The forum has to be redone, What needs to stay?

Canon Rumors Guy

Canon EOS 40D
CR Pro
Jul 20, 2010
10,779
3,158
Canada
www.canonrumors.com
Hello Folks

The time has come... Canon Rumors must invest in redoing the theme on the forum for a bunch of reasons. However, I know how adverse to change the world is, and even moreso the frequent users of forums :).

So I have a couple of questions.

1) What of the current design MUST stay? Keep this about features, not about colour and that sort of thing.

2) Is there anything that could be added that isn't currently here?

I'd appreciate any insight you folks may have.



Cheers,
Craig
 
Zv said:
I'd also like a way to unfollow a discussion. Or even a way to mute the new replies notification. The image gallery ones in particular - I posted one picture of a bird once and now I can't seem to shake the bird picture thread! People continually post in there, which is great, but can I leave it now?

No. Youre not allowed to leave it. Ever. So post more!

This forum only needs 3 threads.

- arguments about the death of the mirror, and mirror less taking over

-arguments about how canon is doomed vs Neuro ( Although similar to the above thread, I feel they are different enough for their own separate thread)

- The bird in flight/ bird portrait thread.
:) :) :)
 
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Please keep it light (and by that I'm not meaning colors, though also yes) but in terms of development and code - the lighter and more responsive it is, the better it feels. Keep the performance snappy, the loads fast, and everything to as few clicks as possible.

I get driven nuts by site changes mostly because each change tends to involve more clicks, more animation (especially when Flash was a thing), more data, and more everything else. Remember that we're here on the forum to make and read posts; not look at a million widgets.

And thank you very much for soliciting advice! It's a rare thing with site changes...

Other nice features might be the ability to have photos resized to the viewing screen, with click to expand. Scrollbars are awful.
 
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Canon Rumors Guy

Canon EOS 40D
CR Pro
Jul 20, 2010
10,779
3,158
Canada
www.canonrumors.com
Zeidora said:
Craig: can you elaborate a bit more on what sort of change you foresee? Or what options you are considering?

I have to redo the theme/skin of the forum for compatibility reasons. While I'm at it, I'll make sure the forum is responsive.

I picture something a bit more modern, larger text with a better handling of images.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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For me to stay (if you want me) you must keep the thread layout such that you can read multiple posts on a single page, I won't use forums where you have to click for each post.

Zv said:
I don't like how after you post a reply and press the post button it takes you to the forum sub menu page. I'd like to stay in the thread to see what's going on.

You can, click the 'Attachments and other options' line below the dialogue box and you get a 'Return to this topic' option.

Zv said:
I'd also like a way to unfollow a discussion. Or even a way to mute the new replies notification. The image gallery ones in particular - I posted one picture of a bird once and now I can't seem to shake the bird picture thread! People continually post in there, which is great, but can I leave it now?

You can, in each email you get there are two links, one to go to the thread, the other to cancel notifications for that thread.
 

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JMZawodny

1Dx2, 7D2 and lots of wonderful glass!
Sep 19, 2014
382
11
Virginia
Joe.Zawodny.com
Please stop equating the number of posts a member has made to a camera body or lens. It is about quality, not quantity. Some members with thousands of posts are still a Canon S30 (although I really liked that camera). A few folks with very few, but high quality posts, should be (and are) more respected. I'd rather see a "status" score tied to what other forum members think (aka karma points from other forums) than a meaningless quantity score. So when a post from "insert your least favorite member" appears in a thread, you'll take comfort in their -1,000,000 karma score assigned to them by fellow members. In parallel, I'd like to filter comments and replies from members with a karma score below a user selected value. This means implementing a system to dole out votes to members that they can then use to increase or decrease the karma of other members.

An alternative would be the ability to simply hide comments from specific members (and replies to their comments).

I have finally gotten used to the organization of the various forum threads. I think it works and would not recommend it be changed.

Best of luck with your upgrades.
 
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JMZawodny

1Dx2, 7D2 and lots of wonderful glass!
Sep 19, 2014
382
11
Virginia
Joe.Zawodny.com
Canon Rumors said:
Zeidora said:
Craig: can you elaborate a bit more on what sort of change you foresee? Or what options you are considering?

