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Just been reminded of a point by a certain poster on another thread.
Is it possible to ban some members from certain threads? I can think of 2 threads that have descended into farce that would never have done if this was implemented by the mods.
JohnsonsEvilTwin wrote:By becoming "elitist" I think this site will lose alot of what makes it great.
It's not about making it elitist, it's about keeping the technical threads technical, allowing engineers to talk to each other or explain things to others, without ending up with an endless-discussion-thread.
Hence I'm curious to know what others think about requiring mod approval for posts in the car threads...
Rather have the ability to lock posters out of threads who have displayed no contribution to the thread. 3 strikes and you are out.
Simple effective clinical.
About the little red or white icons that identify posts and threads as read or unread, the ones that are clickable for "first unread post":
They are very useful for people like me that read virtually all posts, at least to browse through them just in case they have any content.
But when posts are moved from thread to thread (and I support this to keep some logical order), all the moved posts automatically become "unread". I personally would prefer the "read" or "unread" state to not change when the posts are moved.
o.k. - I think mod approval for every post (while nice), would be a bit "overkill" and probably not managable, purely on a workload basis for the mod´s.
But how about mod approval for opening a new thread?
That should go some way to "keep the house clean&tidy", and would prevent, that threads need to be moved to other parts of the forum, as the mods can make sure it get´s posted in the correct section to start with.
Another suggestion, would be, to change the structure of the site somewhat ( I know it´s difficult to do, while the site has allready evolved).
IMHO the segmentation is very corse as far as technical aspects go.
Let me give an example:
" I come across an paper, photo or technical article about F1 dampers or gearbox technology.
But it is not directly related to one specific car or I don´t know for sure, which car is shown in the photo in question.
Where do I post that info without opening a new thread every time?
I would prefere to have permanent sub categories for, let´s say damper/suspension, cooling systems, gearbox, clutch , steering wheels , safety, KERS etc , etc.
What do you think???
That would make it easier to post such informations, and if somebody is interested to do some research on, let´s say cooling/radiators in F1, he has one sub category where he can find all relevant informations, instead of collecting the informations from across the board.
Just a thought............
Last edited by 747heavy on 04 Jan 2011, 23:17, edited 1 time in total.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
Yea I agree with 747 the forum structure could be more "inviting" for technical topics especially when they are racecar related but non F1.
Don't just focus on F1 there are many more interesting motorsport series.
Also it’s very hard to find anything. Even when you know there was a topic about something in particular it’s very hard to find it again. I know there is search function but when you don't remember a special key word you are lost.
Often I don't find a topic anymore and then I wonder why it’s in that place.
When you have subcategories and everything is in right place you just need to go through the topics in that category.
Then there should be topics where we collect all stuff about a particular part or theme. Those can be listed always on top in their subcategory. Often some new guys come and just open a new topic even when something similar already exists. This new topics should then be deleted and the post moved to the already existing "master" topic. Only when we reach a point in this one where you feel for the demand of a new topic to discuss something even more detailed a new one should get opened.
So the idea is to go from broad (subcategory) into very detailed (topic just to solve one single problem).
One possible way to achieve the "segmenting" or "ease of reference" You two (MEP & 747) are discussing is to use tags, similar in concept to blog tags.
Ideal setup would be that members could personalize the website (on their own browser) by tagging posts of their selection with custom tags (only available to them). E.g. "This is an informative post about radiator cooling. I think I want to tag it as such". Clicking the "rad cooling" tag would yield "personalized results" first, then general forum search results.
Another (less server intensive) version is to have the mods do the tagging. Since You (mods) already participate in some of the threads already, it shouldn't be too much additional load for You to tag as You go along from a set of ~10 to 15 predetermined tags. If You don't get around to tagging every single post, the search function still exists as a less direct pathway to those posts.
Having tags accessible to any & everybody will lead to incorrectly tagged threads/ posts.
Personally I would prefer tagged posts, regardless of whether the mods tag them, or the members tag them, primarily so we (I) don't have to sift through hundreds of pages to find the useful post being searched for.
How about a permanent section (similar to announcements), with recommented readings/books for the different (technical) topics?
and I like the "tags" idea, maybe worthwhile to implement and add to the search function as well (I know it´s a lot of work for Tomba), so one could do a cross search of, let´s say "suspension", across the BB or just in the F1 section, but it would include the car threads and the specific threads dealing with a topic.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
yeap, why not
It was just an idea, you are closer to the technical side of it, then I am.
I was just looking for a way, to have something, which does not get "burried" over time in the deapth of the BB., and can be found easily.
"Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong ......
look what they can do to a carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver." - Colin Chapman
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci
We've seen spammers answering random topics with remotely relevant nonsense just for the sake of 'pluging' their signature.
I thought of a way to avoid that. I admin an IPB-based board where it's easy to execute. The problem is I'm not sure if that can be implemented in phpBB.
What I would do in IPB:
- create a new member group (rank) that all new members are assigned to by default. Let's call it 'newcomer'.
- set automatic promotion from rank 'newcomer' to 'member' after say 20 posts.
- disallow avatars and signatures for 'newcomer' rank.
