The developers of bbPress (the software that runs these forums) posted a poll so folks can vote on what features they'd like to see in the upcoming 1.1 release. It might be worth popping over there an voicing your choice for stuff you'd like to see in the GO boards.
vote for forum software features
(10 posts) (4 voices)-
Tue Dec 15 2009 2:12 pm #
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Thanks, Aaron. I made a point of posting some feedback just now.
--M. J. Young
Tue Dec 15 2009 7:51 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberI don't even understand what most of that stuff means. I don't want to vote for features I don't understand. Could you explain them a little better?
Personally, I would say "When in doubt, go all out." Install EVERYTHING!!!!!
"Step on all of the pedals maybe one of them means GO!!!"
George Carlin (It just seemed oddly appropriate for some reason)(Doing Therapy)
Oh ya know what? (Doing Therapy) also means that I am in a really good mood (99% of the time) so all posts with this label were written by someone who was happy and occasionally even laughing. They should be read in that context.
Tue Dec 15 2009 9:14 pm # -
WordPress is the articles side of the system; the two sides work together somewhat, but there are problems.Integration with WordPress
Anonymous posting
Means people can post without logging in or giving a user name.
Facebook Connect
Means that you can set this up so that posts can be sent to Facebook somehow, so you can let your facebook friends know what you're posting here
Importers from other systems
Means that Aaron could bring all the old forum stuff into the new database (but I don't know that he would or could, because the old forum is not one of the major packages)
Keyboard navigation
Something I like, but there's a fair amount of it already: the ability to use keyboard commands to get the forum to do stuff (like push Ctl+Q to go to the posting window or Alt+P to post).
Attachments
The ability to upload files so that people can download them from the forum directly. An example of this is some years back Graeme e-mailed me a number of images, including (that I remember) a photo of nineteenth century Vancouver harbor; diagrams of the shower and laundry facility he was building in The Postman; maps of the castle and surrounding area in Dale. With attachments he could upload them to the forum and everyone could get them. It would also work with documents like character papers and handouts.
WYSYWYG / rich editing
Would allow more formatting of posts, such as centering and underlining. WYSIWYG (misspelled in the list) means "What You See Is What You Get", and originated with word processing programs--the early ones displayed the codes for text formatting on the screen and you had to hit a print preview button to see what it would look like printed, while now they're all WYSIWYG, showing you as you type what page looks like. The same could be done here, so that as we type it appears as it will post. I don't really care for that feature with my article writing (they have that, and I disable it for my posts) because with this kind of thing it's usually mouse-driven (and you've all heard me rant against mouse-driven software--it's automatically slower than doing the same thing without taking my fingers off the keys, even if I have to type the code), but a lot of people like it and it has advantages. (I'd be happier with a print preview mode here, which I stated in my comment there, which you can read if you're interested.)
Embed support, like videos
I'm pretty sure this means that if you uploaded files that were audio/video others could run them on the forum. Facebook's Walls do that, for example--you can post a YouTube there and people can just click and watch it there.
Private messaging
This is a secondary forum system, really, that sorts posts as from and to. Thus, John, if we had this you could post a message that only you and I could see, and another message that only you and Kyler could see, and I could communicate with Adam without you knowing that we were doing so. Prick your paranoia? (Insert appropriate emoticon here.)
Email notification
This means that if you post to a thread and check the box for notification, then if someone else posts to the thread you'll get an e-mail at your registered address telling you of the new post. Depending on the design, it might include who posted, what they posted, and the link to the thread; also, some of them will notify you for every post, and others will only send you one notice for the first new post until you actually go to the forum and look at it again, so if you've got your game thread set for notification, and you post, and then Harry makes a comment on your thread, you will get an e-mail that he posted, but whether or not you then get another e-mail telling you when I posted might depend on the software and whether you visited and/or posted again.That should help.
--M. J. Young
Wed Dec 16 2009 12:44 am # -
What MJ said.
Wed Dec 16 2009 1:49 am # -
So go follow the link to the site of the people who make the software and vote for it.
We aim to please, as they say.
--M. J. Young
Fri Dec 18 2009 2:22 am # -
I can't say for certain. The poll is set up so that you can only vote for one item, and then it shows you the current results; but if you close the page and go back, it shows the poll again. I don't know whether a second vote would register, or whether it would cancel the first--it depends on how sophisticated they were in setting it up. They had a comments section running, but they didn't want it, so they closed it.
I think they want to know what one thing rises to the top as the thing most people want most. I think that's not a particularly good way to please people--it might be that one thing shows up first on 40% of voter choices, but that the other 60% would hate it, and that the thing that shows up with 35% at number one gets 45% percent at number two and 20% at number three, and would really please a lot more people than that thing that a lot of people want but most really don't.
Then again, I have that complaint about fast food menus: they seem to make sandwiches that appeal to the majority, but that means there's a large minority that doesn't like anything they make, because it's based on majority tastes.
--M. J. Young
--M. J. Young
Fri Dec 18 2009 5:08 am # -
My impression is that they plan to eventually implement all of the features on the poll. The voting is just meant to give them an idea of what people want most so they can focus on that first.
Fri Dec 18 2009 1:53 pm #
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