Forum Improvements

[Jay]

Just wanted to create a thread so we can continue to discuss improvements we want to see here. Most of what we’ve done so far is visual and style. But here’s some specific changes.
–White space removed so threads are quicker to read.
–Font is larger and bolder.
–Theres a widget on the sidebar that shows the five latest forum posts.
–All external links now open in a new tab so you dont get lost when clicking on an ebay link.
–There’s now a search bar for the blog and the forum on the sidebar. We hope it’ll be easier to mine the site for useful info.
–You can now add your location to your avatar. Just go into your user page and add where you’re from.

Things we’re working on:
–“Back to top Button”. There’s a link at the bottom of the page that takes you back to the top, but we’re trying to make that more useful.
–The mobile version of the forum should work on the phone, but its not. We’re asking the developers about it.
–Some other weird little quirks that probably no one would notice but us.

Anything else?

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hey Jay & Ryanne: I was just reading a few of the posts and something came to mind. Is there a way to have each post date and time stamped or just date stamped? I am thinking about phrases like “last Monday” I bought, or the “weather is perfect now for”, or “these are hot right now buy them if you can find them” and these as some point in the future could be two years old. Or something like the postal rates…, and things like that. I saw a comment a minute ago and then asked myself, well how long ago was that, when it popped into my mind what about when the “NEW” Forum gets some age on it, like months, or years and references to events, activities, call to actions and things like that have no point of reference with regards to dates. Or am I missing something and that is already in place?

Thought I would just flip that up on the table. mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

[Jay]

We could add the timestamp at the bottom of each response. I just felt it was messy and didnt think it mattered.

if people want it, we can add it back.

[Steven S]

I was just thinking that too, a date stamp of when the post was added. Maybe it’s just me but I always look for that when I’m reading forums, givse me a better sense of time and space and where I am, haha.

[Jo]

I agree, a date stamp would be helpful for all of the above reasons.

[Jay]

Okay, since we’ve had this request from three of you, we’ll add the time stamp back.

[Zach]

Can you add a “Follow” button to a discussion thread? We have the option to be alerted to follow up replies if you posted a comment to a thread, but it would be nice to have a follow button to be alerted about new posts in any thread you are interested in, without having to comment.

[Jay]

This already exists, but obviously needs to be more clear.
Instead of “follow”, it’s called “subscribe”.

Just go to the top of a Category page.
Click “subscribe” and you’ll be notified of new thread created.
That’s how I keep track of everyone who’s posting here.

You can also “subscribe” to a thread by clicking the same link at the top of the page.
Sometimes I dont need to comment, but want to follow the conversation.

All your subscriptions will be on your user page, where you can easily unsubscribe at any time. (This is you: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/users/zach)

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hey Jay… Can I bother you for a little more clarification? If you recall I mentioned back when you first chnaged to the forum format that I didn’t think I was getting all of the posts. So I followed your directions at that time, but discovered a couple of things. One it seems at times there is a very long delay in getting the posts into my MS Office Outlook program, which may be an “Outlook” issue, but sometimes it can be a day or so before a posts comes in and at other times it is within a minute or two of the posting.

Next I still don’t get all the posts all the time, unless I go to that “exact” thread and “subscribe to it”. So maybe I am just missing the exact protocol here. If I understood that there are 16 “Forums” you call them. I go to each of those and “Subscribe”, which I have done. That then allowed me to receive notices of “New topics” posted there, but I discovered then I would have to click to that new “topic” and “Subscribe” to that thread. I discovered that some of the posts I missed was because I did not “subscribe” to that “exact thread”. When I did so, then I started receieving all of the posts from that thread. But if I missed a “new topic”, then I do not get any new posts under that topic “until I go there and subscribe to that new topic”. So if I am correct then these is the process to get each and every post.

Go to 16 “Forums” and “Subscribe”. Then go to each of those “Forums” and click on each “topic and Subscribe”. which there are 320 “topics” currently, and that will give me all of the posts. Now I have to watch each time I receive a”New topic Notification” and go to that new Topic and Subscribe. That is how I have been getting most of the posts. But if I miss a New Topic and don’t subscribe, I don’t receive posts from it until I do go and subscribe. Then when I do, it is not retro-active. I only get the new posts from the time I subscribe forward. Any posts prior to my subscribing are not forwarded or picked up in MS Outlook.

