Your views and ideas on forum areas and organization? (page 4)

laverite

How about...

Instead of

Jehovah's Witnesses

Friends
Personal Experiences & Reunions

Have this?

Jehovah's Witnesses

Personal Experiences
Friends & Reunions

Maybe instead of family and parenting under social, as this is such a big area - there could be something under JWs for this? Or an entire category unto itself? Just thinking about how this is such huge topic on here. Maybe it could be made more prominent somehow?

laverite

Finally, for 'Adult and Heated Debate', how about just 'Debate' or even another word? Maybe someone has a good idea about this. For 'adult', this has always been confusing for me. Can we talk about sex and other real adult topics there? Is it really adult and/or what are the rules for that area? Can people use "language" there? I wonder if perhaps an area for talking about sex and even using "langauge" that is restricted might fulfill a certain function? Or, it could just open a can of worms that would be unwanted. I don't have solutions, just asking some questions.

Balaamsass

I would love a "JWs in the news" heading, published stories and scandals from all over the globe. Also "Branch and Bethel experiences"...always enjoy a good peek behind the curtain at the "house of god" ....where all that holy spirit is hanging out.

The Mrs ( 3rd Gen) is glued to personal sagas.

A few friends would like an area to discuss theology in detail, the "gentile times", 607, etc ect..how many angels can dance on a pin head...always a souce of endless phone calls...

The shortest heading could be : Fulfilled Watchtower prophecies.

Thanks again for your hard work on the site!!

fresh prince of ohio

I still miss the "thread" view from the old forum, where you could respond to a thread as a whole, or to a particular post within the thread. This enabled you to keep track of the discussions within the thread. I think the lack of such could be a factor in the decline of the heavy debating that used to happen on the old board.

I also find it odd that if you go to active topics, you're always taken to the newest first, but if you go to the topics you've posted on or started, you're taken to the oldest.

minimus

Keep it simple. That's my advice to you. Having too many categories creates confusion as to whether or not a poster puts things in the right section.

Simon

I agree, the current .net site is a bit old and clunky now - I kind of neglected things for a while!

Sorry, I have no plans to bring back a threaded view (I think that tends to be confusing for non-techies) but I may add the ability to leave a short comment on a reply which may achieve the same thing (and appear as a sub-comment, not in the main flow).

On the new site, every view of topics will allow you to sort by # of posts, date started and date last updated - whether you are looking at the entire site, a top-level subject, an individual subject area or a topics by an individual poster. Once I add a 'like' button then they will be sortable on rating too. The 'view' that you chose will be sticky until you change it. You'll also be able to change the page size and I'm planning on read-made view for the home page which will show topics *you* have participated in as well as top topics within the last day / week or so.

JWs in the news + Science are both good suggestions. Maybe a chit-chat area for the temporal stuff and the changes to family + friends + JW / WTS make sense. I defintely agree that simple is best but it also helps to be able to focus and just look at the subjects that interest you. I am dubious about having a "crackpot area" (won't that encourage more and also insult people at the same time?) and we are never going to have any 'anything goes' area - discussions about sex can and should be serious and not just an excuse for some people to post smut and then complain when we remove it (as happened in the past).

I've already created a 'related topics' system which does a pretty decent job of showing other topics similar to the one you're reading. The full-text-index also provides a search and right now that is simple text (like google) but will get faceted search at some point - that's where you can filter by subject, poster, date, rating etc...

I'll definitely add a wiki / help pages (probably a 'tour' feature for new users) so the how-to's don't get burried along with other posts and probably send a nicer intro email explaining the new site when people sign-up.

It will be possible to sign-up with facebook, google, linked-in accounts etc... so you won't need to remember another username and password.

The PM system will definitely have an alert at least, I haven't decided yet whether to include email notifications but may add that too. Same for maybe getting a weekly digest email of topics you are following.

I did implement a map of members and visitors but need to make it opt-out to cater for people wary of revealing their identity and also randomize locations a little.

It won't be there straight away but I have a heap of code for doing really nice drag-and-drop photo uploading which will be nice when people have meetups and want to share pics (and avoid missing images on old threads).

Updated WYSIWYG editor is on the cards too as well as table-friendly view (nice fat-finger-friendly buttons, LOL)

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Terry

I spent about a year on the Christadelphian discussion group and found that website to be wonderfully designed!

If you started a topic and somebody posted under it you had the option of getting an e-mail notice.

Any time you posted and somebody replied specifically to YOUR post you had the option of getting an e-mail notice.

http://www.thechristadelphians.org/forums/index.php?act=idx

If you sign up they'll let you in to navigate about and ask questions

JeffT

Re: the "Friends" section. A board I administer has a section called the "bar." Its the place you go when you want to chat about whatever over a cold one. It's a good place to chat about sports, your kids, the weather etc

Simon

Who wouldn't like the idea of a 'bar'? That sounds good ... (or lounge).

We used to have email notifications on here, I can't remember why or when I stopped with those. Definitely something to bring back - I want to make it easier to continue conversations and find where you were up to.

Your views and ideas on forum areas and organization?

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