grows out of their one bedroom flat and has to buy a house - so have you, so deal with it.

Make the forums selectable or unselectable. The French, EPOS and Express Forums are a waste of time for me, for most people the designer forum is also. So that's 4 forums you could choose to not look at (i.e. tickbox to not show in list). In fact while we are on the subject, why do you even allow non-developers to see there is a developer forum? - it is because of this that you get the comments on the normal forum - just hide the bloody thing so you don't see it unless you are a member.

So for most people, there is 4 forums removed. Personally i would merge AOB and the Ecommerce, so that would give me 5 to play with for normal people (if in fact the board rules we are not allowed to expand the forum numbers etc.)

Paul's idea is how we want it, perhaps its a little presumptious, but i am happy to gamble and say people think the current structure really is crap and doomed to fail. I know you have asked for time to sort it - BUT NO - you are on the wrong road and it needs highlighting.

What you need to do now is make sure you are making a decision for the future. If this bulletin board is no good, then don't stick with it for the sake of ease, make a decision and get something that is. Everything to do with actinic is growing, stop thinking small and think long term.

Peace out.

[Duncan Rounding]

I don't care either way about sub-forums. If there's questions being asked continually then often I simply won't answer, no big deal. I believe that whatever route is taken you will get lots of people not knowing where to post a question.

I use the new posts search facility to review posts, I don't scout around different forums to see posts.

The real issue here is the search facilities and more importantly knowing what term to search for.

I initially started answering questions on the forum as a way to put back what I got out and I continue to help people here on the forum because I like helping people and have an interest in the product and of course my 'virtual' friends.

For me I'd much rather search a knowledge base or something for a similar question and get just the answer than have to wade through discussions, waffle and conflcting replies to find the answer in a forum thread. That said if it suits others to find this information in that way then I'm happy with that too.

I think it's all getting carried away and out of proportion and I'm losing interest in the community. Let's chill out on this a bit.

[RuralWeb]

Let's chill out on this a bit

Mellow out guys - you dont have to answer posts, I just ignore stupid posts these days and have a much easier life. I also notice that the demands for help have stopped - people have got the message I think

[Darren B]

Mellow out guys - you dont have to answer posts, I just ignore stupid posts these days and have a much easier life. I also notice that the demands for help have stopped - people have got the message I think

Hi Malc, i have noticed your lack of presence these days, not that i can blame you after, let just call it the apocalypse.

I have to agree, so i propose that Monday to Sunday will be Chill week

D

[TraceyHand]

, so i propose that Monday to Sunday will be Chill week

D

ya gotta be kidding me?
last week of "freedom" before the kids break up for summer?...
this week is going to be far from "chilled"

[pinbrook]

Yeah well its defo chilli here after a weekend of surfing in Cornwall. And too poxy wet to go into the garden to hang out the wetsuits

[Darren B]

Good for you Jo By they way, 1 storm at around 6am this morning for around an hour and blistering sun all the at the mo chilling with a cool beer

Misery Miss Bumps

[cdicken]

I really hate the default layout of vBulletin's sub-forums. I've changed them so that they appear on the front page, but they take up a huge amount of room, and are not indented. This is why I hid them originally within the v8 forum - I really didn't like how they looked.

I'll have a stab at making them a bit more compact, and it works I'll do a big revamp of the forums using sub-forums for when the next release comes out later this year.

Thanks for all the design suggestions Lee - I'll have a think to see whether there is any way we can compact the top part a bit more.

[gabrielcrowe]

gawd chris.

how do you put up with us huh?

[cdicken]

I'll have a stab at making them a bit more compact,

Done - comments welcome.

how do you put up with us huh?

I get paid.

[Darren B]

I get paid.

Carefull chris, your start something if you go around saying things like that

[leehack]

Moving in the right direction now. I think that the main V8 forum should be the information cascades and stickies, we should not be able to post in there IMO. Make people choose a sub forum, tis ok if they get wrong one, it gets moved. If there is a persistent area of discussion, this can be added as sub forum.

Like i mentioned earlier, if you put a skip with a load of recycling bins around it, the skip will get all the rubbish. If you put a lid on the skip and a sign saying please put your recycling into the correct bins, you will get people to fall in line.

From what i am hearing though, i think actinic need to make the tough decision to leave this forum and start on something more useful and user friendly. I think V9 would be an ideal start, decision needs to be made for the long term, not the short (too bigger job) term.

[dave_finlayson]

Trouble with the sub forums like that, IMHO, is people will always be lazy (I include myself in this statement) and click on the first item in the list, aka V8 Support. As Lee says, force them to make a decision about where to post.

I would make the main forums i.e V8 Support V7 Support etc etc a header (set Act as forum to 'NO' in vBulletin) and then have the various forums underneath i.e upgrading, html & css etc etc and then move all the posts in V8 Support into a new 'General' or some such named forum. Give this forum a description of 'Only post here is your question is not covered by any of the forums below'. It would also mean that you would not need to worry about the layout of sub forums as they would not be classed as such. Also, it means you can collapse entire areas of the forum that do not interest you or you can't help with, i.e the french forum!!!!

Basically, as I think is mentioned somewhere else, set it up the same as the vBulletin forums!

[Darren B]

Trouble with the sub forums like that, IMHO, is people will always be lazy (I include myself in this statement) and click on the first item in the list, aka V8 Support. As Lee says, force them to make a decision about where to post.

Me too, the only downside is relying on someone at actinic to make the changes / moves. Back to that one again about appointing MODS................now steps back