Forum Categories Feedback Requested

[SHaines]

Greetings, folks!

We value your expertise on all things caravan, so we were hoping you could help us improve the site for everyone with some feedback. Our goal is to make sure the categories in these forums works well for as many people as possible.

So, take a look at the current forum setup and let us know if you'd like to see us add any new categories, merge existing categories, or rearrange the way any specific areas appear.

This is definitely something all of you will have a voice in shaping, but if it turns out things are perfect as they are, we can do that too. Just let us know!

 

[Raywood]

I am not for change to any extent. The categories are simple, and cover most things without problem, and having got used to them I know where everything should be. The only category that seems to get ignored is Vintage which might be a bit too specialist.

 

[Hutch]

Hi Alan, I find the Forum great and the PC website favourable, I would like the forum to be able to Private message each other without using their own E mail addresses until they are happy.

Thanks for giving us a chance to help.
Hutch

 

[SHaines]

Hi Alan, I find the Forum great and the PC website favourable, I would like the forum to be able to Private message each other without using their own E mail addresses until they are happy.

Thanks for giving us a chance to help.
Hutch

Getting you folks setup with a more robust set of tools is definitely in the plans. Private messages are an especially important part of helping folks stay connected, so this is something we have very direct desire to deliver.

 

[Mel]

Ease of navigation please. There are other forums where there a plethora of categories, but most of the posts under up under one. Keep it simple. Don’t have techie features just because they are clever.
Thanks for your efforts here
Mel

 

[Gagakev]

Be able to add photo's direct to forum post with out having to use a secondary hosting site.

 

[Hutch]

Be able to add photo's direct to forum post with out having to use a secondary hosting site.

Yes I will back you up there Kev that would be nice.

 

[SHaines]

Be able to add photo's direct to forum post with out having to use a secondary hosting site.

At the moment, the focus is to make the best of what is here now, but once we start looking into adding new features, this is something that's on the list there with Private Messages. I can't make any promises until we're all locked in, but this is something we'd like as well.

For anyone following this thread, ease of use is definitely our goal. Since what's there seems to work (based on the current feedback) let's see how we can make some improvements to the order of things.

A suggestion I'd have would be to make sure the most used categories appear at the top and the smaller, more niche categories (Baking, Pets, & Vintage) could be moved a little lower. Again, this is totally open for discussion if folks disagree.

Also, right now we have all the various Sub-forums under a section called Categories. How would you feel about changing the one big Categories section to be multiple, distinct categories? An example would be something along the lines of:

• Forum Rules & Feedback (we'd post forum rules here as well as the "Our website" section, but renamed to "Site Feedback"). Making this change would let all users have the forum posting rules right up top, but we could also make this section appear right under the next category instead, if jumping right into the discussions seems like the best place to start for you.
• Caravan Discussions (this would be for most of the sections under the current Categories option)
• Miscellaneous (this would be for the various Chit-Chat sections, Baking, & Marketplace)

My thinking would simply be to break up the long list of sections into smaller sections that are easier to navigate by skimming. While it will take getting used to from our veteran users, I do think it could help new users who visit the site to find what they need a little faster.

 

[Hutch]

Allen is this not what we have , when a new member Clicks on "New Members" the first thing that comes up is Forum Etiquete, then sub cats under that. I thought before you can go further you had to click onto a box to agree to forum rules. Which if you do not abide with after a repremand , etc by a mod you could be banned. .
I will look further into your message and investigate your thought at a better time of the day.
BR,
Hutch.

 

[Guzzilazz]

As a long time user of a lot of forums (and predecessor technologies) over the last 20 years, I think this forum is pretty good. You can look at all new messages easily (recent posts), so with the exception of another +1 for PM's and easy picture posting, I'm happy...

As a side note on on a Ford Kuga forum as well, that has just upgraded the software, and it appears when major change takes place it's very difficult to emulate common ways of working... I'd emphasise that as something to consider (maybe some beta testers if it were possible to run in parallel?) should an upgrade be needed.

 

[DaveA1]

Be able to add photo's direct to forum post with out having to use a secondary hosting site.

Yes I will back you up there Kev that would be nice.

Agree with above. An easier way of limiting the adverts, seem to spend ages waiting for the screen to stop jumping about.

 

[otherclive]

One thing that would be useful is to be able to mark “All posts read” on a IOS phone. I can do it on the IOS 13 IPad and the OS Catalina Mac.

 

[otherclive]

Duplicate error

 

[Danddandy]

I find this forum very good. Recent Topics is the only one I use. If I was more computer literate I would have included pictures with some of my contributions.

 

[Hutch]

Well after week and only 13 reply after 329 views, its the Private messages and photos that may be looked at.

It amazing the number of New Member people get looked at, with a high number of views and its nearly always the same twenty people saying hello. , It's the same on other websites as well though.
Have a nice afternoon, got to check out some some sites for winter. 😛

 

[RayS]

I suspect that Equipment and Accessories is visited more than some o the catogories nearer the top of the list. It would be nice for a quick browse if it came after General and Technical.
Direct attachment of photographs would be very welcome as the present route is very fiddly for those of us with restricted vision.

 

[Thingy]

Firstly, I like the forum pretty much as is. Sure there are segemtns that get less use than others, then all of a sudden there will be a rash of postings in them.

I am very much in favour of private messaging, with the proviso that you have the ability to block individuals. As we all know, every few weeks a complete bandit seems to find his way in. Private messaging would leave us open to these people without a block facility.

