Forums Changes

[hfxChris]

Holy crap.. way too many forums.
Problem with having that many different forums is, new users are scrolling through the list to try and figure out where to post their message or ask their question, tend to get fed up after only making it half way and post it wherever - or find multiple forums which may be appropriate, and end up guessing wrong and posting it in the wrong one.

 

[Dawn_Adams]

Lindsay, great job on this! I'm a newbie, and I'm not having any problems. I like the way the forums are organized. I'm not confused about the threads. I started a thread in a new forum. This is pretty nice.

 

[shaft]

Holy crap.. way too many forums.
Problem with having that many different forums is, new users are scrolling through the list to try and figure out where to post their message or ask their question, tend to get fed up after only making it half way and post it wherever - or find multiple forums which may be appropriate, and end up guessing wrong and posting it in the wrong one.

I think it might make it easier on new folks. The forums are more topic specific now vs the older revision.

 

[NWI_Scanner_Guy]

Love the new look and all the additional forums.

A great website is now even better!!!

 

[MarkEagleUSA]

My only complaint is the bright blue text color (i.e. new posts, etc). My old, tired eyes are having a really tough time with it on the laptop. Other than that, most everything looks good to me. I'll reserve judgement on the expanded Tavern to see how it works.

 

[WayneH]

Folks, I designed the new forums layout with a few suggestions from Lindsay. Some say that it's forum overload but we're a growing community and we need to further divide certain topics; with the memberbase increasing so do the interests. People already had short-attention-forum-choosing so I don't see why it would be any different now. I think this should solve some indecisiveness.

I took a lot of the forum requests I've run across in the past in to account so I hope that those who requested them make full use of them. Yeah, no NASCAR forum but I think we can still continue without one.

 

[zz0468]

Folks, I designed the new forums layout with a few suggestions from Lindsay...

Well, I think you did a helluva job. I like the new forums, and the new look.

 

[AlmostHandy]

Indeed. Top notch, Wayne. This place looks great, and it's very intuitive to navigate.

Thanks for all your hard work.

 

[cg]

Terrible changes. I only see more junk to filter through. The narrow pages I can deal with, the added junk within is what I dislike.

In the past, I opened the forum page, clicked on new posts, and looked through the titles for either the forum or the heading that I had interest in. It was not made easier when the breaking news postings became the rage. Now the off topic postings seem to be the majority.

I don't see the need to try to fill every discussion in a one stop forum list. I would bet there are lots of religion, music, automotive, etc sites that attract lots of those like minded people. I certainly would not go asking about radio frequencies on one of those websites.

Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority although I would guess there are many that will just stop visiting the forums.

chris

 

[chrismol1]

Terrible changes. I only see more junk to filter through. The narrow pages I can deal with, the added junk within is what I dislike.

In the past, I opened the forum page, clicked on new posts, and looked through the titles for either the forum or the heading that I had interest in. It was not made easier when the breaking news postings became the rage. Now the off topic postings seem to be the majority.

I don't see the need to try to fill every discussion in a one stop forum list. I would bet there are lots of religion, music, automotive, etc sites that attract lots of those like minded people. I certainly would not go asking about radio frequencies on one of those websites.

Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority although I would guess there are many that will just stop visiting the forums.

chris

Yeh

I'm actually going to STOP coming here, theres just too much going on, a sub forum for everything..... I used to go here all the time and be a very active memeber, read up on everything and enjoy myself, now I have to scroll about 2 and 1/2 pages down. Hopefully others will like the changes. I do click "New Posts" but thats all that I have going for myself and reading up on topics

I appreciate all the hard work going into it, but my time here is going to be dwindling....

 

[eorange]

Well, I think you did a helluva job. I like the new forums, and the new look.

Ditto, nice work. For everyone else: just remember, the forums are what you make of them.

