Possible Forum Improvements

[macka]

Since Gary and Leigh are already tinkering with the forum at the moment, I thought I'd put together a few suggestions for forum improvement. I see the front page of this forum as being rather cluttered, and my suggestions are mostly geared towards fixing that problem.

Please note, I'm trying to be helpful, not critical.

Anyway, here are my suggestions:

*The descriptions for most of the sub-forums are too long. 2-3 lines should be enough for most of them.

*DSLRUsers History: With only two threads this forum seems a bit pointless. Is history not what the archives and wiki are for?

*Post Processing: This forum should be down with the tutorials and tips and tricks.

*Challenges: This forum is no longer being used. All recent challenge-related material has been posted and discussed in the 'Announcements' sub-forum. Perhaps we should pick one or the other and stick to it.

*'Shooting and Meeting Ideas' and 'Events' could be combined into one forum.

*Locales: Given the low number of threads in the English and U.S sections, you could consider combining these into one 'International' section. Or you could scrap this section altogether, since most of these posts seem to relate to 'Shooting and Meeting Ideas' and 'Events', or new members introducing themselves, for which their could be one sub-forum instead of 6.

*Tutorials and Tips and Tricks could be combined into one forum, with tutorials stickied for easy access.

Just my thoughts. What do you guys think?

[jamesw]

i find that with firefox and vista, dslrusers often makes the browser crash....

[gstark]

Kris,

Very timely; thanx.

i find that with firefox and vista, dslrusers often makes the browser crash....

I used Vista for one day on my new laptop. It's the biggest POS I have seen i a long time, and I highly recommend it.

For disposal in the nearest trashcan.

It's far worse than I dared to imagine. The laptop now runs XP Pro, and is about three times faster, and is far more convenient.

FWIW, there is something very seriously wrong with any system that asks you, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times, for permission to copy a file to a particular location. And that's when you are already logged in as an admin.

[jamesw]

Kris,

Very timely; thanx.

i find that with firefox and vista, dslrusers often makes the browser crash....

I used Vista for one day on my new laptop. It's the biggest POS I have seen i a long time, and I highly recommend it.

For disposal in the nearest trashcan.

It's far worse than I dared to imagine. The laptop now runs XP Pro, and is about three times faster, and is far more convenient.

FWIW, there is something very seriously wrong with any system that asks you, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times, for permission to copy a file to a particular location. And that's when you are already logged in as an admin.

ive been using vista for a few months now,

its growing on me, but when i first got it i wanted to kill myself.

super slow

[Nnnnsic]

May I suggest switching to Longhorn Beta or back to XP.

[sirhc55]

What is there? Four versions of Vista! That’s one thing us Mac users have never had to put up with Mind you I am using Windows 2000 in Parallels and it works great

[Matt. K]

Macka
Some good suggestions there. I tend to agree that they are worth implementing.

[Alpha_7]

I've mentioned it a few times but I'd like a drop down box for Viewing posts since last ......, and then various intervals,

last hour,
last 2 hours,
last 8,
last day
last week

I hate being timed out of the site to lose all the threads I'd planned on reading, particularly with the spread of posts over various sections.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[ATJ]

I've mentioned it a few times but I'd like a drop down box for Viewing posts since last ......, and then various intervals,

last hour,
last 2 hours,
last 8,
last day
last week

I hate being timed out of the site to lose all the threads I'd planned on reading, particularly with the spread of posts over various sections.

Great suggestion.

[Nnnnsic]

VK4CP, we were seeing that phpBB3's last beta still had some bugs but was in a pretty good state. We're stuck with a database conversion bug in phpbb2 to RC1 but it might be a Dreamhost issue and, with how much seems to be a "Dreamhost issue" lately, wouldn't surprise me.

As such, we've also been looking at other forum systems.

Still, phpBB3 does look nice.

[gstark]

I'm sure Gary is already aware of the fact that phpBB has recently released Release Candidate 1 of the long awaited phpBB V3.

We've had a serious look at V3, and have been looking at it for some time; we've actually run up versions/conversions for B2 and B5, and were very satisfied with how it ran.

We also found a suitable portal, and have mods in hand to implement that.

We were going to run with RC1, but found a severe issue during the conversion, in that it failed to complete converting all of the records, despite reporting its completion. This is an issue on the phpbb forums, with no resolution in sight.

The B2 and B5 conversions ran fine ...

We're also looking at perhaps running with SMF as an alternative; we're still playing with that.

[bwhinnen]

I wonder if it is related to the DB size as well Gary... I've done a V2 to V3 (RC1) conversion with no loss of data, but my DB was significantly smaller than this sites...

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[gstark]

I wonder if it is related to the DB size as well Gary... I've done a V2 to V3 (RC1) conversion with no loss of data, but my DB was significantly smaller than this sites...

