What Do You Want Added To The BYC Forum & Site?

[BeckyLa]

Rob, imho, I think one reason more folks haven't come over is because we/they are not really being encouraged to. There was a great deal said in the beginning but much of it was over the holidays when folks have other things on their minds or were gone altogether. I see lots of folks on there now that I hadn't seen in a long time, they might not even know what's going on. I still think there should be a banner or sticky encouraging folks to come here even if they cross post. Yes, some are stuck in their ways but they'll come with encouragement. Others are still waiting for chat, etc, and they'll come in time. And when you can transfer threads, history, and archives to here even more people will come. They'll follow the info and their friends.

teapot smiley

 

[dlhunicorn]

Quote:
...teapot smiley....stuck in their ways.... yes I agree...it is the little things that make all the difference!

 

[BeckyLa]

Yes, dl, it's the little things that make all the difference. Stuck in my ways? Me? Naaaa.

Rob, I don't know if it's been mentioned, but we need a forum for Chickenstock. It's getting to be that time of the year for planning these wild parties!

And about my teapot smiley.......

 

[Chicken_Lover]

Others are still waiting for chat, etc, and they'll come in time. And when you can transfer threads, history, and archives to here even more people will come.

Becky, From what I'm reading, the way the forum is right now is basically the way it's going to be. Except for the awesome people here, it's ho-hum like every other board. It seems silly not to transfer some of the good information from the other board. I guess it is felt that non-active members will come back just to repost things that are in the archives, coops and such.

People don't like chat, that is why people are in it everyday on EZ. No one uses PM's or emotions either. (yes this is sarcasm)​

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
I hope that was sarcasm too because it's very far from true. New features are being added, that's exactly why I have started this topic!

New features are coming, but I'm not going to just throw stuff at this board and hope it sticks. If people want all the bells / whistles without them being tested first and a slow / unreliable forum where one day you come by and notice you can't login or all your posts have been deleted... well, there's this place called ezboard you should check out

Anyway, custom smilies is coming. PM is coming. Chat is coming. I can't promise when, but those things are guaranteed. There will be other things on the way, but keep in mind, this forum is almost exactly 1 month old (not very old at all). There have been a lot of tweaks and customizations going on (ask my wife... I don't sleep much). Some you will see, but others are behind the scenes... for example:

The other day I deleted the whole entire forum... every single thread and post. Why? to test my backup system that I had laboriously setup which does the following:

1) Create a daily copy of the existing forum database and compress it to a zip file
2) Leave a copy on the local server and send a copy to another server about 1,000 miles away to another server.
3) Sends a copy onto my local computer

Basically, there are three copies of every day's data on three computers all over the US.

Well, the backup / restore went perfectly and everything was back up in 5 minutes and guess what... nobody noticed. (how cool is that).

A few quick specifics:

1) Chat: If I installed a chat and knew that would bring / convert over all the people using chat at BYC, I'd do it. I've learned a lot about this group, and that change is hard. I don't need to setup a chat to compete with the other chat (that would just hurt both forums). What I would do (haven't run it by Cindi) is build a chat here, test it, let members use both, then close the chat at ezboard. Again, it doesn't make sense to have 2 chats. People can visit two boards, but you can't chat in two places very well.

2) Transfer Threads: This is definitely possible, but why do it? Most of the old threads never get posted and are being deleted. New threads are being created all the time. Also, Cindi has about 1-2 years paid for at ezboard and they won't refund her money. So, if that board will remain open, why have the data in two places? Again, if I thought transferring all the data would make a huge difference in moving people from the other forum, I would do it.

So, in a nutshell, I think most people still go to ezboard because of habit. If people could prove to me that by doing any combination of things would guarantee that everyone would move over here and stop visiting ezboard... I'd do it! It's that simple. But in all honesty, unless chat was closed, ads were put up on ezboard, and threads were locked, people won't be "compelled" to move.

 

[Chicken_Lover]

Anyway, custom smilies is coming. PM is coming. Chat is coming. I can't promise when, but those things are guaranteed. There will be other things on the way, but keep in mind, this forum is almost exactly 1 month old (not very old at all).

It wasn't sarcasm, HOWEVER this is the first indication that you are going to add these features. Before, all I read was these were 'under evaluation' and would 'slow the site down', which sounded like a small chance of implementation.

One month, sorry, I guess I'm a tad impatient. (I'm a go-getter webmaster)

Response to your quick specs...
1) Not installing chat (or other things) gives people NO choice but to use EZ.

2) It wasn't indicated to transfer 'active threads' but archives and important info. For instance, the coop pictures.

If people could prove to me that by doing any combination of things would guarantee that everyone would move over here and stop visiting ezboard... I'd do it!

Prove, guarantee!? The idea is make the forum more inviting so people WANT to come to this board instead of EZ.
Treat it like a business, what would draw 'customers'? Take a fast food place for example. When they want to draw customers back, they add something new to the menu.

I bet if you add a teapot emotion, you get at least one happy 'customer' returning more often.​

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
Haha... funny you should mention this as I've got the teapot.gif sitting on my desktop as my first test!

You've got good points, thanks for sharing them. Believe me, I'm an impatient webmaster too, but I've seen what can happen with poor planning / lack of upfront preparation (see footnotes: BYC.com being down for months and ezboard loosing all posts).

Chat is tricky. I've already tested 4 chat applications with board members. In all cases people either complained about too many features or too few features (seriously). Also setting up a good chat client that is tied into the login of the forum isn't easy.

Hey Chicken_Lover, if you're up to the challenge, I'd love to have someone work on exporting / importing the archived posts from ezboard over to punbb. If you're interested, shoot me an email.

 

[BeckyLa]

Uh, so sorry. Didn't mean to get something started. I was just askin....

Chicken Lover, haven't you noticed how many times I've posted? It doesn't take one silly emot to keep me coming back here.

Now, back to my origional question addressed to Rob:

Rob, I don't know if it's been mentioned, but we need a forum for Chickenstock. It's getting to be that time of the year for planning these wild parties!

 

[Chicken_Lover]

Chicken Lover, haven't you noticed how many times I've posted? It doesn't take one silly emot to keep me coming back here.

You mean the "100" times you have asked about the teapot. I don't think anyone has missed this

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Hey Becky... where did you get that smiley? Do you happen to have a "cleaner" version of it?

Anybody got Photoshop / Graphical skills to clean up the teapot smiliey (it has a lot of blurred pixels, etc.)