Missing the agree and disagree buttons

[JoyfulPenguin]

The update to the forum has overall been really great but the Facebook style reactions are a bit underwhelming. The old reactions made it a bit easier to instantly see what people thought of a post.

Thanks for all your fantastic work with this forum Adz, this forum is by far the best one I have ever come across.

 

[adz]

Hey @JoyfulPenguin - Yeah I agree, this is an area that needs some work. I haven't had much time to put into the site for a while now (excuses, excuses) so I need to pick and choose where the priorities are. There are a few things going on in the background though and slowly trying to get more time into it. Loosely in order of priority;

• Server infrastructure, which has been an ongoing PITA but seems to be stable now
• The software itself needs to be kept up to date, a fairly easy process but was impacted by the server setup
• We threw in a sly "rebrand", the logo has evolved slightly
• Looking at some ccmfans.net merch (this has been in the works for a few years, but haven't found the best way to move forward with it)
• Locking down the forum for spam bots was a bit of a mission (the new intro area before allowing posting)
• Creating a better "onboarding" experience - it's easy for us to overlook this as the board has been running since 2007
• An extension of the previous point, looking at the length of the threads and how that may impact new users, if they need to wade through hundreds of posts to get to the more relevant stuff
• Working on the overall look of the forum and trying to find some more innovative ways to display the threads, show that we have areas of the forum other than the main "Mariners Generally" section. Mobile is pretty limited here and we're looking at 68% mobile traffic now
• Ways to promote more topics and discussion - things generally kick off and work well on their own, but there is a fair bit of down time between some topics
• Ways to use technology more to promote interactivity - we have some great in-depth discussions, but that may be intimidating for some people to jump in to, so trying to come up with other ideas where someone doesn't have to have the technical knowledge of the game and be able to discuss the finer points. This needs to cater for real time (when watching the game) and whatever the opposite of that is, so you can come back through the week and still do stuff. Works in with "onboarding" as a way to ease people in to things
• Ways to promote the forum and expand - without hurting the existing culture we have built up over the years
• Connect more with the club. We are lucky and unlucky in that we have had little actual interaction with the club over the years. They let us do our thing which is fantastic - I can only think of a couple of times someone has overstepped and we've had to take action. You have probably noticed the club reaching out to us more lately and posting a lot (big thanks to @Shaun Mielekamp there) - it really shows the community club coming through. We have a great base here and if we can expand to some more meaningful numbers we may find we have a bit more of a voice to go to the club when we need to. Having said that, just have a look at the thread about pre-game music and we can see the club is listening, open to feedback, and open to discussion.

Anyway, that was a bit of an over-answer and thanks muchly for bringing this up. Aiming to do some more in-depth posts and things around the points that have already been covered and what's in-flight. Time is a huge factor here, work has been pretty hectic for a few years and it's a bit exhausting to do this sort of stuff as a day job and a hobby.

The main thing that makes it great is the community we have built up over the years. On that point, it's great to see you JP - you went missing for a while there so I hope everything is ok.

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

Hey @JoyfulPenguin - Yeah I agree, this is an area that needs some work. I haven't had much time to put into the site for a while now (excuses, excuses) so I need to pick and choose where the priorities are. There are a few things going on in the background though and slowly trying to get more time into it. Loosely in order of priority;

• Server infrastructure, which has been an ongoing PITA but seems to be stable now
• The software itself needs to be kept up to date, a fairly easy process but was impacted by the server setup
• We threw in a sly "rebrand", the logo has evolved slightly
• Looking at some ccmfans.net merch (this has been in the works for a few years, but haven't found the best way to move forward with it)
• Locking down the forum for spam bots was a bit of a mission (the new intro area before allowing posting)
• Creating a better "onboarding" experience - it's easy for us to overlook this as the board has been running since 2007
• An extension of the previous point, looking at the length of the threads and how that may impact new users, if they need to wade through hundreds of posts to get to the more relevant stuff
• Working on the overall look of the forum and trying to find some more innovative ways to display the threads, show that we have areas of the forum other than the main "Mariners Generally" section. Mobile is pretty limited here and we're looking at 68% mobile traffic now
• Ways to promote more topics and discussion - things generally kick off and work well on their own, but there is a fair bit of down time between some topics
• Ways to use technology more to promote interactivity - we have some great in-depth discussions, but that may be intimidating for some people to jump in to, so trying to come up with other ideas where someone doesn't have to have the technical knowledge of the game and be able to discuss the finer points. This needs to cater for real time (when watching the game) and whatever the opposite of that is, so you can come back through the week and still do stuff. Works in with "onboarding" as a way to ease people in to things
• Ways to promote the forum and expand - without hurting the existing culture we have built up over the years
• Connect more with the club. We are lucky and unlucky in that we have had little actual interaction with the club over the years. They let us do our thing which is fantastic - I can only think of a couple of times someone has overstepped and we've had to take action. You have probably noticed the club reaching out to us more lately and posting a lot (big thanks to @Shaun Mielekamp there) - it really shows the community club coming through. We have a great base here and if we can expand to some more meaningful numbers we may find we have a bit more of a voice to go to the club when we need to. Having said that, just have a look at the thread about pre-game music and we can see the club is listening, open to feedback, and open to discussion.

Anyway, that was a bit of an over-answer and thanks muchly for bringing this up. Aiming to do some more in-depth posts and things around the points that have already been covered and what's in-flight. Time is a huge factor here, work has been pretty hectic for a few years and it's a bit exhausting to do this sort of stuff as a day job and a hobby.

The main thing that makes it great is the community we have built up over the years. On that point, it's great to see you JP - you went missing for a while there so I hope everything is ok.

Fantastic to see you have so many ideas about the future of the Forum Adz. You do a tremendous amount of work to keep this place the terrific discussion area it is and improve it even more. I hope you never feel pressured to do more than you want.

As for my disappearence for a while, I was unfortunately in hospital with no internet for some time. I also had some treatment that has affected me cognitively a bit which is hopefully fairly temporary, I love writing in depth posts on here but at the moment it's a bit difficult for me to do so and contributed to why I stayed away for a while.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

The update to the forum has overall been really great but the Facebook style reactions are a bit underwhelming. The old reactions made it a bit easier to instantly see what people thought of a post.

Thanks for all your fantastic work with this forum Adz, this forum is by far the best one I have ever come across.

I both agree and would like to be able to respectfully disagree. If you take my meaning JP

 

[VicMariner]

Disagree option needs to be available.

 

[Ozhammer]

Can we also have a snap Mauk in half button Adz?