A few days away from (re)launching the SEABC Forum... I can really do with some constructive feedback...

Please comment on the following:

• I spent some time to link the Forum login to the Membership System. The are several advantages in doing this, the primary one being automated access control -- only active SEABC members can log in to and post messages (anyone, including search engines can view messages). How do you like the idea of logging in with your membership number and password, and have your name displayed automatically with your posts? I am working on getting the "join date" for all synchronised with the actual start of SEABC membership. But perhaps I should first have asked if you are even able to log in?!
• The Forum user interface needs work. I grabbed a nice-looking greenish theme with a relatively clean layout, and adapted it a bit. I would love to make some more tweaks to 1) make it fit in better with the SEABC website and 2) make it more functional. Ideas please.
• I have added some SEABC-specific topics to the FAQ in the top menu. Are we covering all our bases?
• I have enabled the avatar option (edit your Forum Settings in the top menu). The idea is that you will upload a photo of yourself (not your blue alter-ego). If done properly, it can help members get to know each other better.
• There will be many more things that I cannot think of right now. Please comment.

Thor, one of the features of the email distribution list is that it ends up in my inbox. I can choose to read it and respond or ignore it. I very rarely take the time to log onto sites and look for information unless I have a specific issue that I am researching - and then, what possibility is there that someone else is going to be checking the forum looking for people who are needing help. If in the development of the site it is possible to include "push" technology, where people can opt in or opt out of certain groups, thus when something is posted to a particular forum that they have "opted in", they will receive an email with the posting and/or replies. This would streamline the emailing process and also make it invisible to everyone - ie without the long header. I would be in favour of this, but the reality of me logging into a forum with any regularity would be remote.

Just my thoughts.

Paul Heinrichs
4D Engineering (Kelowna) Ltd.
#201-1658 Commerce Ave, Kelowna BC V1X 8A9
Tel.250-762-6488 Fax. 250-762-8311
paulh@4deng.com

________________________________________
From: Thor Tandy [mailto:vicpeng@telus.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 12:43 PM
To:
Subject: Misc
SEABC is actively developing a forum on the website and is investigating how to make it user-friendly so that we are encouraged to actually use it. Perchance you have some thoughts? Pls let us know. This email list has worked, and is working, acceptably well. I think it can/will continue to be an avenue for quick posts and responses. OTOH, emails do tend to include all the baggage that comes with email packages. A forum can collate, archive, and highlight any priority/importance that is identified. Once the forum is running smoothly I encourage us all to actively submit to it. I will probably seed it with my usual inane rants and whining. I think the benefit of a forum is that it can be moderated and items of interest/concern can be easily collated and highlighted for attention.
Cheers
Thor

Thanks for posting Paul's comments; I understand where he is coming from... life is busy enough as it is, and none of us has time to hang around on forums all day.

My opinion is quite the reverse of Paul's though. I would prefer getting less email in my inbox, and would much rather log into an online forum where I know I can find help (and help others). The 2009 SEABC Membership Survey echoed this; many members want such a forum. The key is to get our community to participate in such a forum. This is the SEABC's humble attempt at exactly that.

But if email is what you want, then we could arrange that for you... The SEABC Forum has an option where you can subscribe to individual topics or forum categories (like "SEABC Technical Discussion" and "General Technical Discussion"). Once subscribed, you will get an email copy of all posts made to those topics/forums. Not much different to what you have now.

When you want to respond to a topic, you (unfortunately) have to log in to the forum. Again, this is easy... click the URL in your email notification. When logging in to the Forum, you can set that you want your web browser to remember your login. That way you do not need to log in again every time.

(Depending on the popularity of this forum (we have high hopes of course), I will look into developing a feature to allow one to respond to topics by email too.)

Stephen

I have installed a modification to the Forum to make it include the full message in email notifications. Doing so will help members that are subscribed to forums/topics to see the actual response without having to visit the Forum itself.

If the installation was successful, then you should be seeing this text in your email!

Hi Stephen,

The forum looks great! 2 very small bugs I came across, fyi:

1. Under General Discussion\Membership thread, I have read all the posts (currently 1 topic, 2 posts). However in the forum home page this thread still displays a green box indicating new posts (instead of grey box for no new posts). I tried logging out and back in, but the box remains green. The other threads do not exhibit this bug.

2. I went to Settings\profile to see what the profile editing options were. Under "Edit Profile" I entered my city (Vancouver). This resulted in an error that stated "TOO_LARGE TOO_SMALL The entered birthday is not a valid date."

Another comment: I selected the "Log me in automatically each visit" option. If I log out at the end of my session, when I return to the forum it does not automatically log me in. Does the automatic login only work if you close your browser without logging out?

Above comments apply with both firefox & internet explorer.

Cheers!

Thanks for the kind comments. Unfortunately, I do not know who I am responding to, as you were not logged in when you posted. More proof that the "Log me in automatically each visit" option probably does not work for you.

In response....

I tested this, and it worked fine for me. When I opened the Forum this morning, this thread showed as new (green), and once I have viewed it once, it showed as read (grey). The forum software keeps track of your last visit (assuming you are logged in), and compares that date and time with the times last posted to each forum. I cannot explain why this is/was not working for you.


Oops. My intention was to exclude the birthday feature that is included with the forum software by default, but the feature was not properly disabled everywhere. I have done so now.


The feature works fine for me. I can close my browser, and on visiting the Forum again, I am logged in automatically. The feature relies on your web browser's cookie settings: you must allow cookies. Allowing session cookies only is not sufficient though, because they only have effect for the current browsing session.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I will appreciate further feedback in this regard.