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Should we go to a little different board setup? (Read Post in Tech Support)
 Yes, Most of the plans in this post seem like good ideas to make it easier to use  14%  14%  [ 1 ]
 Yes, But Some things mentioned should not be done or done another way.  43%  43%  [ 3 ]
 I dont really care how the boards are set up as long as I can post  14%  14%  [ 1 ]
 No the current organization is fine, nothing should be changed.  29%  29%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 7

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:33 am 
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I have been going to give constructive opinions on this community and forum and these are all just ideas which I have been thinking about for quite a while now.

The navigation on this site is NOT the best, Plus there seem to be too many boards in some places such as audio and For Sale sections.


I always seem to end up in the audio "general" or the selling boards accidently when I want to be in the main area.

I have set up a several forums for personal and business use and the clutter is not a good thing.

This forum is too small for this many boards and I often never get a chance to read all the posts, if there were less boards to look at, It would be easy to read more of them IMO.

What I think would make this site easier to use:

I am thinking 3 main categories in order top of page to bottom:

- Announcements -- Announcements board, Introductions board, Events
- Olds Connection-- -- General, Performance, Mechanical, Your Ride, Audio, Appearance, Off Topic, For Sale
- Connection Tech Support -- this board only

So the layout I was thinking was from top to bottom on the main start page:


Announcements

-- Board Announcements
-- Introductions
-- Events and Meetups

Olds Connection
-- General
-- Performance
-- Maintenance and Mechanical
-- Your Ride
-- Audio
-- Appearance
-- Off Topic Lounge
-- For Sale and Wanted

Connection Support
-- Technical Support


Explanations and Changes:
Suspension posts would need to be relocated to the performance board since it is usually a performance based question. This board IMO should be merged. Only 30 topics would need to be moved, no big deal.

Classifieds needs some major help and should only have 2 boards, For Sale and Wanted, this makes it a lot easier. All topics should be in the 2 boards. Since little is posted in these one board for selling would make it easier.

Audio is the most confusing and largest problem with the navigation. Often I will click a link in the top there and be taken to the Audio Main Page, NOT the main page. Audio should be one board in itself and NOT divided up into seperate boards. I repeat we ONLY need one board for audio related postings.

Events should be set up for different areas of the country, Eastern, Midwest,Southern,Western. Having 4 boards here would allow the meets and events to be put in by area.

Your Ride would be a NEW board to take the posts out of general every time one of us talks about our car. It would be a place to share photos either from the the gallery here or via other sources as well as video clips, sound clips, track times, and whatever else. Also discuss other items that do not fit into performance, or maintence

Maintenance and Mechanical would be a revised board where all problems mechanical or questions about maintenance would be discussed. Post your problem you are having and let us help your troubleshoot sort of thing too would be good.

On the note of the order of main categorys and boards, The most common boards and biggest boards should be near the top of each section.....NOT by alphebetical order. This would help out greatly in itself.

If not mentioned above, each board should only have one board, no sub boards, these make it too complicated to read thru IMO.

Most of this forum is set up real good as the color scheme is good, the idea of having cars in the side next to your profile is good, the layout is pretty good as well but the organization of the boards is what needs improvment.

Keep in mind 1/2 of the members here DO NOT HAVE MORE THAN 1 POST, this I believe is partially caused by the tough organization of the boards.

Here is my proposed Idea for the new system with all the boards and sub boards, this is also the order I think it would be best in:


Announcements

-- Board Announcements
-- Introductions
-- Events and Meetups
- ___Northern
- ___Southern
- ___Eastern
- ___Western

Olds Connection
-- General
-- Performance
-- Maintenance and Mechanical
-- Your Ride
-- Audio
-- Appearance
-- Off Topic Lounge
-- Classfieds
- ___For Sale
- ___Wanted

Connection Support
-- Technical Support


This organization improvement is the most important aspect to the site to look at right now. It would also be good if the site was promoted more, meaning....lets recruit people from sounddomain and others....

I have my own opinions and I have contributed to a lot of forums and I see what is easy to navigate and what is not.

I sort of streched this post out a bit too much and it is long but hopefully It does make sense. I think doing some of what I said would make this site easier and better to use for every member. I hope some of the ideas will be implemented. Be sure to explain your thoughts and vote.



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:27 am 
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Hans wrote:
Events should be set up for different areas of the country, Eastern, Midwest,Southern,Western. Having 4 boards here would allow the meets and events to be put in by area.

Do you really think we need a whole section for this? we've never had a meet and no one's really planning on having one in the near future.... heck, we can't even get more then 3 people together once a week for chat nite! :lol:

Hans wrote:
Keep in mind 1/2 of the members here DO NOT HAVE MORE THAN 1 POST, this I believe is partially caused by the tough organization of the boards.

Isn't that typical of alot of boards? I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have more members posting, but I'm not suprised by your statement.

Hans wrote:
It would also be good if the site was promoted more, meaning....lets recruit people from sounddomain and others....

This has been done alot, in fact that's how I was recriuted. I bet there aren't many Oldsmobile sites on Cardomain that don't have a message from Brando, myself, or some other TOC member in the guest book inviting them here. (although I haven't realy looked recently)
do you have any other specific ideas for promotion?

Hans, you have some good ideas. We'll see what Brando thinks, because... well... it's his site. :lol:



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:24 pm 
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Hi Hans, hello all

I don't have any complaints concerning this site.

