General Site Suggestions

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:17:47 GMT

JAC6:
If it was up to me -- which it isn't -- I'd reorganize and rearrange, putting the more popular forums at the top and relegating the others to the bottom. For example, the iPhone forums are mostly dead but get prominent placement, resulting in poor placement for almost all of the (far more popular) sections. The "Environmental Issues" forum looks to be largely dead. The "Adminsitrators" forum is dead, except for some posts that belong elsewhere. And so forth. That said, there's a limited amount one can do when 99% of the traffic appear to be the in ID forum. Generating traffic to other sections of the site would be good idea.

There are some good suggestions in the "General Site Suggestions" section and I'm sure there would be no shortage of suggestions if that area was revived.

I do agree with that. The Ibirds forums should be at the bottom. I will see what I can do there. I think the main reason why there is not much activity in the other forums is because when some joins they are usually looking for a ID and not interested in other topics. And the members that have been on here awhile are more into the ID forum as well.

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:53:08 GMT

If it was up to me -- which it isn't -- I'd reorganize and rearrange, putting the more popular forums at the top and relegating the others to the bottom. For example, the iPhone forums are mostly dead but get prominent placement, resulting in poor placement for almost all of the (far more popular) sections. The "Environmental Issues" forum looks to be largely dead. The "Adminsitrators" forum is dead, except for some posts that belong elsewhere. And so forth. That said, there's a limited amount one can do when 99% of the traffic appear to be the in ID forum. Generating traffic to other sections of the site would be good idea.

There are some good suggestions in the "General Site Suggestions" section and I'm sure there would be no shortage of suggestions if that area was revived.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:59:17 GMT

JAC6:
Excellent!

If you're still looking for suggestions, there are lots of rarely used threads on the forum home page that serve only to clutter things. That's not terrible by itself but I think it probably means fewer people get to the bottom of the page, which is where there are some more active threads.

So what would you like me to do? Eliminate some forums?

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:52:51 GMT

Excellent!

If you're still looking for suggestions, there are lots of rarely used threads on the forum home page that serve only to clutter things. That's not terrible by itself but I think it probably means fewer people get to the bottom of the page, which is where there are some more active threads.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:06:50 GMT

JAC6:
Raptor:

Well the main reason a post goes into moderation is if it has too many links (sometimes over 2 would trigger it). After it goes into moderation it will have to be approved by a mod.

Right. The problem is that there are no moderators to approve the post, despite the message that the post will be approved by a moderator and the statement that an email will be sent regarding the approval.

Well I am the forum Administrator now. Approving posts can be done by me or a different mod/admin. So it should be different from now on.

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:12:11 GMT

Raptor:

Well the main reason a post goes into moderation is if it has too many links (sometimes over 2 would trigger it). After it goes into moderation it will have to be approved by a mod.

Right. The problem is that there are no moderators to approve the post, despite the message that the post will be approved by a moderator and the statement that an email will be sent regarding the approval.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:38:37 GMT

JAC6:
If you're looking for suggestions, it would be lovely if there was some explanation of what triggers the "moderator approval required" blocking of posts. And most of all, how about a moderator who actually approves such posts, as the system currently promises? I would vote for actually implementing the functionality promised by the site before looking for new things to try.

Well the main reason a post goes into moderation is if it has too many links (sometimes over 2 would trigger it). After it goes into moderation it will have to be approved by a mod.

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:51:24 GMT

If you're looking for suggestions, it would be lovely if there was some explanation of what triggers the "moderator approval required" blocking of posts. And most of all, how about a moderator who actually approves such posts, as the system currently promises? I would vote for actually implementing the functionality promised by the site before looking for new things to try.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:49:31 GMT

JAC6:
Excellent. Hopefully we'll see far fewer problems with posting and posting images. Thanks again -- it is a big improvement.

Let me know if you know of anything else that can be done to make this forum more "bug-free" and "newbie friendly" and I will see what I can do.

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:11:14 GMT

Excellent. Hopefully we'll see far fewer problems with posting and posting images. Thanks again -- it is a big improvement.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:16:50 GMT

JAC6:
I see that we've now made some progress on this for the bird ID thread. Thank you.

http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/thread/117221.aspx

One minor suggestion: rather than linking to another thread that explains -- in two short paragraphs -- how to post an image, I think it would make sense to copy that text into that sticky thread and eliminate the link. That way everything is in one place.

I was going to write that out myself but quoting from him would probably make more sense. Hold on while I change that...

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:46:47 GMT

I see that we've now made some progress on this for the bird ID thread. Thank you.

http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/thread/117221.aspx

One minor suggestion: rather than linking to another thread that explains -- in two short paragraphs -- how to post an image, I think it would make sense to copy that text into that sticky thread and eliminate the link. That way everything is in one place.

Re: FAQ

lyceel — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:05:59 GMT

This is certainly a good idea. The only thing resembling this now is a forum that's buried several groups down on the main forum page.

Re: FAQ

JAC6 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 07:26:30 GMT

Anyone who has spent more than a few minutes on this site knows that many people never find the information they are looking for about posting images (to take one example). They make mistakes and/or give up and/or create new threads asking questions that have been answered many times in threads started by other frustrated users. A FAQ is the universally accepted way of conveying information to new users and this site doesn't have one and it shows. There can't be much debate that this site fails on intuitiveness, user friendliness, and easy-to-find instructions. It is good in other ways, but not those. Fortunately, it would be incredibly easy to fix.

Re: FAQ

Raptor — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:20:06 GMT

We already have a forum for such things:

http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/45/ShowForum.aspx