TechRepublic's Frayed Edges

You must be a masochist.
asking for a detailed listing of what's wrong with TR.

:D ... ok ok.. since a few months ago ...

1. I still get the "Page cannot be found" page sometimes.

2. The Ignore Button please.... :p

]:)

P.S ... 3. Could you please set up some way so that the submit button acknowledges if it is clicked twice when posting to a discussion??

1) Either have the post listings for the Discussions highlight in a contrasting colour, along with scrolling the listing to be where the post you are reading is. OR display the entire discussion in one listing, rather than in a per post view.

2) With most, if not all, of us using at least 1024 by 768 screen resolution, kill the 800pixel width limit, make it work with the 1024 pixel width most commonly used by the members.
[ heck, I use 1280 by 1024, so 2/3 of my screen is blank with the current layout. ]

3) keep the site navigation on screen at all times. [ a css div with postition fixed across the top would do the trick nicely.

4) reduce the number of advertisements per page.
horizontal ad at the top, vertical add on the right bottom, just above that, sponsored content [ advertisement ] and the HOT Spot floating on the right is formatted to be filtered out of view as an advertisement. one advertisement per page is far less offensive than the 4 currently displayed.

5) design the pages to reduce scrolling. with a lot of content we have to scroll for a minute the get down to the bottom of the page, this means that the
[pre]
All Downloads | Help | Content Services | How to Advertise | RSS Feeds xml
Resources
Downloads | Discussions | Technical Q & A | White Papers | Newsletters | Books & CDs | TechProGuild
Topic Centers
Security | Networking & Communications | CIO & IT Management | Desktops, Laptops & OS | Data Management | Servers | Career Development | Software/Web Development | Storage | Enterprise Applications | Featured Services | Webcast | Business White Papers
[/pre]

stuff is extremely inconvienient to access.

6) increase the maximum depth of posts in discussions, this 4 deep thing is rediculous.

7) force correct closing of TQ&A questions after 30 days even if they have no answers.

We should not be able to see the TR Insiders discussions in Posts from My Contacts ....

Another easier alternative is ... Let me in ;)

]:)

the Dark Side has M&M's

chocolate.

dark chocolate.

lots and lots of dark chocolate

a preview option for postings, so we can FIX layout errors before having the post put into a discussion or TQ&A answer.

I had to edit a post in Mark's Blog about code [ code challenge entry ] 6 times and the layout is still screwed, cause for some reason the blog script will not stop interpreting the table data in the code, which is in < pre > < / pre > tags.

[b]Loading pages.[/b]
the loading of pages and errors has again been getting out of hand. I will have a few hours at a time where I can't load ANY TR pages. The partial loads are starting again and others are going slow again.

[b]Search engine[/b]
the search engine USED to work nicely! Now it can't even be used to find something done the day before. This is the SINGLE MOST broken feature on the site. There is an option to search by member, but you can't FIND ANYTHING by the member. Horrible.

[b]Contact info[/b]
obsure on how to contact the powers that be at TR.

[b]page ads loading causes shift[/b]
If you go to click on the "next" option before the page has finished loading, MANY TIMES it will shift over to the left causing you to select the "sponsored content" which spawns a new window AND changed the current window. It this done to boost sponsor hits?

[b]gray space on screen[/b]
Running my system at a STANDARD setting of 1024x768 gives me about 3/4 of an inch border on both the left and the right side of the screen. Think about how much more of a long post could be viewed without scrolling down with that extra 1 1/2 inches. This would change the viewable area from about 8 inches to 9 1/2. Repeat after me, "Dynamic".

[b]More Emoicons[/b]
I have been NEEDING an Angel emoicon to show my innocence for quite some time now! :D Go back to GG's discussion as there were MANY recommended there.

[b]USING Emoicons[/b]
Why can't I use emoicons in my blog?

[b]Blog subscription[/b]
Subscribe to people to see when they make a NEW blog, or have activity in their existing blogs. Linking to a specific blog is NOT my interest. I want to be up-to-date when apotheon and Garvin got an itch to post.