If I did, I would do one of the following:

I would not return, as happened with three other "Olds" sites I visited during the last 7 years. One because it was actually hard to navigate.

If I thought I needed to suggest any "improvements" to someone elses site, I would have the courtesy to communicate with the owner via PM.

If I thought I could do better, I'd start my own site.

And if I were the owner of a site that had that message posted I would send the poster a PM.

Quote:
..........because... well... it's his site.

As a matter of fact: Last night I would have used the PM feature re: the oversized (and poor quality) image, but thought it appropriate to remind all about the common courtesy involved when posting to these forums.

I'll save comment on the oversized and offensive sigs for another time. :lol:

Regards, Norm


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:30 pm 
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Anonymous wrote:
Hi Hans, hello all

I don't have any complaints concerning this site.

If I did, I would do one of the following:

I would not return, as happened with three other "Olds" sites I visited during the last 7 years. One because it was actually hard to navigate.

If I thought I needed to suggest any "improvements" to someone elses site, I would have the courtesy to communicate with the owner via PM.

If I thought I could do better, I'd start my own site.

And if I were the owner of a site that had that message posted I would send the poster a PM.

Quote:
..........because... well... it's his site.

As a matter of fact: Last night I would have used the PM feature re: the oversized (and poor quality) image, but thought it appropriate to remind all about the common courtesy involved when posting to these forums.

I'll save comment on the oversized and offensive sigs for another time. :lol:

Regards, Norm


Hey,
you're not logged in 88coupe...eh, I'll change that. :lol:

I'm glad Hans brought this to my attention, as I do believe it was a little over done on organization, and needed a little a simplifying, which I have done.

I decided not to do a couple things:

* east, west, north, south events? seems to defeat the purpose of simplifying the message board.

* your ride forum, General seems to take car of this area.

That is all. Let me know if you like the new layout. 8)

Thanks,
TOC Admin
Brando


Last edited by Brando on Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:59 pm 
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I like the new layout so far, good work Brando
also: should i just post links to my pics or is posting IMG OK?
I dont want any 56Kers to get annoyed and stop looking at the site or anything. let me know ok brando?
thanx James



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:02 pm 
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Turbocharged400sbc wrote:
I like the new layout so far, good work Brando
also: should i just post links to my pics or is posting IMG OK?
I dont want any 56Kers to get annoyed and stop looking at the site or anything. let me know ok brando?
thanx James


you can use the IMG tags...just keep them around 800x600 or less.

TOC Admin
Brando



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:08 pm 
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Hi Brando, hello all

Quote:
........... I'm glad Hans brought this to my attention ..........


PM is the proper way to make suggestions.

My previous post might apply less to this thread than I intended, but the post itself is valid.

Regards, Norm


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:13 pm 
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Anonymous wrote:
Hi Brando, hello all

Quote:
........... I'm glad Hans brought this to my attention ..........


PM is the proper way to make suggestions.

My previous post might apply less to this thread than I intended, but the post itself is valid.

Regards, Norm


you did it again.... :lol:
You posted as a guest, guess I'll fix that one too. :wink:

Yes, PMs would work, but since this is a suggestion forum also, it is the proper place for it.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:36 pm 
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Hi Brando, all

By continually kicking me off, are you trying to give me a hint? :lol:

Quote:
............ it is the proper place for it ..............

If the owner/administrator opens it up, it's a different can of worms.

I don't see any changes as I only use the recent posts (which are no longer moving), viewed since your last visit, and sometimes the search engine.

My vote above is not valid as none of the above actually fit my opinion, and voting was not the intent of my post.

Regards, Norm



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:44 pm 
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88 Coupe wrote:
By continually kicking me off, are you trying to give me a hint? :lol:


Is that what's it doing? I checked your IP, they stay consistent (first two sections). So it must be something up with your browsers cookies? Haven't had any problems here with Firefox or IE.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:46 pm 
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88 Coupe wrote:
recent posts (which are no longer moving)


yes, I stopped them from moving because I believe you said that they wouldn't stop in Firefox if you hovered your mouse over them like in IE. So instead of playing "shoot the link" games, you can just view them all and take your time clicking. :lol:

:wink:

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:04 am 
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You are right about the north south east west thing...I was pretty bored taking a brake off of that early morning studying lol.


The improvements are: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:27 am 
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Quote:
By continually kicking me off, are you trying to give me a hint?

Joking.
Quote:
Is that what's it doing?........ must be something up with your browsers cookies ..........

You said I wasn't logged on. As far as I know, I've been logged on and composing messages for about 5 1/2 hours.

Your cookies are accepted, any advertisers are not. Settings are unchanged from my first visit.
Quote:
........ you said that they wouldn't stop in Firefox if you hovered your mouse over them like in IE ...........

That was fixed shortly after I mentioned it. I thought you fixed it.
I should have thanked you at the time. :oops:
Might have been an improvement in a new FF release at about the same time.

Regards, Norm



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:36 pm 
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The Chat DOES NOT WORK with ff1 but everything else on the site seems to work fine



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:32 pm 
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Hans wrote:
The Chat DOES NOT WORK with ff1 but everything else on the site seems to work fine


Firefox 1.0?
Just tried it out and it works GREAT! :wink:

You probably need a Java Plug-in:
http://dlc.sun.com/jdk/j2re-1_4_2_07-windows-i586-p.exe

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Brando



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