Forum Streamline - YOUR input required

[leehack]

We've been talking for some time about restructuring the forums. Below is a starting point to give you an idea, but we are more interested in what you think, so we're inviting you to let us know how you would like the forum set out. You can choose whether to show or hide a group of forums, so bear in mind the group headings (the bold ones).

What group headings would you have and what forums within them would you have? If someone puts up a structure that is just the way you'd like it, please just give the post a 'thanks'. We will collate the thanks and if it looks close, set up a poll so that users ultimately decide on how we go forward.

For many of us, this forum is a home, a place we visit daily, it's not nice when sweeping changes are made to our home without us knowing or having taken part. This is Actinic giving us the opportunity to tell them what we would like, don't miss the opportunity to have your say!

Actinic Version 10
-- Layout Adjustments & Changes
-- Tips & Tricks, Tutorials & FREE Goodies
-- Error Messages
-- Bug Reports

Global Discussion Areas
-- Shipping, Postage, Delivery, Tax & Handling Fees
-- Payment Services, PSP Setup (Actinic Payments, HSBC, Paypal etc.)
-- Upload, Server, Email, Network Settings & Connection Problems
-- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Site Reviews
-- Wish List
-- Community Best (a new forum containing all of the best threads)

Knowledge Base

Previous Versions
-- Actinic V9
-- Actinic V8
-- Actinic V7 & Earlier

Other Actinic Products
-- Actinic EPOS
-- Actinic Express
-- Multi-User
-- Enterprise

Other Discussions
-- Actinic News
-- Any Other Business (merging AOB and ecommerce issues)
-- Discussions en Francais
-- Actinic Designers

Thanks.

[Chunkford]

Be nice to have a central place to sell Actinic services, addons and make requests for work.

Actinic Market Place
-- Services
-- Addons
-- Requests

[Paul Bulpit]

Tips & Tricks, Tutorials & FREE Goodies

Most of these are not version specific and should not necessarily be categorised under "Actinic Version 10". Many of the important useful ones are in the kb (usually only in a basic form) but even there are categorised by the version prevailing when they were first finalised, for instance 'Capitalise Input Fields'.

It occurs to me that new users, say 'V10', would not look at tweeks for earlier versions even though they are still entirely relevant. Having said that, some of them really ought to have been incorporated into the package as standard anyway.

Whilst I fully understand that Actinic is developed and sold by its creators, there is a massive element of user input that should not go unrecognised, either by inclusion or suggestion.

Keep 'Tips & Tricks' separate, for those people keen to make their website a little 'bespoke' and different from the basic 'out-of-the-box' offering. It would also serve as a Reference Guide for those who having implemented tweeks once, have to do it all again folowing an upgrade.

[wesleythorne]

sage link

dont forget sage link,

[Mike Hughes]

Hmm.

1. V10 forum.
- I'd say the most common issue is requests for help with problems, 'how do I', etc. This structure doesn't seem to have an obvious forum for these.

- Do we really need a separate forum for 'error messages'? Surely these should either be self explanatory or properly expalined rather than an issue for discussion.

- layout adjustments and changes are unlikely to be V10 specific. Should probably be in the general section.

- Bug reports. If the idea is to have a section for bug reports so support just have one place to look then shouldn't this be the place to report bugs for all versions, not just V10? It would seem to be mostly for reporting rather than discussing so I'd probably move this way down into another area.

- Tips, tricks, tutorials, etc. Again are these going to be V10 specific? If yes, then where do the rest go. If no, what's it doing in the V10 forum?

2. Global Forum:
- Community Best. Is this going to have duplicate threads or just links to the threads. Duplicate threads would get messy and no-one would know where threads were any more. I'm also not sure of the point of this. The discussion will have ended so it's really just a reference source in which case it needs to go down into the knowledge base. Where it will die a slow and lonely death.