As for hosting pictures, Im not sure how that would work. Surely, if posting direct from our own PC/Mac/Phone/Tablet the only two options are one, the forum provides storage space which will cost. Or we host them ourselves and wouldnt they then only display whilst the donor machine is running? The last thing any of us want is to see a whole raft of placeholders with a red X in them.

I would like to be able to trade items (caravanning items) with other members, and indeed have often given equipment away in the past, but its been difficult to do so on the forum without involving the mods everytime and Im sure they have better things to do.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Allen,

Compared to the way the original forum was configured, what we have at present is much better, but I do think there are areas where improvement could be made. I appreciate that "Future" was not the architect of this forum system, and you might have done things quite differently from new.

Advertising
I fully understand that as long as the forum is freely offered, it does have costs that need to be met and there will be other commercial consideration that Future will want to apply. This will mainly be in the form of advertising or page content, which rightly needs to be accommodated in the page layouts.

Where presently this has been a problem for forum users, and rather more a hindrance is the way the forum pages load on some platforms: From personal experience with a mini Ipad the page will start to load, then it will resize and reposition as differnt adverts appear around the forums page layout - very frustrating and highly counter productive.

My son who works in professionally developing cross platform apps, has seen it and he was shocked at the way it seems to work. You must know how much of your page will be allocated to advertising, and it is perfectly reasonable to make that space available before the page loads to the device, so the page does not resize or preposition as advert content is filled.

Page text Colours
In general I find the pale grey text colour to be a problem especially on some screens. A higher contrast layout might be worth considering.

List layouts
Both the Forum and Categories listings pages could benefit from layout changes.
The columns might benefit from being restructured.

For example the last post column is too narrow and the full title of the thread is truncated. Where as the Category Index titles are considerably bolder and wider than is necessary. Do we need to know about the number of topics and number of replies?
If these column contents, widths, and font size weer addressed, the page could be less cluttered and more informative.

Topics in Category pages
In general the type of content seems to be appropriate, but again its layout leaves something to be desired.

Look at changing the font sizes on the number of replies and views columns, to free up more space for topic titles and last post details.

I do find the number out of date "yellow stickies" that are retained at the top of the pages. These need to be regularly reviewed and demoted from being a "Sticky" when no longer appropriate.

Signing In
The pages associated with logging in seem long winded. Having confirmed your sign in details, you hit "Sign In" it then takes you to "Account details" which only confirms what you and us must already know, and it does not make it immediately obvious what you need to do to actually go to the forum propper.

Surely it would be more practical to have an option the sign in page to go to account details rather than a default action.

The account details page needs to have clearer accept or change option buttons.

Forum Etiquette
Currently the Etiquette is buried in the New MEmbers topic area as a "sticky" Consequently new members are not automatically aware of the forums etiquette and can make inappropriate postings.

I believe the etiquette should have a dedicated page within the "Forum Signup" process, which every New user has to read and accept before being given access to post on the forum. This I think might help to limit the number of inappropriate posts that do occasionally appear. Also using an "Am I Human?" checking device at this stage will block most of the spammers which take up some of our mods time and effort.

As for the scope of the Topic Areas, I personally don't find a major problem with them.

Useful Additions
The ability to post images directly to the forum would be very handy. Sometimes a Private messaging service might be useful, but it would have to also include controls to allow users to control whom they wish to exchange messages with.

PJL

 

[Parksy]

Hello Allen,

Compared to the way the original forum was configured, what we have at present is much better, but I do think there are areas where improvement could be made. I appreciate that "Future" was not the architect of this forum system, and you might have done things quite differently from new.


....I do find the number out of date "yellow stickies" that are retained at the top of the pages. These need to be regularly reviewed and demoted from being a "Sticky" when no longer appropriate.....

....Forum Etiquette
Currently the Etiquette is buried in the New MEmbers topic area as a "sticky" Consequently new members are not automatically aware of the forums etiquette and can make inappropriate postings....

I believe the etiquette should have a dedicated page within the "Forum Signup" process, which every New user has to read and accept before being given access to post on the forum. This I think might help to limit the number of inappropriate posts that do occasionally appear. Also using an "Am I Human?" checking device at this stage will block most of the spammers which take up some of our mods time and effort......
PJL

Thanks for your ideas Prof.
Please be assured that 'Sticky' posts are reviewed by moderators from time to time and removed or 'un-stickied' if they are no longer relevant.
If you or any other forum member happen to notice any that you consider to be no longer relevant please feel free to let us know and we'll take a look at them.
Forum Etiquette is shown at the top of the webpage on both the Our Website and New Members message boards in the hope that forum members will read the rules and try to adhere to them.
Broadly speaking there are very few major transgressions, apart from the occasional spammer who manages to evade the anti-spam algorithms already in place.
If a forum member in very rare instances insists on repeatedly breaching forum etiquette in spite of guidance from moderators, no amount of rule posting will persuade them to desist, but we have the means at our disposal to deal effectively with them. :evil:
The current rules set out in Forum Etiquette are about to be revised to bring them into line with other Future plc owned websites, so perhaps the excellent sign up via forum etiquette idea that you suggested may be adopted when the change takes place?
Edit:
There is a 'Captcha' system in place for the initial registration process which proves that potential members are not spam-bots, web crawlers or other automatic electronic entities.
The Captcha system minimises the instances of spammers trying to use this forum, and when the occasional determined or desperate spammer physically completes the registration and begins to post we usually spot them before they have chance to submit their unauthorised advertising or malware.