Info Forum Improvements thread/suggestions comments here

[daveb47]

Temporary thread for posting changes i have made to board to hopefully improve it.

Also suggestions/comments on this.

 

 

1/

I have changed the number of threads shown per page to 60,this will hopefully stop pages dropping off page so fast.

2/

I have allowed access to new members to Open Forums now that Grump forums are over there.

First 5 posts are still moderated though

3/

New forum section  "Modern Muck".This is to hopefully keep the "Autoshite" forum true to its roots.

[daveb47]

Only  suggestions for comment,

Move grumpy etc to open forum ?

Separate section for raffles/for sale/wanted etc.?

????

[ShiteRider]

There seems to be a lot of duplicate threads, such as info requests about certain models of car or various mechanical failures.

How about tagging the duplicates onto the original threads?

[Alan_Green]

More tabs? We have Autoshite/Open Forum/Garages at the mo' but I think my brain could cope with about 8. Perhaps "For Sale" (obv), "Raffles", "Grumps"; "Just Bought This"; "Opinions on..."; "Shows"; "Meets".

 

Also a bit of peer pressure not to post "I used to have one of those" type posts, unless you have a pic of the actual car or a bit of useful advice or some humorous anecdote.  About 40% of posts are quite bland and often from the same few contributors. Could you choose to "not see" posts from certain contributors, a bit like "mute user" in Twitter?

 

But thanks for all the hard work. No other forum comes close, car-related or otherwise.

[Richard]

You can ignore users already, or you could the last time I looked. Not sure if that works on Tapatalk though.

[The Moog]

I think a for sale section would work. Makes it a bit easier to browse when looking for something.

 

Raffles don't need their own section as they may pass over time. Also we want to keep them a bit in house to avoid paypal issues etc.

 

Agree with moving grumpy and grin. The as forum is just for cars then rest is elsewhere.

 

Personally not a mega fan of loads of tabs as stuff gets lost

[garbaldy]

The forum is perfect as is,

People just need to remember

When they find a car for sale on eBay stick it in the eBay thread.

When they have a grump in the grump thread it goes.

Stupid question in the stupid question thread.

You get the idea.

[steve_earwig]

I suspect most will just be looking at the "view new content" thing so it won't change anything anyway.

 

 

 

Note to self: forget about all the cars I owned before I had a camera...

[Craig the Princess]

Another vote against lots of separate sections. Good as it is.

Perhaps a separate one for car related talk and own vehicle threads but I didn't think it was bad at the moment.

[Twiggy]

I think it`s just fine as it is ~ a very good idea to increase the number of posts per page too.

[John F]

I've noticed quite a few problems when using Internet Explorer 11...

 

- the "Search" function does not work at all, I get a white page with a string of code at the top (and occasionally a few hyperlinks)

 

- When trying to reply to comments the reply box always opens with some random formatting selected, e.g. numbered list, strikethrough, right-justified, etc.

 

- I can't post e.g. YouTube videos, just the link appears.

 

I haven't had these problems using Mozilla Firefox, athough the search returns no hits for search strings I know exist, e.g. MX5

[inconsistant]

I hope a For Sale section would work, I think it's worth a try.

We've already got a few threads dotted about (shitecycle, non motor sales & wants, official wanted/offered etc), we all moan about how we hate what ebay has become, and importantly we're a pretty genuine bunch in general, so it might be a great place to get rid of stuff.

I don't find the above threads useful for selling stuff or for looking for stuff I'm after. I don't think one thread for sales/wants works. I've advertised stuff on here in the past, it's not sold so I've skipped it, only to have someone ask for it months later... individual threads for each sale might keep things more current and noticeable.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I always hit 'View new content' unless my surfing machinery is non-committal. Works well as is.

[Cavcraft]

Dave's kindly shown me how to move threads to merge into other ones, so at times it's going to be useful to put various moans into the 'grumpy' thread, though doubtless someone will complain about that.  

 

I personally don't think we need any more sub sections or special bits of the forum, though moving grin/grumpy onto the other board would surely have to be an improvement. Also, though probably only about 0.1% of people will use it, a guide to using the search facility might lead to us seeing less of the same new threads from different people.

[Inspector Morose]

Agreed on the instruction of members as opposed to lots of different sections. I seem to recall the furore that the creation of an off topic thread created!

Extra for sale section? On balance maybe not. The extra number of posts per page seems to have solved a lot of the "decent posts dropping off" problem, partially caused by lots of for sales.

Conclusion - leave it as it is now with a bit of tidying by da mod squad!

[John F]

... though moving grin/grumpy onto the other board would surely have to be an improvement.

 

I never understood why this didn't happen in the first place.

 

BTW as I mentioned above, Billy, the search facility isn't working with IE 11 or Mozilla Firefox 30.0 at the moment.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I agree with shifting the grin/grumpy threads into the general chat bit

[dollywobbler]

Don't go mad with new sections. I like For Sales being in the main section, as they sometimes develop into full ownership threads. When you click one For Sale, it brings up links at the bottom of the page to all the other For Sales anyway. Works nicely.

 

One change I would like is an easier way to edit the title of your own thread. It's very faffy at the moment.

[Craig the Princess]

You can also click on the tag to get all the for sale/raffle/etc threads.

[Ghosty]

The title editing thing is par for the course across any and all forums I use (here, Retrobike, railforums, skyscrapercity), it'd probably take a fair bit of work to sort.

[Cavcraft]

Incidentally, if we move random 'groan' thread and merge them into the 'Grumpy' one, the replies don't really follow the random groan, as the times just fit into the thread with other 'grumpy' replies, if that makes sense?

 

Moved both into the other section for now, hopefully that'll make the main page a bit more 'on topic' and de-clutter it slightly. They can both easily be moved back if wanted/needed.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I like it how it is now. I tend to only use it as a mobile site or the full one for posting pictures. It's easy to use with everything nearly all in one place, if I don't like something then I don't click on it

[scaryoldcortina]

The page length inside threads has changed to 50 - is there any chance of putting it back to 20 because in a pic or vid heavy thread that's a lot of pictures all trying to load...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I like the 'free for all' nature of it with for sales mixed in with collection thread and advice and all sorts, all a bit chaotic. It just means folk have to exercise a bit of self-control otherwise the whole lot fills up with shitty clickbait ranting about nowt.

[beko1987]

I like it how it is bow, ill stop posting such random crap, ill stick to my own thread in the other section!

[Alan_Green]

The jumbo first page is much better. Ta.

[daveb47]

The page length inside threads has changed to 50 - is there any chance of putting it back to 20 because in a pic or vid heavy thread that's a lot of pictures all trying to load...

Done

[scaryoldcortina]

Ta!

[pshome]

Can you make "Display results as posts" the default when using the search box on top of the page?

Getting results "as topic list" is pretty useless with many topics having thousands of posts.

 

Otherwise, leave everyting as is, the current (non-) structure is part of the fun here!

 

Peter

[plasticvandan]

My view is this forum desperate desperately needs sections,I miss 80% of what's written on here as it just drops off the page. For sale,projects,help,spots,shows and general would split it up nicely.