[b]Viewer stats[/b]
It would be cool to see the hit statistics of your own blogs and the discussions you have started up.
I understand NOT posting that on the page because if the numbers are low then people will SEE that someplace isn't used much and wonder what is wrong with it. But if you are the person who STARTED a discussion, you should have access to how many unique members have viewed it AND total number of hits. Same with Blogs. If you SEE people are reading what your posting, you would be MORE likely to post more? If NO ONE replies to your blog, you don't know if it was EVER looked at.

[b]Member rankings.[/b]
This should NOT be a list of who linked to the most external blogs. It also should not be a list of who threw up (DE intended) the most posts regardless of if they are worthless or not. Heck, I shouldn't even be in the top ten on the weeks I don't go near the Q&A. I would LIKE to see this as a way to discover people that stay in other categories but are still active. Going by type of discussion doesn't help as I want more than just posting a lot of discussions. sorry, but yes, I want it all! :D

[b]Technical Question And Answer[/b]
1) Do not allow more than TWO open questions at a time. A new one can not be asked until one of the previous questions has been completely rated and closed.
2) Allow a better way to ask follow-up questions of an answer to a specific poster without having to rate them. They might be real close, yet you have to reject them to reply to them?
3) Conclusion. At the time of closing, add a section for the poster to write briefly what the correct solution was.
4) Reminder notices sent to members with open TQ&A's every few days to remind them that it is open and to check on the progress of the question. If the member closes his account or never comes back, close the Question automatically after two weeks of the last time the poster had been on it.
5)When in the discussions there is the link to "Start Thread". Add one, so you have one that says "Start Discussion" and one that says "Ask a Technical Question". This would help direct people to the TQ&A for their questions without them KNOWING they have to go somewhere else to get to that section.
6)After submitting a post in a TQ&A, it shows "recently closed questions". I would much rather see "NEW questions" or something along the line of that. NOT most active, as those are NOT the ones that need people being directed to them. Maybe even a special section for overlooked Questions? If people miss it being asked, they will never try to answer it. Maybe even a TR bonus if no one posts on it in the first three days, TR will double the pointless points? :D

[b]Tech Republic Store[/b]
As a working professional, I would LOVE to have a black polo with the TR logo embroidered on it. Pockets are also nice to have available.
A choice of TR coffee mugs would be cool.
Sorry, I don't CARE of people outside the US can't get them! They could always have a US based member purchase them, and then THEY could ship it to the over-seas members. That, or just get the licenses to do the international trade. Maybe even get yourself a TAX discount! ;\

[b]Put the server on EST!!!!![/b]
Oh, I was SOOOOOO robbed by Jaqui on that end of year posting! X-(

[b]Information in profiles[/b]
Why isn't there a COUNTY field?
Why isn't there an optional "Gender" field?
Why isn't there a place in our account to upload and store an avitar, instead of linking to an external site?

[b]Blog page[/b]
When I select the public blog page, a longer list of ALL the blogs would be nice.

[b]Member blog page[/b]
There is the monthly archive. There should be an indicator to the right of it indicating how many blogs are in that archive. Example (3)
Also, the ability to look at a complete list of all blogs by a member, instead of having to go in one month at a time.
Title, date of first post, last post, how many comments.

[b]Work Space?[/b]
When will we be able to view other peoples work space?

[b]subscrived discussions[/b]
Check boxes that I can go down the list and select as many or few as I want, and tell it to unsubscribe them. Right now I just "open new tab" on the "remove" tab.

[b]Page redraws[/b]
If using FRAMES for this web page, why does EVERYTHING need to be reloaded completely, just because I go from one post to the next? Just redraw the frame!

[b]Dunce cap[/b]
That would be so funny!

[b]that is it for now.[/b]
These are all things that would turn a good site into a GREAT site. Right now, the biggest thing TR has going for it, is the membership. The great membership compensates for many shortcomings.

Is that what you had in mind? B-)

Did you even read it all? Should I have broken this down into a few posts? Will there be feedback on this? Will there be a consolidated "wish list"? Will you just wish you never opened this can of worms? ;\

Forgive me for duplicates, if any. I'm sure that can only strengthen your case...

1. Allow more space for topic titles, or force them to comply to a specific length. This way the writing won't overlap the background so we can't read it.

