Simplying forum: suggestions?

lordsmurf · #1 11-06-2020, 03:03 AM

I'm currently trying to streamline the forum. Both for myself, and for others.
Remove "stuff", add features.

I know what I want.
What's on your wish list?

What's annoying?
What needs to change?
What needs to stay?
What do you use often?
What do you never use?
What's not in a good place?

We've fixed the quick reply to allow attachments more easily, and can hopefully now remove the "how to upload/attach" thread from the top of all pages. That change will soon be made to the new-thread page, and some items further streamlined there.

Smileys will be moved from the box to the editing bar (currently in both locations), both in new threads and new PMs.

These changes will be replicated to the responsive beta theme when finished. Eventually, the beta will be the only theme, classic will be retired at the site design refresh.

Also:
Revisiting this as well: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...es-coming.html
It has some content ideas.
Some suggestions there were not possible in 2017, but are now.

Hushpower · #2 11-06-2020, 04:24 AM

Upload limits:
-Increase the video upload limit (Videohelp is 500mb); I find it time-consuming to try to get an AVI into the 100mb limit.

-Increase the limit on resolution for images. A normal screen is at least HD these days, and I suspect most video editors wider than that. I should be able to just take a screen shot of up to 1920 at least and upload it. The current 900 pixel limit generally requires a screenshot (eg two VDub screens side by side) to be manually resized, which is, once again, a pain and of course reduces the quality of the wide image. I would make the limit 2440, with the website shrinking the image to fit the window.

I really like the "latest posts" in the forum menu. I haven't seen it often; it is great because one can see the latest posts from the whole site without having to open each sub-forum.

I do like the way the forum is broken up into sections. If you have an interest in a particular area, it is easy to find it.

lordsmurf · #3 11-06-2020, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

Upload limits:
-Increase the video upload limit (Videohelp is 500mb); I find it time-consuming to try to get an AVI into the 100mb limit.

-Increase the limit on resolution for images. A normal screen is at least HD these days, and I suspect most video editors wider than that. I should be able to just take a screen shot of up to 1920 at least and upload it. The current 900 pixel limit generally requires a screenshot (eg two VDub screens side by side) to be manually resized, which is, once again, a pain and of course reduces the quality of the wide image. I would make the limit 2440, with the website shrinking the image to fit the window.

I really like the "latest posts" in the forum menu. I haven't seen it often; it is great because one can see the latest posts from the whole site without having to open each sub-forum.

I do like the way the forum is broken up into sections. If you have an interest in a particular area, it is easy to find it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately, 100mb is a network limit (Cloudflare). Actually a few bytes under, hence why we set it at 99mb.

Resolution is a display and size issue.
- Trying to pull in a large file can massively slow the site pages down, which isn't good for several reasons.
- And then the large display size will break pages, unless yet more code is added to prevent it.
- In theory, we could allow "for attachment only" large images, but it's still possible to inline display those. Users sometimes do dumb things, so this would need some more thought, on how to allow good and disallow bad.

Latest posts was my idea. I use that all the time myself.

I actually want to add some others (and in a better CSS menu, not that old JS menu).

We put a lot of thought into those sections about 10 years ago. It seems to work well. For a lot of newbie forum admins, it's too tempting to want to over-divide sections. But we mostly resisted that. Some consolidation did happen some years ago, and may happen again for some of the non-video forums.

imgkd · #4 11-06-2020, 05:17 PM

At the very least, it would be nice to have a non-Google alternative for the forum search.

It would also be nice to not have social media trackers (seems it's only Facebook) and Google Analytics (hosting an on-premises alternative instead).

Are interest-based ads served on here as well? If so, removing those may be difficult depending on how much you rely on them for paying off website maintenance.

Other than those things, I don't use the forum often enough to give out any UI-specific suggestions.

lordsmurf · #5 11-07-2020, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by imgkd

At the very least, it would be nice to have a non-Google alternative for the forum search.

