What we want in a forum or E-mail group

[Peeve]

Okay... I know it may be a little odd for me to be the first non-administrator posting here after I was the first to express negativity for forums vs. the E-mail group, but I have a reason.

That reason is Yahoo has once again been eating messages and I got fed up. I just posted a message reconsidering my view towards forums, and the fact that yahoo won't post it just pushes me even more towards this method of communication

I'm sure my post to the E-mail group will show up eventually, so I won't repeat myself here, except for the important part.

We can have the best of both words if our new forum had to features:

1. the ability to be notified when a new THREAD is posted, not just a new reply to an existing thread. That way, if you want to subscribe to every topic on the board, you'll be notified of every post, just like the E-mail group.

2. the ability to have entire POSTS sent to your E-mail box, not just a notification that someone posted. Kinda like GC.com does with logs for caches you are watching. That way, you don't have to visit the site.

If this site has the capabilities to do that, or if we could find a forum hosting site that did have both features, I'd be totally sold on forums, because it would be the best of both worlds. But until then, I think I'll probably still like the E-mail group better, for the reasons I listed in my original post.

[Tanya Phillips]

[glow=red,2,300]TEXT[/glow] I don't know what Glow is, but i am about to find out.

I just want a forum that is more organized and one that you can find your way around in.

In Notifications at the top you pick all the threads you want to be emailed on, but you can't pick "all new threads" yet as far as I can find.

If you want to start a whole new Disscussion topic let me know and i will title it to start it.

If you are in a catagory and need to start a new thread you can tell me and I can either start it or make it so you can.

I figure we are going to need one or two more moderators also, so people can think about that.

tanya

[Outlaw]

Nice job Tanya. The board looks great! I think we will have the same problem with this board that we currently have with the newsgroup, mainly, how do we get this out to new cachers in the area?

[Tanya Phillips]

Hey Wayne! I noticed you by line at the bottom. Maybe I should add "Tick Bait" to mine!!! ;D
yuck!

Talk to you later this afternoon. We are off to Smithville!!!
Tanya

[texasgal]

I would be happy to create some kind of logo button that we can add to all our cache pages that links to this board. Or someone with a lot more talent in Photoshopping can...

Plus, we can post on TXGA that we can be found here.

I love the idea of a message board. Topics are organized, easily searchable - and easily ignorable if they don't interest you. I had finally set my membership in the Yahoo group to "NO Email", and was just reading the posts online, so it was like a message board for me, anyway -- without all the organization.

[texasgal]

I would also do the following:

1. I think I said this somewhere else, but I think only admins should be able to add categories, but ALL members should be able to start new threads.

2. Add a new top-level "Admin" category at the bottom, below "Events" where people can go to test post, raise questions about the forum functions themselves, report any problems/suggestions/etc. Admin topics are usually better when they're separate, and easy to distinguish. I would add categories for "Bug Reports", "Questions About the Forums" and "Test Posting Area."

3. Add a category for "Other Events" under "Events, events, events." We can post a new thread on the S.A. cachers coming up, and other events that don't fit into one of those categories- no need to make a new category for each event!

4. Add a category for "Other Great Caches" under "Some of our favorite..." People can post there about caches in San Marcos... or in Dallas!

5. I would change the "New Member intros go here" to simply "New Members." I would first create a "sticky" thread, that stays at the top, with the Welcome Committee information. In that thread, I would tell newbies to post a new thread introducing themselves. Then, each new member can start a thread with their nickname, and meet all the individual cachers with posts directly to them.

6. Add a new top-level category, perhaps at the bottom, right above the new Admin top-level category, called "Off-Topic." Underneath that, add an "Off-Topic" category under General, where people can go to discuss all the off-topic stuff we sometimes get into. Also add an "Austin in General" thread, where we can discuss parks, restaurants, hotels, or anything else about the city that's not really about geocaching.

7. Add a "GPS and Other Technology" category under General, for discussion on our GPS-es, software, etc.

[texasgal]

I'd be happy to jump in and help out on the organizational side of things, if you'd give me mod/admin level permission.

[Peeve]

This suggestion is meant to address ways we can attract new folks to this board. We may wish to use the board over at austinexplorer.com that's already set up for caching. I actually discovered geocaching through the hiking pages on that site, and I suspect there may be more like me there. A healthy, active message board might cause some of the hikers to peek in, see how much fun we're having, and join up. Just an idea.

And no offense to your work here, Tonya... it looks great! Thanks for taking the initiative to set this up! I'm starting to like this more and more. Maybe I DO like this better. I'd still like to see the changes I mentioned at the start of this thread implemented, though. Once these forums start getting busy, I may not be able to keep up without messages being E-mailed directly to my box. But I'll try, if need be.

[lowracer]

This forum has siphoned quite a bit of discussion off the yahoo group. Now we have more places to look for discussions. That's not helping keep the group together.

I too had frustrations with the yahoo group especially with the six-hour delayed posts but I, like a lot of people, liked receiving the daily emails, and now we have to come here to find the messages, instead of having the messages come to us.

This board doesn't have the capability to email us the posts whenever anyone posts anything, like a new thread. So basically those who prefer a forum like this have divided the discussion and forced others who prefer email to come use this forum instead. Kinda like my way or the highway.

As far as trying to get people to find our online discussions, we have to decide where we're going to have them first, before we start advertising. The more people who sign up here, the more this becomes THE place for our discussion, and sadly, those who preferred the daily email exchange won't be getting the whole story.

[Tanya Phillips]

As I said before, the information that you can get here is very different than what we do on the yahoo group. this is not a disscussion place as much as an information source that 'keeps and files' information for looking up later.

It can also be used for collaborating on events/topics/off topic things that may come up on the yahoo group are aren't appropriate for there.

Yes you could, for example, post an awesome new cache or a must see cache on the yahoo group and we do, but a month/300+emails later and where did it go, how do I find it? I can't remember what they called the original thread, but I know I saw it somewhere, so i go back through all the messages clicking on the ones I think it might be, till i find it or give up and re-post it.

Now you can put those more important things on the new forum, TOO! Not instead. they will be easier for a newcomer to access there.

I can really see that you could ask to be emailed if someone replies to a thread you are watching and then just check it a couple times a week to see if anything new and interesting has shown up.

At the bottom of the main page of the forum is an option to see the last 10 most recent postings on one page, so that's an easy way to catch up without searching thru the catagories.

I also like how you can see whos online, incase you need to talk to someone. (My default is always on, unless I turn off my computer, btw)

There are some improvements that could be made for sure like --"new thread notifies", but maybe we can ask for that option.

I would like a wysiwyg color scheme changer, too.

I get the yahoo group in daily messages all at once, but when I am home I log into it and push re-fresh to see what's going on.

thanks for your input!
Tanya