So for clarity.. Are you saying all we should have to do is “Subscribe” to the 16 Major “Forums” or am I correct that then we we see a “New Topic” we also then have to go to and subscribe to that specific “Topic” which is 320 at the current time?

Does being signed in or out of SL have anything to do with the forwarding of the most current posts? Maybe the best strategy would be to only follow SL online in real time on my browser but that would mean having to keep a tab open on SL all day long.

Don’t mean to be a brick head here, just want to stay current on all the SL goings on. I am retired and sit at my computer, literally 10-12 hours a day.

Thanks for any clarification or help you can shed… mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

[Jay]

Here’s how it works.

We have Categories, which are the main topics that Ryanne and I create.

Forums

There are also Topics, which are the conversations that anyone can start.

Identification: What is this thing?

You can subscribe to any Category you want to follow by clicking “subscribe” at the top of the page.
–When someone starts a new thread, you’ll get notified by email.
–Then you can either reply to the thread and ask to be emailed with any followup conversation on that thread.
–Or you can visit the new thread, read it, and “subscribe” to that thread to follow the conversation without answering.
–If you do nothing, you will not be notified of any responses on that thread since you may be uninterested.

We also added a widget on the right sidebar that lists the latest five topic posts. This lets anyone jump into new conversations without getting any emails.

This is just the technology we have. So subscribe to the Categories you want, then click the link in the email if you want to further follow that conversation. If not, you wont be bothered any more.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

So I was correct. If at this exact moment I would like to receive all posts I have to subscribe to 320 posts and that will climb every day as any new topics are added. Could be 3, 4, 8 or 10 +/- New Topics added per day, each of which would have to be subscribed to. Which would be approx. 120 to 300 topics a month or over 3,000 topics per year that would have to be clicked and subscribed too.
Thanks, that clears it up. mike in atl.

[Jay]

Yep. I guess the idea is that no one wants to get an email of every single post automatically. Too bad. As the forum owner, I read them all. But I understand that the system is trying to add flexibility.

But you can get notified when any topic is created. Then you can choose to follow it if you want.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Yeah.. a real good example is in the “Who are You” forum. I get a notification email that a new member has signed up. But then after they introduce themselves, I notice they also start small comments, then you or Ryanne reply and a small dialogue follows. If I don’t go directly to the Who Are You Forum the moment I see a new member sign up then I don’t know about the small dialogue that starts to take place. I viewed a few of these a few minutes ago and found that after introducing them selves, they are posting comments but not choosing to go to one of the Major Forums, but posting under their own new sign up area under Who Are You.

An example of what I just discovered under one of the new Who Are You members, they did a post and it talked about their places of sourcing. Seems like that post would have served the community as a whole to be posted under the Inventory Sources Forum. So if I had not have clicked on his Introduction I would not have discovered that he said that “St. Vincent DePaul was trying out a weigh and pay by the pound business model just like Goodwill”. He went on to say that he went there and found very little traffic [competition] and he had almost a half an hour before any one else came in to start scavenging the bins.

That is great news and info. which I am going to call St. Vincent de Paul and see if they have any in the Atlanta area, but it is buried in the Forum of “Who Are You” under his Intro and Name. So I am currently going through every members sign up to the Who Are You Forum and Subscribing to every name listed there. But as you said this is just how it is going to work.

I remember Linda Shields asking a few weeks back how she can NOT GET all the posts and notifications and your directions to unsubscribe. Would be neat if there was also a “Subscribe to Everything Under the Sun” button. Then I just delete what I don’t want within Outlook and save in my SL folders what I want by topic. That’s what I used to do from the old blog. I have over 2,700 “saves” within Outlook about every topic I have found on SL since the day you started and I can search it all. I will never be one to ever ask again, how to ship a hat!!! LOL 🙂 mc in atl.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by MDC Galleries & Fine Art.

[sonia]

“–Then you can either reply to the thread and ask to be emailed with any followup conversation on that thread.”

