Help TR design the ultimate Forums+Workspace

I wanna horsie, and a puppy, and Angelina Jolie, and, and, and,

I hate to raise this, since I still feel guilty about the whole member blogs issue, but does anyone use the Projects area of their Workspace?

Could some screen space be freed up by dropping the Recommended / Contacts Online / My Updates box?

When commenting on a blog entry, there used to be a Title box. Now all comments get the same title. Yes, I know it's possible to edit the post and change the title, but some members either don't know or forget to edit it.

The Forum pages currently show the name of the last poster. It would be nice if there was a link to that most recent post.

For those discussions that are the result of comments to an article or blog, I'd like to see a link to the original article / blog on the Forum page, instead of linking to the first comment.

1)Search by author
2)Search by topic
3)Search by timeframe
4)Search by new
5)Paged, with the option to "jump to" a page.

I would just keep one window open in a discussion. When I would get a few free minutes, I could easily hit refresh, and see the new posts/discussions since I had been in the last time.

This made it VERY easy to keep up on discussions, as they happened, instead of finding out the next day there was a party and no one invited you.

Give that back and get rid of the members on-line.

Also, the 90 day view for "My updates" should show more than ONLY the current day?

My Forum posts would be more usable if it listed the Discussion posted to, instead of each individual post. Of make that list available. I want a list of the last hundred discussions, not last hundred posts.

I want this forum to ONLY show me the topics that I would be interested in reading. (Don't ask me HOW you would do that, I'm sure you'll figure it out).

And, anytime someone disagrees with something I post, or is rude to me in any way, I want their hair to fall out. Unless it's JD, he already lost his hair. With him, just make something else that he cares about fall off.

See? I am very easy to please.

I have a great deal of links stored there. And they are used for reference all the time by me.

Please do not go screwing with the links area. If you do, please warn me first. Again, I use that specific aspect of the workplace.

With regard to the links. I'm not asking you to change this, but how about explaining to me the functional reasoning behind it. I link something there, most of the time(not always). It is a tech post from TR. The origional tags are copied accross, then you are asked to create some? Ok, why? Also, it asks for a description, why? I have copied this from TR. What is wrong with that description.

Now, for anything placed there that didn't origionate from TR. Which I have some. I understand the use of this. But, why do I have to do that when I am saving to work place?

Oh, while I'm whineing. Why is it that some posts/articles/blogs have the button to save to work place. And others don't? Consistancy is a wonderful thing when you are using something for storing references to articles.

Chuckle, here is another waaa/wish item. Can we search our links by catagory(tags). Again, the links area of the work area is used exclusivly by me for storing tech articles/posts/links. It's a work space(your term, not mine), and I use it as such.

Dan

but so far I have not gone through the other posts so they may be dupes..

1. In the view all, allow some way to track which posts we have read already (like maybe a checkbox). This would help massively, especially with opening and backing up from posts to mark it.

2. In the view all posts, add line breaks in the posts so that it reads better

3. When switching to the questions area, keep it in questions. This annoys me like crazy. I look at a question, reply, and I am in discussions again. On slow load days it is especially annoying and I just stop trying to help.

4. Add at least 2 more posts to max depth, even if it means cutting the titlebar character limit down a little bit.

5. place contact info on the home page for someone to be reached. Apparently I am not the only one that has had issues for days where I could not get to anything. A few weeks ago after 2 days I was finally able to send a message to someone there. But since others were posting, and it happened on 3 systems on 2 networks, my guess was my account on TR was hosed.

I am sure that I can think of many more, but I will wait until I have had time to review others' posts

then everyone should be OK.

By the way, tell that to your manager, then they cannot get rid of you unless YOU say so!!!

and dont forget to show them the blood stained shovel and incriminating pics.... :)

They could only be sold?

Dan

...here's CNET's job listings.
https://careers.cnetnetworks.com/joblist.html

Just remeber to list me as a referral. If you hired I get a free backpack or something. ;)

Here's the beginning of the stable I want for a forum:

1. Full (or nearly full) screen width post hierarchy display. The tree-like display you have now is actually pretty good, but obviously not full screen width. You can make up for the lack of room for ads by sticking them in individual posts when they're displayed (more on that in a moment).

2. Instead of showing the currently viewed post at the top of the page, show the post within the context of the hierarchy. When I click on a post title, I'd like to see the post appear in place. This allows for greater post display width, too. When the post appears, you can stick an ad on the right-hand side, using that extra width to good advantage to keep sponsors happy.

3. No reply depth limits. Show a vertical slice of the hierarchy that shifts to the right when viewing posts that are near the maximum width that'd fit in the screen, so that discussions can have greater depth metaphorically without a bunch of hassle trying to relate replies to the comments to which they respond -- without making the page "ugly".

