What do you want out of a forum

[Paul]

Other than the company of your friends and buddies, what are the key things that you look for in a forum?

You guys are the users - Tell me what you like/dont like and what you think are important.

For example.

Gallery - Important?
Downloads - Important?
Shop (Both classifieds and General) - Important?
Webchat (Live chat - Sunday night 10pm meetups anyone??) - Important?
Reviews and reports - Important?


Let me know what you think. I'm listening, and thinking looking forwards

What have I missed? What would you like??

Paul

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

What have I missed? What would you like??

Paul

Guns . Big guns . And girls ...... But mostly guns :smokin:

Sgt GrizZ
101st South Coast Pin Cavalry

 

[OrochiLeona]

The classifieds here is great. And a web chat would be interesting if people got stuck in and used it.

I don't care if I sound like a rule lawyer. But I like forums to maintain order.
In the sense of locking pointless topics or stopping them from being hijacked or derailed into other subjects.
It's messy and once a thread loses its focus, it rarely gets it back.

Also, Double posting is the work of Satan. That's why God invented the Edit button. It isn't hard to use.

I think this place is cool, it has a cosy community and isn't overridden with arguments, juvenile sexism and lame-ass repeat threads that some larger communities such as Pinside suffer from.
"D0 u think pinz r getting mor popular???" "why doez Stern suck ass??"
"Hey guyz annuver thread of girlz tits"

Not knocking Pinside per se, I think it's a great site, just a large part of its community.

Generally, I just like pleasant conversation with likeminded folk. And a place for folk to buy and sell games at non-ridiculous prices.
Oh, and people to bother using punctuation.

This forum is great, keep up the good work guys :hail:

 

[replicas]

The classifieds here is great. And a web chat would be interesting if people got stuck in and used it.

I don't care if I sound like a rule lawyer. But I like forums to maintain order.
In the sense of locking pointless topics or stopping them from being hijacked or derailed into other subjects.
It's messy and once a thread loses its focus, it rarely gets it back.

Also, Double posting is the work of Satan. That's why God invented the Edit button. It isn't hard to use.

I think this place is cool, it has a cosy community and isn't overridden with arguments, juvenile sexism and lame-ass repeat threads that some larger communities such as Pinside suffer from.
"D0 u think pinz r getting mor popular???" "why doez Stern suck ass??"
"Hey guyz annuver thread of girlz tits"

Not knocking Pinside per se, I think it's a great site, just a large part of its community.

Generally, I just like pleasant conversation with likeminded folk. And a place for folk to buy and sell games at non-ridiculous prices.
Oh, and people to bother using punctuation.

This forum is great, keep up the good work guys :hail:

Well that saved me writing anything.

 

[OrochiLeona]

Great minds and all that.

 

[RudeDogg1]

i totally agree with the pinside comment about 80% of threads on there are pointless pap

 

[cooldan]

i love punctuation but have lately given up capital letters at the beginning of sentences, except in work-related communications. i'm lazy.

the big advantages for me of a forum vs the email yahoo group is the ability to embed and display pictures and videos, so a 'gallery' option (whatever that really is) sounds the best of the ones you named.

a chatroom can be loads of fun, as anyone will know who has ever used chat boxes on MSN or Facebook or a million other things. it's way faster than posting or emailing, it's way faster than texting, it's basically as close as you can get to a proper conversation without a live video or audio feed. so i love chatrooms, and i vote for this feature as well.

i had no idea what you meant by downloads, shop, or reviews and reports, so i ignored them. if i had to guess, i'd assume that downloads means documents (but these are all available on the net, so why clog up our server?) and that reviews and reports are best left to dedicated sites like Pinball News. Shop is clearly a place for the site to make some money back, so go for it if you need to, but i doubt it will affect my buying behaviour much, as i tend to be a loyal customer to one supplier, and when he hasn't got it, then there's 20 or so other sites saved in my bookmarks that i can try. but i'd be interested in a forum mug or T shirt or mousemat or bumper sticker or whatever, and in any case i'd contribute via paypal or justgiving or whatever, as soon as that is set up.

if i could pick and choose, i'd ask for the ability to use bigger avatar files (50K is teeny, and i love my animated gifs, most of which don't work for some reason).