2. Defaults on a serverside cookie. I want to be able to have certain defaults on my settings no matter where I log in. I should be able to customize EVERYTHING - colors, screen size, discussion topics, etc.

3. Close and rank questions.

4. TR points... Why again? At least let us play poker with them. I promise not to bully the table (too much).

5. Bring back what we liked about the old TR - summaries, recent questions lists, etc.

6. Set navigation buttons so I always have them in my screen.

7. I don't have access to TRI... Guess I didn't give much feedback for a while there...

8. Make the screens less "busy"

9. When I post to a discussion , bring me back to the last viewed posting.

10. Allow for a point spread in Q&A. Where someone may not have given me 100% of the answer, perhaps they gave me 80%, and someone else tipped me off to what was missing... A 1 to 5 scale may suffice...

11. Spellcheck (regional) Some of us need this more than others.

12. Client side cookies - I should be able to optimize my home PC view for its settings (perhaps that display is shared with my kids, so I keep a lower resolution) but at work, I like a high res screen. This will mean you have to put more thought into the layout (multiple versions) but I'm sure you could reward the hgih res users with more ads... (blasphemy!)

13. I want to ignore some users. Every post they make, every thread they start... Make this a collapsed entry with a flag that I ignored it. I may choose to expand that thread after all, but mostly I don't care. I should have the choice.

14. Why do we use the keywords? Let me get a summary of my favorite keywords so I don't miss those topics, and let them rank higher in my list of recent posts (or where ever) than others without my favorite keywords.

15. Contests. There used to be some mugs, other gear given out... That drove a lot of participation, as I recall. Maybe you don't give out real items all the time, but some of the funky TRpoints might please some people...

I'll post more later as I think of them.

But let me say this: The positive changes have not gone unnoticed. Thanks to you all for your obvious hard work and care for this medium.

(for example, I like being able to edit the post for typos!)

like [b]Security[/b] on [b]Windows?[/b] (yes, I laugh as I type that....)

Multiple keys to classify the discussions AND questions is a GREAT idea! But ESPECIALLY for the Questions as some members will look just by the topic.

Good idea.

Make it easier to submit complaints about trolls, seagulls, and other subhuman posters.

Those do make a usability issue: I still see the titles of their posts in my discussion subscription emails, even though I don't read their posts.

In the discussion navigation map, I find it difficult to spot which discussion item I'm currently reading. In your existing design the item being displayed is shown in gray text. How about highlighting it with a background color, or placing a red arrow next to it?

Also, could you add links to the displayed message so we could easily follow a thread instead of having to scroll down into the navigation map to find the responses?

Showing the number of page views associated with each discussion on the forum front pages might be cool, too. DevX does this.

Thanks!

Don't become a pay/subscription site, that would suck, you already have this http://tinyurl.com/asmmd . I understand you have to have advertising to avoid becoming a pay/subscription site maybe you could do something like this:

http://tinyurl.com/c4l4t

so adds don't consume so much space. Charge more for your add space under the menu bar, because adds there are really annoying.

Navigation on your site is not easy and unless you check the send me spam mail box option "Notify me via e-mail when new posts are added to this thread/question is rated" you can't easily navigate to questions that you have answered in T Q&A. To find out who rated your answer.

Maybe If you had an on-site notification/navigation system, that way people don't get spammed but they can keep track of what is going on. Maybe like giving the user the ability to sort T Q&A by answers that they have given, or a sort that lets the user view all users questions rated, etc.. The same with Discussions and stuff.

When clicking on a link that goes to nowhere In the techrepublic and getting a page saying "sorry the page you clicked on can not be found contact us" It is like when a network administrator gets the message "there are problems with your network contact your network administrator". the only way it appears to be able to "contact us" Is in the site feedback and forum. Where is an email address?

The work space is great, but you can't save T Q&A to it.

More smileys would be great (one for pain).

ooh. You guys have a restricted area. How do you get into one of those?

The ability to upload your own picture for your avatar would be cool, Then have the ability to upload pic's for users at this site

http://tinyurl.com/2bs4

Please for the love of god, and everything that is good and holly, don't think that any of the suggestions posted in this discussion are improvements, if anything you could just end up making TR worse.

Don't become the Microsoft site.

