Discussion
It's been almost a month since we changed the format of the P&P, and I think it's fair to say that we have had an interesting few weeks.
One thing that has been impressive is the amount of useful suggestions made on how to improve P&P as we move forward. OK, it's been obvious that many of you didn't like it initially but even so you came back to this forum with sensible suggestions as to how it could be improved, or explained clearly exactly what you didn't like, and for that we
you
What do us here at PH HQ think about it all a few weeks in? Well, there are still some changes that need to be made and we admit that. Perhaps the forums are split out too much and we can see that some aren't performing as well as others - Health Matters as an example. By contrast we have seen other forums do very well, and they are certainly attracting a better quality of comment.
Interestingly the amount of 'problem' threads has dropped dramatically, and that makes the forums a far nicer place for everyone, and despite the first couple of days showing some loss in overall numbers this section is now operating at a normal level.
With the bank holiday weekend happening earlier in the month, comparing old vs. new figures is rather difficult, but naturally we have been viewing the forums to get a feel for atmosphere and general movement over the past few weeks. However, after we have run for a full month we will take a good look at things and will make the necessary adjustments.
In the meantime, RacingPete and Mr Will have developed some fantastic new tools to make the forums even easier to navigate, as well as making the site easier to use generally. In the words of Racing Pete, these additions are
The new P&P will have been live for a month on the 6th May, so after that we will take a good look at the data, and we'll also look to implement the changes mentioned earlier in this thread.
Thanks for the support and comments so far
One thing that has been impressive is the amount of useful suggestions made on how to improve P&P as we move forward. OK, it's been obvious that many of you didn't like it initially but even so you came back to this forum with sensible suggestions as to how it could be improved, or explained clearly exactly what you didn't like, and for that we
you What do us here at PH HQ think about it all a few weeks in? Well, there are still some changes that need to be made and we admit that. Perhaps the forums are split out too much and we can see that some aren't performing as well as others - Health Matters as an example. By contrast we have seen other forums do very well, and they are certainly attracting a better quality of comment.
Interestingly the amount of 'problem' threads has dropped dramatically, and that makes the forums a far nicer place for everyone, and despite the first couple of days showing some loss in overall numbers this section is now operating at a normal level.
With the bank holiday weekend happening earlier in the month, comparing old vs. new figures is rather difficult, but naturally we have been viewing the forums to get a feel for atmosphere and general movement over the past few weeks. However, after we have run for a full month we will take a good look at things and will make the necessary adjustments.
In the meantime, RacingPete and Mr Will have developed some fantastic new tools to make the forums even easier to navigate, as well as making the site easier to use generally. In the words of Racing Pete, these additions are
RacingPete said:
Forum Group View Page - This allows you to view all the posts in a specific forum group (be it TVR, Motorsport or Pie and Piston) all in one page. This works from your favourite list so you can choose to not see the forums you don't want. Simply click on the forum group header name and you will get the new view. This means you can make the PH forums work in exactly the way you want.
Whats New Page - We have tweaked this page so it looks a little neater, again making it easier to use.
Image Uploader (beta) - We have added an image uploader to the site with the help of ThumbSnap who will be hosting the images. This makes image uploading much easier than going to another site and uploading there... You will see an "Upload an Image (beta)" link above the posting box when starting or replying to a topic. Try this as soon as you can as it makes things much faster.
To Follow
Forum Posts Parser - The parser changes all the text you write into the symbols, images and formatting throughout the posts. This has been updated, and over the next week we will implement bits of it to improve some of the little bugs the forums have eg. * footnotes; more than one code comment; sub-level bullets; thumbnail images in quotes... to name a few. We will update the "Formatting Help" link in the post pages when these parts go live.
These changes will be live from today, so please give us your feedback to help us improve them further. Whats New Page - We have tweaked this page so it looks a little neater, again making it easier to use.
Image Uploader (beta) - We have added an image uploader to the site with the help of ThumbSnap who will be hosting the images. This makes image uploading much easier than going to another site and uploading there... You will see an "Upload an Image (beta)" link above the posting box when starting or replying to a topic. Try this as soon as you can as it makes things much faster.
