Hi everyone

Thanks for many of you for providing valuable suggestions for improving the forum by numerous pms.. (and welcoming me very warmly..)

I am starting this thread for us to discuss any ideas and suggestions for improving this site.. This does NOT mean we are trying to change things for the sake of change..if we all feel everything is ok as it is, thats fine! As I said, I have an open mind about these and respect the fact that lot of you know much more than me.

Here is a summary of ideas we have got so far (forgive me if I missed any and add it here please..)

1. More features on the forum program - improved user friendliness and other features like better pms, more areas of forum etc.,

Solution: Vbulletin : Update: Done


2. Information pages/advice pages/trouble shooting info - many of you suggested this. No one is against it so far.

Solution: Various ways we can do this.
Option 1: A website where this forum will be part of. (But then, it makes sense if whichever is bigger should be the main part of the site..for example if forum is bigger, then the website will be secondary)

Option 2: A wiki or a blog - with trouble shooting articles and information.

Update: The CMPS we have installed now should go some way to do this.

3. Product reviews:

Mixed views on this. Some feel it is feasible and some feel it is difficult. We will discuss this further.! If we decide for it, then the options are a blog, wiki or simple web pages.

Pros: It will be useful for a lot of people who dont know much about these products - even if we are slow in adding reviews due to lack of time. It would also help information be categorised separately. (For example, I saw a brilliant post by syphus about AMD vs intel processors, which is too good to be hidden in the midst of threads)

Cons: Time consuming.

Update: We can use the CMPS to do this. If we need, we can add some other plugin later.

What resources do we have?

It is nice that we have many people here who are willing to contribute and share their knowledge on this forum. This is our main strength.

As I said, this is just to have a constructive discussion - if we all feel nothing needs fixing because nothing is broke - thats fine!

Cheers (I will try to avoid long posts in future!

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UK Broadband Comparison site : ISP Reviews, comparison and News.

A troubleshooting section would we nice. Syphus has written a rather comprehensive post for newbies, so it would be a good place to start.
I think a similar post is need for Spyware ans stuff like that as it is so common. Perhaps we could then group them into a separate section and divert all newbies to it upon registration. It would save a lot of time typing the same post over and over.

Product reviews would also have to include up to date products which could be a problem. Maintaining consistency would be difficult, also do we want to turn into a review site? I just don't think it is viable.

I think a Reveiw section would be good...

I don't think it would turn the forum into a reveiw site, I think it would just help out somebody who was wondering wich graphics card to get or which laptop not to buy etc.

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Review section:

It doesnt have to interfere with the forum - it will just be another section of the site..(like we have the portal now)

We possibly cant review all the products and keep uptodate with everything. But even if we do some reviews when we can, it is better than nothing. We have lots of tips re products here and there. If there is a review section it can be catgorised and easily accessible. Same goes for the article/advice/troubleshooting section. These things will definitly help newbies and people who come for the site for information.

The main problem with sticking only the forum format is, good articles/advice can easily get hidden in the midst of 1000s of threads - which usually leads newbies to come and post similiar "how to" questions over and over again. I have seen numerous excellent posts by people like syphus which deserve more exposure and easy visibility than what they have now.

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UK Broadband Comparison site : ISP Reviews, comparison and News.

I agree. Anyway I'm desperate to write a review of my laptop.. Warn people buying an Acer is a stupid thing to do. >

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Reviews is certainly something people seem to want...

I'm a little bit cynical about this though. I could write a big explanatory rant about how the quality of internet reviews has depreciated exponentially in recent years...but instead I think anyone who supports the idea should ask themselves this: Can I sufficiently test and compare this product, without bias; and can I present it in a well written, comprehensive and informative review? I'm fully in favour of a board where people can post links to offsite reviews.

homerj's idea could be manifest in a board where quality threads can be linked and maybe even consolidated. One of the realities of a forum is that people do not search for answers or read the posts which say "READ THIS FIRST!". On other forums, members just get aggressive about it and insult newbies. Linking to old threads is just as easy; having them all in one place would make it even easier.