How exactly is this email request to subscribe to followup conversation supposed to be formatted? I just tried replying with “subscribe” in the message, but it went to noreply@scavengerlife.com and bounced back with a “no such mailbox” error.

I think I have similar requirements to Mike in Atlanta. For me it’s simply b/c I find it a lot easier to follow/read the forum via email – much less clicking around required, and all the messages from a particular thread are nicely grouped together by gmail b/c of the common subject line. It will be a pain to have to subscribe to each thread individually, but probably(?) easier to do it via email reply than by clicking through to the site.

I agree with the request to bring back the timestamps.

[Jay]

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. When you respond to a thread there’s a little check box at the bottom that says “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”.

Or you can also go to the top of the Thread page and click the “subscribe” link. This will then email to any responses without having to actual respond to the thread.

I’ll see if we can’t get some “send me everything” firehose. I’m glad you guys want to read it all!

[Cheryl – The Lynn Company]

Count me in for wanting to read it all! I feel like I’m missing key comments. I have subscribed to everything I can and checked the box, but unless I comment on each individual post under the forum and click the box, I miss follow up comments. In the old format, (if you commented once on the main post and clicked the box), I could get all the comments from the week’s post sent to my inbox. Thanks for all you do…and trust me when I say I’m not complaining…just want to keep up with all my fellow scavengers are sharing.

[Jay]

Understood. I put it on the “to do” list to see if we can’t create a way to get emailed for anything posted.

In the meantime, subscribe to all the categories you;re interested. You’ll at least know when a conversation is started.

[pythonesk]

Gosh, I thought the firehose was sending me everything.

[Linda Shields]

J&R, is there a chance you could fix ir so that after I submit a comment I am returned to where I was instead of being zapped back ip to the top of the page?

[Jay]

I’m pretty sure the forum already works this way. Let me comment here and see where it takes me.

[Jay]

I ended up right at my comment where I left it. Does it not do that for you?

[Linda Shields]

Nope. Zaps me right back to the top every time.

[sonia]

I see the same behavior as Linda. It takes me back up to the top of the page after I submit a comment.

[pythonesk]

I’ve seen this behavior with slow browser speeds. Did you try waiting a bit longer?

[sonia]

Firehose sounds really good, thank you. I seem to be getting emails inconsistently, i.e. I’m not seeing all comments. For example, though I’m signed up for this thread, I didn’t get your “firehose” comment via email. I only saw it because I did get an email with Linda’s comment about getting sent back to the top of the page, wanted to respond, and happened to scroll up. I also didn’t get an email notification of the latest new post/topic in the Podcast Comments category today.

Like the other poster, not looking to complain here, just want to communicate the behavior I’m seeing.

[Jay]

This is good feedback. All we can do is ask our web guy to see what he can do. Keep the suggestions coming. We have a list.

We’re trying to accommodate everyone.
Those who want emails of everything.
And those who to pick and choose what they get.

Are you subscribed to the “Podcast Comments” category?

Weekly Numbers

The subscribe link is right below to the title.

[Jay]

I think we found a way to get an email for anything posted on the forum.
Go to the Subscribe page: http://www.scavengerlife.com/subscribe
Put your email address into the “Forum Firehose”.

And we’ll see what happens.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

I just “Subscribed” and as you say .. “we’ll just see what happens”! I imagine it will be similiar to using RSS Feeds on the old blog. I just hit subscribe to the RSS Feeds each week on the two viedoes that were posted and every “post” then was forwarded to my Outlook. Don’t know how we can really cross reference it except by opening every post on the forum and see if it was also sent to my Outlook. But so far 2 posts have been sent to my Outlook in the past 3 or 4 minutes. Also will see if my own posts like this one is sent over? .. mike in Atlanta

[Linda Shields]

Can someone tell me how tomadd my photo back on my icon? When I click on my name or photo it doesn’t bring up anything. How do I get into my account to change it? I am a confessed techno-tard.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Good Morning Linda:
See if this helps… In the upper right corner of your SL account. The main Page, you will see your Name. Think it says, “Howdy, then your name”. Cursor over your name and you get a drop doen list. High light “Edit my Profile”. Then scroll scroll down [a good distance] and you will see the area for “Profile Picture”, then a small print line under that saying to add or change your picture click this link to go to “Gravatar”. Click that and you open in a new window at the WordPress site. At this point if you don’t already have an account you may wish to read the info. tabs. If not and you have an account, then click sign in.

