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[quote quote=873]What gives, heck, we can’t even have animated avatars, profile songs, information, graphics, etc, etc Yeah, I know it is free, I’ll still complain… Zzz[/quote]
What is this MySpace!!?! 🙂 First thing was making sure this place flies not like the old days where it could take 20 seconds to load a page. I will hook up profiles asap for now you can do a cover photo, an avatar, list links do some small stuff. Im not sure why the avatars don’t animate though I want to fix that 1st
Music may be limited to an area to embed something from somewhere else like Youtube or Soundcloud
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It’s like Mike said earlier, this package isn’t optimised to what it’s being used for.
I’m no expert, so from my position of ignorance I’d love to know why a move to traditional forum software wouldn’t be the best the way to go. There’s got to be plenty of packages out there with the amount of functionality and customisation we plainly need.
My $0.02
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[quote quote=987]It’s like Mike said earlier, this package isn’t optimised to what it’s being used for. I’m no expert, so from my position of ignorance I’d love to know why a move to traditional forum software wouldn’t be the best the way to go. There’s got to be plenty of packages out there with the amount of functionality and customisation we plainly need. My $0.02[/quote]
Is there some functionality you feel is missing? Please let me know. My goal here is simplicity. I find most forum software to be bloated. I want fast, simple conversations. Profile enhancements aside is there core functionality missing?
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[quote quote=988]Is there some functionality you feel is missing? Please let me know. My goal here is simplicity. I find most forum software to be bloated. I want fast, simple conversations. Profile enhancements aside is there core functionality missing?[/quote]
I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I mean no offence when I say it’s not so much a matter of core functionality, as it is a matter of general “bleh”.
It’s said that a stairwell whose steps are “off” by just a few millimetres here and there is almost useless to people trying to use it. That can be analogously true of websites as well. If I can speak frankly, for the first time ever in talking with Bakermedia veterans (I only registered in 2003), I’m left with the feeling that I’ve just entered a post in the “Comments” section of a baking enthusiasts’ web-page.
I don’t know what it is – I think it’s a lot of little things – like, no-one at a glance can can see my join date, or how many posts I’ve made, or my last activity, stuff like that. At a glance I’m indistinguishable from someone who joined yesterday.
Everything on the forum is in bright, light colours. It’s like there’s no intimacy or atmosphere. Imagine chatting with a friend, or watching a film, with every single light source in the room switched on; it would affect the experience. It would be oppressive, the glare would be off-putting. Why? Christ knows, it just would.
The information density on the site doesn’t seem to be very high, either, meaning I have to scroll a lot to follow the gist of a thread, or even an individual post. The avatar on display also seems too small, like it’s an after-thought, and not a pivotal part of our self-presentation.
You said that you find most forum software to be bloated, and you want fast, simple conversations. Great! But the “bloated” side of forum software was something that was completely invisible to schlubs like me, who just benefited from enjoying using the end result. And I don’t notice any increase in how fast or how simple discussions are in this new format.
Basically, there’s something that the old forum software used to to deliver and provide that this new format doesn’t seem to support. Even though you know I’m willing and eager to throw stuff out there with chop wars, welcoming behaviour, and topical discussions (and support the community in other ways), something doesn’t quite “ring” about this new format, and I was hoping that you would tell ME what the cause of it was.
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[quote quote=989]
Is there some functionality you feel is missing? Please let me know. My goal here is simplicity. I find most forum software to be bloated. I want fast, simple conversations. Profile enhancements aside is there core functionality missing?
