Forum Moderators: open
The other thread (here [webmasterworld.com]) was started by Bottler who suggested a "buddy list" feature for the forum, so you could keep track of threads by certain people.
This was taken further in his post to suggest using such a system for new members to rank the popularity of certain posters.
Then the thread went off track for a few posts! ;)
Near the end of the thread, ShawnR suggested that we all move back on to the original topic and forwarded his suggestion of a feature allowing posts to be formatted more easily.
I took is as being along the lines of a graphical interface to allowing formatting to be applied to posts, and it's something I would agree with 100%! :) (can never find the dam square brackets on my Spanish keyboard....).
Then Trillianjedi added the suggestion of a more advanced site search function, commenting that he tends to use the "site:" command on a Google search as an alternative.
My own suggestion would by the addition of a members directory / address book - perhaps something that could be used to add addressees to a sticky mail. Naturally this has implications for forum spam, etc. but Im sure a system could be developed to combat this.
Anyone else have any other suggestions?
Scott
In addition to the ability to format posts (especially code or simple graphics such as boxes side by side), I'd like the following:
I'd like to see the email notification of posts show the subject of the post, not just the forum name. That way if 30 posts happened overnight, I don't need to look in each email notification to see that it is about the same thread.
or maybe you could rig up some fancy Tesla coils to beam the data straight to my brain where/when I want... ;)
It ignores too many words IMO, perhaps im not using it correctly, but perhaps a more accurate search facility would reduce the number of duplicate questions (i mean questions that have already been answered but no one can find)
And perhaps it could be made so that you HAVE to preview your posts beore they appear in the threads, which reduce the number of edits, and innapropriate posts. IMO
Other than that its a pretty dam good place to learn. :)
Limbo: I would like to be able to look back over every post I have made
At the risk of untracking this thread too, try this in Google:
limbo "joined:Oct 4, 2002" +"on Oct 4, 2002" site:webmasterworld.com
<sorry about off topic>
Thanks Victor & Edit G - both useful and amusing ;)
Ta
</off topic>
it could be made so that you HAVE to preview your posts
I have mixed feelings about this. On the plus side, it would definitely reduce edits to fix typos and garbled UBB tags. On the minus side, it adds another click to posting and will occasionally lead to lost posts. One board I run has this, and I get periodic notes (mostly from new posters) saying, "I posted this but it never appeared". They no doubt forgot to confirm posting after the preview. I know even I've made that error a few times, particularly when another program grabs that browser and I forget that I was partway through the process.
it could be made so that you HAVE to preview your posts
Just to add to rogerd's comments , not all people have stable internet connection and nothing irks me more when I lose posts between buttons bcoz of faulty internet connections. :)
not all people have stable internet connection
even with a 'stable' connection it's inevitable at some point. outlook tends to crash on me on occasion. I've found the only cure to be a quick ctrl-c before hitting 'submit'
If there is an 8 or 10 page thread and you don't want to repeat something that has already been said or if you want to find out if someone posted anything about sj without reading the whole thing it would be helpfull. Sometimes I only want to read what GG has to say but don't have time to scan the whole 8 pages.
Id like to second the call made for a better site search, often when i use the site search it brings up results that im NOT looking for. (i too find myself using google)
Well I just came here to make a suggestion on the site search. I hate asking a question that has been answered before but unfortunately the site search rarely finds what I am looking for so I have to turn to google.
The search experience would be greatly improved by adding the ability to search in a specific forum rather than all of WW.
I took is as being along the lines of a graphical interface to allowing formatting to be applied to posts, and it's something I would agree with 100%! happy! (can never find the dam square brackets on my Spanish keyboard....).
I would second this one as well :). Or even placing the most commonly used style codes like quote,url etc. in the left margin under 'posting guidelines', would help on those days that the brain isnt quite working properly ;).
Keep up the good work, this place is great(despite the minor complaints:)).
Just a couple of ideas...
FIRSTLY... improve the site search as i did a quick search for 'How Did You Find Webmaster World' and it ignored everything apart from 'Did' and I got loads of unrelated results.
SECONDLY... make a 'favourite threads' type thing Or 'threads i'm watching'. So when u go to the homepage there is a box that lists links to your 'favourite threads' (20 max perhaps) and wether theres been any more replies. Also what ShawnR said about email subjects is a good idea.
I also back the idea of having easier formatting for posts.
:) eggy_ricardo :)
Your first point re: the site search is a valid one, but Brett has said that it is a lot of work to produce something good enough - nad so most people around here use the "Search Site" option of the google toolbar - work wonders ;)
This should help: [webmasterworld.com...]
And your second point - you may want to check out your "My flags" option in the control panel. You can "Flag" a post and then track it in your My Flags section of the control panel. And to save you having to go into your control panel everytime, why not create a link to the My Flags page (http://www.webmasterworld.com/stickymail.cgi?action=flags&imode=3) in your "Customer html header" that you can setup through the control panel ;)
wruk999
<edit>typos</edit>
By that I mean it is true you can flag threads, but it may be useful to have that feature slightly enhanced. For example, email notification of posts to flagged threads. How often have you seen someone post something like: "I don't have anything to add, but I'd like to receive email notifications of posts to this thread, hence my post."