4. Provide a separate print view that actually prints out cleanly without all the extra gunk on the page that wastes printer ink. Optimize the appearance of it for print media rather than screen media. This appearance optimization will have the added advantage of discouraging the use of the print view for viewing online to skip the ads.

5. Dim the background color slightly. Maybe #dddddd would be good. All this bright light coming out of the screen isn't optimal, and we don't even get the benefit of a tan with LCDs the way we did with CRTs.

6. Provide an alternate view, somehow, that doesn't require JavaScript. Preferable would be page design that degrades gracefully so that when JavaScript doesn't work, it just displays properly without any additional work on either your part or the user's.

7. In the JavaScript-enabled view at least, bring up the reply fields when needed attached to the bottom of the post to which we reply, rather than opening it in a new screen.

8. While you're at it, allow the user to specify more than one post to have open on the screen at the same time. This would allow for more effective and easier reference to other posts in the discussion when such is needed to construct a response.

There's another, simpler way to explain a good interface (though slightly different from what I described) -- just copy the discussion interface from [url=http://reddit.com][b]reddit[/b][/url]. That'd be keen enough, with the exception of a couple of enhancements I'd like to see:

1. Add that orange "NEW" tag to all comments that are up to three days old.

2. Differentiate read posts from unread posts with a text tag as well -- something not only clearly visible, but easily searchable with a form that is unlikely to be duplicated in the text or title of a comment the way "NEW" works.

...like directories on a local disk. This way I have only a couple dozen links per Project and I can quickly find the one I want.

Good luck with cpan, wish I knew something helpful about it.

I've never used "My Workspace". Why not? I went there and found a lot of content that someone else thought should be there.

I'm mostly an adult now. I don't need suggested material. I can locate what I want instead of some unknown software's generated "Suggestions". If I want suggestions I can post a discussion or question or just look it all up myself.

If it's going to be a shared workspace call it "Shared Workspace" not "My Workspace".

Don't allow anyone or anything to put something in there that I don't specify myself.

If you must, make it optional for me to receive "suggestions" and unsolicited content.

I want to thank you for asking what I'd like to see. It's possible that I'll post more suggestions later. I have the biggest one out of the way first.

If there's a member I don't want commenting on one of my questions or discussions, or even one of my messages in another's discussion or question, I want to block that person's ability to post. I can block ebay members from bidding on an item I put up for auction, so it's certainly doable.

There's one member (who shall remain nameless at this point) whom I consider a real PITA (figure out the acronym), a stalker, and a harasser, and I want him nowhere near my discussions. (Disclaimer: And after all this time, there are probably people who would want to block me! What a risk I might be taking by suggesting such a thing!)

It might also help people "behave themselves", so to speak. If I call somebody an idiot too many times, they'll probably block me. And you could even have some sort of block counter. You show a certain number of thumbs-up, and you could also show the number of Red Xs (as an example) a member has managed to accumulate.

.....I might not know who sent it.

Sure, I'll have the return email address, but I might not be able to connect it to a certain site alias. And unless I can make that connection, I'll never reply.

There could be two levels of discussions. For the public level everyone could participate. For the semi-private level, only people who are reciprocal contacts could participate.

I always feel like I have to explain things twice, so please bear with me.

If I start a discussion:

I choose to be TR member A's contact and TR member A chooses me as a contact. We can have a semi-private discussion. I might have 25 contacts in common with TR members A, B and C etc. and all can participate but no one can participate whom I don't have as my contact since I originated the discussion.

Instead of it being an "ignore" function I'd look at it as an "include" function.

The search function works, but its one dimensional. I'd like to have more search fields available.

I'd also like to see more history, such as posts that I recently looked at but didn't post to. Sometimes, I try to find the posts I looked at and would like to post to at a later time, and I can't find them.

AV

until other sites do something similar

It is the #2 idea in this link

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=218006&messageID=2265151

basically explains how to setup a knowledge 'tree' instead of having same questions get answered and scroll off lost to eternity.

and sometimes I lose interest and unsubscribe. Then curiosity gets the best of me and I try to go back to it. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I dont...

I will say you got me thinking about this feature though ;)

is what the vote is over, for those that missed it.

AYE!

If it's not too much trouble could you please give a brief synopsis of the "People" ranking system. I've never thought that I should be in the top 100 much less the top 20 and even in the top 10 as NeverBusted was last year. I see people with 1000 and more points/thumbs up and longer site longevity, so to speak, and they're rated farther down the list than I am. Doesn't seem right.