I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I mean no offence when I say it’s not so much a matter of core functionality, as it is a matter of general “bleh”. It’s said that a stairwell whose steps are “off” by just a few millimetres here and there is almost useless to people trying to use it. That can be analogously true of websites as well. If I can speak frankly, for the first time ever in talking with Bakermedia veterans (I only registered in 2003), I’m left with the feeling that I’ve just entered a post in the “Comments” section of a baking enthusiasts’ web-page. I don’t know what it is – I think it’s a lot of little things – like, no-one at a glance can can see my join date, or how many posts I’ve made, or my last activity, stuff like that. At a glance I’m indistinguishable from someone who joined yesterday. Everything on the forum is in bright, light colours. It’s like there’s no intimacy or atmosphere. Imagine chatting with a friend, or watching a film, with every single light source in the room switched on; it would affect the experience. It would be oppressive, the glare would be off-putting. Why? Christ knows, it just would. The information density on the site doesn’t seem to be very high, either, meaning I have to scroll a lot to follow the gist of a thread, or even an individual post. The avatar on display also seems too small, like it’s an after-thought, and not a pivotal part of our self-presentation. You said that you find most forum software to be bloated, and you want fast, simple conversations. Great! But the “bloated” side of forum software was something that was completely invisible to schlubs like me, who just benefited from enjoying using the end result. And I don’t notice any increase in how fast or how simple discussions are in this new format. Basically, there’s something that the old forum software used to to deliver and provide that this new format doesn’t seem to support. Even though you know I’m willing and eager to throw stuff out there with chop wars, welcoming behaviour, and topical discussions (and support the community in other ways), something doesn’t quite “ring” about this new format, and I was hoping that you would tell ME what the cause of it was.[/quote]
I will work on the styling. I get what you are saying about the brightness. One thing I think that may be weird for you but is actually logical is the size of everything. Old forums were clogged with 100’s of tiny text options. This forum is built on bbpress https://bbpress.org/ which is powered by WordPress. Ultimately this forum will be the comments engine for a news and video”Channel”. The veterans will all have a space to create as well if they want one. I just decided to put the forum aspect of it all out there first, to generate some conversation and start to reconnect and make new connections with an audience. To develop a community from scratch is my goal – and I appreciate and will consider ALL feedback from it and never get offended.
What you are used to is vbulletin or other vbulletin clones. Vbulletin is a nightmare to maintain and host. WordPress is easy to maintain and host. bbPress can be built on to in any way so we’ll get there!
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[quote quote=991]Re styling. I get what you are saying about the brightness. One thing I think that may be weird for you but is actually logical is the size of everything. Old forums were clogged with 100’s of tiny text options. This forum is built on bbpress https://bbpress.org/ which is powered by WordPress. Ultimately this forum will be the comments engine for a news and video”Channel”. The veterans will all have a space to create as well if they want one. I just decided to put the forum aspect of it all out there first, to generate some conversation and start to reconnect and make new connections with an audience. To develop a community from scratch is my goal – and I appreciate and will consider ALL feedback from it and never get offended.[/quote]
Well, I think that goes straight to the heart of it. From my perspective, and I’m sure from others, the old forums weren’t “clogged” with anything that didn’t need to be there in order for us to express ourselves with a reasonable amount of nuance and satisfaction.
[quote quote=991]What you are used to is vbulletin or other vbulletin clones. Vbulletin is a nightmare to maintain and host. WordPress is easy to maintain and host. bbPress can be built on to in any way so we’ll get there![/quote]
Cool, but all we’ve established is something you and I already knew, which is that no system is perfect, I have respect for you, Mike, because I well know that the old forums were hard on you, but easy on us. This new format is easy on you, but NOT so easy on us. You’ve said it yourself, that this system is not optimised towards traditional forum dialogue, and that “ultimately this forum will be the comments engine for a news and video channel” – for as long as that is true, and as for as long as you craft the site with that vision in mind, you can expect threads like this one to crop up. We’re posting in a section of the Internet called http://www.michaelbakerdigital.com/forums, and not http://www.michaelbakerdigital.com/comments_engine_for_news_and_video_channel
I hope this is useful, and a fair reflection of the spirit in which Apache opened the discussion.
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[quote quote=993]
I hope this is useful, and a fair reflection of the spirit in which Apache opened the discussion.[/quote]
Yes it is I will get it there! Also note this is the original reason for the topic and is the “Profile” engine: https://buddypress.org
If you want to begin a topic and call it feature or style requests, I’ll be able to work down the list
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[quote quote=1030]
we need a dark layout before i go blind
That’s not what’s going to make YOU go blind.[/quote]
🤣🤣
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