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Shall reserve judgement until we see the changes but I like this forum since it's simple to see everything. I can aleady see a conflict - for example if you categorise something under 'buying and selling', what would happen if it developed into a legal dispute? Where would the thread then get posted? I apologise for being a curmudgeon and will eat my words but I hate change for change's sake.
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I'm with you on this one Xileno. I like the HJ site for the same reasons, easier to see than most of the forums.
I used to be on a kit car forum and they changed that and got bombarded with emails and eventually put it back to how it used to be.
It would be a shame if a change led to some people dropping out as I have had loads of great advice on here.
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Compared to all the other forums I use, the Backroom stands out for it's lack of categorisation - that's why I like it.
I enjoy looking at all the new posts under Technical and Discussion - until I open each one I never know whether it'll be educational for me, one that I can offer advice, or an opinion, on or just irrelevant (to me). If "categorisation" makes that difficult, then the pleasure will go.
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>>Compared to all the other forums I use, the Backroom stands out for it's lack of categorisation - that's why I like it.
hear hear. This forum uses far and away the best forum software and hierarchy I have ever encountered on the 'net. Whilst I note that HJ says he doesn't think that it's going to happen... if it were to be split up into multiple sub-forums then it would lose much of its attraction.
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I concur. I often read threads that just catch my eye, if they're hidden away in too many categories I won't see them and will spend less time on this site.
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me too.
The way the forum is at the moment is ideal, I find it hard/time consuming to find stuff sometimes, but that's just me.
Maybe if the look of the forum was kept, but the tags and catagories were used for just searching, so when browsing the posts it is still in one long list as now, rather than having the posts seperated into sections and the tag/catagory options were only available on the search page.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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The way the forum is at the moment is ideal
Yup. Mapmaker sums it up perfectly.
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I agree with Mapmaker.
(Is this a first? :-))
madf
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>I agree with Mapmaker
Sometimes I manage to capture the sprit of the age.
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Are we going nautical ?(TIC)
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>> The way the forum is at the moment is ideal Yup. Mapmaker sums it up perfectly.
and me!
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pmh (was peter)
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I can see HJ's point about the forum only attracting a minority of the site traffic and the need to make things easier to find for first time viewers. Might not a compromise be to leave the forum as it is but categorise everything else to cater for the 70% majority of traffic?
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>>Compared to all the other forums I use the Backroom stands out for it's lack of categorisation - that's why I like it. hear hear. This forum uses far and away the best forum software and hierarchy I have ever encountered on the 'net.
I think the software is quite poor. More than once I have lost posts due to taking to long before submitting and then having to login again, whereupon the text is gone.
I don't find the threading very sensible either, flat posting using quoting is easier to follow and work with.
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Flunky's first point is fair. Can't you lengthen the time-out to an hour? Sometimes less important things get in the way of posting.
On his second point, you can choose to view posts flat. In preferences, I think.
Other brilliant things about this forum software are no smilies, pictures or other nonsense cluttering up the threads, and no having to click on a new page every ten posts. Speeds up reading no end.
An edit button would, though, be fantastic. Just for five minutes after posting.
Just by the way, I'd love to see a forum run on a wiki basis. So anybody could edit anthing...
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1) Threading is something that is debatable and as this software came out of what we originally used - the open-source "phorum" software that used threading, we continued the tradition, not least so that the data stayed intact and everything looked the same. We simply added sorting by last modified. However, threading brings with it a few nasties. The main one being that when viewing flat, it is not so easy to use a page paginator - like the one on the threads where they are broken into chunks of 20 or so. As you also say, the advantage over quoting is also questionable. It makes managing posts harder too because instead of moderators simply moving a rogue post to another thread and have it sort by date, they also have to specify where in that thread to attach it to.
Having said that, clear, simple listing is in my opinion the way to go with information, and that's why we deliberately keep away from fancy buttons, or any other extraneous information for the purpose of just being fancy. Ever seen compiz on Linux anyone? Sorry, rubbery windows are simply distracting even if it is just a case of one-upmanship on Vista.
2) Timeout on composing is also an issue. We considered moving to a full HTML editor for composing, but then there is a problem in that all posts have to be stored in HTML instead of text with line break conversion. OK we can patch the old posts to get around this one. With an HTML editor you can't do the trick of relog in after timeout and use the browser back button to get back your post. So one has to have an autologin on submit if logged out.
All do-able but not a priority compared with the other changes needed to this site I'm afraid.
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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"quoting is easier to follow and work with."
Well you know what happens to those
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If it doesn't fit under:
Tax, Insurance and Warranties
Buying and Selling
Company Cars
Parts and Accessories
Specialists
or Legal & Motoring Offences
Then choose Miscellaneous
I imagine 'Miscellaneous' will become the default, or what we now know as good ol' 'Discussion' (unless the Mods. become more like Invigilators!)
plus ca change...!
The indexing of road tests et al should increase usability, especially for neophytes - it's currently easier to google the relevant 'car name' plus 'HonestJohn' than scroll though the metres long road test side bar.
Oh, Big-Up to the Mods. btw - you've certainly been earning you 'keep' recently!