You can't make every one happy and you have to appeal to new users, else you won't get that many hits and getting hits is what it's all about. more people visit your site more people see your adds more you can charge for add space cause your site gets lots of hits (unless you go for the $1 a pixel advertising).

Actually, at the end of the day, ignoring the crap navigation, your site is pretty darn good. Good Job ;)

JD has covered most of the topice (damn you - you're good), however could we not get this site hosted on a server that can cope with the load?

TR is a good site, and I for one rely on the content posted therein, however timeouts and error messages lead me elsewhere....

I would like to choose Flat or Threaded views of discussions.

I'm not going to read this whole thread right now, so I don't know if I'm repeating something already mentioned -- but if I am, just take it as agreement with the previous statement.

TR needs a way to "subscribe" to blog posts similar to what it does for discussion center threads. I have no idea how many times people have responded to something I said as a comment in someone else's blog without me noticing.

My ISP can do it.

My firewall software can do it.

Can my source of IT expertise do it?

I meant to put the one above as a response to the original question, so I'm going to re-post at the bottom!

:D

My ISP can do it.

My firewall software can do it.

Can TechRepublic, recommended to me as an authoritative source of IT expertise, do it?

The first rule of TRI is: you do not talk about TRI.

It is very annoying getting links you can't access. Discussions pass you by, not being able to check on.

Rob

uspekkly sum peeps wot needz da spoolcheekers!

Seriously, you'd have problems with a regional one - just one that worked would surely do. I'm sure we in the UK would put up with stupid crappy US spelling, if it meant we could make sense of Oz's posts!! (soz, Oz!)

Definitely a good idea to have somewhere we could stash pics, tech drawings, etc. If there's any possibility, though, I think you should split it into areas e.g. work/non-work, or tech/fun - you get my drift.

And yes, definitely, [b]more emoticons[/b]

I musta tuned into this one - there's a whole discussion for you to read on that....

oh, and Jay - I have a special request for an emoticon, if you want to peer mail me.........:p

Ok, back to thinking.......

Thanks for the opportunity to give you some input, though - appreciate it.

GG

Sit down, it's a HUGE list and most likely has been discussed before.

No more than ONE technical question open at a time. Some folks have 5 or 10 questions open at once.

Questions auto-close in 7 days. There is no acceptable reason for a question to be open for months.

If a question is answered by a peer(s) and the questioner does not rate the answer(s), the points are doubled and awarded. The questioner is also not permitted to ask a new technical question for 14 days. This would stop a great deal of the homework and non-raters.

More choices for discussion thread topics or subtopic choices. Some discussions are so specialized or broad they don't fit readily into a single one.

Create a point award for best technical question of the week and award 10,000 points to the questioner and each responder. That would encourage more activity in the Tech Q&A.

Have the points be worth something. TR shirt, TR Mug, lunch with Smorty, Ganme geeking with Jay, something...

Better discussion thread navigation. It is extremely difficult to navigate the discussion threads. I've seen several suggestions in this thread.

Discussion time limits. I've seen some very old discussions pop back up in hot discussions as someoen found an old thread, posted a couple of comments and it popped back up.

Technical FAQ's for common problems. I've seen the same questions asked over and over and over again in the Tech Q&A sections. Some new and interesting questions might improve peer participation.

The TechDemocratic.

I keep seeing requests for "more smilies". I loathe the little bastards. How about a user setting that allows me to turn smilies off so I never see the graphical little buggers?

Navigation to own postings, not just the threads/discussions, AND the replay's to them.

Rob

I don't know how anyone can think JD is in the same class as Oz. Oz needs a spellcheck more than just about anyone -- at least anyone that has something worthwhile to say from time to time.

There is no Fight Club.

There's no such thing as Vampires.

These are not the droids you are looking for.

What weapons of mass destruction? We've never had weapons of mass destruction.

Nothing to see here. Move along. We are only a hedge.

Having to wait for the moving ad on top to play before the post is visable is my biggest pet peeve. The fancy ones can take a couple of seconds, and if the post is short, I spend more time waiting than reading contend.

I suggest that having a number of posts on one page would be a lot better. I also agree that the grey areas on the side are a waste of space and that the page size should not be static, but more like Outlook's email.