3. Knowledge Base:
I personally would rather this was lower down the list. It's a source of reference material rather than part of the discussion forum and raising it up just puts it in the way and I doubt if it will encourage people to use it more often. So why do this?

4. Previous versions:
Should be above the Knowledge base. There are still plenty of active discussions. I'd reduce the version split though. Most discussions are going to be:

- Current version
- Previous version
- The rest.

So I'd just have:

V10
V9
Previous Versions

It's also rather illogical to have V10 at the top and other versions way down the list. It will just lead to more wrongly posts in the V10 forum. If we're going to a V10 specific forum then the other versions need to be close to it.

5. Other Actinic Products
Like most people on the forum I don't think these are very active so I'd rather see them below the other discussions. I can see this might not suit Actinic though.

6. Other discussions
This needs to be promoted up the list as it's already too low down the site. If you want an active discussion forum we need to be able to see what's being discussed and join in. Putting it low down is just the kiss of death.

- En Francais. Do we really need this? I think it's past it's sell by date. Kill it or give it a bit of fresh air on Actinic.fr

- Actinic news should also be higher up. This is where Actinic is supposed to let us know what's happening. It's a key area but seems to have died a death. I'd move it up into the Global Forum.

So my structure would be something like:

Actinic Ecommerce Software
-- Actinic V10
-- Actinic V9
-- Actinic V8 & Earlier

Using Actinic
-- Layout Adjustments & Changes
-- Tips & Tricks, Tutorials & FREE Goodies
-- Shipping, Postage, Delivery, Tax & Handling Fees
-- Upload, Server, Email, Network Settings & Connection Problems
-- Payment Services, PSP Setup (Actinic Payments, HSBC, Paypal etc.)

Actinic Discussion
-- Actinic News
-- Any Other Business (merging AOB and ecommerce issues)
-- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Site Reviews
-- Wish List

Other Actinic Products
-- Actinic EPOS
-- Actinic Express
-- Multi-User
-- Enterprise

Other Discussions
-- Actinic Designers
-- Bug Reports
-- Error Messages
-- Community Best (a new forum containing all of the best threads)

Actinic Market Place
-- Services
-- Addons
-- Requests

Knowledge Base

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

I think it would be more logical to have
Actinic Ecommerce Software
-- Actinic V10
-- Actinic V9 & V8 (merge the two current forums v8 and v9)
-- Actinic V7 & Earlier
due to the change from templates to layouts (v7 to v8)

I'll put some thoughts together later on the bigger picture as I see it.

[leehack]

Be nice to have a central place to sell Actinic services, addons and make requests for work.

Actinic Market Place
-- Services
-- Addons
-- Requests

I personally like this idea, it's down to Actinic whether they want to take the forum down the more 'commercial' route though. With the forum being the hive of activity i think it would be a good idea, because the services and addons are every bit as important as the software itself. A lot of the info in these forums would be duplicate of what they have on their site, i feel that the forum is more visited, particularly with people having problems, so exposure to this information in a non 'stick it down your throat' method could well be worth considering. Requests for work for instance could be placed and then contact made off the forum by designers etc.

[leehack]

1. V10 forum.
- I'd say the most common issue is requests for help with problems, 'how do I', etc. This structure doesn't seem to have an obvious forum for these.

Fair point, i guess the big question is whether a V10 forum should just be a single forum for all V10 posts or should it be split out to try and get some order to the information. You've probably swayed me on this and i'd say a V10 forum for all might be best.

- Do we really need a separate forum for 'error messages'? Surely these should either be self explanatory or properly expalined rather than an issue for discussion.

Agreed.

- layout adjustments and changes are unlikely to be V10 specific. Should probably be in the general section.

On the whole most changes cross over v8, v9 and v10, so again i probably agree with this.

- Bug reports. If the idea is to have a section for bug reports so support just have one place to look then shouldn't this be the place to report bugs for all versions, not just V10? It would seem to be mostly for reporting rather than discussing so I'd probably move this way down into another area.