Then I believe [going fro memory] there is an edit picture on the left side bar or you go straight to it, in any case this will put you where it says, add picture. Find one photo on your computer and add it here.

I think this will get it done for you or at least get you real close.

mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by MDC Galleries & Fine Art.

[Linda Shields]

Okay, I tried. I even managed to get myself kicked off by making myself a “spammer”. So tonight I had my husband–my favorite computer geek–try to put my photo in. He also could not do it. No menu drops down. Even when we go to my profile there is noplace to add/change a photo. He said to tell J&R that they have some broken hyperlinks. Thanks for the help Mike. Hopefully they can get this fixed. I’m not loving the green pixels.

[Dylan]

Time and date stamp on each post would be great.

I like the “Latest from the Forum” section. Is it possible to have ten items there with a smaller font and/or less white space?

Overall, I think it’s been a successful switch-over. I still notice the podcast comments and what sells forum pages becoming catchalls. I wonder if it’s worth trying to get people to post in appropriate topics? I’m not really attached either way. I’ve noticed in organizing other things that having a small number of very broad categories with more sub-categories is helpful when trying to find stuff (I see that you had that in mind). I had to make the categories and then train myself. I’m not sure if it’s possible with a lot of people and categories, but I bet the regulars would give it the ol’ college try…

That was a little vague so let me try an example:

Right now, This is a topic: “Selling on Etsy – Share Your Stores!”
This is where it is:
Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on Etsy › Selling on Etsy – Share Your Stores!

Now, Buying and Selling is definitely a broad category, but since that is pretty much what Scavengerlife is all about it may be a little too broad. Maybe ETSY would be a good broad category with Share your Stores as a sub-category.

Random Thoughts may also be a little broad and maybe unnecessary as Podcast comments and what sold are still catchalls.

Well, just some thoughts.

Thanks for all of the work you two have put in here and thanks to all of the posters. You all have been a big help to me.

~ Happy Holidays

[Jay]

I agree that we could extend the “latest Posts” widget to 10 posts with less white space.
The guy who was helping us with these changes didn’t feel qualified enough to do the very specific changes we were asking. I’m currently looking for an actual BB Press/PHP developer.

As fas as people posting all inn one topic, I think that’s just the nature of the beast. I kind of like the weekly wrap up because we can all come together and share bits of info.

It’s up to each of us to get in the habit of creating new topics if its a specific topic that should be archived on its own.

[Dylan]

Ok. Good to know. As far as categorization, I mainly brought it up because I was thinking organization really helps down the line when people are wading through hundreds of thousands of posts. Even with search, it could be pretty overwhelming without context. Maybe there could be a way to single out especially good info or posts? I know people were originally floating the idea of a ranking system or thumbs up, and some forums have sticky posts, etc… (I know that’s more tech stuff too). Well, no biggie, just thought I’d add to the forum talk about the forum. Like I said before, I’m not really attached either way. I like the weekly wrap-up too.

[Terri]

Add me to those who’d love to see a time/date stamp. I don’t always stay on top of reading everything and it’d be really nice to know if a thread I’m reading is current or something that was discussed a couple of weeks ago. If current, I’m more likely to comment and/or do research.

Thank you!

[Habnab]

Time/date stamp is a great idea!

[ChristineR]

I think this has been requested before, but I would love to see “Latest from the forum” include the next 10 most recent, so total of 20. It might help people remember to use the forum topics too. Thanks.

[Jay]

On the sidebar, we do include a “Latest from the forum”. It’s farther down the page. Is this what you mean? We could try to highlight this somewhere.

[ChristineR]

Hi Jay, I just meant I wish the existing latest list was made longer.

[Jay]

Rynanne, is there a way to tell the “latest pots” plugin to show 20 items inside of just 10?

