Forum upgrades

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:49 am

Question: if you were in control of the forum and could add or change 3 things, what would they be?
Example,
1. colour scheme of orange background with green text etc
2. get rid of the nsw boards and replace with2 queensland boards
3. We need a live chat area

Be as detailed as you like.

I am planning a major upgrade and will take in to account the suggestions you come up with. Obviously all the suggestions won't be able to be used.

A few of the major changes that will be happening already are
Integrated gallery area. Adding images directly from your posts to the gallery. It will have a better UI and will remove all the attempts of hacking the board that we are currently getting. (Around 10 per day that I am having to moderate)
For sale section. The current sale section will be ditched completely. It is probably the most unpopular mod on this site to date. A 4th suggestion will be taken in to account on this topic only.
Pruning. I will be pruning the amount of boards we have. The location boards are popular and as such will remain although will be refined.
Posting issues. A number of people have been having issues with posting replies due to conflicts of a certain theme. This theme will be removed completely and the posting errors will be gone.

Post by **TOONGA** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:33 am

1. make sure the Chrom3 skin is working properly (no hyperlinks on http://www.ausubaru.com/)

2. have a photo editing option in the gallery section

3. live chat would be good, but how to moderate?

TOONGA

YouTube · Post by **El_Freddo** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:39 am

1. I'm old school when it comes to board themes - VB for me... but would be open to more options as I'm not really keen on the ones on offer at the moment. Orange background and green text will definitely screw with my colour blindness and make it difficult to read the forums

2. Funny, but I don't think the NSW crew would agree - even though they hardly use their area
3. Live chat could be good - but for me would also get in the way of reading and posting, which is what I want to be doing while on the forum. But from time to time it would be good to chat.
4. I wouldn't mind seeing a change in the classifieds. You can access them one way and its the current style, another way and they show up as posts and threads until they're accessed individually... I don't mind the layout of the actual ads themselves though.

The only thing that I would love to see change is the attachments - no images! I like images displayed in the text rather than having to open them up individually then go back to get back to the thread I was reading to open the next attachment. I guess this could be more an issue of user education if it can't be modified on the board.

I'd also like to thank all the moderators for the effort they put into this forum, I have no idea of the work load but I'm sure it keeps them on their toes every time they log in to the forum. Here's to you guys!

Cheers

Bennie

Dann · Post by **Dann** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:34 am

El_Freddo wrote:
I'd also like to thank all the moderators for the effort they put into this forum, I have no idea of the work load but I'm sure it keeps them on their toes every time they log in to the forum. Here's to you guys!

Cheers

Bennie

first of all I agree with bennie thanks to all the mods for the up-keep of this site, I know it has helped me tonnes, and I'm shore <(mind blank on spelling) It's helped alot of other people

1, bigger PM space, if possible

Other than that I like the forum, you don't really wanna make it to complicated

Subyroo · Post by **Subyroo** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 8:20 pm

FIX THIS BLOODY ERROR!

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:14 pm

I agree with the "for sale section" comments, it was better before. To list something for sale, just write a new post, but must stick to the template.

Also, can you change the "search" parameters so you can search for 2 and 3 letter words, like EJ, EA, MT, AT, PS, RX, VTD, 3AT, CAS, IAT, MAF, MAP, ATF, to name a few

FROG · Post by **FROG** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:53 pm

1 Colour scheme doesnt worry me too much as long as all the links work and dont have to much jumble about them
tapatalk friendly would be nice for phone use

2 maybe integrate the slow boards with the fast moving ones
ie
NT SA WA and NSW TAS VIC ACT QLD ?

3 Live chat detracts somewhat from the boards usefulness as helpful advice doesnt get archived for future search - would take up a fair amount of resources too I would have thought - not overly against it though

and yes great forum been on here over four years and love it

Gannon · Post by **Gannon** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:59 pm

FROG wrote:3 Live chat detracts somewhat from the boards usefulness as helpful advice doesnt get archived for future search

Yeah that is a very good point

SubieMad · Post by **SubieMad** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:04 pm

Definately agree with the 3 letter search. Given that most of the sensors etc have a 3 letter acronym it makes it extremely hard to search the forums for the info you need. I am a firm believer in searching first but what can you do when virtually no posts contain the full name of the part?

Also would dearly love to see the main component of the post listed in the heading but I think that will be a bit hard to police, education perhaps? For example, "Car won't start" is much more informative than "need help

". Is it possible to add a field that says 'Keywords' to aid in searching?