 

[Paul]

Dan,

Just for you - an illustration...

Gallery....




Events...


Suppliers...



Basically if you remember the "old" forum, those type of things

Paul

 

[cooldan]

cheers Paul, i remember and like all that lot.

while you're collecting wishes, i'd like to be able to put pictures in private messages too please boss

 

[Paul]

i love punctuation but have lately given up capital letters at the beginning of sentences, except in work-related communications. i'm lazy.

the big advantages for me of a forum vs the email yahoo group is the ability to embed and display pictures and videos, so a 'gallery' option (whatever that really is) sounds the best of the ones you named.

Agreed

a chatroom can be loads of fun, as anyone will know who has ever used chat boxes on MSN or Facebook or a million other things. it's way faster than posting or emailing, it's way faster than texting, it's basically as close as you can get to a proper conversation without a live video or audio feed. so i love chatrooms, and i vote for this feature as well.

I know you love your chat rooms

i had no idea what you meant by downloads, shop, or reviews and reports, so i ignored them. if i had to guess, i'd assume that downloads means documents (but these are all available on the net, so why clog up our server?) and that reviews and reports are best left to dedicated sites like Pinball News.

Perfectly Valid point on the Downloads thing

I would disagree to a point with reviews however each to their own

I'm with you to a point on pinball news with regards to the large international meets and shows - i remember it was great to see pics from Northern lights etc etc on "here" before the "official" write up... and some crazy guy in a martian suit

Shop is clearly a place for the site to make some money back, so go for it if you need to, but i doubt it will affect my buying behaviour much, as i tend to be a loyal customer to one supplier, and when he hasn't got it, then there's 20 or so other sites saved in my bookmarks that i can try. but i'd be interested in a forum mug or T shirt or mousemat or bumper sticker or whatever, and in any case i'd contribute via paypal or justgiving or whatever, as soon as that is set up.

Shop wouldn't necessarilly be for the site - we have lots of people here (Dredds/Drpinball etc) who would be able to offer their mods or upgrades Via the forum - Nice and easy for all??

if i could pick and choose, i'd ask for the ability to use bigger avatar files (50K is teeny, and i love my animated gifs, most of which don't work for some reason).

thats do-able, and the limitation i guess was mine historically. There was a day gone by when we used to connect using slow modems to the new fangled interweb....

 

[Wizcat]

I'm pretty happy with the way things are. Most of the things in the poll can kinda be done already, with the exception of live chat. I guess if large pics can be embedded as a gallery in the 'shop' threads, that might be useful.

Get rid of the 'dislike' button. I still have sleepless nights after misclicking that on one of Grizz's posts

But otherwise, if it ain't broke don't fix it. This site, and the characters that make it, is pretty good already. Has a nice informal vibe that the yahoo group can't replicate.

:hippie:

​

 

[johnwhitfield]

Fix the Donate button, so we can chip in on the costs.

The live chat section doesn't really seem worthwhile to me. Not enough people and to be honest I haven't got anything that important to talk about to make me want to use it.

The old Gallery section was good, would like to see that return.

Being able to include photos in the "for sale" section is crucial. I still think that this section should in theory be the main driver for getting more people on the forum.

Finally cheers for all your efforts Paul

 

[Rus121]

I like the idea of an internal shop where people could see a product, and buy it immediately via paypal (eek, the devil!...dont say its name!). I know we can all do this by contacting people from within and do business that way but it takes a bit of time messaging back and forth. Impulse buying is very close to my heart and i like to 'buy and forget' at times when i clap my eyes on something that interests me.

Imagine, sat at work, bored stupid (as i am right now) and suddenly, a seller places an ad for an animatronic lactating set of boobs topper. I dont want to waste time, i just want to buy! haha.