New Forum Software

[Rich]

Hi All,

As per my previous post, we are testing some new forum software. We love this board, it's very simple and easy to use and people have got used to it. We like to debate too, some people are more verbose than others, but everyone's welcome. However there are some good reasons to upgrade to something a bit more sophisticated.

The board has been going for nearly 4 years and we've discussed many many subjects, not just squirrels! We've had so many great posts from a lot of very knowledgeable people that it has become a very useful and valuable resource. At present it is kind of awkward and clumsy to search, in fact it's not even obvious where to start, I usually type 'swog and subject' into google. Hopefully the new board will be (almost?) as easy to use, but will have many more features and we should be able to search and get at topic much more easily.

The new board will be based on something called phpbb, all the sections which are currently a drop down choice on this board will have separate forums so the subject category will be obvious, as you will post into that forum, (not just ignore, or forget to use the ‘dropdown choice’!). One of the things we are all going to have to try and do is be a bit more disciplined about posting to the right subject category/ forum and not to wander off the topic. We'll be posting up guidelines about all this and it's pretty standard stuff if you use other boards. It will just make it so much easier to find a subject you are interested in quickly.

Other features, like picture messaging, private messaging and accessing the board from your smartphone will become apparent and hopefully make it an even more valuable resource.

There will obviously be a bit of disruption as the change over takes place, and I think you will all need to log in and reset your passwords, we are planning for May 29th and have arranged to be around and online during this time so hopefully you’ll get quick responses to problems and questions.

Many thanks and look forward to seeing you all on the new board.

Rich

[wrekin]

Sounds good :) Are you going to keep the existing posts from this version of the forum available on the site somewhere? There's a lot of very useful information.

[Rich]

Absolutely, there is a vast archive of information on here that we don't want to lose, I think we will endeavour to put them all in the correct subject forum at sometime. Although this may be a bit problematic as in the past a lot of the posts have tended to wander 'off topic'!

[Bulworthy Project]

From what we've seen during testing, the new forum is really easy to use as well as being easier to search.

[Andy M]

Well, after trying for a while I must say I don't find it so easy to check up on recent posts and as a result have found myself not using the site nearly so much

[SimonFisher]

Well, after trying for a while I must say I don't find it so easy to check up on recent posts and as a result have found myself not using the site nearly so much

Have you considered or tried the technique I outline in my post at http://www.swog.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1240?

[Andy M]

I have, but "view unread posts" has disappeared!

[SimonFisher]

I have, but "view unread posts" has disappeared!

It's only displayed if you're logged in. Could that be why it's disappeared?

[Andy M]

Oh yes! Thanks

[wrekin]

Well, after trying for a while I must say I don't find it so easy to check up on recent posts and as a result have found myself not using the site nearly so much

Have you considered or tried the technique I outline in my post at http://www.swog.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1240?

The problem use case with that is this though: I come to the forum and see an interesting topic with unread posts on the new topics page. I read/skim through them. I come back later to reread them but now they've gone, because I've read them. I have to hunt them down on the individual boards now. The perverse result is that topics I find interesting enough to read immediately become harder to find again!