My two cents worth

Cheers

Tony

Post by **Captain Obvious** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:25 pm

brett have a look at www.navara.asia forum/site may give you some ideas

but yeah
1. get rid of forsale section and make it just start a new thread and use template
2.maybe a garage section for member to but pics and write ups of their cars attached to their user name
3.no live chat pretty useless if you ask me!!

bryan

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:32 pm

I was never one for the live chat thing either. It has been suggested a few times over the years so I thought I had better ask the users before we can it again for a while.

Lots of good suggestions.

I will look at what I can do about photo editing but I really don't think there will be much, if any I can do.

Classifieds will be back to the original method of new thread and using a template. It will be moderated religiously. If the ads don't attempt to comply with the template then they will be deleted.

PM limit will be raised. It is currently possibly to download your pms in 3 different formats if you need to keep records of things. It is a private message service not an online data base, so I do ask from time to time for people to prune their PMs.

Good point on the searching for short words.

Some boards will be combined and some deleted in an effort to streamline things a bit.

Bryan, my keyboard won't allow me to type in Nav a r a with out the spaces.

There is still time for more ideas.

Mr Top Hat · Post by **Mr Top Hat** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:13 am

Very important

can you please set up tapatalk on the forum so users like me can access the threads from our smartphones properly http://www.tapatalk.com/

Outback bloke · Post by **Outback bloke** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:28 am

Tapatalk installed and working. This post is done on my iPhone using it.

Mr Top Hat · Post by **Mr Top Hat** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 10:14 am

Oh cool this is awesome thanks

sammynb · Post by **sammynb** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:36 am

Outback bloke wrote: I will look at what I can do about photo editing but I really don't think there will be much, if any I can do.

Can I suggest maybe quick link buttons for the post/reply window?
So a button for photos which then wraps your url to your photobucket or whatever image hosting site people use in .
One for url links, a quote window, etc, etc

Similar to this english football board.
If you look at the quick link buttons from left to right. Bold; Italics; Underline; Font; Emoticons; Url; Images; Email; Quote.

Post by **TOONGA** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:00 pm

sammynb wrote:Can I suggest maybe quick link buttons for the post/reply window?
So a button for photos which then wraps your url to your photobucket or whatever image hosting site people use in .
One for url links, a quote window, etc, etc

Similar to this english football board.
If you look at the quick link buttons from left to right. Bold; Italics; Underline; Font; Emoticons; Url; Images; Email; Quote.

is that an invision pro board (IVP) as the Vbulletin boards work a little differently to them and Im not sure if those options are available, if they are yes please bring them on

TOONGA

sammynb · Post by **sammynb** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:18 pm

It is an IVP.

The biggest problem I see the current Vbulletin board is that there isn't even a text list of functions and unless someone knows that or [ quote ][ /quote ], etc, are the commands for that specific function then they are in the dark on how to utilise it.

sven '2' · Post by **sven '2'** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 3:43 pm

El_Freddo wrote: I'd also like to thank all the moderators for the effort they put into this forum, I have no idea of the work load but I'm sure it keeps them on their toes every time they log in to the forum. Here's to you guys!

Cheers

Bennie

Have to concur with Bennie on this - without this ongoing donation of goodwill and time the site is nothing.

Agree with the FS reverting to a thread system with a strict template system.

I know one must donate a gold coin to post in FS, but how about a donation (say $5) to join? Might keep the spambots out(?), as well as the numpties that come in to troll?

Thanks again

Sven

FROG · Post by **FROG** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:07 pm

sven '2' wrote:Have to concur with Bennie on this - without this ongoing donation of goodwill and time the site is nothing.

Agree with the FS reverting to a thread system with a strict template system.

I know one must donate a gold coin to post in FS, but how about a donation (say $5) to join? Might keep the spambots out(?), as well as the numpties that come in to troll?

Thanks again

Sven

have to second that

numpties

guyph_01 · Post by **guyph_01** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:41 pm

FROG wrote:have to second that

numpties

Thats a good idea but i think it would be better to allow them a time limit, Say you join and you have a week or two. and if you like the site you have then to pay to keep using. Not sure if it can be done.

I also don't like the for sale section, maybe it could be more like rslib or perthWRX where its all listed. Perth WRx now also has a little pic that allows you to display your item. And the for sale threads are great as you can post questions, reply etc and post like on a normal threads. You can also ' bump' your thread up:)
one of them allows only one bump per day or something like that.

Anyway in all im very happy with the VBstyle of the forum and sometimes, simple is better:)

Also Like i sent you in a pm.
i'd like to, if possible, move my build threads to the Restorations and build ups section?

Have the following under GUYPH

showthread.php?t=13992
showthread.php?t=18261
showthread.php?t=15121

It would be very cool if you could

Or move them to your new garage section:)
Thx