New Forum Ideas

I do hope the Mods and others who run the Forum will take the following in the spirit meant.

Following the demise of the Magazine, JohnR did say that there were some new ideas coming forward for the Forum.

I think Users could make some suggestions as well.

The following are not just my own but some I have gleaned from various Members comments.

They are not presented in any sort of priority but I have numbered them to make it easier to respond – if indeed anyone wants to.

1. All new people joining should receive a ‘Welcome pdf’ detailing how the Forum works and how they can contribute. (Once set up it’s not a difficult thing to manage).

2. It is strange that we can upload a single photo to a Competition, but can’t to the general forum without going via a public site. Frankly I don’t like doing that. The Forum should have it’s own ‘Secure Site’ or allow direct upload, both of which are technically possible. I can understand that we don’t want to get flooded by members posting great numbers of pics in one hit, or on one day, but this can be overcome by setting a limit.

3. Although it’s entertaining that every Member moves up the ‘grade’ from ‘New’ to ‘Pentax Pro Master’ and have their number of Posts shown, I can’t help but think it puts new Members off. Surely better just to have the Date we joined.

4. Location Location – Lack of location info is frustrating, particularly if one is buying or selling. Surely newbies should be required to put some info in?

5. Someone (sorry can’t remember who) suggested a ‘Commercial Section’ where leads about ‘bargains’ could be shown without the difficulties we have had recently. In fact I don’t know why it shouldn’t be thrown open to shops as a paid for Ad Platform on the Forum. It would add real User benefit.

6. Sites (and Magazines) cost money to run and develop. I for one would be more than happy to pay a nominal amount (say£10) a year as a sub. It’ worth it for all the stuff we get here.

I better stop here. As I say, I am not knocking the Forum AT ALL, but if a revamp is on the cards, then Members input should be welcome.

And it’s goodnight from him

Most forums do not have a site for photos - they nearly all use hotlinking as this one does.
It's a question of bandwidth and money partly, and partly the software used. OK this forum doesn't use PHPBB but it is along similar lines.
I have no problem with hot linking. I can't see what is so hard about it.
There are plenty of photo sites which allow it.

I'm not sure the forum is being revamped, just the website around it, if I understood the posting from Pete Bargh correctly.

Why would the titles and number of posts put people off? They are a perfectly normal facet of forum life. Any forum.

I agree about location - even if it is only a country, such as I have, though for UK members a county probably would be better.

A sub, even a nominal one would put people off joining. And on forums where people can voluntarily contribute it tends to end up with those who contribute thinking they are "better" than those who choose not to, and that they should have more rights than non contributors, and to problems when mods want to correct them. Not good.

Sorry to shoot down your ideas. Just my pov you understand.

What about a forum calendar which members can add events up and coming in there local or regional area.

Well that srirred up a Hornets Nest NOT
Bit dissapointed no one else apart from SnappyC and Gwyn had any ideas/views.

The revamp is mainly about the website itself, perhaps most of us are relatively happy with the forum. After all, forums keep to a pretty similar pattern, which is useful in that it's not confusing when using several of them.

If you want to upload images without hotlinking that facility has been provided in the Gallery section of the website.

The site works fine, including the way pics are linked to externally! I really don't get the controversy about that. One thing i'd like to see is a video section, now our cameras have that facility. With the ability to play youtube clips within the thread as on the other forum.

All I want at the moment is a posts read since last visit feature.

Every other forum I use has one, it's shocking that this basic feature isn't here.

There's a "new posts" button and also a recent posts button. I'm not quite sure what you're looking for as posts unread since last visit are also highlighted by green markers. Can you explain that in more detail please?

Im looking for posts unread since I last read the thread.

NOT posts since my last visit.

The green markers do not correspond to where I last read the thread to, they correspond to when the site was last visited. This is pretty much useless as I am constantly missing threads and having to work out where I have read to.

I've constantly complained about this most basic of forum features, but it either falls on deaf ears, or no one seems to understand what I am saying.

As an example, I have visited the site today around 3 times.

I have not (and hardly ever) visited the film section today.

There are posts today in the film section, I can see it now :- russell_w_b in Film developing and.... at 16.24

There is no green marker showing unread posts, yet there are posts in there I have not read yet.

In any other forum, if I miss a section for any period of time, when I go in there there will be a 'green marker' for every unread post. When I click on it, it will take me directly to the last post in that thread that I have read, wether that was 2 hours or 2 weeks a go.

On this forum, because I last visited it about 15 mins ago, any post that is over 15 minutes old on the whole forum, is now 'classified as read' because that all happened on my last visit. This then makes finding out what I haven't read yet a complete and utter nightmare.

Does that make sense now??

Sure, I think the thing to do is to make a Report and IT will look at how it works for you. This is found via Report Problem/Suggestion at the bottom of the page.

Are you logging in each time you visit? As far as I can tell, you only get a list of unread/new posts when you log in, so if you visit and read without a log-in, the forum won't keep tabs on where you got to.

Did that, nothing happened.

If the forum worked like it should, this would be a non issue.

I'm certainly not going down this route just because basic forum features are not being implemented because

1. This would defeat the purpose of auto login.
2. Where and how would I know where to start reading from?

What Unlocker describes is a fundamental thing in the way the forum is coded, and what he's after is the way that pentaxforums.com works. Its particularly noticable if you open and close your browser a lot (which resets the "New Posts" section on this forum), or if you use different computers!

Trouble is, its not a simple fix - its hard-coded into the underlying software - this forum works like a phpBB forum, and the Other Place works like a vBulletin one - so short of redoing the whole forum (which would go down like a lead balloon, as all redesigns do...), its not possible to change.