Andy Sperandeo please note

[Anonymous]

Andy:

I think you posted a topic a couple weeks ago asking about the amount of traffic on this site and how could the site be improved.

This forum has had a great thread called "World's Greatest Hobby, and then what?" There are probably 30 or so posts to the thread. It is very painful to click on each participant's response and open up a new display to read every response. The other forums that I visit regularly (i.e. Atlas, The-Gauge, etc.) all have a format where you can read ten to twenty posts with a single click. Those sites are very user friendly in comparison to this site. Please consider this user's humble request to reconfigure the forums on this site to a format that is similar to that of the Atlas forums. If anybody else agrees or disagress, please chime in.

Thanks.

Jim de Bree

[BRAKIE]

Jim,I agree 100%. I hope they listen.

[Anonymous]

I believe over the last year there has been a least three seperate postings covering this topic. They have responed indicating a review and possible change. I too find this program some-what awkward but there's a ton of features on this trains.com site besides topics that maybe effected by change.

[Anonymous]

I agree, I would spend more time reading replies and other posts if it were easier to navigate. I still visit every so often, but would read more if the interface were a bit better.
Dean

[Anonymous]

I agree, Jim. The format is cumbersome at best - and that's when I'm at home with my high speed connection. When I'm on the road and having to use dial up, it's downright annoying because of the time involved to load each response separately. As a result, I don't often visit this site when I'm away from home.

Railroad-Line, The-Gauge, and Atlas all have user-friendly formats that make it easy not only to read threads but also to post responses while viewing the entire thread.

[Sperandeo]

Hello,

We are aware of this concern. The staff of Trains.com is currently working on a redesign and upgrade of this whole site, and I'll point this thread out to Trains.com editor Tom Chmielewski.

thanks,

Andy Sperandeo
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine

[Anonymous]

Sometimes dealing with computers is as simple as a few clicks. And then there are times when it's like turning a battleship. But we are coming about. We are working on a new version of the forums that should be up fairly soon. We don't have a date yet, but I do share all of your frustrations with our forums.

If all goes according to plan, the new forums will be similar to what we have for other Kalmbach magazines. If you go to the Kalmbach.com corporate site and click on Fine Scale Modeler or The Writer, you can get some idea of what we have in mind.

I had hoped the forums would be done along with a general redesign of Trains.com that should go up sometime in September. We won't quite make that, but the new forums should be up soon afterward.

I appreciate your comments. Discussion threads such as the current one on the World's Greatest Hobby campaign are an important part of our site and our coverage of the hobbies. Thank you for taking part.

Tom Chmielewski
Editor, Trains.com

[Anonymous]

Thanks Andy.

[Anonymous]

I DISAGREE,WHY BE THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE,SOUND VERY VUMB TO ME,BEING DIFFERENT,IS WHAT MAKE THE WORLD GO AROUND & KEEP THING INTERESTING>>>> AKA HUB

[Anonymous]

I don't think that we are talking about containing the same or similar content, I was merely pointing out that this site is difficult and time consuming to navigate in comparison with others.

[PennsyNut]

Andy and Tom: There is one thing I find really nice/necessary on forums: a good search, allowing a look up by subject or name, etc. Then, when the "subject" comes up, all messages relating to that subject are there. If space is a problem, just bring up 10 messages per page, etc.

[Anonymous]

There are some things that everything has the same idea. You can compare it to a cup. Atlas and others are a normal cup and this is a cup with a hole in the bottem. Theres nothing wrong with it, its just not as user friendly.

[Pruitt]

If I remember correctly, you folks were looking at this months back, also.

How long does it take to change forum software? Do you have a timetable for getting something done, or is this basically just "fodder for the masses?"

[Anonymous]

Andy,
This site is quite frankly a pain to use. Model what you are doing either off of Atlas or trainboard, both are excellent sites to copy. I'm not a fan of the Yahoo! Groups Layout Design Sig site either. Yahoo is still not as easy and fun to use as both of my other recommendations.

On layout design sig I am Nicholson1318
on other sides rsn48

[Anonymous]

I am nobody, and know very little, but I do know this forum is extremely slow, and difficult for me to navigate!
Oldcoyote