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Yes - miscellaneous is a bit of a catch-all. If you have a car make, model filled in, you don't need to complete the other category list. One or the other is all that is needed.
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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Just to calm all your fears. No, we won't be changing anything else to the forum categorisation (meaning discussion, technical etc.) or whatever. The reason for adding the extra categorisation (as in legal, buying and selling etc.) is so that in the future:
1) in the forum you will be able to search on these new categories or make/model in addition to the current search. This should make it easier to find relevant information for your particular car - for example.
2) site-wide we will be able to cross-link information on cars or categories better so that the overall usefullness of the site improves for users and ads can be placed in more relevant places.
Rather than make all the changes in one big hit, we will progressively roll them out, but for the time being we are improving the underlying data in this site.
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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Stephen
While you're at it...
Fix it so that an open "reply" box keeps you logged-in....
Add an "edit button" to your own posts - with an "Edited by Xxxx at xx:xxhrs" tag....
Drop the silly threading and go chronological....
Add a Spellchecker... [and a grammar checker... and a punctuation checker.... and a good taste checker.... and...]
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Add a Spellchecker.
If you use Firefox - it will spell check in realtime.
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Add a Spellchecker.
What sort of ignarent fule needs a spillchucker. Didn't ewe go to skool?
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RR
Yes; I did go to school - occasionally. [I left at 13-and-a-half, a year after it went Comprehensive - nobody seemed to notice until my Latin A-level papers turned up....]
That's why I ended up ignorant and unable to spell.
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Oh; and a "Another reply has been posted - you may wish to review your post..." warning when you hit the "Post" button.
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Would be nice if it made me a cup of coffee as well.... ;-)
Stephen, are these changes being made retrospectively to the forum, I mean will all the old threads get categorised? A bit of a long tedious job I would have thought... Or will it just be from today onwards?
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Stephen are these changes being made retrospectively to the forum I mean will all the old threads get categorised? A bit of a long tedious job I would have thought...
.. well now that you are offering ...
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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Thanks to HJ and Stephen,
I feel reassured following my initial reply to HJ however I am not sure this categorisation is required, the existing search works well and could be highlighted to new users, also the problem with categories is that, for instance, a Focus owner with a fuel problem would get more out of say a C-Max fuel problem thread than a Focus brake pads thread, the categories cannot cover all eventualities.
Regards.
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also, on the subject list, when it has a red 'new' by it, signifying that a new post has been added, could it be made that when it is clicked on it goes straight to the new post as apposed to the top of the page like now.
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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It does in nice browsers like Firefox, Safari and so on, but for some reason it it is kaput in IE7. With IE7 you can target an anchor within the same page, but not from another page. Anyone know of a fix?
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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But another plea to dump the pop-ups.
What popups? I don't get any.
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L\'escargot.
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What popups? I don't get any.
Neither do I. Use a decent web-browser (something like Firefox, not IE), or install something like the Google toolbar, and the pop-ups go away. I use Opera on Ubuntu Linux and I've never seen a pop-up on this site!
Incidentally I like the 2-category approach that we've got on here - "Technical" and "Discussion" immediately sorts "Help, my plugs have rusted into the head" from "How fast do you drive on the motorway?". How much more categorisation do we need? Surely if there's 50 categories, the experts out there won't be so likely to come to someone's rescue if the post is outside their usual field of expertise.
However, like most, I'll form my opinion on the new system once I've started posting with it.
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Drop the silly threading and go chronological....
I have started to use threading. It is good. Go to "Discussion" or WHY. See the topics with new contributions. Pick one by clicking it. Look at the threading, new items have "new" against them. Click a message to read it. Click the next [...] to read it. Reply, and your message is threaded correctly, which helps maintain context (a small quote helps, too). Click "Discussion" to go back to discussion, or "discussion" and the appropriate BR forum (e.g. "Technical matters" from the dropdown list. Simple.
It's quite irritating when someone replies to a message wrongly and messes up the context of the threading! It's hard to see what's being replied to when "view flat" is selected.
It would be nice to have a "mark thread read" capability, if there isn't already (I know I can press "view flat" then "view threaded", but that's a PITA.
I like using threading as above.
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Add an "edit button" to your own posts
Possibly useful, also open to abuse.
Add a Spellchecker...
Ack, ptooi! No thanks.
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>> Add an "edit button" to your own posts Possibly useful also open to abuse.
would be helpful, and not open to abuse, if once your post has been replied to, your post is locked.
>> Add a Spellchecker... Ack ptooi! No thanks.
Agreed
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Aim low, expect nothing & dont be disappointed
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Don't need an edit button. Edit before posting, what's the problem?
Very much don't need or want a spell checker. The damn things don't know a lot of common words and get fazed by names. Just a nuisance.
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.. also it's been a few weeks now and no one has noticed the RSS feed from the forum sections. We noticed the post asking for one a while back and so put one in. Anyway, at least Google search should like it! ;-)
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Stephen Khoo
www.khoosys.net
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I like the forum as it is.
If it aint broke, don't mend it.
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I don't get pop-ups, using IE7 / XP SP2 / Zone Alarm - it seems to be down to your (one's) own security system.
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No popups with AOL either.
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