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What do you think about the new forums?

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What do you think about the new forums?
Posted by Admin on Monday, July 7, 2003 7:49 AM
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Posted by BentnoseWillie on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:08 AM
Hoo ha! I can find stuff now!!

And I can edit, and my name shows on my posts. Life is good!
B-Dubya -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inside every GE is an Alco trying to get out...apparently, through the exhaust stack!
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Posted by edo1039 on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:41 AM
Much better now I can review all replys without leaving the page,great job.
Ed OKeefe Summerfield,Fl "Go New Haven"
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:43 AM
It's about time that I can read all the posts in a thread with clicking on each one.
Nice Job.
Bee Line
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:49 AM
I like the new forum setup a lot. Makes it a lot easier to view all repies to postings as mentioned above.
This was a long time coming. Good job MR- Bob
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 11:31 AM
I really like the new look and the ability to read through the thread without calling each message individually. If it loads faster than before, I will probably go back to using this as my only regular modelling forum.

Ed
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  • From: East Lansing, MI, US
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Posted by GerFust on Monday, July 7, 2003 11:37 AM
I like that we can see all the replies at once, but it is hard to see who is replying to what, exactly, since the "tree" structure is lost. I also like that we can talk to each other off-line and chat, but would like another way to see profiles other than trough forum postings.
[ ]===^=====xx o o O O O O o o The Northern-er (info on the layout, http://www.msu.edu/~fust/)
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 11:57 AM
Looks great so far. The update time isn't that speedy right now, but overall the structure and features are great!
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Posted by DavidH on Monday, July 7, 2003 12:26 PM
Finally!! I had pretty much given up on the MR forums, but now I'll be back!

David
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 1:45 PM
I haven't voted as I haven't had a chance to "test drive" the forum. But my initial impression is that the new forum is much better than the last.

First, I can take the name I use in other forums, except for the layout design sig, where I'm nicholson1318. The past forum wouldn't let me register as rsn48, it was too short, so the first improvement I noticed is that I can be me here, instead of using my son's sign - he is cascade here (or I was cascade here...lol).

Next, there is a search function - good.

And I can go further back in threads - good.

And I can see the posts replying to the initial thread post - great.

I haven't even looked at the forum categories yet so I won't comment. But be aware that a busy forum is a happy forum (flame wars excluded...lol). To many forum categories will water down the apparent activity of the forums. I have learned by being active in several forums that less is more in forum participation. For example, the layout design sig is one forum so activity is high. The Atlas forum is 4 forums, so activity is high. Many other forums with several categories - though perhaps having the same volume of replies - feel less busy because the posts are spread to thinly across to many categories - I can think of at least 4 forums that fall into this category.

Having a layout design forum is good as it doesn't have to be scale specific, so an HO guy can help an N scale guy and vice versa; grades are grades and minimum radius is easy to grasp for another scale once you understand your own scale.

A suggestion - supply a link to ispell - an excellent forum spell check that can be downloaded. I really like it because you can specify "Canadian" spelling which isn't normal in many spell checks - so I can spell colour and neighbour, etc in peace with out it being challenged by a spell checker. But it is a great tool I use a lot; I'm writing this on a library computer while my car is repaired so there might be a typo error or two.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 3:25 PM
Ya finally got it into the highball mode. I can cover more ground in a shorter amount of time when I check into the page from work.

