I know this has been raised before but it is a serious issue capable of sinking the site. To see exactly what I am talking about have a read of the rigid heddler and the backstrap forums very long threads.
Its impossible to follow the long threads in chronological order and make much sense of what is being discussed, as people respond to posts all over the place, and because we don't see the little red icons to point out the new posts once we get beyond the first page of a thread we have no idea what we are searching for! People are getting unhappy with having to do all that hard work trying to find the latest posts.
The Rigid Heddlers WAL1, and the Backstrap WAL2 are prime examples of why the current format does not work - basically victims to Weavolutions success.
I know money is tight, and there are a lot of things to do, but this has to be a priority, because while at the moment its just those 2 groups - if any more forums take off like they have, is Weavolution even going to cope? Its becoming harder to browse the site; the site is getting slower and sometimes pages refuse to load. Sometimes the site refuses to load and times out. Then trying to find the latest postings requires not only patience but eagle eyes to spot the date and time of the latest postings that are not at the end of the thread where they logically should be, but half-way through a long and busy thread!
Please! Do something, before the whole concept goes down the gurgler - or am I the lone voice on the prow of the Titanic?
You are driving people away because what should be so simple is getting too hard!
What IS so difficult about having chronological posts on the forums? Nearly every other forum site on the internet manages to get this right, why can't Weavolution?
I agree with Caroline.
Have a good day!
I actually like the replies being next to the relevant post. For example if I reply today to a post made on August 13th, my reply appears directly after the August 13th post. When new people come in and read that thread it makes a whole lot more sense if the replies are connected to the original post. On Ravelry, I hate reading post number 60 which is a reply to post number 33 and then having to go back to post number 33 to see what's going on.
What needs to be improved is the red envelope icon and the ability of the system to transport you to the new post. Someone should be able to click on ''new'' and be taken to the new post whether it be on page one or page ten.
Laverne
Thank you all. It is important for us to know how you feel and think about features on Weavolution.
We have just added Looms and will be improving the functionality there.
Forums is next so this is all very timely.
Claudia
Thank you Claudia,
I look forward to seeing the usability of the forums improved.
Have a good day!
Huh! Thanks for that Franco. I never knew that about the Rav system. Now THAT system sounds like the one to implement here.
Laverne
I prefer posts to be grouped by topic, thread (whatever we would call a conversation in person) and chronological only matters to me among each thread's replies. I'd also like to mark 'New' posts 'Read' without actually having to go through and read all of the posts that don't interest me.
I think some people are replying to posts by using the blank at the bottom instead of clicking on reply right under the post to which they are replying. I'd get rid of the open blank, so people would have to click a 'reply' link to get the reply blank to open. Maybe they would be more likely to click under the post they're answering.
I like Yahoo Groups' method. The message has a subject line (instead of something like "Thank you all. It is" in bold underline, like within this thread) that ties the original post and replies together, plus a short preview of the message. Click on a subject line, and the whole post opens, with a summary list of the entire thread below the opened message. I would like the ability to change the subject line if my reply veers to another topic.
As for speed of loading the Weavolution pages, I've never had a problem. I also am not having trouble browsing the site now, just as it is, except for sometimes losing track of the original subject because there aren't subject lines with each post and reply.
Haven't used Ravelry. Never will.
Kurt
Kurt,
That's a good point point about Subject lines.
The way this site uses the first words from a message to be a subject is not helpful.
The user should be able to specify the Subject so we can make sure the topic relates to the subject..
Have a good day!
I just did the 3 page search process again. Did not see a pink envelope.
Found the new message was third from the bottom on the third page on the second search using time stamp.
Not every user is going to feel compelled to search like this to find one new message.
Have a good day!
http://www.weavolution.com/node/5669#new
This time I clicked on the "new" message from hot threads and I went straight to the new message.
There was one new message on page 1, WITH A PINK ENVELOPE
Have a good day!
hmmm....well that sounds promising. I wonder what would happen if there were two unread messages showing in hot threads but the posts were on different pages within the thread.
http://www.weavolution.com/node/5577#new
Clicked on "Unread" from hot threads, got 3 new messages with pink envelopes on page 1 of 2, the rigid heddle weavalong intermediate
Have a good day!
Just a thought, but most forums have a thread with a topic heading and thats it. We have the ability to create sub-threads within a thread, and this is what really confuses the whole issue. If by hitting the reply link our new post was automatically taken to the end of the thread we would not have this issue of chronology being out of sync.
The forums are not a live chat - we do all come in and post at different times, so chronology is important - we need to identify the posts we haven't read, which usually ( elsewhere) means reading the latest postings at the end of a forum, not in the middle.
Its nice to be able to reply to something immediately below it, but the inconvenience its causing on the longer threads now outweighs its advantages. I would guess that anyone trying to follow the WALs would have a a few problems sorting out what was and wasn't relevent and what order in which to do things as the topics often go off at a tangent. and a post that originally follows on from the one before can end up on a different page.
Caroline, you are right. A lot of places that have forums don't have the ability to reply directly to an individual post.
Unfortunately, since we've already opened that can of worms, I don't think we can take the functionality away. If I could have predicted the way this was going to go, I would have suggested that we not have the functionality. Someday maybe that foresight will be 20/20
The "Page" selection feature at the bottom of the page should be duplicated at the top of the page so we don't have to scroll all the way down Page 1 when we know we want the last page.
Page selection on top and bottom of page.
That would be helpful for navigating the forums.
Have a good day!
Yep, I agree. I always hate it when the paging is only in one place on a page.
That's on the list for the forum upgrade that is the next thing we'll get going on.
Here's an example of a forum that works really well and is user-friendly: www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/index.php
If it was up to me, the forums here would be like those...the ability to quote the pertinent part of the message you're replying to is great.
Thank you for all the input. We are reviewing an estimate for forum repair, replacement and renewal now and will have news very soon.
Claudia
I know there hasn't been any traffic on this thread in a long time, but that's because we were working on improving the forums based on your feedback.
I believe that we have addressed the root issue that was reported here. I think you'll like what we've done to make the forums easier to read and more usable.
If you want to report bugs or ask for other changes, please add a post to this thread: http://www.weavolut ion.com/node/ 6806