I have to redo the theme/skin of the forum for compatibility reasons. While I'm at it, I'll make sure the forum is responsive.

I picture something a bit more modern, larger text with a better handling of images.

I'm confused, so this is only about the cosmetics? If so, dump the red theme. It makes people cranky and angry.
 
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JMZawodny

1Dx2, 7D2 and lots of wonderful glass!
Sep 19, 2014
382
11
Virginia
Joe.Zawodny.com
JMZawodny said:
Please stop equating the number of posts a member has made to a camera body or lens. It is about quality, not quantity. Some members with thousands of posts are still a Canon S30 (although I really liked that camera). A few folks with very few, but high quality posts, should be (and are) more respected. I'd rather see a "status" score tied to what other forum members think (aka karma points from other forums) than a meaningless quantity score. So when a post from "insert your least favorite member" appears in a thread, you'll take comfort in their -1,000,000 karma score assigned to them by fellow members. In parallel, I'd like to filter comments and replies from members with a karma score below a user selected value. This means implementing a system to dole out votes to members that they can then use to increase or decrease the karma of other members.

An alternative would be the ability to simply hide comments from specific members (and replies to their comments).

I have finally gotten used to the organization of the various forum threads. I think it works and would not recommend it be changed.

Best of luck with your upgrades.

Maybe the simple net aggregate sum difference between thumbs up and thumbs down would work.
 
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privatebydesign said:
For me to stay (if you want me) you must keep the thread layout such that you can read multiple posts on a single page, I won't use forums where you have to click for each post.

Zv said:
I don't like how after you post a reply and press the post button it takes you to the forum sub menu page. I'd like to stay in the thread to see what's going on.

You can, click the 'Attachments and other options' line below the dialogue box and you get a 'Return to this topic' option.

Zv said:
I'd also like a way to unfollow a discussion. Or even a way to mute the new replies notification. The image gallery ones in particular - I posted one picture of a bird once and now I can't seem to shake the bird picture thread! People continually post in there, which is great, but can I leave it now?

You can, in each email you get there are two links, one to go to the thread, the other to cancel notifications for that thread.

Cool thanks I guess on mobile I don't really look that closely at the attachments tab. That's two extra taps to stop it from bouncing me out the topic. Would be nice to have that as an option in the settings.

Also it's not the email notifications it's the screen that shows replies to new posts. When you post on multiple topics that list gets rather long. Would be nice to cancel some of those easily with a check box next to the link or something.

But from what Craig has mentioned seems like the changes are just to the skin and overall look? Bigger text would be appreciated on mobile. I often turn my phone to landscape mode for reading which makes the text a little bigger but makes it a bit more awkward using it one handed.
 
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unfocused

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JMZawodny said:
OH, one more thing. Increase the size limit on uploaded photos. I hate degrading the quality of an image just to make it acceptable to the forum's limits.

I'm afraid I disagree with this. Storage space may be cheap, but it is not free. Plus, the larger the picture, the more likely to slow down the site. If you are so proud of your pictures that you want to post giant web images, get your own site.

I feel like the posting of pictures is a nice, generous service that Canon Rumors provides, but I have no problem restricting or limiting it. Maybe as a compromise, make it easier for people to include a link to their own webpages, dropbox accounts or other photosharing site, so it doesn't clog up the forum.

In fact, I would recommend splitting the galleries off from the forum. Have a gallery section for people who enjoy posting and sharing photos (I don't) and leave the forum for the inane discussions that consume so many of us, but which also drive visitors to the website.
 
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unfocused

Photos/Photo Book Reviews: www.thecuriouseye.com
Jul 20, 2010
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retroreflection said:
Please discourage quoting a quote of a quote, and other means of using tons of space to say nothing.

I actually like this, because it adds context. But, I could see (if possible) restricting the length of the posts, which would encourage people to truncate the quotes. I feel many people are too lazy to shorten the posts they are quoting and just copy the whole thing. That's hardly ever necessary if it's a long post.
 
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