This forum - are we past the point of no return?

Forum & Website [Discussion &Technical Issues] Forum & Website Technical Discussion
2

I’ve thought about this a lot before posting, and please don’t think I’m trolling, but it would seem to me that this forum suffers from a serious lack of functionality, and a significant number of users (representing a significant silent number I suspect) have voiced their concern and displeasure.

For me, one feature alone renders the forum useless - if I search for posts since last visit, I have absolutely no idea which section the posts are in. Therefore a post about ‘Mk2.5 Supercharger’ could be very interesting if its one for sale, but totally useless if its someone asking a question about hoses (for example). This may well have been raised before, and if I’ve missed this it kind of illustrates my point!

But anyway, the reason for my point is thus. Are we past the point of scrapping the ‘upgrade’ and going back to the old forum (maybe considering a software update in the near future)?

I’m an IT Project Manager by trade, and its soul destroying to bin something that you’ve worked your socks off doing, but it happens. I think the idea merits serious consideration.

I am also nagged by the general ‘the forum isnt that important to the commitee’ sentiment in the thread a while ago on the old OC forum:

http://www.mx5ocforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=66100&highlight=

Fact is, with this software I won’t be a regular visitor or a regular contributor. Sure, possibly not a big loss, but I can’t imagine I’m not the only one. The old OC forum was a massive part of me joining the OC in the first place, and I’ll be thinking long and hard about rejoining when subs time comes aroudn next year.

I also hope this post is taken in the spirit is written, excellent work in getting us here, but I beleive we (and I use we deliberately) have chosen the wrong platform for the forum software.

 

 

3

 But what about the new features? - you’ve made no mention of them…
[;)] 

4

Hi Michael,

I understand a lot of what you’re saying, and I’ll start by saying that I’m not part of the forum team - but I have worked closely with them to get end-user problems sorted, and I’m in the wings to offer help if current plans fall through.

I would say that we are past the point of no return - largely because of the money, let alone the time spent will make this impossible to justify.

There are not that many issues with the new software, but agreed, some of them are significant enough to cause problems for users.

I think that the bigger issues, such as people’s names being displayed are all sorted now, and are simply waiting to be implemented - which I believe is scheduled for within the first couple of weeks in January.

The smaller ones, such as issues with searches and viewing unread posts not giving details of the specific forum the post is in, is a reasonaly easy fix, and one that I’m sure will get sorted very soon.

 

The wrong platform?
I don’t think so, but it was possibly released to us a wee bit too early, but only because after a large amount of Alpha testing, it looked ready to go. Perhaps a Beta scheme should have been implemented, but even then, with customised software such as this, the real issues would only come to light once it is in full use, with plenty of users and posts.

One of the good things with CS is that it can be customised fairly easily - there is a large support community, and plenty of experts, but experts come at a price, but my understanding is that Martin has hopefully got somebody associated with the club onboard who knows what they are doing.

 

The forum is a big part of the club, and it has just undergone a major operation, so the whole place is a bit shook-up, but given a short period of time, I’m confident that the club, and the forum will have settled down, and will be moving on to have more members, events, and associates that before.

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I think that you will need to fix the bugs quickly to stop people from moving to other forums. My biggest gripe is that there is no “forum wide” mark all read button - I am not going to waste my time going into each forum, marking all posts read, When I click on "posts that I have not read, I don’t want 20 pages of stuf that was there last time I visited. I used to look at the forum at least once a day, now it is more like once a week.

6

I might be wrong and have missed one or two but, no one seems to giving write-ups and pictures of things they have done to the cars on the new forums. Me being one of them, just because I can’t get all the icons etc to work for me particularly the Preview.
In replying here I don’t have any other options than to type. I can’t change the font or colour etc.

7

strange? Don’t you see a large ‘A’ with dropdown arrow alongside? Click on the down arrow and you can highlight letter by letter and change the colours

8

Nope! 

 

9

Hi,

I feel I must post also, this style of forum is not user friendly, as I’m sure you’ve seen by the significant drop in users since it went live. It doesn’t ‘look’ like a proper forum anymore, it’s too laborious to browse the threads, continually clicking instead of simply scrolling. I don’t see any advantage as a layman but I take your point that it is an improvement in terms of functionality and compatability with other aspects of the owners club.

 I fear that you’ve killed the forum. I don’t come here regularly anymore, only if I am specifically looking for something.

I appreciate your efforts and I will persevere with the forum and make an effort to learn it but it’s not good, it’s not good at all.

Mur

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http://mx5oc.co.uk/forum/user/EditProfile.aspx
Go to “Site Options” and change “Forum Posts Default View” to Flat view - all posts in a thread will be on the same page, which it seems you do not have just now.

11

 Even with all these “insider tips”, as far as a forum goes this one sucks - mainly due to the software used.

12

With regard to coloured text - and other editing facilities:

Go to ‘Edit profile’ top right of this page.

Left click to open it.

Select ‘Site options’ by left clicking.

Now select ‘Content Editor’ the same way.

Left click on the ‘Drop down’ arrow.

Select ‘Enhanced’

Click on Save. (Bottom left - you may have to scroll down. It can take up to 10 minutes before this option is available for you to use but for me it worked more or less instantly.)

You should now be able to see a menu bar when you click on ‘Reply’ to an email, with options to highlight, resize, change colours, underline, italicize text, etc.

 Good luck.

13

 I can understand people being frightened away by the ‘tree’ view. It’s horrendous.  

Since first impressions are important can the Flat view and Enhanced editing not be made the Forum default, as it seems to be the better option for most people. By the time they’ve found that themselves most people’s impressions of the site have already been influenced by a poor start.

(My perception of this site is still heavily influenced by the early experience of tree views, ‘Staging area’ diversions, lack of editing facilities, lack of spell chacker, ;-) etc.)

 

14

Thank you, I now have colour !

15

Wahoo! I have suggested before that all these tips be gathered into a ‘DIY’ area :-)

16

Doug, if you gather them all together [copy and paste into a new thread, I’ll make it a stickey somewhere—

17

Having done what Doug advised I clicked on the Yellow Reply button and nothing happened. If I then clicked on the Back button and clicked in the Quick reply button I get the Font family and colours buttons etc but I still don’t get the Compose, Options, Related and Preview tabs.

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 I would say that we are past the point of no return - largely because
of the money, let alone the time spent will make this impossible to
justify.
 
So what cost is involved in opening up the old forum again? I’ve been pondering setting up a mirror of the forum on my own server using phpbb (possible to set up in 15min!! For free!) for those that prefer the old way of life.

I still think the forum change was a waste of money.

19

On the same page in Edit Profile do you have every option marked as YES, except the mouse point thing? If not, mark them as Yes and save again.

 If that doesn’t work, what version of Web Browser are you using?

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Yes, everything is marked as YES eccept the mouse thing. I am using Internet Explorer.