To Follow
Forum Posts Parser - The parser changes all the text you write into the symbols, images and formatting throughout the posts. This has been updated, and over the next week we will implement bits of it to improve some of the little bugs the forums have eg. * footnotes; more than one code comment; sub-level bullets; thumbnail images in quotes... to name a few. We will update the "Formatting Help" link in the post pages when these parts go live.
The new P&P will have been live for a month on the 6th May, so after that we will take a good look at the data, and we'll also look to implement the changes mentioned earlier in this thread.
Thanks for the support and comments so far
Looks good.
The only additional feature I'd like is the facility to select a thread to not appear again in my 'What's New', in the same way as you can knock them out of 'Contributions'. That would make 'What's New' genuinely useful to me and not have 100s of posts in it which I didn't want to read (and still don't) when I've been away for 12 hours.
Make it so.
The only additional feature I'd like is the facility to select a thread to not appear again in my 'What's New', in the same way as you can knock them out of 'Contributions'. That would make 'What's New' genuinely useful to me and not have 100s of posts in it which I didn't want to read (and still don't) when I've been away for 12 hours.
Make it so.
miniman said:
I'll grant you the forum group view page is actually a really useful addition, and not just for P&P, nice one.
Although the image uploader doesn't work for me, FF3.0.9 Vista, tried with Adblock on and off.
Will look into the upload beta now.... should be working fine, but not working for me now too Although the image uploader doesn't work for me, FF3.0.9 Vista, tried with Adblock on and off.
Edited by miniman on Thursday 30th April 18:09
ETA: A very old bit of code didn't get picked up in the update... now sorted so will work!
Edited by RacingPete on Thursday 30th April 18:24
miniman said:
Nice one. Can you remove the "original" option for the uploader? Would stop people uploading 2000px wide images and screwing up the page layout.
I am loathed to remove the original option as there is probably some occasions where this is a good idea.The original size will still be formatted by the code in the page the same way as before, so it isn't something that wasn't there before.
Lord Pikey said:
Erm... Have all these features been rolled out on the big blue scheme?
I cant seem to find this Forum Group View Page thingy?
Am i just being thick?
The latter.I cant seem to find this Forum Group View Page thingy?
Am i just being thick?
Click 'Gassing Station' then 'Show All Forums'.
If you click one of the section titles, rather than the sub-foum itself, you get the posts from everything in that section.
i'm pleased you like it.I think I like this - being able to click p&p is good. I will give this a go.
Hopefully the "atmosphere" will return.
To be picky when i click on p&p and it shows me lots of threads can i restrict that to say 20? or 25 like in the forums? rather than having a page with a 100 or however many are on it.
Being picky now - if you have implemented this which allows everyone to view the p&p topics as if they were in one forum, whats the difference between this and the old style? Surely this will reintroduce all the "bad elements" that you wanted to get rid off?
Cheers
Dan
Hopefully the "atmosphere" will return.
To be picky when i click on p&p and it shows me lots of threads can i restrict that to say 20? or 25 like in the forums? rather than having a page with a 100 or however many are on it.
Being picky now - if you have implemented this which allows everyone to view the p&p topics as if they were in one forum, whats the difference between this and the old style? Surely this will reintroduce all the "bad elements" that you wanted to get rid off?
Cheers
Dan
V8mate said:
Lord Pikey said:
Erm... Have all these features been rolled out on the big blue scheme?
I cant seem to find this Forum Group View Page thingy?
Am i just being thick?
The latter.I cant seem to find this Forum Group View Page thingy?
Am i just being thick?
Click 'Gassing Station' then 'Show All Forums'.
If you click one of the section titles, rather than the sub-foum itself, you get the posts from everything in that section.
One for the computer forum maybe....
dan1981 said:
Being picky now - if you have implemented this which allows everyone to view the p&p topics as if they were in one forum, whats the difference between this and the old style? Surely this will reintroduce all the "bad elements" that you wanted to get rid off?
Cheers
Dan
Think of it as a stupidity test Cheers
Dan
We know that you can view it like that, but hopefully any passing rock ape won't.Just a thought, how about adding a 'Start Topic' link in the new aggregate view, and then when a user clicks this giving them the option of selecting which sub-forum to place the topic in, kind of like the options you get when ressurecting a thread from the P&P archive.
Would this work or have I missed something?
Would this work or have I missed something?
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