Suggestion for improving the new Forum format

I don’t know about anyone else but it really is annoying that I can no longer skim through all the forum postings by flipping through the “pages” they way we used to. It is just so impractical to have to go to each category topic. Based on the decreased responses to postings I garner that I’m not the only one that is inconvenienced by this new setup. With this being said, would love to know what others who use the forum think, and also would be great to get some feedback from the website administrators. PS: if this topic has already been brought up previously apologies for renewing the issue, but given the new format it is hard to scan through the previous postings…

leroysnipt

in General Discussion 11 years and 10 months ago

26

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26 replies

windsorknot | 11 years and 10 months ago

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This has been mentioned in many threads, and nothing has been said or done to improve it. In fact, the number of categories keeps growing! It’s very frustrating because there is no equivalent source of information anywhere like this forum when it’s working well. Brownstoner, you are damaging your brand!

leroysnipt | 11 years and 10 months ago

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Lurker, you hit it on the head, it is much harder to navigate quickly, and as a result I don’t use the forum as much, if at all. Which is so sad, it used to be such a useful tool for us as a community to exchange ideas and advice and in general become informed on issues that so many of us encounter or may encounter. Nalusurf, thanks for confirming what I was suspecting in terms of postings/response frequency. As soon as the upgrade happened the forum has not been the same. With regards to the search function I had given up on that a long time ago, instead I had “marked” the postings that I found informative for future reference but those disappeared from my profile with the upgrade. So frustrating. This is not an issue of being resistant or complaining about a changed format, rather its about the changed format actually hampering us from using the forum. Let’s hope that our feedback is read and acted upon.

Lurker | 11 years and 10 months ago

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Yeah unfortunately I feel like each successive upgrade of the forum over the past 5 years or so ends up being a functional downgrade in many ways, especially searching old topics. Don’t know if it is reflected in traffic but do feel like this latest one for sure generally has fewer replies and is harder to navigate quickly.

bedstuytownhouse | 11 years and 10 months ago

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I third that suggestion!!!

BSDOD | 11 years and 10 months ago

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Yea, scrolling back to previous pages was useful

nalusurf | 11 years and 10 months ago

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I agree. The whole forum just doesn’t seem to “flow” as well as it used to under the old format. I, too, have found that postings since the format change have not only had fewer responses, but have been fewer in frequency in general. I can’t really put a finger on it, but in general I have just found them less helpful overall and I have not seen much input from the usual, helpful suspects. There was also an issue with the archives that no matter what specific area you searched the site would give you the same postings regarldess of whether they related or not. This has supposedly been corrected, but I have not checked it out as of yet.