Ken, D&J Railroad, Stafford, VA
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 6:43 PM
I haven't been here in a very long time because of the old forums,I could never get anywhere. So far the speed does NOT seem any better and I think if you broke things into smaller sections like by scale and scratchbuilding and so forth that all that info would not have to be loaded every time.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 8:34 PM
new forum a little confusing, but i will get used to it[:)]
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 8:58 PM
I haven't voted yet because I want to look the whole site over first. But I will say that I'm glad the forum architecture is from Snitz. While the appearance of this forum differs from the versions used by Railroad-Lines Forums, Railroad Forums.com, and Atlas, it still has a familiar "feel" to it. And it should be faster for those using dialup connections also.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 9:11 PM
Great so far, except that I tried to post a reply around noon today (EDT) and kept getting an error message from the server. I like the new format - here's hoping the performance is good too!
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Posted by JDCoop on Monday, July 7, 2003 9:46 PM
It's very much improved. It's pretty much a night and day difference from the old forum format. Wonderful!
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:22 PM
Well you are going in the right direction [:)] , now if you can speed things up a little more, enable photos, divide into more forums (HO, N/Z, Large Scale, Kit Bashing, Narrow Gauge etc. ) you will after all this time be where every other forum has all ready been for years! [:(] I don't understand, you are the leader in the industry when it comes to mags, but still the worst when in comes to the net. Oh well I'll check back again in a few more years. Good luck and best wishes.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:24 PM
Well you are going in the right direction [:)] , now if you can speed things up a little more, enable photos, divide into more forums (HO, N/Z, Large Scale, Kit Bashing, Narrow Gauge etc. ) you will after all this time be where every other forum has all ready been for years! [:(] I don't understand, you are the leader in the industry when it comes to mags, but still the worst when in comes to the net.
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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, July 7, 2003 10:27 PM
You all still don't get it do you?
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Posted by pondman on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 5:22 AM
Great forum,,,,,,,,,,, Now we need it broken down by train size ! Like --- Ho forum's and N/Z forums
QUOTE: Originally posted by Admin

...
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 8:58 AM
[?] still trying to figure it out, my first post ended up coming up twice[?][?]
not crazy about the junior-senior-member thing. Seems some folks just post anything to get there rating up, at least in other forums I belong to.
And I agree with others that seperate scale headings would be good
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 11:47 AM
I think the new forums are a major improvement. Performance is comparable to other similar forums. It is now easy to read all the responses to a specific post quickly. I was able to glean more useful information in 30 minutes today than ever before.

Thanks to the Kalmbach folks for listening.

I did encounter the following error message twice when attempting to retrieve older pages -- above 20.

An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator at webmaster@kalmbach.com. Thank you.

Thanks,
Roger
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Posted by MAbruce on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 11:57 AM
It's a far cry from what it was! [8D] Nice work!

But the site is still slow in loading.
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 12:29 PM
Thank you everyone for your feedback. It is very much appreciated!

QUOTE: Originally posted by RogerW
I did encounter the following error message twice when attempting to retrieve older pages -- above 20.

An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator at webmaster@kalmbach.com. Thank you.


I have this noted down and I'll look into it.

The error that many of you encountered while posting a message has been fixed.

Thank you for your continued patience while we work out some of these bugs.
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Posted by thirdrail1 on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 12:41 PM
David Voss, you might point out to those unfamiliar with Snitz forums how to use the "trash can" icon to delete all those multiple posts generated yesterday due to the forum glitch.[:I][:I][B)][B)][B)][B)]
"The public be ***ed, it's the Pennsylvania Railroad I'm competing with." - W.K.Vanderbilt
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 9:28 PM
Well it is a step in the right direction, you all are up to the 1980's now [:D][:p]. I'll check back in about a year and see if you have made to the 90's yet. I don't get it, Kalmbach is the leader in mags, yet continues to have THE worst site on the net!?!?!
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 10:43 PM
I like. The old forums were.... from the 50's and very cumbersome. These are a lot easier to navigate.
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, July 8, 2003 10:49 PM
Now that I have test driven the forums (or some of them) I gave this forum a "good" - still a bit too slow for a great - but almost there.

What surprised me is that three people said they liked the old forum better???????? I would love to hear from one of them why they liked the old one better, I'm not interested in flaming, I just don't get it.
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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, July 9, 2003 3:36 AM
The new forums are great .Are the content standards the same as
the Finescale forums? Perhaps Model Railroaders forums could be
set up similar to Finescales forums. It would be easier to find a topic
and or forum. Thanks again for the changes.[:D]
Harry jr.
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Posted by tankertoad70 on Wednesday, July 9, 2003 6:47 PM
I really like the 'gnu' setup, 'cause I don't hafta click on each response to see who has shared what. Nice Change!!!!!
Don in 'Orygun' City

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