MidiMoto -

I've been trying to warn people away from Acer, IBM, Foxconn, Leadtek, Axper, AsRock, Dell...etc for years. While they price is competitive, trust me, your words will fall on deaf ears. Even if you do warn them off Acer, they'll just buy a BenQ instead (same people.).

You have a point. Somebody warned me off Acers too. But I knew best..

Baddly written reviews wont make people change what they are going to spend there money on..

Plus once I have written a reveiw on a Laptop i'd be stuck... I could write a review on a graphics card

"It slottledded IN n' it is gud!11"

Thats probably the best I could do.

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If I have helped you, please consider donating a little cash to Cancer Research UK

I can understand why you are being a bit sceptica re reviews Syphus..

I dont think I have seen ANY site where things are reviewed PERFECTLY - without ANY bias and comparing it with ALL the other products. this would be impossible. However much of an expert you are and have all the money in the world, you can only do to a certain extent.. and even if you do a near perfect job spending hours on comparing products, it will only be a few days or weeks before newer products or newer technologies make your reviews not so perfect.

Reviews are essentially perceptions of the writer based on their experience and knowledge of the product. Some people know better than others, so the quality will inherently vary..

A reviewer is only expressing his views or opinions on a product. When someone buys a product, it is upto the individual to read a few reviews, (some will be from people like syphus, some from homer, some from computwiz, some may be from a person who is a great fan of dell because that is the only brand he ever used..) and make up their mind.

We wont and cant claim with any of our reviews saying "this is THE review and you should make your mind up based on it" .. People are savvy, they read many reviews and make up their mind.

But should these things (there is bound to be variation in quality, we can only review some products and not all, someone in the know may not agree with a review written by someone who doesnt know anything etc) put us off sharing our views or experiences of products or expertise on anything with others?

I never had an acer, but until syphus says it here, I dont know. Now I will be sceptical re Acer. (I wouldnt take it as seriously if a newbie says it). If people know the forum and whose reviews are to be taken seriously, then they will know how to weed out a biased review.

I am not saying we will let the standards slip, I am just saying all sorts of people can express their opinions in reviews which we dont have to agree with..

I am playing around with various formats of reviews/other improvements (example www.laptopreviews.org.uk - to get an idea of how a review thing in a blog format work) - but i havent decided anything yet.

(Syphus, that site is only a trial thing with a couple of test posts from a friend - so ignore the content)

Anyway, as I said, we will discuss this and decide and have an open mind until we discuss everything further.

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UK Broadband Comparison site : ISP Reviews, comparison and News.

Re ability to link to other good reviews - thats absolutely fine, thats the way it should be. We wont claim to be an expert site in every field re computers. If I write my review and find 3 great reviews on say pcmag or cnet, I can also provide links in my review to those reviews.

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UK Broadband Comparison site : ISP Reviews, comparison and News.

A section dedicated to a few reviews sounds fine. I don't like the idea of well written posts being lost forever! I think we would be limited by what we can review though, if a new product is released we won't be getting a free sample unlike say Ars. So the section would ultimately be limited by what the contributors own or have owned.This would make it small. This would then need to be supplemented by links so there would be more links than written reviews.

Aside from that, I'm hugely infavour of a newbie help section describing and troubleshooting the ususal problems, we probably have enough material for that hidden in the posts!

Perhaps what we're looking for is a new Section, say Resources, with a Reviews and FAQ board...

It might be a good time to think about restructuring some of the existing boards. We have a somewhat disproptionate spread of posts; some boards are barely used.

For example, under the Computer Operating Systems - General Software and Software Development section, we could easily stand to consolidate Windows XP Home and Pro Forum and All other Windows OS Forum into Microsoft Windows, while the others could be unified into Alternative Operating Systems. This is not exactly fair on Linux, BSD etc, but there are 0 posts in the BSD board...I doubt many people even know what BSD is (this is especially clear by the fact that Linux and Unix are one board, while BSD has it's own; BSD has much more in common with Unix than Linux does. Hell, Max OS X has more in common with Unix as it actually is BSD).

