Your Help Needed - Evalutating NEW Forum Software

[lazyday]

I like it alot. It seems more dare I say structured I would have liked to see more domestic topics such as cooking,sewing ( which is really big right now). Thanks Niffty for advancing towards the future

 

[lazyday]

Forgot to add I did sign up

 

[Nifty]

Thanks for the testing and the feedback!

FarmerChick, we're always working on improving moderation. We work diligently to find a balance between too much and too little moderation. In the 15+ years I've been working with online communities I've seen equal numbers of people upset about too heavy handed moderation as well as too lightly handed moderation. In my experience, you're doing it just right when you get equal number complaints about both. So we keep this topic on course, shoot me a PM with more ideas and feedback and we'll keep working on making things better!


Joel, you're spot on in many regards. The benefits on the back-end are vast (for example WAY better spam prevention tools ) but also way more / better features for users, for example:

Auto saved drafts of every post: Say you're typing something and your computer shuts down or you accidentally close your browser. A draft of your post is automatically saved in the background and you can restore and edit / post it if you like!

Much better WYSIWYG editor (linking text, bold, etc. is much better) and super easy image uploads: Super easy image uploads. Even drag/drop and copy/paste. See more here .

A "responsive" design that will make the site beautiful on mobile devices (not implemented on the remodel forums site, but coming. You can test out what mobile would kinda look like at the link here )

"Watch" an entire forum section: Say you're really interested in one particular section of the community and want to be notified when there are new posts to that section. You'd be able to subscribe to an entire section and get notifications when new topics are posted!

Threaded Private Messages (called "Conversations"): Instead of every message being in a new row / line-item in your inbox, you can have a threaded conversation with a person (or multiple people). This really helps keep the inbox clean and makes it easier to keep track of conversations.

... and much more.

Again, we have enough experience in these things to know that:

1) People hate change
2) Change is never easy
3) Everything won't work perfectly
4) A handful of things won't be better... some may be worse

Honestly, I'm dealing with this right now with a house move I'm in the middle of. I'm actually kinda regretting moving into a bigger / nicer house since I don't love change, moving is a pain, and certain comforts I'm use to may be lost. With that said, I know the long-term benefits of moving into the nicer house will be good for me, my wife, and our daughters. The exact same thing applies here... a move would entail some pain points, but if we feel a move would be best for the long-term of our community, we'll probably want to push through the initial pain to get more pleasure in the long-term.

 

[Joel_BC]

Joel, you're spot on in many regards. The benefits on the back-end are vast (for example WAY better spam prevention tools ) but also way more / better features for users
Again, we have enough experience in these things to know that:

1) People hate change
2) Change is never easy
3) Everything won't work perfectly
4) A handful of things won't be better... some may be worse

... a move would entail some pain points, but if we feel a move would be best for the long-term of our community, we'll probably want to push through the initial pain to get more pleasure in the long-term.

I have no trouble with what you're saying. I'm sure there would be improvements. I'm not worried at all about adapting to a slightly different format or set of user procedures. I don't expect perfection.

I look at Sufficient Self as an info-exchange site. At the same time, I realize that many here like it as a journaling site.

Due to my focus on SS as an info-exchange site, I'm very concerned that the existing threads (archived in the various topic forums) be readable, and that their illustrations be preserved. That was part of my post that you didn't respond to. I'm sure, Nifty, you can load the data from the existing software over to the new software - and test it out (before putting it up online). And then you can report on this to us.

 

[Nifty]

Sorry I missed that part Joel!

Yes, all forums, topics, posts, pictures, PM's, etc. will be retained and very clearly converted over. I'm actually pretty anal about data preservation, backups, etc. (see my post here and here ). We've actually successfully tested the entire site conversion on two other sites in what we call a "sandbox". We have the moderators of those sites playing in this sandbox to make sure the information is all imported correctly and text, images, etc. are all retained. So far, things are looking really great and the test conversions are working out better than expected! If you (or other select members) would like to be invited to play in the SS sandbox once we decide to go down that path, let me know!

My #1 reason for getting started in forums 15 years ago is based on efficient and effective information sharing. Forums provide a very wonderful and unique opportunity for a "one to many" relationship where one person helping another can actually turn into one person helping tens, hundreds, and even thousands of people over time! I LOVE that!

Based on what I've seen so far, the new features will make the submission and sharing of information easier and more efficient and effective. The platform should improve the discovery, sharing, and engagement with the great information we have, and will continue to develop!

 

[lazyday]

I just went and tried to log in to new sight and it would not let me and I never received my confirmation either

 

[Nifty]

You tried to create an account and it didn't work? Did you get the screen saying that an email confirmation was sent?

 

[lazyday]

yes, I am going to try and create a new account again and see what happens.

 

[lazyday]

I changed it and logged out then logged in again it let me in but when it did a introduction and directed me to adding avatar it said I did not have permission also it did not say it was sending me a confirmation this time .

 

[Nifty]

Ok, so you are able to login? That's a good sign!

I wonder why you can't upload an avatar. I wonder if that's an anti-spam setting for brand new members. I'll look into that, thanks!!