[AdventureE]

Just a thought to share,

It might be of benefit to have a drop down link titled something like Other Current Threads/Forums right below the last forum/thread on the side bar titled Latest from The Forum. This would allow a user to simply click on the down arrow and go to the forum/thread of interest.

In addition, I don’t think it always comes to mind to go to the top of the page and click on the main forums headings to see all of the categories, threads, and recency. It would be great if right below the Other Current Threads link at the bottom of Latest from the Forum, the main Forums link was available as a drop down menu that did not require a search. This would allow someone to simply click on the Forums drop down arrow and see it as they would if they clicked on the main link titled Forums currently available on the title bar at the top of the page.

[Jay]

I’m not sure I follow. If you could draw out what you mean, we can see if what you say is possible. Just a simple hand drawn diagram with these changes. Ultimately we have to see if WordPress has this kind of functionality.

[AdventureE]

I am not sure how to add a drawing.

This is what we currently see.

Latest from the Forum
Scavenger Life Episode 341: Happy Scavenger New Year!
8 minutes ago
New loophole for buyers to get free items – using multiple guest ids
9 minutes ago
Forum Improvements
16 minutes ago
Amazon FBA and MTC (Multistate Tax Commission) tax amnesty
1 hour, 46 minutes ago
Go Daddy Bookkeeping
2 hours, 2 minutes ago
Scavenger Life Episode 340: We Reconnect with Cyndi from Amazing Taste
4 hours, 18 minutes ago
Sale on Plastic Totes-Bins at Lowes (18 gallon $3.98)
4 hours, 48 minutes ago
Offer Multiple Shipping Options?
5 hours, 44 minutes ago
eBay shipping supplies coupon
5 hours, 46 minutes ago
Items specific
9 hours, 20 minutes ago

This is what would be added at the bottom between the last forum/thread and Archives

OTHER CURRENT FORUMS – (this would be a drop down menu consisting of later threads which would allow a person to access up to the top 20 or more without having to search. It would be all in upper and lower case of course)
FORUMS – (this would be a drop down menu that would show the list shown when we click on the main FORUM link title at the top)

Archives

Here are three links I found on how to do a drop down menu using WordPress
https://youtu.be/x1ZJBBnaHjk
https://wordpress.org/plugins/dropdown-menu-widget/

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by AdventureE.

[Amatino]

Jay, have a look at this site https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/

On the top there, you can see a link titled Recent Posts. If you hit the link, it shows you just a line or two of all the posts that have been posted since you last logged in/going back a certain time frame. The posts are from all different categories in the Forum, but lumped together. Clicking on one post will take you to the post in its own specific category.

I think that’s what folks are asking for. Figured it was best to give you a working example. Apologies for the example, but I don’t follow many other forums for eBay stuff! 😀

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Are these suggestions nothing more than a different way to present Jay’s Daily Fire Hose email. Everyday I get an Email from Jay – ScavengerLife that says “SL Fire Hose”. At the top of it is every comment-post that has taken place within the last 24 hours as a single line title in Bold Blue.

Then if I scroll to the bottom of that single line title listing of “ALL NEW” posts, all of those are shown in full text format.The single line blue title post is a blue link. If I click on the Blue Title line it opens my browser and takes me to that Forum area-topic and there is the whole topic.

Save these daily posts and you can use your “Search Function” to search any and all topics posted on the forum since Jay started sending these out.

This seems to fill my need to find anything or any topic on the SL Forum. But maybe I am missing what else it is you are wanting over having everything posted on SL in chronological order by title and in full text and linked to forum topic – subject. Guess I am confused like Jay.

Hhmmm … mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art

[Utahbill]

That should work. How do I turn on the fire hose?

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Utah Bill: Think you just have to tell Jay you want to be added to the list [I think]. Been getting it every morning for a few years now [again I think]. Jay will chime in a let you know how shortly, I am sure.

mike at mdc in atl.

[Jay]

Anyone can subscribe to our firehose:

Subscribe

You should get an email each day of with a digest of all posts. Not always consistent, but its a free service for us and you.

