IMPORTANT: Changes to the forum

[Tom Aylott]

Hi guys,

Developments and improvements to the main site are ongoing, and we're happily planning where to take it in 2012, but I'd like to come and start dealing with the forums properly now.

The first focus will be on getting rid of the bugs from the new software upgrade / server. The second on getting things simpler and (arguably) better. The following are things that I've already done.

- Basic restructure
-- Got, Got, Need is now part of general discussion (see below for more details on this)
-- Improvements is at the top with announcements. This is now for main site suggestions as well as forums (if you didn't know that before)
-- Music and Non Music are the two broader areas of the forum now
-- Archives has a few more older bits, we'll be using the Hall Of Fame more (hopefully)
-- City Guides is now Travelling / Holidays. This section is getting enough talk to justify its own section alongside Sport, Entertainment and General I think...
- Updated descriptions for most forums
- Going through the forums and making sure threads aren't pruned as fast / at all. It's been a bit of a pain recently and I think I've worked it out now.

I hope that all seems sensible to everyone! Any time anything gets done it's met with some resistance so.. yeah.

Next, the following are things I'd like some input on in terms of forum structure for the next few months. None of this is final at all...

- Changes to the music forum structure (see new forum structure below)
-- We've stopped automatic posting from the main site since the relaunch and the lines between "Recommend A Band" "Reviews" and "Music" are pretty blurred.
-- News was removed because it was duplicating threads from Music.
-- Advertise your gig section into "gigs" is a bit of a long game at the moment. I'm not sure if this is just going to annoy people and I do need input
-- Wanted merged into Buy and Sell for a new "Marketplace" forum
-- 'We Need A Gig' to be a broader section that people can ask for Gigs / Tour Van Hire / Vinyl pressing / CD pressing / Web Developer Services and other things. Would really like input on this...

This would leave things like this:

SITE STUFF
> ANNOUNCEMENTS
> IMPROVEMENTS

MUSIC
> NEWS, RELEASES AND NEW MUSIC (talk about and review CDs in here now)
> GIGS, TOURS AND FESTIVALS (Gig Reviews here now not in Reviews. Advertise your gig potentially merged here)
> HELP A BRO OUT (find tour van hire, designers, developers, CD press, vinyl press and try and sort out gigs, find band members)

NON-MUSIC
> GENERAL DISCUSSION
> ENTERTAINMENT
> SPORT
> TRAVELLING
> MARKETPLACE
> HELP

ARCHIVES
> HALL OF FAME
> AWARDS 2011
> AWARDS 2009
> AWARDS 2008
> NEWS ARCHIVE
> ...

Other things I'd like input on...
- New forum skin to be added - I'd like suggestions for existing skins or things you'd change about the current one if you could
- Clarify all technical / style problems that are currently in the forum so we can get involved and fix it
- Clarify all problems with the mobile skin so I can make a list and just get it done

This is a community forum, not just a mod playground or whatever, so please make suggestions for this and be helpful. I know there's been some annoying bugs recently, but we're now on it.

[Tom Aylott]

Also, we'll be doing this next week, so if you've got a problem - please do tell me/us now.

[Hedges]

> HELP A BRO OUT (find tour van hire, designers, developers, CD press, vinyl press and try and sort out gigs, find band members)

Sexist

[Tom Aylott]

Spoiler: show

obviously, that's not what it's actually going to be called

[Loula]

Tl;dr

I really dislike the mobile forum. Obviously I can press the button to have the full version, but doesn't that kind of defeat the point?

[Loula]

Okay I've just read the last bit so here's my input:

It's messy to use, if you click the little button to show you the pages, it often doesn't come up and then nothing on the page works and you have to refresh

Despite clicking "keep me logged in" a million times it logs me out which is just bloody annoying

I don't like that you can't see who the last poster is. I don't want to read posts from people I don't like once, let alone 2+ times by accident

It's mainly the first one though.

Sorry if this isn't very coherent / comes across really aggressively, I don't mean it to, seemingly 2am is when I get a bee in my bonnet about shit like this.

[sqiure_coley]

Can we hae the "view your posts" and "view new posts" etc, buttons back at the top of every page please? It may seem quite lazy but i always found them quite handy.

[Bassmonger]

If the button for all the page numbers cocks up, I just scroll to the top and use that one.

However, what's probably needed is two extra buttons next to it, just a simple < and > to go back or forward one page. Obviously they'd only appear if there was a previous and next page.

Also, the spoiler opener needs to be less lazy. I've still not checked out how it works, but my guess is that it's an anchor tag with the href as just a #, then an onclick method to do the opening with JS. My guess is that Safari goes looking for the blankly-named anchor and can't find it, so dumps you at the top of the page when you open the spoiler. Absolute pain in the arse in the tv thread.

Anyway, if my guess is right, either name and reference the anchors properly so it jumps to itself, or change it so the onclick method is just in a span or something.

Other than those two things, the mobile forum is pretty good. Miles better than the last one anyway.

[Tom Aylott]

Thanks guys. I didn't write the theme so it might take a while to fix but I know there's a few problems so I'll get on that ASAP.

As for the rest... Well, you guys had your chance to protest

[Tom Aylott]

UPDATE:

"Buy, Sell and Trade" & "Wanted" are now "Marketplace". There are going to be updated rules on posting in here...
---- Put simply... wanted ads need "WANTED: " at the start, ads with things for sale need "FOR SALE: " from now on.

"We Need A Gig" and "I need a band..." are now under the shit name of "Services and Band Members".

I'm gonna make the music changes later today but not right now as they're a bit more tricky... any complaints on that have a few more hours...

[Bassmonger]

Who cares about the forum layout. Functionality before form, Thomas.

[Tom Aylott]

Style is substance?!

[That_Guy]

Ergh, not liking the new Marketplace layout. I used to be able to tell if anythings happened in the wanted/buy and sell forums by clocking who the last user to post was, but the new combined one means I have to go into the forum and search the actual thread to see if there's been any updates. It's a little thing I know, but it was something that made quite a difference when I only had to time to glance at the index page.

[Bassmonger]

See...SEE. Fix the things that are broken before you piss off the "change is not good" brigade.

Incidentally, I'll help out with the php if you ever get stuck for time or whatever. I've never touched phpbb, and I've only ever written bits and bobs in the language, but programming is programming.

[That_Guy]

I'm not part of the 'change is not good' brigade - I think it's better as a two part (music/non music) forum - but I just don't think it works combining Buy/Sell and Wanted.

[Bassmonger]

change is not good

Look, just get used to it.

[That_Guy]

Just wait until Jay gets in here. Now he really does not like change.

[tomcat]

I like the reshuffling of the various forums, but agree that I preferred having the Marketplace as two sections, was easier to keep track of

[Tom Aylott]

Once I've done the other changes, I'll see if that's a better idea in the end.

[Hedges]

Definitely agree with the above. Unless there's a way to make people put 'FOR SALE/WANTED' in their thread titles it's just going to end up a bit of a mess.

[Martin]

Is there a way to let you pick an option when you're starting a thread on whether you're selling something or looking for something, and it'll prefix the thread for you? Would that work?

[Bassmonger]

I've cleared my cache etc, but the newish changes to the mobile forum look shit on my phone. On a multi-page thread, the bottom bar has loads of overlaid links, making pretty much all of them unclickable.

[Tom Aylott]

Yeah, it's broken. I'm aware of it.

[Tom Aylott]

weird URL bug is now fixed i think...

[Sea Beast]

My posts never seem to appear when I post them. I tried to PM someone and it told me I hadn't certain privileges. So I'm guessing my posts get monitored as well and seemingly binned...what is the deal there?