But the Site Activity Rating depends on how often you post and how many questions that you answer. There is a different weight placed on answers to questions than on Posts to Discussions and even then I believe that the Off Topic Discussions have a lower value than Technical Discussions [i]I'm not totally sure on that one but that was one of the ideas before the change.[/i]

Anyway if you post a lot to the Forums or Questions you get a higher Site Rating than if you don't post at all or very little. As the graph says it's a listing of your activity for the past 30 Days and is a direct reflection of your activity on the site.

Col

Remember the members that would be in the top five that had never posted or answered a question?

The way they have hidden that, I don't even think about it anymore until someone brings it up. Guess I got to go see if I am in the top 20..... :D

Hire that proactive Jay person! And put me down as volunteer. I can java my way out of a paper bag

How about a little explanation of some of the features you already have. A nice little FAQ about how ranking is determined, why we should use My Workplace, etc. I don't see a "How to use this site" page anywhere.

I've looked extensively in the past, but it has been a while... So if it's tucked away somewhere now, just bop me on the head.

I'd like a quieter page.

Some of the moving ads are rather annoying, and some of the expanding ads are even worse. I move my mouse to click on reply, or to scroll down, and I end up visiting your advertiser.

Perhaps we can still see some ads, but have them be a little more static.

I'd like to be able to remove the "browse by tag" section. Is that possible? (perhaps collapsible headers?)

I'd also like to limit the page loads to some reasonable number of hundreds of posts. If I'm jumping into a conversation that already has 1200 posts, I'd like to sort by author/date/whatever and view 50 per page, perhaps. You'd get more page loads (more ads) and faster load times.

I have long thought that the pages are too wide. I'm sure there was a huge debate about it when the old redesign happened (gotta get those ads int there) but a more slender page is my preference.

We should be able to collapse the tree of threads per initial post. When I view my posting history now, I will see about 6 posts for Help TR Design... But that may be broken up by another post to something else. Group them!

1. Help TR design... (6)
2. Some other topic (2)

And then have the option to expand.

There are plugins that can block Flash, but allow you to view flash if you want to. For instance, on FreeBSD I install the xpi-flashblock plugin -- in general, I have to click on the Flash object to get it to actually display, but I can configure it to allow all flash from a given site. I haven't whitelisted any sites, but at least the option is there if I ever find a need for it.

That is a stupid feature for a discussion board

I screw up enough, or post and then think "oh, I forgot to add ...."

maybe the edit button should not work after a day or 2!

What's wrong with being able to add additional information when responding to a question, or updating the results of a procedure? I like it better than using several single-sentence posts like Cactus Pete used in this discussion. (Pete, no criticism intended.)

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I don't mind being contacted about my postings, but its frustrating when you can't respond.

I recently tried to submit this. I was forced to submit it as a help request as there is no other way to do it. At least not that I could find.

A lot of questions get repeated regularly. The answers are always the same. Wireless setup and encryption. Sharing with Windows Vista.

Commonly asked questions could be articles based on these types of submittions. Either the question could be refered for a CAQ (report as spam type function) or an answer could be submittted for addition to the list.

Another poster mentioned a Knowledge tree. Same intent althoug that sound a little complex.

A CAQ would provide new members a location to look for answers to current hot problems and also provide an easy way for members who know the answer is there to just provide the link.

of days. This way one can review, make spelling corrections, change the intended text and leave what they want. Then it is 'written in stone' so to speak.

But if this wont be done, I would much rather keep the edit button.

I was not going to say yes to it if it meant blocking people from posting alltogether.

If you dont want people to respond, dont post!
otherwise, let them say what they want and choose not to read/reply if you wish.

I'd much rather see one comment at the bottom of a post with the time/date of an edit than thirty-seven posts in a row from the same person saying "Oh, one other thing I forgot:".

Microsoft Outlook allows users to selectively drop messages according to some 'Rules' that are very convenient to configure. Certain strings in the Subject line, such as 'TechRepublic member $baz has sent you a peer message'. There are probably few users who don't have access to such features in their mail client, and zero in IT.

I'm somewhat inclined to support an "ignore" if only because then maybe maxwell edison will ignore me, and stop popping up out of nowhere every three months to insult me.

??????????????????

Thats why I don't use most of the things under My Workspace.

It is not intuitive and I see a lot of stuff I don't want, don't see very much I can use and can't readily find how to change it to suite me.

We need something to help with converting text from different languages.

So many posts are ignored, atleast by me, due to the fact that the person writing it has no concept of the English language..

When browsing through the responses people have left on the forum there is a lot of scrolling up and down the page. Most replys are short anyway so why not just load them all into view when the page loads meaning you can just scroll down and read each one as it appears under its title header.