Basicly I like it.

>>9. When I post to a discussion, bring me back to the last viewed posting.
This is frustrating to me, too. You have to go [Back] to get back in the thread, then scroll down to where you were, and you waste time scrolling up and down until you see the changed color or recognize the text.

>>>>>
15. Contests. There used to be some mugs, other gear given out... That drove a lot of participation, as I recall.... Have the points be worth something. TR shirt, TR Mug, lunch with Smorty, Ganme geeking with Jay, something...<<<<<
<<<

This is a probably a reference to the weekly "Pop Quiz" contest I ran back in '99-'00. We put in a hat the names of the people who submitted the correct answer to the quiz, selected one name at random, and sent them a free TechRepublic t-shirt. I believe Bob Artner (RIP) used to award mugs to people who responded to his column / blog

In the past, I admit I openly and aggressively called TR (as a whole) stupid for not having an online store, and Smorty rightfully called me out on it. In this thread, may I respectfully and sincerely suggest you set up a TR store!

A certain Vice President of Marketing hired by TR in '99-'00 told everyone that his previous employer (another online IT portal) booked 20% of revenues from sales of 'logo stuff' from mousepads to t-shirts to polo shirts to denim jackets to coffee mugs, pens, etc. 20%!! He wanted to set up a store then, but the pushback was it would be too costly to develop, not enough profit to make it worthwhile, etc. The then-President assigned the task of researching it to his secretary -- who couldn't even get a caterer to show up with breakfast on time -- and the project never saw the light of day.

You put up a store, figure out a cost-effective way to take payments and deliver the goods, and you're bringing in some revenues, you're creating goodwill and viral marketing among the members who buy and wear the stuff, and.....as others have suggested, you could periodically give away some of the items as rewards to your members, based on how much they contribute to the site in various ways. Show me the downside to putting up a store -- I don't see any. It's easier now than in '99 to collect money, easier to make and distribute the goods, and there's high demand. Someone needs to step up to the plate within TR and make it happen. It would be a good thing.

I'm running IE 6.0. I open up the "is wardriving legal" discussion thread. With 500+ posts, I want to search for a name or word. [Ctrl]F summons the Find dialog, I type in a word that I can clearly see on the screen, and I get "finished searching the document." What is up with that? Same thing happens with FireFox on my home machine. Yes, I start at the tippy-top of the page. No, I haven't selected the match case or whole word only options.

The peeves I have with several newsletter sites are 1) broken links and 2) articles that make me sign up for a sales barrage before I can read them. I don't even notice TechRepublic being one of the worst offenders. Beyond that, content rules IMHO, though I'm probably forgetting several bad interaction problems.

I think one month is enough time for a tech question that truly matters to the person asking. If they don't [b]at least[/b] add follo-up replies, to indicate what further information their problem requires, (1) they should be booted, permanently, from TR (2) all the points they offered should be awarded to all responders, regardless of quality of their responses.

I liked the previous version of techrepulic that put more emphasis on the topic centers (they were at the TOP of the page) rather than what seems to me to be secondary content now.

I guess that navigation to me is TR's biggest problem. I like the fact that TR has stayed computer centric and not tried to be a tech catch all site.

But sometimes I actually have to do the work I'm paid for. I'm also posting before reading everyone else's comments, so if I'm duplicating earlier remarks, I apologize.

Topics on the "My Discussions" page used to be listed in order of most recent activity. A few months ago the sort order changed. Now the topics are sorted in sequence of most recently first commented on. Could this be changed back?

Also, could there be a way to remove a topic from "My Discussions"? Obviously there's a way to unsubscribe, but I'm looking for a way to drop topics I commented on but didn't subscribe to.

There are a couple of blogs I like to subscribe to but I don't see a way to do that on a blogger's page.

the point being that it can be done with very little cost.

I commented on an Article, yet the discussion isn't showing in the My Discussions list at all.

The article in question is Give developers secure-coding ammo

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-11193-0.html?forumID=4&threadID=183948&start=0

Hi TG of TR,

i start a new thread and if i'm not paying attention, that new thread ends up in Network Administration

see

http://tinyurl.com/e49co

Is it possible not to have Network Administration
as the default selected thread topic?

