Are we doing it right?

[stooz]

So we have tried to find a home for tmf posters.
Hopefully everyone is happy?
I just wanted to ask if there is anything we are doing wrong or need to add to make life better, please let us know.
I am constantly tweaking and making improvements behind the scenes and I'm happy to listen.

(Yes, I am still sorting recs)

Stooz

[flint]

Absolutely.
Great progress given the short notice you had and it just keeps getting better.
The time you must have put in is much appreciated.

More users would improve the site, I have no idea how this can be be achieved as numbers using TMF clearly declined for a long time before it closed.
However, I will keep my fingers crossed.

[dspp]

Stooz - I think you are doing it fine. More than fine actually.

Re more users - tell others about it.

regards, dspp

[mc2fool]

I just wanted to ask if there is anything we ... need to add to make life better, please let us know.

Next Unread button.

Add a board style that gets rid of the wasted space right hand panels.

Great job though

[UncleEbenezer]

You're doing fine. The biggest danger is probably one of trying to do too much. And over-zealous moderators: topic-drift is natural in any discussion forum, and shouldn't be treated like spam (which should always be removed) or abuse/ad-hominem posts (a judgement call).

One thing to think about. When you have an idea - whether your own or a user's suggestion - that goes beyond a simple tweak, and if you're less than 100% sure whether and how best to implement it, raise it specifically as a discussion here. One thread per specific topic, rather than a vague/nonspecific thread.

[kiloran]

You've done a brilliant job. A pity we seem to have lost a few regulars from TMF but I don't see what can be done about that.

A couple of suggestions:

1. I've found that Private Messages are often unnoticed or people are simply unaware of them, especially for users who don't often read Lemon Fool. The ability to send an email to a user would be nice (like the way TMF did)
2. My home page for Lemon Fool is Unread Posts, but this is often a long list with many topics of no interest to me. It would be nice to have a means of selecting topics and then marking the selected topics as read. At the moment I have to scan through the whole list of topics, read those of interest, refresh the view and rescan several pages to ensure that no new interesting topics have just appeared, and then mark all read

--kiloran

[mc2fool]

I've found that Private Messages are often unnoticed or people are simply unaware of them, especially for users who don't often read Lemon Fool. The ability to send an email to a user would be nice (like the way TMF did)

Doesn't everyone by default get an emailed notification sent to them when they get a Private Message?

I thought it was defaulted to on, but if not maybe it should be. ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

P.S. The issue with the way TMF did it was that it revealed your email address to the receiver.

[Raptor]

You've done a brilliant job. A pity we seem to have lost a few regulars from TMF but I don't see what can be done about that.

A couple of suggestions:

1. I've found that Private Messages are often unnoticed or people are simply unaware of them, especially for users who don't often read Lemon Fool. The ability to send an email to a user would be nice (like the way TMF did)
2. My home page for Lemon Fool is Unread Posts, but this is often a long list with many topics of no interest to me. It would be nice to have a means of selecting topics and then marking the selected topics as read. At the moment I have to scan through the whole list of topics, read those of interest, refresh the view and rescan several pages to ensure that no new interesting topics have just appeared, and then mark all read

--kiloran

Have you tried the subscription service, off topic though. At the bottom when you select a board there is a "subscribe forum", click on this for all the boards you are interested in. Then go to your user control panel, overview tab, click on manage subscriptions and bookmark that page.

Raptor.

[UncleEbenezer]

[*]I've found that Private Messages are often unnoticed or people are simply unaware of them, especially for users who don't often read Lemon Fool. The ability to send an email to a user would be nice (like the way TMF did)

No no NOOOOO!!!! Please, no email!

Well, fine to have it as an option for those who like it. Don't we already do that (as hinted in mc2fool's post)?

[robbelg]

Yes you're doing it right - Great job - Thank you very much

I think we need a separate Home page ( you'll have to reinstate "Board Index" that you've just got rid of! )

Welcome to the Lemon

A brief description of what we are about - Helpful friendly useful discussion and advice ( Can we use Amuse and Enrich? )

I don't have a good idea of the right phrasing but I'm sure more literate Fools will have plenty of suggestions.

That page should also have a prominent Login/Register box. ( When I look at "Who is Online" I see a lot of guests I'm guessing that having them registered and logged in might help advertising revenue )

This is the place for all the buzzwords; Finance Advice Discussion Money Shares etc etc to attract search engines and more users that we need to flourish

As an aside it may be time to de-emphasise TMF replacement, I think that pool is fished out and it may tend to discourage people who weren't TMF users.

[kiloran]

Have you tried the subscription service, off topic though. At the bottom when you select a board there is a "subscribe forum", click on this for all the boards you are interested in. Then go to your user control panel, overview tab, click on manage subscriptions and bookmark that page.
Raptor.

Tried that some time ago but it seemed rather clumsy. And, lacking a Best of Boards, I still need to go to Unread Posts to see if there are any unsubscribed forums which may have topics of interest

--kiloran

[kiloran]

I've found that Private Messages are often unnoticed or people are simply unaware of them, especially for users who don't often read Lemon Fool. The ability to send an email to a user would be nice (like the way TMF did)

Doesn't everyone by default get an emailed notification sent to them when they get a Private Message?

I thought it was defaulted to on, but if not maybe it should be. ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

P.S. The issue with the way TMF did it was that it revealed your email address to the receiver.