I'd disagree here, if a bug report forum does go ahead, it has to be version specific IMO, otherwise first question in response will be what version is this with. That argument could be countered by us then having to ask for which interim version of the software is though anyway.

- Tips, tricks, tutorials, etc. Again are these going to be V10 specific? If yes, then where do the rest go. If no, what's it doing in the V10 forum?

Fair point, it could be global instead, much the same as Paul's point in that many of these can cross over many versions, they're not just limited to the first one for which they were created.

2. Global Forum:
- Community Best. Is this going to have duplicate threads or just links to the threads. Duplicate threads would get messy and no-one would know where threads were any more. I'm also not sure of the point of this. The discussion will have ended so it's really just a reference source in which case it needs to go down into the knowledge base. Where it will die a slow and lonely death.

Duplicate threads would be a no-no, threads would get physically moved into this forum. I'd not see this as just containing threads that were actinic problem or layout change related, i'd also include any thread where it is just plain funny or one of our collective ones that we've done over time. I'd envisage putting any thread into this, whether that be a comedy value, or info value. Our story we did and Gabe's tutorials would be examples, basically any thread that you'd put as one in the top 1-2% of all threads for whatever reason.

3. Knowledge Base:
I personally would rather this was lower down the list. It's a source of reference material rather than part of the discussion forum and raising it up just puts it in the way and I doubt if it will encourage people to use it more often. So why do this?

I guess the idea is to get exposure to it, the counter is that almost every forum needs moving up to get this exposure. I agree on this though, especially with the links in the forum layout anyway.

4. Previous versions:
Should be above the Knowledge base. There are still plenty of active discussions. I'd reduce the version split though. Most discussions are going to be:

- Current version
- Previous version
- The rest.

So I'd just have:

V10
V9
Previous Versions

This would fail with our current situation though, because v8 and v9 are largely the same, you'd be lumping v7 and v8 together, which can't happen with the massive change between those two. Probably have to merge v8 and v9 to adopt what you say.

It's also rather illogical to have V10 at the top and other versions way down the list. It will just lead to more wrongly posts in the V10 forum. If we're going to a V10 specific forum then the other versions need to be close to it.

Fair point, if we go with a version specific forum, we need to easily see the others.

5. Other Actinic Products
Like most people on the forum I don't think these are very active so I'd rather see them below the other discussions. I can see this might not suit Actinic though.

Not active enough i agree, so don't warrant the highest positions.

6. Other discussions
This needs to be promoted up the list as it's already too low down the site. If you want an active discussion forum we need to be able to see what's being discussed and join in. Putting it low down is just the kiss of death.

I disagree, it's predominantly an actinic forum, so actinic related forums must be highest, although it depends on how you think the list should be setup, should the most popular forums be at the top, you could argue the ones needing exposure should go at the top, thus encouraging people to read down and look for the correct forum.

- En Francais. Do we really need this? I think it's past it's sell by date. Kill it or give it a bit of fresh air on Actinic.fr

Seems pretty worthless to me too, 3 threads a year in the normal forum in French would hardly do any harm.

- Actinic news should also be higher up. This is where Actinic is supposed to let us know what's happening. It's a key area but seems to have died a death. I'd move it up into the Global Forum.

You've moved everything higher lol, net result the first thing you moved higher is now lower than where it started .

[pinbrook]

I'd be interested to know how many people use the forum by searching specific sections.

Personally I only ever use search or today's posts thus it is irrelevant where posts are.

I've noticed tags with each post recently, whilst I don't know if these are added automatically, it does seem that good use of tags can only improve search thus making section less important

[leehack]

Bearing in mind some really good points made so far, this would be my current preferred setup, thanks to all that have commented so far, been really useful to hear user opinions.