Having to click on each reply in order to read it. It might be ok for people with fast connections, but I'm on 128k and it is frustrating to say the least.

I Read an artical, Thought it would interest my sister who works for the company in the artical. Sent link, she could not access it and told me so. I tried to reaccess it and it was GONE. This is a bummer. Missing Link: javascript:ol('https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878-6037595.html');

Ok Geek, with Respect;
I've got to ask,as a member who actually loves and cares about Tech Republic and it's members.
Is this one of those things where we all get together and bash the H.....ll out of Tech Republic and that's it, we vent? All we do is run them down.? If so, I'll have no part of it.Thank you.
Or is this something that you are actually concerned about and TR would actually consider making changes in order to accommodate and update their system.
Frankly I can think of quite a few of them in the sign-up and log-in Depts. and other Depts etc.
In short, I'm prepare to "Constructively Criticize" my TR for the betterment of us all, but I won't waste a second running them {Us} down. The ball is now in your court.
While we're making with the suggestions, let's not forget one very important thing, Yes there are a lot of people at the helm of all the different Depts and they do one heck of a job keeping it all together.
The bottom however is, who is Tech Republic,? We Are !!.
So let's be gentle with ourselves, yes?.

Warmest Regards to you all
Aaron ;)

1. cookies expire too soon - do i really need to log in so often? this is my tech resource site, not my bank account.

2. My Workspace should be renamed Our Workspace - I used it for the first time by adding 2 items into it, then when i went to look for my 2 items it was full of TR's suggestions and a bunch of other crap that I didn't add. Get out of MY workspace. If you put anything in there that I didn't add, then I'm not going to use it.

3. Increase discussion posts per page - I still can't believe we can only have 1 discussion post per page! There are many successful discussion layouts, choose one. It's bad enough having to reload every reply page on high-speed, imagine what dialup or sat users have to go thru.

4. Downloads - I find it handy when articles are available as a download, because I can put it on my laptop and refer to it on the road. However, the standard should be that every article is available in full text, with an optional download. I hate it when I have to download something just to read it, when you could have simply put it up in full text to begin with.

5. did I mention how crappy it is to have only 1 discussion post per page?

6. not thrilled with the layout and navigation, too much gray space and long menu text. I shouldn't have to scroll just to see some actual content.

7. the tech questions thing... omg it needs a serious overhaul, I'll just agree with everyone else's comments on the subject so far.

OK, I've been a little more active lately, and I thought I should check out the questions section again. Things have changed (again) since the last time I looked.

I looked at all the questions, this defaults to newest first. I resorted by points (presumably to see who had the most urgent issues) and of the top 25 questions, I think 2 were from 2006. Many were from more than a year ago.

That alone suggests to me that these need to be cleaned up. I don't even care if you award points, but archive them out or something...

How about more sort options, there are only the radio buttons at the bottom and the only other sort is the points coloum.

Let's put it to a vote. Would you plunk down a few bucks of your own money to (a) support TR and (b) be able to own a cool TR shirt, jacket, mouse pad, mug, pen & pencil set, or other cool thing?

Speak up and convince the Luddites at TR who still resist what could be a very lucrative / profitable venture.

You do have two I am sure, one for apotheon, one for Maxwell Edison.

You must have two mailing addresses....

James

I'm sorry if you think I have a nasty attitude. It only seems to come out when you hijack someone else's thread just to make the same suggestion that you've made elsewhere over and over (and over) again. We've heard it. It has been noted. It's on the record. I'm sorry if that comes off as a nasty attitude, but I'm not sure how else to get through to you.

We simply don't feel there is sufficient interest for us to build an online store at this point.

And let's face it, you never make the suggestion without namecalling or taking a shot at those of us at TR who don't agree with you. So I'm not sure what kind of response you were hoping for.

Two other things I just thought of to add to my previous list.

The first is, most forum software does not make use of reply titles. I find that odd, and not that useful myself.

The second, when I click Reply, the post disappears and I can't quote or re-read anything. Most discussion/forum software keeps the previous posts below the reply box so you can make an intelligent and accurate reply without having to remember what folks said.

cheers :)