What has happened?

[jtmellon]

Where is everyone? It's like dead on here since Rick went to the new forum. Where has everyone gone?

Maybe all out making money?

[NJP]

LOL!!!!!!! I know what you mean. But I'm not making much money right now.

[Ades Gros]

Not many of the boards have a lot of traffic, there are some i don't visit anymore. There is just to many. But i do check in here at least twice a day

[encapman]

I'm wondering the same thing. Do you guys subliminally not like something about the new layout or something. I was thinking we were making a bold step forward with a cleaner design and all that, but maybe guys liked the older plain vanilla style of the old board.

So what do you guys see that needs fixing? What would you think would kick this forum to the stars? Please give me your input. Send a PM. Send an email. Or post your ideas here. I welcome your suggestions.

Thanks!

[Cairnswun]

It really doesn't worry me, but,as you asked, here's something I've noticed, please bear in mind I'm a computer dummy and my mate keeps asking if I've still got the box the pc came in.

Moving on.....................

When I open the site, it opens at General Discussion, which is fine, but it always opens at the oldest page (4), however it's a simple click on (1), and all is there and up to date.

I personally find everything easy to use and find.

I think.

Time for a tub and hit the cot, Big Yella's been working overtime lately, g'nite................

Shorty.

[NJP]

When I log in I just go to view new posts and then it's easy after that.

[Cairnswun]

When I log in I just go to view new posts and then it's easy after that.

Where's that "new posts" ??

( Compooter Dummy # 1 )

[David Edwards]

I like the new board, personally, and doubt it has much to do with decreased traffic. There's a lot going on now with the economy, rising gas prices (rising everything), elections, etc. As mentioned above, a lot of boards have slowed (considerably) traffic. As for me, I've been on Rick's boards for years, although never on a regular basis. Taking care of my parents, being a single dad, growing a business (thankfully) and up until 2 weeks ago working a full-time job on top of all that left me little time to visit boards regularly. I suspect that most people lately have less time to do things we used to do.

[jtmellon]

Rick, ya know what would fix this forum? A free case of Encap Basic. Yep that would do it, well at least for me.

[encapman]

I knew an old gent years ago who had a sign posted on his patio...
"Free Beer Tomorrow"

And if you came back tomorrow for your free beer, the sign would still read TOMORROW.

So we'll have to do the same thing for you Joe...

"Free Encap-Basic Tomorrow"

[jtmellon]

LOL

[prodrying]

I did like the look and ease of finding things on the old site, but of course I liked the old ICS site too. However, either way it doesn't really matter to me. Just haven't been on here as much due to lack of time.

[encapman]

OK.. So here's a snapshot of the layout of the old message board. Do you guys prefer this older style format? I appreciate your feedback.

[jtmellon]

I do like the old style.

[Jamie]

Firstly let me say Rick that I really like this forum, it's my second favorite to my local Aussie forum, the guys on here are less aggressive and concentrate on the issues rather than the drama, some of the other forums they act like a gaggle of middle aged housewives catching up for their weekly coffee and bitch session.

I really like the new boards look & layout. It is very unfortunate that all of the old posts are no longer accessible as a seamless part of this new board, I know you can access it & I do when needing answers but it makes the board look like it's just started even though it hasn't. I think this is a problem when new users look at the site. Having said that Mikey's changed the look of their board and whilst they had some probs during the change it was pretty minor but if I'm not mistaken they didn't lose their history. I'm sure this issue was a huge sticking point in your decision to move to the new board and you made the decision for the greater good, so I'm definitely not criticizing just being honest about things & giving feedback.

These are my suggestions (in no particular order), I hope you interpret these the way they are meant, totally honest & constructive. Im certain some this is obvious but if no-one communicates it then you re only guessing what you thought might be the case. I'm sure like everyone we want this board to succeed so I urge you guys to engage in this post and communicate what you honestly think too.

1. The new board needs momentum

What I mean by this is it needs more posts, if that means you need to post some more topics or reply a bit more than you already do than so be it but when you log on after 2-3 days and there has only been 1-2 new posts and 1 new topic it is disappointing, so next time you leave it a little longer to log on so that you get to read more. And that is a bad thing for the board, you ideally want to get people on the site more often and engage them for longer. This is also up to us too, not just you.

2. Expert opinions

I'm sure that you know a huge amount of people in the industry that would make valuable assets to this forum. Maybe you could ask them to start a thread that is relevant to them and us. Ask them to commit to you for a week and reply to the posts. This would give them exposure (if needed), be fresh content and would engage the audience.

3. Promote new members to post & people who have never posted.

I think why most people don't post to start with or never post is because they feel they don't have anything valuable to contribute and don't want to appear stupid. Most forums come across as a boys club (or in some cases a "girls club" the way they bitch) and do not make it easy for new people to post because they only want to hear themselves rant. This forum in my experience is the opposite of this, it has a great culture that needs to be communicated and then experienced by new users. Have a sticky thread that communicates the culture of this fine forum and get us to post on it what our experiences were when starting on the forum and confirm what the culture is and encourage new members and non-posting members to engage and post.

Also is there a way on each new thread on the top of page 1 to have a small catch phrase encouraging new posts with a link to the suggested Sticky post? Just a thought.

4. Meet Joe Blogs.

On Mikey's they have the threads called for example "Introducing Mr Rick Gelinas" where Mikey asks a whole heap of questions and the thread is about learning from and about that person. It can be a very interesting read.

I'll leave it at that cause I just saw how long this post is (sorry about that) but I think it's a valuable topic we can all benefit from and I'm so glad JTMellon had the balls to start it.

Cheers as always

Jamie