Actinic Ecommerce Software
-- Actinic V10
-- Actinic V9/V8
-- Actinic V7 & Earlier

Setting Up Actinic
-- Layout Adjustments & Changes
-- Shipping, Postage, Delivery, Tax & Handling Fees
-- Payment Services, PSP Setup (Actinic Payments, HSBC, Paypal etc.)
-- Upload, Server, Email, Network Settings & Connection Problems

Discussion Areas
-- Actinic News
-- Any Other Business (merging AOB and ecommerce issues)
-- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Site Reviews
-- Wish List
-- Actinic Designers
-- Community Best (a new forum containing all of the best threads)
-- Bug Reports

Other Actinic Products
-- Actinic EPOS
-- Actinic Express
-- Multi-User
-- Enterprise
-- Actinic Link

Actinic Market Place
-- Services
-- Addons
-- Requests

Knowledge Base

[Duncan Rounding]

I'd be interested to know how many people use the forum by searching specific sections.

Personally I only ever use search or today's posts thus it is irrelevant where posts are.

I've noticed tags with each post recently, whilst I don't know if these are added automatically, it does seem that good use of tags can only improve search thus making section less important

Good point Jo. I always use the New Posts search when reading posts. When wanting to find something I use either the VB or site Google search. The only exception may be browsing the KB. Depending what you searching for though it is often useful to limit the VB search to a particular forum.

[Duncan Rounding]

Community Best - Are we considering duplicating these threads or removing them from their current forum or posting links to them? What are we considering as a Community Best thread? Unfortunately I think some threads I would consider Community Best are far too many pages long to be really useful as reference - and when they do become reference then should they not perhaps be part of the KB?

'Sage Link' - I think should be 'Actinic Link' (to include Quickbooks history).

Actinic Market Place - Personally I'm not sure about the Actinic Market Place as such. I think it can encourage spam posting and I think it may open the forums up to commercial postings which could be difficult to manage. I do however like the idea of being able to see a list of what addons are available and brief details with a link but not sure if it warrants a special group of forums.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I'd be interested to know how many people use the forum by searching specific sections.

Personally I only ever use search or today's posts thus it is irrelevant where posts are.

I nearly always use the New/Todays Posts and the search options and only very rarely use the specific sections. Occasionally I have browsed the news section or payments sections if I was uanble to find what I wanted from a search.

[leehack]

Community Best - Are we considering duplicating these threads or removing them from their current forum or posting links to them? What are we considering as a Community Best thread? Unfortunately I think some threads I would consider Community Best are far too many pages long to be really useful as reference - and when they do become reference then should they not perhaps be part of the KB?

Moving the threads would be my thought, as to what those threads contain, that could be anything at all, whether it's a hilarious thread, an in depth tutorial or a lengthy discussion. Length of post should not be a barrier to entry, some of the longer threads are the best ones. Think of it as a library for people who like a great read, or a central point to locate that hilarious thread or fab tutorial.

'Sage Link' - I think should be 'Actinic Link' (to include Quickbooks history).

Changed.

Actinic Market Place - Personally I'm not sure about the Actinic Market Place as such. I think it can encourage spam posting and I think it may open the forums up to commercial postings which could be difficult to manage. I do however like the idea of being able to see a list of what addons are available and brief details with a link but not sure if it warrants a special group of forums.

Careful of those splinters! This will be a marmite section i imagine, after the massive attack we've just suffered, many avenues of attack have been closed, i'd never leave a section off for fear of the negatives, i much prefer to add sections thinking about the positives. For me it's 2011 and as long as managed correctly (you're the man) i see nothing but benefit from something like this, these services play a massive part in the success of actinic.

[Paul Bulpit]

I nearly always use the New/Todays Posts and the search options and only very rarely use the specific sections.

Same for me. However New/Todays Posts only gives 'Posts from the Last Day' so if one doesn't visit daily, interesting topics can be missed (unless, on return from hoilday, you visit each sub-forum).

Could we have a drop-down box?

-- Posts from the last 24 hours (default)
-- Posts from the last week (option select)
-- Posts from the last month (option select)