It would also be nice to not have social media trackers (seems it's only Facebook) and Google Analytics (hosting an on-premises alternative instead).

Are interest-based ads served on here as well? If so, removing those may be difficult depending on how much you rely on them for paying off website maintenance.

Other than those things, I don't use the forum often enough to give out any UI-specific suggestions.

I think you'll be pleased to know that we're of the same mindset.

A non-Google search has always been at: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/search.php
But the problem with it is that it's date-based (newest posts first), and can be less useful. The Google search is weight-based, and also includes the non-forum pages. So it's used as the primary search. Unfortunately, nothing else is a good alternative here. And anyway, using Google does have some net positives.

Facebook has been mostly useless, and is/was a drag on site loading. It was actually supposed to have been removed, but I'll get all code re-audited here, try to remove any that was left (or at least comment it out). If anything, I'd revisit social to re-include Twitter or Reddit. Maybe not trackers, not a fan of trackers, but at least some sort of integration to share posts.

For ads, ideally, we'll have all ads served from on-server, not external, and with direct relationships for vetted products we believe in. For Premium Members, mostly removed or replaced. For the moment, some external is used, but longterm probably will not be.

On-server analytics is the plan, mostly because Google Analytics is fairly useless. Everybody blocks it now, so stats are skewed. We can partially rely on CloudFlare stats, and do still pay for a 3rd-party stats (Gaug.es), but long-term plans are Matomo (Piwik). The problem has been some requirements have to sync with others, and we're not there yet. It has to be carefully planned and implemented, verifying each step that nothing has broken. But I'm hoping to get there in Dec/Jan. We're taking a (partial) step back from video for a while, and trying to focus more on site development.

Keep the suggestions coming.

Hushpower · #6 11-09-2020, 07:27 PM

Make the message window taller. Unless we go to Advanced, we only get about 6 lines of type before we have to start scrolling up and down to see what we've written.

rocko · #7 11-15-2020, 01:59 AM

Erase the whole damn thing and start over again : - )

But Seriously, I just thought of this after seeing your post here LS
It's a membership Railroad Website I have been hooked on and an active member since about 2014 or so:
Trainorders.com
Like the main page.

Love u guys, really helped me understand conversion of vhs to digital the hard way, with great results, Not the easy way with ho hum results!

lordsmurf · #8 11-15-2020, 06:41 AM

From this post: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post72862
I like the idea of a rant/soapbox quotebox.

Lower on priority list, but we need some more fun stuff around here.

I'm working on the message list now. I have to change the quickreply code, because it has some issues in a few subforums (not working).
Until then, do you realize you can make it bigger?
On the right side of the QR box, click the arrows:
vb-qr-bigger.jpg

Hushpower · #9 11-15-2020, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Until then, do you realize you can make it bigger?
On the right side of the QR box, click the arrows:

Well stuff me mushrooms, there you go. Delete reference to my "bigger box" wish!

A link, at the bottom of the page, to "Today's Newest Posts" (ie Forum>Today's Newest Posts").

After we have read the last/newest post of a thread/topic, we're at the bottom of the page and it would be much easier to click on a link there as opposed to clicking "Top of Page" (or scrolling) then going through the process of clicking "Forum>Today's Newest Posts" again to see the other newest posts.

lordsmurf · #10 11-15-2020, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower

A link, at the bottom of the page, to "Today's Newest Posts" (ie Forum>Today's Newest Posts").

Interesting.
Where, exactly?
Above quick reply? Below? At very bar in the footer bar (currently empty)?

We do want to re-worked the entire footer, it's somewhat worthless right now, and better integrate site-wide.

Hushpower · #11 11-16-2020, 02:01 AM

Quote:

A link, at the bottom of the page, to "Today's Newest Posts" (ie Forum>Today's Newest Posts").

Quote:

Where, exactly?
Above quick reply?

Yes. Often we're not making a reply, so having it there would be the quickest to get to.