Again under the The Computer Forum Social Lounge General Chat (Not Computer Related) section, we have the parent of The Chat Zone, Chat Zone One and Newbie Chat Zone. They may as well all be combined into something like Public Lounge.

I'd also suggest that perhaps Optical Drives should be part of the existing Hard Drives board, and that emphasis should also be placed on External HDDs, since there has been some confusion. Similarly, Monitors could be made part of the Video Cards board. There isn't also a particularly clean distinction at first, which can lead to someone's initial guess leading out of board scope.

Too many boards often leaves people wondering where the hell to post, so it's not uncommon for the post to start with "I didn't know where to put this". Rather than make them uncomfortable about making a mistake, it's probably better that the boards are broader in their descriptions.

If these ideas don't seem too frightening to people, we could all work out a way to reduce and consolidate existing boards.

Re restructuring Syphus, yes, I fully agree with it. Absolutely fine. The question is are we better off changing the forum program to vbulletin or gossamer threads forum or something like that. If we are, then should we wait until we get the new program.

I have checked out vbulletin - it seems like we can transfer most forum data to from SMF to VB if needed.

Yes, the resource section would be nice with FAQs. We may be better off to try and keep things visible from the main site so its easier to find for newcomers..

Like links for

RESOURCES PRODUCT REVIEWS TROUBLESHOOTING (or FAQs ..whatever we want to call it)

something like these from the main pages ..rather than

RESOURCES
(under which there will be reviews and other sections)..so for a first time visitor, it is immediately visible from the main forum that there are reviews etc on our site)

Essentially, 2 or 3 more sections with links from main forum site are what I gather we are talking about.

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UK Broadband Comparison site : ISP Reviews, comparison and News.

I'm not a big fan of having boards inside boards. It's too many hoops for people to jump through - out current layout would work if the boards were combined here and there. I suppose that when Loz, Eric, early Admins etc were working on this, they didn't know what sort of post distribution would occur.

I'm pretty indifferent on the forum engine. If people really want to change from SMF...whatever. As long as I can click reply, type a bunch of rubbish in a box and post it, that's all I really care about. My only objection to changing engines is database portability; which you seem to have a handle on.

The software and open chat boards have been reorganized

• There are no longer child boards, so you don't need to jump through hoops to get anywhere
• The Windows XP and Other Windows boards have been combined into Microsoft Windows XP, 2003 and Legacy Versions
• MacOS, Linux and BSD boards have been combined into Alternative Operating Systemsp. Sorry if you're a *nix fan, I know this is a very Microsoftian move, but nearly everyone on the forum uses Windows...
• There is a new Vista board that will cover Vista and other emerging technologies such as DirectX 10, Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11
• Chat Zone and Chat Zone One have been combined into General Chat Lounge
• Our old Site Problems board has been clarified, and is now Site Problems, Concerns, Suggestions and Announcements
• Boards that don't have a specific or focused topic are now called Lounges
• All the boards have new descriptions that should help clarify them
• Because of disuse, Search Engine "Submit Me" Service and it's child have been hidden. This services was provided by Loz, and we have yet to determine the situation. homerj is working hard on unravelling Loz's setup right now and will have a solid position for us on this soon.

Feed back is highly valued!

the Hardware Zone is next in line for a shuffle

Nice, find it easier to browse now

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A few more changes

• The old Monitors/Optical Drives has been split and combined with HDDs and Graphics to produce Data Storage Hardware and Graphics and Display Components
• Disambiguation between external and internal hard disk drives, now covered by Data Storage Hardware
• Minor changes in board names and descriptions in the Computer Hardware Zone and Networking and Security Zone

How about the re-introduction of avatars?

Once you reach 15 posts, You can add an avatar.

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Signatures, profile pictures and other options are also enabled once you have 15 posts

A troubleshooting section sounds like a great idea. and so does the review section .

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