 

[captclint]

A couple of other features that may have escaped your notice are found in your Forums Profile, Settings & Options, Edit Options:
1. Show Signatures...unselecting this eliminates those multi-line signatures that provide very little value.
2. Thread Display Mode - You can select Linear-Newest 1st. This is most useful for the very frequent readers/posters so you don't have to scroll to the bottom to see the most resent msg.

There are a lot of other useful options on this page.

 

[captclint]

You can subscribe to forums that are important to you by using the "Subscribe to Forum" feature in the Forum Tools Menu on each individual forum page.

I think they [always did] show up in your "User CP", along with subscribed threads.

Yes Forum subscriptions do show up in your User Control Panel(User CP), and you do not have to get any emails if you don't want. Just as Lindsay suggested, this is a very succinct way to view the forums in which you are interested. I think those of you who are upset, and/or have said they will not continue to read/participate should give this a try.

 

[n8emr]

fourm layout

How about in the next release you allow me to select what forms I want to see at the top of the page.
A "myfourms" section. That way If I group what I want to see on a daily basis at the top and then the rest of the fourms are below. that way I dont need to wade through all the fourms to find what I want.

 

[gmclam]

Thanks - looks good

I think "Tavern" is a much more professional/appropriate name than Wasteland was. I'm glad it was renamed back.

I wonder why we have forums for things like music, finance & politics which have little to do with "all things radio" while we still have no forum for things like batteries & chargers that virtually all of us use with our radios.

Organization is a good thing. When there is just a little bit of information, you can put it all in one place and still find it easily. But with all the information available here on RR, it is good to further (sub)divide where it is stored.

 

[Rekd]

Small ***** from me as well.

I almost ALWAYS view web pages in a very small window, and the window's here don't wrap. My horizontal scroll bar has to slide a full page width for me to read pages here now. Makes it hard to read posts.

I also can't middle click on the menu bar links (to open in a new tab) unless I lock out scripts form the site.

I'm using FF 3 and IE 6 on XP.

It looks good, it's just not very functional now. I've all but quit coming here because of it.

 

[trooperdude]

LARGER FONTS for us old farts.

Firefox won't let me over ride the site template and I don't always have
my glasses handy.

 

[AZScanner]

Lots of new forums and changes.... enjoy!

Let the *****ing begin!!



Tomorrow, I'll be rolling out Metro Area forums in the state forums... so places like Chicago, LA, DFW, and other large metro areas can have their own places to discuss topics specific to their metro areas.

Have fun!

Oh dear Lord God in Heaven... There's so many forums. So many posts. Now I'll NEVER get any work done, you fiend!

 

[captclint]

Larger Fonts

Larger fonts for us old farts. Firefox won't let me over ride the site template and I don't always have my glasses handy.

Not sure what you mean by over-ride template, but I am able to View, zoom in(or using CTL + Scroll wheel) to get any size font with FF, and it does word wrap (but not in a small window as REKD shows). Judging from the number of posts about things not looking right, there must be some settings that make the difference. Maybe under Tools, Options, Content, Fonts Advanced, if you check or uncheck the "allow pages to chose own fonts", it may help if you try both options. FYI. When I unchecked it, the default font was worse, so you may have to fiddle with the font type and size. Is this what you mean by over-ride? If so, it worked for me.

Just tried font size and CTL+ Scroll in IE 7. CTL+ Scroll worked, but it did NOT word wrap. Large font did not work.

 

[WayneH]

The reason the Wasteland/Tavern was divided up was because it had become a mess. It was a very busy forum with many threads; WAY busier than GenScan. Many people were fed up with certain topics and wading through them was too time consuming. Dividing up the Tavern allows people to have more topic oriented discussions without wading through political debates or other heated topics. Since we can't count on everyone to construct proper subjects having them put them in the proper forum makes up for it.

N8EMR, you can subscribe to forums basically creating your own "My Forums" list. See post #9 in this thread.

Like I said earlier, we are a growing community and we have to adapt to that. We also want to bring more people to the forums. You cannot have a large, diverse member community and like ten forums that lump everything in to them. It's not the way to properly organize a web board.