Brett,

In the other conversions that we've done we've experienced no issues. The B5 conversion went fine, but we also then needed to use one of the CVS builds to use the portal and while that conversion also went well, it was a noticeably longer (slower) task.

The issue with RC1 now seems to be message related, and hits any messages that are > 4096 B in size. We're watching to see how that resolves, but SMF looks good;

...

VK4CP

I've not had a close look at VBulletin as yet, and we may do so as well. Thanx for reminding me of this.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[Nnnnsic]

That's a shame. We're also testing other forum systems. They must be rushing the RC's out though, especially in comparison to how long it took for Beta releases.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[ATJ]

I hope you guys are having a serious look at vBulletin.
The way it handles image uploads and generates thumbnails for display in posts is quite cool... very appropriate functionality for a visually orientated subject like photography.

I believe phpBB2 can do that, too. For example: http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=5

[Nnnnsic]

Truth be told, we're looking at vBulletin and SMF lately, though I've gotta be honest: I'm not a vBulletin fan.

I don't mind some of its features, but I find that the way it handles img, url, quote, and user commands like that really badly. I don't want a damn system box popping up with the options. I want to be able to just highlight the text and have the information appear. I find some of its functions are just really... bleh...

SMF is an interesting one. Seems to provide the best of both world. I'm still curious to see if phpBB3 can get a good RC out because it has some features the others lack, or rather present them in better ways.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[Big Red]

How about a weekly "theme"

one of the Mods picks a theme and people go out and shoot for the theme.

not a competition as such with the emphasis on getting a shot any way you can but maybe the competition part being the most amount of submissions over the specified time.

people could comment on the submissions but not necessarily critique them... might give more incentive to post what ever they shot.

Just gives a bit of inspiration for people to get out there shooting!

[big pix]

How about a weekly "theme"

one of the Mods picks a theme and people go out and shoot for the theme.

not a competition as such with the emphasis on getting a shot any way you can but maybe the competition part being the most amount of submissions over the specified time.

people could comment on the submissions.

Just gives a bit of inspiration for people to get out there shooting!

good idea Red...... but getting people to comment just on images posted day to day is a mission......... getting comments on a theme, I wish you the best........

[Big Red]

Thanks Bernie, you picked up something i didn't explain properly so i have edited the post.

[Bindii]

Leigh, you're not wrong!

I hope you guys are having a serious look at vBulletin.
The way it handles image uploads and generates thumbnails for display in posts is quite cool... very appropriate functionality for a visually orientated subject like photography.

I agree....vBulletin is a lot more user friendly...for both the members and the mods/admin...

[Alpha_7]

I wish we could fix the search option, we have such a wealth of information in the forums, but it's hard to find what you looking for.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[jamesw]

I wish we could fix the search option, we have such a wealth of information in the forums, but it's hard to find what you looking for.

Tell me about it!
I am constantly trying to search back for previous discussion that I KNOW exists somewhere... but cannot locate it.
It's very frustrating, and I hate having to ask a question/seek advice on something that has already been posted in the past.

Does get the post count up though!

seconded

[Glen]

As a short term work around, Google in their advanced search allows you to specify a domain to limit the search to, such as dslrusers.com

I am probably not telling you computer gurus anything, but if you really need something it allows you to find it.

[jamesw]

As a short term work around, Google in their advanced search allows you to specify a domain to limit the search to, such as dslrusers.com

I am probably not telling you computer gurus anything, but if you really need something it allows you to find it.

ahhhhhh thats a good idea!!!

i cant believe we didnt think of that!

[ATJ]

As a short term work around, Google in their advanced search allows you to specify a domain to limit the search to, such as dslrusers.com

I must be doing it wrong.

Your search - Canon site:dslrusers.com - did not match any documents.

Your search - Nikon site:dslrusers.com - did not match any documents.

Your search - Nikon site:www.dslrusers.com - did not match any documents.

I believe Gary would have blocked Google from searching the database as it can screw up performance.

[gstark]

I believe Gary would have blocked Google from searching the database as it can screw up performance.

Yep.

It can, it has, and therefore it has been.

The phpbb search function has never been the best, and I too have also found it frustrating.

I do have a facility that permits reindexing of the words database, but it too is not simply resource intensive, it also (from memory - it's been a while since I ran it) required a fair bit of handholding.

But my first priority is (and has been for the last two weeks) to bring the new pricelist online. I wanted to do that on Saturday, but unimportant stuff like work dictated that I prerecord tomorrow's show, which meant less (==zero) time for the fun stuff like manually matching the SQL database records with Poon's spreadsheet.

At least I've (finally) managed to send PMs to the portraiture workshop participants giving them details for uploading their images. That was only a week later than i wanted it to be.