[Jay]

Thanks for the suggestions and the specific examples on other sites.
I’ll send this to the Scavenger who’s been helping us improve things around here.
Can’t make any promises but these are good ideas.

[Amatino]

Mike, some folks have email out the wazoo and want an easy “fire hose” option on the forum. It’s actually quite a common link on a lot of forums. Type “forum” into Google, browse a few and you’ll see the majority of the bigger ones have this feature. For me personally, I have been culling my email subs just to reduce the influx and couldn’t handle any more, so I have to manually look up all new posts on the forum.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Amatino: In Outlook you can create folders and set up “special rules” for those folders. Any time an email comes into those folders those specific emails will be re-directed out of your main Inbox and re-directed to those folders. I have numerous sub-folders set-up ffor my favorite places and all emails from those go directly to their respective folder. So all of my SL emails are forwarded automatically to the SL folder. All my Ebay goes to the Ebay sub-folder and even broken down further, all sold notices goes to our Ebay/sold folder. Offers from Ebay goes directly into that folder, counter offers into that sub-folder, etc., etc.

Seems like using the “Set Rules” feature would be of benefit. That way all emails from addresses you have a specific interest in goes to their own sub-folders and all that is left in the “main In-bin” are junk or non-important emails whereby they can easily be sorted and deleted.

You can even set a rule for your junk folder and have those deleted automatically with out even looking at them. Also in the Advanced settings you can create a Special Rule that any e-mail that contains a specific word in the body of the E-mail will be routed to a custom folder. I have one set-up for Christine-R. Anytime she posts anything and it comes into my In-bin, it is automatically re-routed to the following SL weekly pod-casts/members/Christine-R, also have one for T-satt, Retro Treasures, Brian from Grandmas.

If you will note, every posts from SL that a member posts it begins with Amatino wrote: etc., etc. The special rule you create will route any of those e-mails to their own custom folder. You can also create sub-folders for your bank name, utility company name, any common word that is consistantly used can be the “key word” used to route and sort all emails into separate folders. Thoise folders acn be broken down several tiers. I can read, follow, sort. organize all SL emails directly in Outlook and don’t even have to open SL in a browser except to enter my own reply. But everything posted can come in and be sorted into their own folders directly from the fire hose and other sources.

Unsure, but seems some work on organizing the global Outlook folders may be of help, or G-mail, etc. But maybe you have already done this and still you get just too many emails in total. And it certainly doesn’t hurt one way or the other to also have it directly on the forum.

As far as what’s already posted I use the search box on the forum and also the windows search function in the open SL tab.

Maybe we are talking two different things and I am way off base on what you are trying to do or look for.

mike at mdc in atl.

[Amatino]

Hey Mike, thanks. Yes, I know about Outlook and Gmail has something different but that works on similar lines. However, while you are trying to be helpful and I do appreciate that, I don’t WANT any more emails! I want to log into the forum and have a quick access “firehose” kind of thread. That way, when I have the time/interest for SL items, I check into SL and browse. When I’m interested in chickens, I go to that forum and hit the Recent Posts. For blogs I use an RSS Reader. I want to reduce my inbox traffic, not add to it. I know that a lot of folks feel the same way about email. I also have seen several folks ask for this feature, so I was trying to give Jay a real-world example to look it up. If he chooses not to add it, that’s his prerogative, and I’ll suffer (wink!) through searching the forum manually. But I still won’t subscribe for any more emails. Thanks, but my email account gets too much stuff already.

Appreciate you taking the time to explain though. You probably helped somebody else with the info. 🙂

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

10-4. Roger that.

[Amatino]

Jay,

This has source code and plug-in information. Thought this might help with the New Posts question that pops up so often.

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/411864-how-to-get-new-posts-have-it-s-own-tab

I’m now reading the posts on my RSS feed, and the problem that I have is that I don’t know where I’m at when I come to the main forum page. What posts have I seen already on the RSS? There’s no quick way to scan if you’ve missed a few days on the forum and only read the firehose. Trust me, if you introduce something like ^ that, you’ll love it!

[Jay]

In our family, Ryanne is the technical expert. I’ll let her check it out and decide if she can implement.

[Author]

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