MEMBERS DECLINING

[China]

It does not concern me that mobile phones have trouble with the Forum, my mobile phone is a phone it does not have internet capability.
Can somebody explain what a "tag cloud" is

[A Duke]

-I like the older blokes. I'm not sure if I've met any grammar nazis, but there have been a few "occasions" but these seemed minor upon reflection
- it would be nice to ID the poster a bit more so I can approach the post accordingly e.g Male 44, 3 years exp.
- I REALLY dislike the design. I understand it's a generic package, but as a professional software programmer and 20 year Internet web designer, I can assure you it isn't THAT hard.
- need a tag cloud for searching
- put Ajax into the search for predictive searching
- show popular search terms

One last point, I really dislike the design. ) Hire it out as a $300 job to one of those slave-factory design websites and get a few pitches.

Hi there,
I see you don't practice what you preach, you do not give your age, I also like to have an Idea who I am talking to (were you there or not even borne yet?).
The Tag Cloud is lower down the page below the posts amongst the credits.
Regards

Ps I find the design OK

[ubeaut]

Couple more things:

Firstly in response to mach70's comments re side panel with forum index.

• We used to have something similar for your own links. We are going to look at implementing something like the one on the Mustang forum and will give it a trial run.

I think the forum has evolved from a Woodworking forum to almost a lets cater to everyone forum.

• It most certainly has and mainly at the insistence of members, often to involve other family members. We actually get a lot of members from those "please all" forums, people who otherwise may never have used the forums or known about them.

The member only area's, if you havent joined also appear to be dead.

• There's a Members Only area? Oh that one.... That is for members to get their Members ID so they can get into Show Stand and be ID'd by other members. It is a closed forum not for posting forum. Any posts that were in there have been deleted. Also the SPECIAL DEALS & OFFERS FOR MEMBERS & Guests forum is emptied out after the deals have run their course. These are usually for Discounted Entry to Woodworking Shows and the like. Next entry in there will be a few weeks before Brisbane Timber & Working With Wood Show in May.

Evanism -I like the older blokes. I'm not sure if I've met any grammar nazis, but there have been a few "occasions" but these seemed minor upon reflection

• I'm sure people from the 18th Century would be horrified at most spelling and grammar of the 20th Century people. We evolve, we don't like it but in the future almost everything will be done with predictive text and text shorthand. Being a bad speller doesn't make someone a bad person and is no reason for anyone to be persecuted and driven from the forums. It reflects more on the personage of the good speller with no tolerance for others. This is from a person who is an atrocious speller and relies heavily on his spell checker.

- it would be nice to ID the poster a bit more so I can approach the post accordingly e.g Male 44, 3 years exp.

• That information is available on the top section of a members information in their post (right hand side) and includes

Join Date When membership commenced.
Location Most are honest and put at least a town. Some want to hide their location and others are too dumb to know where they are.
Age Members age at time of their last post Only if allowed by member - I NOTICE YOUR AGE ISN'T SUPPLIED but you think others should show theirs.
Posts The number of posts a member has made helps towards experience on forum not time at woodworking

Not sure what difference being male or female should make unless you're intimidated by one or the other.

- I REALLY dislike the design. I understand it's a generic package, but as a professional software programmer and 20 year Internet web designer, I can assure you it isn't THAT hard.

I can pretty much assure you it is. We have had and used different designs and in one way or another they do not completely want to work with the vBulletin program or clash with IE or bring up many thousand of unforeseen and untried problems hither too unknown until you go live. Currently this is the most stable format for these forums. We have tried other forum programs and found them all lacking to some degree.

- need a tag cloud for searching

• Already have tag cloud but your mentioning of it brought to our attention that it was no longer doing automatic tagging of threads this will be fixed later on today or tonight.

- put Ajax into the search for predictive searching

• Looking into this

- show popular search terms

• Should be in tag cloud

One last point, I really dislike the design.

Oh dear for now if you wish to continue you're stuck with it. You can change the skin if you wish. You should be able to find out where to do that. For those who don't know it's on the left left side of bottom navigation bar on all screens, or on this page it's in the same place a little below the VIEW TAG CLOUD link

Sorry if any of the above comes across as sarcasm but if it does it's because sometimes I just can't help myself.

Cheers - Neil

[steamingbill]

Hello,

See attached - this often appears at the bottom of my browser pages.


Bill

[Treecycle]

At least I have learnt a lot about these forums from this thread. There have been a lot of good explanations on items that the casual user may not know about.

[Evanism]

Away for 2 days and I get a pitch forking! Oh well, I like being the martyr.....

Here are some more ideas:

- agree/disagree buttons. (a different vibe from liking)
- modify the CSS a bit so each post looks more distinct
- any chance of some more imagery, such as on the front page? Iconography rather than slab-o-text?

BTW, my spelling is horrendous too, the iPads autocorrect is very unamusing sometimes.

