Suggestion for improving the new Forum format

I’ve been noticing that Brownstoner (while a forum I REALLY want to like) has been seeming less and less helpful as things change and get “improved”. I’m not sure what to suggest but the lack of replies to a lot of my legitimate brownstoner posts for help, has led me to consider Brownstoner not as helpful as it could be. There’s also a mean-spiritedness that I have noticed off and on. I tend to prefer, more and more these days, Ivillage’s Gardenweb’s HomeWeb forums for helpful and well intentioned responses and lack of mean-spiritedness. Now, those forums are nationwide and even extend to Canada so that can be helpful to get reality checks from people in other parts of the country – OR it can be not-sufficiently-NYC-specific in replies from people who don’t know enough about NYC real estate/construction issues. It cuts both ways. I often post to both Brownstoner and HomeWeb to see what comes back to me. Most of the time I get a ton of HomeWeb replies and no or a few pidding Brownstoner replies. When I DO get Brownstoner replies often they are helpful, but I always assume now that any Brownstoner reply is gravy. I wish there was a way for the Brownstoner forum to become more active (again?) and more helpful. The changes may be throwing people off. I can’t figure out the new system.

jeanmarine2

in General Discussion 11 years and 10 months ago

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BSDOD | 11 years and 10 months ago

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Balkanization is pretty serious.

BSDOD | 11 years and 10 months ago

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Just noticed the ability to go back to previous pages of forum topics, thanks for listening!

backeast | 11 years and 10 months ago

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A tip for searching – instead of using the search function within Brownstoner, just google “Brownstoner” and whatever topic you are searching for. I find I get better results that way.

SewardWasRight | 11 years and 10 months ago

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I click “Forum” and then I just read.

mousta | 11 years and 10 months ago

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the changes today are a good start to making this better. smaller fonts. shorten that list at the top.

slopegirl | 11 years and 10 months ago

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    string(9) "slopegirl"
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Like button was great!! Helps us all evaluate advice and makes the battles entertaining. Also this new comments system is too “big”. Too much space between comments and it looks weird. Finally I keep having to scroll up to top of post to see how many people are commenting in a post. This used to be at bottom and made a lot more sense (to this reader) when it was at bottom.