No, it defaults to off. I think if it defaulted to On it would satisfy my request for emailing a user, and would not reveal my email address. Unless, of course, a user changes from the default to disable emailed notifications.

--kiloran

[hermit100]

You have done, and are doing, a great job, thank you very much.

Rec. to robbelg, I agree with all of that.

[mc2fool]

No, it defaults to off. I think if it defaulted to On it would satisfy my request for emailing a user, and would not reveal my email address. Unless, of course, a user changes from the default to disable emailed notifications.

Hmmm ... well, I wouldn't usually support site managers dickering with users' settings, but in this particular case, given that PMs are generally rare and most folks would want to know when they got one, I don't think it would be unreasonable for Stooz to turn on the setting for email notifications for "Someone sends you a private message" for everybody (and set "on" as the default for new users).

Immediately followed by a post apologising to those that really did want it off, of course

If anyone does then turn it off, that's their choice and I don't think you can really complain about it -- and, of course, even if they do it doesn't necessarily mean they're missing PMs; they may still look at Notifications and/or the Private messages count at the top of each page....

[Clitheroekid]

I would add my congratulations on an excellent job. The only downside is that I'm now `wasting' as much time here as I did at TMF!

But I would also agree with the poster who advocated a very light touch from the moderators. In general the tone of discussion here is very civilised, even on the boards where the topics are inherently contentious (though to be honest I rarely visit them, so that's only a fairly superficial impression).

Of course this may to some extent be because posters know that a mod is ready to pounce, but I'd prefer to think it's because the overall ethos of LF is better than TMF, possibly because it's not a commercial site.

But the main object at this stage should be to encourage new members or lurkers to contribute their thoughts without fear of being smacked down. In particular, although I understand in theory why the DAK board should be limited to factual replies I personally don't think it does any harm if a discussion drifts off topic. It's not as though there are so many posts there that it causes any problems. The discussion thread will soon wither and die anyway, and I really can't see any need for it to be forcibly terminated.

But I do miss the recs. Even now I find my cursor drifting north east after reading a good post!

[gryffron]

A few thoughts of mine regarding new users.

Bulletin boards can be pretty intimidating places for new users. I have been to several forums where newbies could easily get flamed for posting in the wrong place, supporting the wrong team, asking (what the regulars consider to be) stupid questions, or asking strategy questions on the HYPPractical board So we need to make it as easy and friendly as possible. At the moment you dive straight into the complicated list of boards.

Motley Fool had the Ask A Foolish Question Board, which was mostly used by newbies who had found some TMF discussion on google. So I would suggest a board explicitly for that purpose. Somewhere newbies could post without fear of getting it wrong. Basically, anything to encourage newbies to get off the sofa and post.

So my suggestions are as follows:
Everything robbielg said.
Nice friendly homepage explaining what we are about. Friendly, polite discussions etc.
Yes, no need to talk about TMF anymore, that can only put people off.

Clear descriptions for all boards, explaining what they are for. To make sure a newbie can find their way around.

Top board
A Lemon Entry School
A place for newcomers to ask questions about anything, or just say "Hi".
Lemon Fool Board Discussions renamed biscuit bar
Discuss the site and general questions about the LemonFool

"Biscuit Bar" was great when there were few boards and it was used for allsorts, but now it needs a name which reflects its purpose.

Gryff

[Leothebear]

You guys have done a simply marvellous job. Thank you.

All I really miss is the "rec" system. I didn't think I would but I do.

[ponym]

You are creating history here Stooz/Clariman and I'm proud to be a part of it, Thank you.

ponym

[Gengulphus]

Have you tried the subscription service, off topic though. At the bottom when you select a board there is a "subscribe forum", click on this for all the boards you are interested in. Then go to your user control panel, overview tab, click on manage subscriptions and bookmark that page.

There are actually two ways in which to use "subscribe forum". Both require you to set the notification options appropriately, to tell you what you want to know without swamping you with notifications and/or emails.

In one, you use it to read all the topics in that forum, and you can also use the "subscribe topic" option (available from the 'spanner' icon) to read individual topics on unsubscribed forums. You access the topics you're reading from the list in "manage subscriptions".

In the other, you use on a forum to be notified about new topics in the forum and you use "bookmark topic" (also available from the 'spanner' icon) to select the topics you want to read. You access the topics you're reading from the list in "manage bookmarks".

The first method allows you to read all the topics on a forum with the minimum of trouble, but you have to remember to go looking for any other topics you want to read - it gives no help with forums where you want to be selective about which topics you want to read. The second does give such help (because you set the notification option to tell you about new topics in subscribed forums) but is rather more trouble if you want to read all the topics in a forum - you have to bookmark each new topic as it comes along.

As some who has some forums I want to read fully, some I want to read selectively and some I don't want to read at all, I do find that a bit frustrating, and I can imagine enhancements that would improve things. For example, the second option could be enhanced to deal with all three types efficiently by adding an "auto-bookmark forum" option to go alongside "subscribe forum", which (a) bookmarks all existing topics in the forum when it is turned on; (b) subsequently, bookmarks all new topics in the forum.

Having said that, I didn't find anything like that in a (not very expert, and probably not very thorough) skim through the phpBB extensions and documentation, which suggests that it isn't trivial. And I can certainly tolerate not having it!

Gengulphus

[ThirdWay]

Yes, you have done a great job. Nice one.

But please ditch this requirement to update passwords every three months. You are seriously going to annoy people with this. This is a discussion board, not a bank. And even my bank doesn't have such a requirement!