BBTW, when I said I liked the older blokes, it was for their WISDOM, not something *else*

[ubeaut]

- agree/disagree buttons. (a different vibe from liking)

We actually have a dislike button which if used would be basically the same thing. However we choose not to use the dislike button because of the abuse/misuse it would get. This was the reason we mostly disabled the reputation system. There are some stalkers on here who would dislike everything posted by some particular mambers. If something is disliked or disagreed with the best response is via post, or pm if one doesn't want to appear to be grandstanding, way more appropriate and won't be misused.

- modify the CSS a bit so each post looks more distinct

Not sure I get your drift here don't the bars between posts and the users avatar (if they have one) make each post distinctive

- any chance of some more imagery, such as on the front page? Iconography rather than slab-o-text?

I'm up for almost anything that will make the forums a better place to visit, but again I have no idea what you mean here.

Any chance of you posting a link or screen capture as an example of what you mean for both of the above.
This would at least give me and others some idea of what you mean so it can be either acted on or not.

Cheers - Neil

[wheelinround]

• I'm sure people from the 18th Century would be horrified at most spelling and grammar of the 20th Century people. We evolve, we don't like it but in the future almost everything will be done with predictive text and text shorthand. Being a bad speller doesn't make someone a bad person and is no reason for anyone to be persecuted and driven from the forums. It reflects more on the personage of the good speller with no tolerance for others. This is from a person who is an atrocious speller and relies heavily on his spell checker.

You are being tongue in cheek aren't you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_century

A period where many could not read or write let alone spell.
When new colonies were established and convicts were sent to.
Pirates, henchmen and Press Gangs were at their height. They themselves would have used such as a simple X to sign anything if signing at all a form of short hand if you like.


Just to be a Nazi on history

[gawdelpus]

My "tuppence" worth Rereading Gregs original post it may be slightly Misnamed I think only the Moderaters and admin would know the truth about (Members Declining ) I think the gist of what Greg was saying was more the Participation rate for posts etc, and activity levels, that said it has generated a lively and informative discussion , and probably brought some commentaters out of the "woodwook" hehe. This is a good thing and what forums are generally all about , If some of the ideas expressed have merit and practicality I am sure that they would be implemented in due course , these forums and associated pages do not happen by magic ,a lot of filling in has to be done from the basic templates, lots of time effort and cash makes what most of us take for granted ,which we get for free as members ,of course things evolve over time and updates occur ,but overall I enjoy what little of the forums I can take in ,although I specialise in pen making and post there often ,the times I can just browse and see what others are doing I also enjoy. Upshot is a Hundred "likes" is worth about one genuine responce to the poster . At the markets I go to .everyone "likes" my work, but only a few Buy ,the buyers are the ones I Like LOL . Cheers ~ John

[A Duke]

Hi Evanism,
Thanks for adding your age.
I now know as long as I don't talk about Teletext machines, Facet machines, slide rules and logarithm tables, you were there.
Regards

[Bushmiller]

Upshot is a Hundred "likes" is worth about one genuine responce to the poster . At the markets I go to .everyone "likes" my work, but only a few Buy ,the buyers are the ones I Like LOL . Cheers ~ John

John

I was just about to press the "like" button.

You make a good point. However, if everyone posts like this there will be pages and pages of very trivial posting. Consequently I believe the "likes" button definitely has it's place.

Is there a place for a "good point" button? I have to agree about Neil's comment for a "dislike" button. I noticed that it was very briefly in place at the recent revamp and at the time I thought "this is asking for trouble."

I imagine that as part of the package it was included, but was swiftly removed once noticed.

Regards
Paul

[Sturdee]

This was the reason we mostly disabled the reputation system. There are some stalkers on here who would dislike everything posted by some particular members. If something is disliked or disagreed with the best response is via post, or pm if one doesn't want to appear to be grandstanding, way more appropriate and won't be misused.

Neil,

The reputation system is still there, including the option of giving a disapprove reputation and I agree that it was abused by some members.

Peter.

[BobL]

. . . .I have to agree about Neil's comment for a "dislike" button. I noticed that it was very briefly in place at the recent revamp and at the time I thought "this is asking for trouble."

Following the old adage of . . . . "if you can't say something nice about someone then it's best not to say anything at all"?

Often it's not so much a "dislike" as a "disagreement". Anyway, folks can always post a reasoned disagreement is the wish.

[Evanism]

How about this: a button for on or off topic....off topic posts are coloured a light grey whereas on topic posts are normalised or highlighted?

What I mean is the whole post, maybe the background area of the post is different, so one can visually follow the on topic components without wading through the waft.

BTW, A Duke, we've met 3 times. I'm the tall loud fat yelling one who waves his arms around a lot

[BobL]

How about this: a button for on or off topic....off topic posts are coloured a light grey whereas on topic posts are normalised or highlighted?

What I mean is the whole post, maybe the background area of the post is different, so one can visually follow the on topic components without wading through the waft.

I'm not sure whether staying on topic is that significant of an issue on these forums to warrant spending the effort required to do this.
Personally I don't worry about it too much if threads go off topic as that's how many interesting conversations develop, and occasionally the original topic may be of less value than the off topic(s) that developed.
Of more value might be a "Value" button - which is not that far from a like button