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
26
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leroysnipt | 11 years and 10 months ago
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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…

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.

BSDOD | 11 years and 10 months ago
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Yea, scrolling back to previous pages was useful

bedstuytownhouse | 11 years and 10 months ago
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I third that suggestion!!!

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.

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.

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!

Arkady | 11 years and 10 months ago
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I agree. Forum posts can be very interesting but only if they’re spread out like a buffet.

brucef | 11 years and 10 months ago
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I agree. I try to share my competencies when I can, but it takes too much time. It is like the new coke. It’s just worse and should be discarded.

eman134 | 11 years and 10 months ago
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i guess mr b is getting out of the blogging business for more profitable ventures

brownstoner | 11 years and 10 months ago
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Thanks for the input everyone. Appreciate it and will try to address.

dnk | 11 years and 10 months ago
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I agree too. Forum functionality and flow are much worse with the new system. The gigantic list of topics at the top of the forum page is confusing. Are these sub-forums or just tags? If they are sub-forums, then threads will be hardly read at all. If they are tags, they are occupying way too much prime real estate at the very top of the page (this, on a real estate blog!) so why not just put them into a drop-down menu like there was before? Also, I find that it’s harder to search (although admittedly the search feature was pretty lousy before this) and I keep getting logged out.

bedstuybrownstone | 11 years and 10 months ago
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Yes, I agree. I think a lot of us are just casual forum readers, we’re not necessarily look for advice by forum topic, we really are just reading for entertainment & for educational purposes.

nalusurf | 11 years and 10 months ago
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Just tried a couple of the Forum topics and in each one I accessed (about 4 total) they all have unrelated topics included. Still seems to have many “bugs.”

Lurker | 11 years and 10 months ago
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For instance, I either can’t or can’t figure out how to reply to comments above directly inline, so referencing someone else’s comment–which happens in this type of forum a lot and is one of the more valuable features in terms of context–is confusing. Disqus is flawed or buggy in many ways, but the idea that you can: read comments quickly, in order, with them updating in real time, and comment on them was a real draw. I say all this as a fond supporter of the site btw. I know the Bs have struggled finding the right formula/balance. Oh, and FWIW I also miss tags near post headlines that state the neighborhood mentioned.

cate | 11 years and 10 months ago
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["site_id":"WP_User":private]=> int(1) }
Our tech team is working on better navigation that will let everyone scroll through topics like before.

MDR | 11 years and 10 months ago
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In the old format I also liked the opportunity to give a thumbs up or down to posts. If somebody gives a great answer its nice to give them a thumbs up, and then the OP knows that there are others that agree with that answer.

dnk | 11 years and 10 months ago
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“thumbs up” to what MDR says!

leroysnipt | 11 years and 10 months ago
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Cate, hopefully, in addition to improving the “scrolling” page feature it would be great if you could also address the other issues/improvement suggestions that have been brought up on this thread. Thanks. PS: Not sure if you will see my comment since the new format creates additional pages for comments over a certain amount….hopefully you will. \