I'm moving Phil's post out of the Laundress post and into a new thread as to not highjack the other thread. I will answer it in here...
Hi Phil, good post let me try and respond to some of your great suggestions and how I feel about them...
Robert,
Thanks a lot for your reply. I imagine there's quite some work involved in making those changes.
Yes hours and hours and hours of work, but it's not like I haven't done before for aw.org.
Here are a few suggestions I could easily live without but I'll make them anyway! About the number of active threads in each section, I was wondering if there could be a series of pages showing active threads, like on other forums I visit. Older threads could remain active but displayed on page 2, or even on page 144... And if someone would like to add a comment to an old thread, it would be brought back to page 1. I don't know how Google works but I imagine this could solve some of the problems related to the number of links displayed on each page.
Possibly, but I do not like forums that have a lot of pages and not much information on each. One of the nice things about the way our system works is that its fast and you don't have to scroll though 10, 15, 20 or more pages to read a long thread.
As most of us care about keeping things from the past active, keeping the older threads active rather than archived would make sense to me! I don't like too much when there's a lot of sticky threads with no new post since last year on the first page of a forum and you have to scroll down to see the newest posts (and I know there's no such thing here!), but sometimes it's fun to resurrect an old thread when some related information/questions could be added to a topic without having to start the same discussion all over. And with available email notification, some members who don't watch the new posts everyday or even every month could visit and add comments if the old thread they posted in resurfaces. Members posting about a particular machine of their collection could update their original thread too if they did work on their machine of if they have a new issue with it or just if they had fun making a video of it!
Yes I do agree with you that I should come up with a way of keeping all threads active so they can be re-responded to months or even years later. That will be done at some point.
Another nice feature of some forums is that email notification could be turned on/off for each thread you post in or you can choose to subscribe to a thread even without posting in. It can also notify only once when there's a new post after the last one you read from each thread you subscribed to and the email links bring you directly to the first unread post from the thread you're visiting. That's nice on 14 page threads!
We wont be having 14 page threads, as I said above I don't like forums that do that, but an eMail feature is certainly a possibility. That also will be done at some point.
It could be nice to have multiple page threads instead of having to make a part 2 and a part 8 in a different thread.
Possibly but I still want the pages to be very long, as I said above forums with threads that are 10 posts per page are very annoying to read in my opinion.
It would also be nice to be able to do multiple quotes in one post so you could reply to 3 posts at a time because sometimes, it's hard to link too distant posts in a discussion.
See my comment below.
It would also be nice to be able to post links anywhere you want in a post rather than at the bottom and to have a feature that allows you to embed pictures from other websites. I know it's already possible and I occasionally do it (I love to see pictures!) but it seems to be challenging to some who (like me) aren't too familiar with computers.
Regarding posting links anywhere, this feature was added a few weeks back, you can now post links anywhere in the text and they automatically convert themselves into clickable links, such as http://www.vacuumland.org. I don't like the idea of giving people an easy way of embedding images from other websites, it can very easily run afoul of copyright law. It's OK if you own the pictures, but most do not, so for that I say no. Also added a few weeks ago is the ability to simply copy the youtube url and paste it into a post, it automatically converts the youtube link into a playable video.
Hi Phil, good post let me try and respond to some of your great suggestions and how I feel about them...
Robert,
Thanks a lot for your reply. I imagine there's quite some work involved in making those changes.
Yes hours and hours and hours of work, but it's not like I haven't done before for aw.org.
Here are a few suggestions I could easily live without but I'll make them anyway! About the number of active threads in each section, I was wondering if there could be a series of pages showing active threads, like on other forums I visit. Older threads could remain active but displayed on page 2, or even on page 144... And if someone would like to add a comment to an old thread, it would be brought back to page 1. I don't know how Google works but I imagine this could solve some of the problems related to the number of links displayed on each page.
Possibly, but I do not like forums that have a lot of pages and not much information on each. One of the nice things about the way our system works is that its fast and you don't have to scroll though 10, 15, 20 or more pages to read a long thread.
As most of us care about keeping things from the past active, keeping the older threads active rather than archived would make sense to me! I don't like too much when there's a lot of sticky threads with no new post since last year on the first page of a forum and you have to scroll down to see the newest posts (and I know there's no such thing here!), but sometimes it's fun to resurrect an old thread when some related information/questions could be added to a topic without having to start the same discussion all over. And with available email notification, some members who don't watch the new posts everyday or even every month could visit and add comments if the old thread they posted in resurfaces. Members posting about a particular machine of their collection could update their original thread too if they did work on their machine of if they have a new issue with it or just if they had fun making a video of it!
Yes I do agree with you that I should come up with a way of keeping all threads active so they can be re-responded to months or even years later. That will be done at some point.
Another nice feature of some forums is that email notification could be turned on/off for each thread you post in or you can choose to subscribe to a thread even without posting in. It can also notify only once when there's a new post after the last one you read from each thread you subscribed to and the email links bring you directly to the first unread post from the thread you're visiting. That's nice on 14 page threads!
We wont be having 14 page threads, as I said above I don't like forums that do that, but an eMail feature is certainly a possibility. That also will be done at some point.
It could be nice to have multiple page threads instead of having to make a part 2 and a part 8 in a different thread.
Possibly but I still want the pages to be very long, as I said above forums with threads that are 10 posts per page are very annoying to read in my opinion.
It would also be nice to be able to do multiple quotes in one post so you could reply to 3 posts at a time because sometimes, it's hard to link too distant posts in a discussion.
See my comment below.
It would also be nice to be able to post links anywhere you want in a post rather than at the bottom and to have a feature that allows you to embed pictures from other websites. I know it's already possible and I occasionally do it (I love to see pictures!) but it seems to be challenging to some who (like me) aren't too familiar with computers.
Regarding posting links anywhere, this feature was added a few weeks back, you can now post links anywhere in the text and they automatically convert themselves into clickable links, such as http://www.vacuumland.org. I don't like the idea of giving people an easy way of embedding images from other websites, it can very easily run afoul of copyright law. It's OK if you own the pictures, but most do not, so for that I say no. Also added a few weeks ago is the ability to simply copy the youtube url and paste it into a post, it automatically converts the youtube link into a playable video.
