Forum Streamline - YOUR input required

[Chunkford]

It makes you wonder where all the people are that once upon a time moaned that Actinic needs to listen more to their users.

Maybe Actinic could send an email to their customer base asking them to pitch in and offer their views. After all, it's them that will turn to the forums when a problem arises.

[NormanRouxel]

I've no strong opinions on this.

I think that those who are doing moderator duties have a good idea of what's right and what could be improved.

Whatever you do it won't stop some tiresome posters from posting in whatever topic comes first on the page! Maybe the top topic should be "Too lazy to search or read the faq...".

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I agree with Norman on this and also don't have any strong opinions on the layout as I use the search and new posts mainly.

The suggested layout in Post#25 looks good.

[guccij]

My bookmark for the community is also the new posts one http://community.actinic.com/search.php?do=getnew

If I find there aren't enough for me to read (!), then I use the Quick Links dropdown for Today's Posts, which seems to cover 24 hours or so.

Thus while I think it's a worthwhile exercise to streamline the forum for new visitors/users or for others who aren't as impatient to get to the latest posts as I am, and Lee's latest list sounds good to me, it won't affect me much. If it does, I'll be sure to complain about it

[pinbrook]

I agree with Norman on this and also don't have any strong opinions on the layout as I use the search and new posts mainly.

The suggested layout in Post#25 looks good.

Me too, not that I participate much these days

[Jan]

I always use new posts to look at issues so I'm happy with any forum structure.

With regard to the add-ons forum, I think it's a good idea because it will help people to be more aware of what is out there but should be moderated (to my mind if the product is listed on the Actinic forum, then it's looks like a recommendation from Actinic). A worry would that people would start to use it as a plugin support forum, which may not be a good idea and could add additional implicit support onto Actinic's back.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I also think the Addon/plugin forum is a great addition, as there are a great many plugins that most users don't even realise exist, but Jan has said this should be carefully moderated.

[Duncan Rounding]

Actinic have a fairly comprehensive list of plugins etc sourced from this page: http://www.actinic.co.uk/ecommerce-s...inic-plug-ins/

I'm not against a community forum for add-ins, but being devil's advocate what would the community forum offer that this doesn't?

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Actinic have a fairly comprehensive list of plugins etc sourced from this page: http://www.actinic.co.uk/ecommerce-s...inic-plug-ins/

I'm not against a community forum for add-ins, but being devil's advocate what would the community forum offer that this doesn't?

A good point Duncan, I think the Actinic website gets overlooked and is easy to forget about some of the information that is available from it.

May be this community forum could be used to discuss some of the plugins and for users to provide feedback on how good a particualr plug-in is or ask questions about it. I know some of the add-on providers have their own forums for answering questions/queries but perhaps being included on here might encourage users of the plugins to answer some questions on here that they might not do on the other forums because they probably only visiti them when they have a problem or when purchasing. I am not sure what the add-on providers would think of this though.
I am not sure how or whether it would work, may need the add-ons section further separated with sub-sections.

[leehack]

I'm not against a community forum for add-ins, but being devil's advocate what would the community forum offer that this doesn't?

Exposure, easy to find and most importantly in the middle of most of the traffic that will want those items.

[Sean Williams]

Starting new threads

Unless I've missed it mentioned in this thread, while I'm the same as everyone else when it comes to searching/using New Posts/Get daily, I feel a well thought out structure is essential for those wanting to make new threads - it makes it easier for the poster of course, but would would also help to ease the problem of posts coming up in the 'wrong' forum and causing blood pressure rises

Post No. 25 seems a very good structure to work from.

[leehack]

As the Chancellor would say, i commend this structure for the forum. Thanks for all that contributed, although all points could not be addressed, bearing in mind the forum numbers, i think the below represents a good balance and most seem to either agree with this or see no problems with it being the way forward.

Over to you Actinic, for your say.

Actinic Ecommerce Software
-- Actinic V11
-- 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
-- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Site Reviews

Discussion Areas
-- Actinic News
-- Any Other Business
-- Wish List
-- Bug Reports

Other Actinic Products
-- Actinic EPOS
-- Actinic Express
-- Multi-User & Synchronisation Server

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

Knowledge Base

[Benjamin Dyer]

Thanks for all the replies to this thread, some interesting discussions.

I am happy to go with the census, I also agree we could do with some spring cleaning and restructuring. Looks like Lee has done a great job on compiling all the comments into a sensible structure. Before we start making changes are there any further comments? This thread is a few weeks old now, and making changes to the community is a rare event so we want to make sure we get it right.

I'll leave it open for a few more days.

Ben

[Editorkit]

Looks good, but where does Link fit in?

[leehack]

It's too smaller subject to warrant a forum of its own, bearing in mind the limit on forum numbers. So posts can be made to the specific version forums or perhaps the multi-user forum could have link tagged onto that as that is generally a quiet forum.

We could have the forum name as something like:

Multi-user, Multi-site, Sync server, Actinic Link and Sage