Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Forum Categories and Improvements

Ian

Administrator
Aug 23, 2006
1,486
Joined
Aug 23, 2006
Messages
1,486
Now that we're coming to the end of 2017, I thought it may be a good time to encourage feedback on how we can improve the forum for 2018 :).

Do you have any ideas or thoughts on what we could do to improve things around here? Are there any new features you'd like to see on the site, or new forum categories that would be appropriate?

I'd really like to hear what you guys have to say :D.
 

Harald Kapp

Moderator
Moderator
Nov 17, 2011
13,700
Joined
Nov 17, 2011
Messages
13,700
Hi Ian,

Frankly, I don't think the forum needs much improvement from t he technical side.
I can understand why you think we might have more categories (at least I think I do) as I sometimes struggle with the assignment of a thread to the "correct" category. However, quite many threads cover more than one topic from our endless world of electronics. Having more categories simply makes the selection of the right category more difficult.

From the admin point of view I sometimes wish I could move "project logs" that aren't from the project log section into a regular forum section.

Another idea that comes to mind is a limited lifetime for watching a thread. It is not uncommon that no reply is given to an answer, the op simply vanishes. These threads stay in the watchlist until I do some housekeeping and remove them after a while. I'd like to have kind of a watchdog feature: Watch a thread for say 4 weeks. If no reply is given within that period, un-watch the thread. If a reply is given, prolong the watch period for another 4 weeks. I have no idea whether the forum software is capable of such a feature.

Last not least I recently had to merge a few threads. This is not really easy as it takes some steps to locate and mark the threads to be merged. My observation is that it is mostly threads opened by the same member that need to be merged. Therefore it were a good support when marking a thread for merge to be offered a list of recent posts (e.g. within a 2-4 week span) by the same member to select from for merging.

Cheers,
Harald
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

Ian

Administrator
Aug 23, 2006
1,486
Joined
Aug 23, 2006
Messages
1,486
Thanks Harald.

It's good to know that the forum categories work pretty well - I'm always tempted to have a re-arrange, but if the consensus is that they're appropriate, I'll leave as is.

From the admin point of view I sometimes wish I could move "project logs" that aren't from the project log section into a regular forum section.

I've added this now :D. Check the Item Tools menu, then click Convert item to thread on a Project Log item. The resulting thread will need to be moved out of the discussion forum, but a move box should appear to prompt for this. I'll work on configuring something similar for the resources section.

Another idea that comes to mind is a limited lifetime for watching a thread. It is not uncommon that no reply is given to an answer, the op simply vanishes. These threads stay in the watchlist until I do some housekeeping and remove them after a while. I'd like to have kind of a watchdog feature: Watch a thread for say 4 weeks. If no reply is given within that period, un-watch the thread. If a reply is given, prolong the watch period for another 4 weeks. I have no idea whether the forum software is capable of such a feature.

That's an interesting idea - is it primarily to keep the watchlist "clean"? It's not possible out of the box, nor can I see any addons for this, but I may be able to code something for it if it's a popular request. At some point we'll be moving to XenForo 2.0, so I'm going to save up any of the larger, non-essential coding tasks for that upgrade.

Last not least I recently had to merge a few threads. This is not really easy as it takes some steps to locate and mark the threads to be merged. My observation is that it is mostly threads opened by the same member that need to be merged. Therefore it were a good support when marking a thread for merge to be offered a list of recent posts (e.g. within a 2-4 week span) by the same member to select from for merging.

I like the sound of this, as 90% of the time merging threads involves the same member. At the moment, I generally merge things by viewing the member profile, view the information tab then click "find all threads by x". In the top-right corner, there's a "moderator tools" menu which allows merging threads and shows recent threads by that member. It's a few clicks to do this, so I'll have a think on how best to speed this up for merging.

Ideally, a good implementation may be nice to have an a "merge with recent threads" option on the thread tools menu. This would then show the last 10 threads by that user, which could then be merged as required. This may actually be a quick thing to code, so I'll have a quick look at it in the next week - if it's a bigger job, I'll add this to the XF 2.0 task list.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
25,510
I seem to remember that we used to be able to see deleted posts on people's profiles. That was very useful for moderation purposes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

Ian

Administrator
Aug 23, 2006
1,486
Joined
Aug 23, 2006
Messages
1,486
I seem to remember that we used to be able to see deleted posts on people's profiles. That was very useful for moderation purposes.

Yep, I really miss that too - I also miss being able to include deleted results in search. I've tried to work around this a couple of times when we first switched to XenForo, but without any luck. The closest I've found is to check the "recent activity" tab on the member profile, as this shows deleted content (to moderators).

I've just checked XenForo 2.0 and it looks like they've changed this behaviour, so that we can see deleted content more easily again (it's even searchable!). Hurrah :D.
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
Never heard of Xenforo before but I can say that the layout and format of the site is one of (if not THE) cleanest and most user friendly that I've come across.

Moderator attention is also nicely done and subtle with it.

I've not been here long but I can't see anything I'd like to change - which must speak for itself.

Thanks go to all the contributors and 'staff' for making this a great place to be a member.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

Ian

Administrator
Aug 23, 2006
1,486
Joined
Aug 23, 2006
Messages
1,486
Yep, I really miss that too - I also miss being able to include deleted results in search. I've tried to work around this a couple of times when we first switched to XenForo, but without any luck. The closest I've found is to check the "recent activity" tab on the member profile, as this shows deleted content (to moderators).

I've been working on this problem over the past few days, and it's now possible to include deleted content in search results - as long as the "advanced search" mode is used :D:

https://www.electronicspoint.com/search/
 
Top