To give them credit I think I'm beginning to see why they completely separated the discussion forums from the marketplace.
My browser brings up all the new threads when I come to BLF but half of it isn't about flashlight discussions. It'a all about GroupBuys or venders posting spam about plug-in lights for your car cigarette lighters or just spam in general.
It gives the appearance sometimes that this is just a forum for discount bulk buying services.
I know it's what some of the members want and what members want members should get.
For those of us not so into dealing with vendors on a daily basis it's not the ideal set-up IMO.
If there was a separate Marketplace then it would be invisible to those of us who don't care and who wouldn't be going into the Marketplace. Now the whole BLF seems to predominately be about DD.
It could be just as simple of only allowed a seller to post in the sellers forum, if they don't, move it there. Then if you can set the recent post page that we all start out on to not include posts from the sellers forum that would do the trick.
Anyone interested in buying would have to go to that forum.
I dunno, somedays, I think this forum is nothing but a "Hello, I'm new here" forum. It depends which forums are the most active since the Home Page is just a summary of the most recent posts from all the BLF forums.
And while we're on the topic of board improvement, is there any way we can put all the stickied reviews in a subfolder that's stickied on top? This way, we don't have to scroll all the way down to see the regular posts. And in the case of the 18650 forum, the 2nd page has regular posts.
I think that's a bad idea . CPF is hard to navigate and a pain to have to sign in just to get to 3 different sections of one site .I'm sure lots of people have left for that reason alone .
When CPF members show up on the doorstep of BLF looking for asylum I understand their wanting to vent about the ill treatment they recieved at the hands of mean old moderators .What I hate though is the baggage they bring with them.
I always start with the forum page instead of the front page. I miss some new threads, but then I just go visit my usual subforums. I'll check in on some of the others from time to time.
I agree that something needs to be done about all the stickied reviews. I think the reviews are a great strength of this forum, but you're right about the 18650 forum. People use the reviews as a way to discuss a particular light, just like other threads in the forum, so it seems like the belong together. I don't know how to handle that. Maybe a sticky post with links to all the reviews in that forum? And maybe sticky the 5-10 most recent and/or most recently active reviews? That would take more admin work to do that.
while i don't necessarily support the idea of having multiple sign-in sections on BLF, i don't think it'd be as annoying here as it is on CPF. BLF doesn't log people out every five minutes like CPF does.
Okay, this would actually be a good opportunity to designate this a BLF improvement thread. I actually share some of the stated criticisms. But the thread title should definitely be changed if that happens. We need to be careful about becoming overly obsessive of CPF :D
Although, I must say I'm rather comfortable using the home page as an overview of all the new posts and I wouldn't want that to go away. I really like that concept, however, I can see it getting out of control as the forum grows and posts flow in at a more rapid pace. When that time comes I think it would be great to retain the same concept but exclude the "off topic" type forums because I would still want to group all of the new flashlight related posts together in one list. I do a agree about the review threads taking up too much real estate. They need their own space all together.
I like this idea but I'm glad I'm not Mr. Admin who would have to do this. It would be a lot of work. Since we have one a admin/moderator/boss(or where I come from "heid bummer" which probably doesn't mean what you think it does :-) ) (Who does an excellent job BTW!)
I'd not like to have to make him do more than he already does. If it is possible to programatically split out the reviews from everything else and display them separately - maybe in an RSS feed or something then go for it. If not, just be grateful for this wonderful place.
BTW Ted this is in no way aimed at you - you have contributed more than most and I always read your reviews as they are always worth reading.
As I'm still catching up, I use the front page, but tend to use the forum page once I've caught up.
Well.. the admin already manually "stickies" the review threads so it would be as simple as placing them in another sub-forum or such. But I agree that we don't need to put any more burden on our single admin/poster.
For me, the front page is great and I would hate for it to go away. I don't normally come to BLF with a particular purpose in mind and the overview of new threads often reveals topics I find interesting and would have not thought of looking for in a specific forum. The new posts may become too numerous for this at some point, but presently I hope the front page stays.
I think the front page "BLF Recent Posts" is extremely important so that we can see new topics in all categories with a quick glance. Even spam posts have sometimes resurrected a nice old post that we have forgotten about by bringing it to the top of the Recent Posts list, and legitimate users have continued the discussion. We won't be removing it any time soon. Of course if you don't like to navigate via the Recent Posts, you can always use http://budgetlightforum.com/forum
The BLF Recent Posts list can be easily filtered by forum category, which is one of the major advantages of using Drupal as the forum core. I've been thinking of not showing posts from Off-topic Chatter on the Recent Posts list. If most agree, I could also filter out the Introductions category posts and the Commercial Sellers' Spot posts. Although I personally think that the friendly responses to the posts in the Introductions category are a very nice feature of BLF. Or, I think I can even expose the filter to the public so everybody can show/filter whatever categories they prefer. But we would still have to keep an eye on all the categories to keep spammers at bay.
I really appreciate the help of all our users at weeding out the pure spam posts. It really takes a load off me and allows me to, well, sleep from time to time. :) As for the annoying sellers... please tell them that they are being irritating, or vote with your wallet by not buying from them. Many of you are very patient and kind with the sellers by suggesting where they should put their posts, and this "moderation" is always appreciated. It should be noted that users can move their posts to a different forum category by clicking the "Edit" button on the first post and selecting the correct forum from the dropdown menu.
I like the Front Page and no one is suggesting multiple passwords like CPF. I'm suggesting that it would be nice if an individual user could choose what forums feed to the front page.
Many forums let you subscribe to certain topics my idea would be to just let the individual member describe which forums feed to front page on their individual frontpage.
If someone is too annoying on Facebook I can hide them as far as the Favebook news feed. You can block indicidual users if they are annoying. As the site gets bigger it's helpful for an individual user to have more control over what they see each day.
This also eliminates ever having to ban someone. WHen someone is rude enough each individual has the option to just block them as it relates to their personal interaction.
Mr. Admin: Personally, I like having the off-topic chatter pop up for me. It adds to the colour of the place, and makes some of these pirates seem a little more personable (or homicidal, as the case may be)
I have no idea what i'm talking about here ..so I'll ask ...
Is there a way to shadow the posts from filtered threads Where they are readable ,clickable but apparent that they are ones that you've decided to ignore .by shading them differently ?.
I might not want to watch all the... "Deal alert " threads ... but if suddenly i can still see there are 100 replies in an hour ..then I'm not missing out on "free batteries for life" or 3$ xmldrop ins ...Again i have no idea how this forum /program works ..it's all magic to me :P
I think the sign in thing and seperating people into small unrelated groups or splitting the site up is the kiss of death .CPF shot themselves in the foot with this one .I think things that build unity and commonality are the things that make the place grow .Splitting the herd probably isn't a great idea .
I don't think anyone on here has suggested (or would) splitting up the groups or having separate sign-ins.
I think the forum feed should be able to be controlled by the user. You click a box that say all recent forum posts should go to the news feed or you only click specific forums that you want to see in the news feed. Easy.
You can always go directly to the specific forums and read all the posts if you want to.
It's just a way to ignore all the subjections you have no interest it (commercial transactions and related follow-up, spam, whatever).
A user block feature would be nice as well (not absolutely necessary). I would probably rarely use it but it allows rude posters to stay rather than be banned and yet allows others control over whether they want to listen to it.
