Forums

[doctorwayne]

steinjr

.....You mean like clicking on this thingy, which is located right next to your post in the right margin when you are looking at the posts of a thread (you have to scroll down past some advertizing crap to find it) ?...

While I haven't been complaining too much about the new format, that's one feature I missed from the old version and of which I was unaware in this format.  Thanks for pointing it out, Stein.   
Any chance you know of some way to disable signatures?    I've done so in the "Advanced Options" under "Community Settings", but I'm still seeing them - even the best of them get stale after a few viewings.

In general, I find things work pretty-much the same as before, although some features are a little hard to find - something we'll get used to pretty quickly if we use them regularly, though.

 

It's nice to not have to click on anything to view photos, and I've discovered that clicking on a photo often yields an even larger view (this was available before, too, but many seemed unaware of it)

.

While I've always considered the post count to be pretty naff, I hadn't considered its use to spot and welcome newcomers, not to mention its usefulness in reminding us to structure our responses to them appropriately, so I suppose I won't mind its return.

Other than those pesky signatures, my biggest complaint is the appearance of the page, but perhaps I shouldn't be one to talk about appearance.

Wayne

[Paul of Covington]

Kevin C. Smith

Well, there is one thing that bothers me. It bothered me on the old format and it bothers me on the new format. It's not earth shattering, it's not deal breaking, it's not life or death...but it bothers me, none the less.

I think the plural of "forum" should be "fora".

There, that brain cramp is done with.

   I keep thinking it should be "fora", too, but then my mind jumps to "fora et flauna."

   I do want to request something suggested by others, though.   It was convenient to be able to go straight to the last page of a large post without having to go to the first page first.

[Train Modeler]

riogrande5761

steinjr

What makes you believe that the old version wasn't broken and didn't need to get fixed?

 Ever noticed performance issues with the old version?

 There is a new version now. So we have to deal with the new version

The old version actually was working fine for me in the past couple of months.  Whatever issues once existed seemed to have resolved.

We don't have to deal with the new version ... I've already found myself seeking other avenues.

Anyway, enough has been said.  Cheers

What other avenues do you find worth investigating please?

Richard

[maxman]

steinjr

quite a few Americans go into ranting mode instead of looking for or reading user guides anyways, and a lot of people just "know" that an upgrade wasn't necessary, without having any information whatsoever 

The thing I found interesting was that I looked at all the forums for the other train related magazines Kalmbach publishes.  All of them appear to have had the same forum upgrade.  Yet almost all of the complaining seems to be confined to this forum.

[Anonymous]

Paul of Covington

I do want to request something suggested by others, though.   It was convenient to be able to go straight to the last page of a large post without having to go to the first page first.

You can still go directly to the last page by clicking on the text reading "Latest post by........."

However with this new and improved format, you can no longer go directly to any page execpt the first and last pages.  So there is an extra step to get to a page somewhere in the middle. 

[ajgaudy]

dti406

HOW DO I STOP THE E-MAILS TO MY E-MAIL ACCOUNT,.

Email preferences can be updated by clickign on "Community  Settings" from the profile box on the right, then clickign on the third tab for "Email"

There is an opton to uncheck if you would like to recieve emial notifications from the forum.

You can also click on "Email Notifications" to manage individual subscriptions.

[steinjr]

maxman

]

 The thing I found interesting was that I looked at all the forums for the other train related magazines Kalmbach publishes.  All of them appear to have had the same forum upgrade. 

 The 22 forums associated with Trains Magazine, Classic Trains Magazine, Model Railroader Magazine, Classic Toy Trains Magazine, Garden Railways Magazine, plus a handful of site wide forums under the sections "trains.com" are all on the same Telligent Community Server - which is accessed via URL http://cs.trains.com/<something> So once that server got upgraded, all those 22 forums got upgraded at the same time.

 Kalmbach also apparently publishes a number of other (non train/MR related magazines) - like American Snowmobiler, Art Jewelry, Astronomy, Bird Watching, Cabin Life, Discover and a few more.

 Some of these magazines also have associated Telligent Community Server instances or forums - e.g http://cs.astronomy.com

 cs.trains.com resolve to ip address 173.226.48.76, c.astronomy.com to ip address 173.226.48.71 - which probably both are virtual ip-adresses on a load balancer. I have no clue what is beyond that - they may end up on the same host and same instance of Community Server, or on the same host and different instances of Community Server listening to different ports, or different servers with different Community Server instances.

So I don't know if the IT staff at Kalmbach were dealing with just these 22 train/MR related forums at the same time, or whether they also had to deal with a bunch of different forums on other servers simultaneously. There e.g. appears to be at least 37 different forums on cs.astronomy.com.

 What is very clear is that they are not just dealing with the General Discussion forum associated with Model Railroader Magazine.

 Smile,
 Stein

[marxalot]

I cannot vew the two videos posted in this Weekend Photos. Noting appears in the box except a very small icon. Clicking on that does nothing. Are there some setting in my profile that need adjusting?

Thanks,

Jim K

[emman]

Thanks for restoring original post date!

Now if you could offer suggestions on how to speed up viewing in the Unread section, that'd be great.

[conrailman]

I like the old post format.

[Anonymous]

Another feature of this forum program is that if you have blue text in the last line of your signature, it switches all following post text to blue by default. 

[vsmith]

accidental double post, my bad, not the forums

[vsmith]

hon30critter

VSMITH

I politely disagree. We don't have to get used to it if we chose not to. As another poster has suggested, we can vote with our feet.

Personally, I think Kalmbach has missed an opportunity here. Had they taken the time (and yes - the cost) to create a tutorial on how to deal with the new format, and put it front and center on the new website, then I think there would be a few less disgruntled forum users, or maybe a whole lot fewer less happy customers.

One thing I notice on the forums is that a post will be viewed by a whole lot of people, but very few will post a comment on the post. That means there is a silent majority out there who choose to keep their opinions to themselves. That is their choice and I respect it. However, in the case of the changes to the forums, I would ask those mostly silent members to speak up - please.

Dave

The thing is that this isnt my first rodeo here at Rancho Kalmbach, this is like the 3rd or 4th forum changeover since 2000. and compared to other switchovers this one was a breeze, One time here, I ended up losing every photo link I had posted, and on two other outside sites, when they "upgraded" they lost the ENTIRE forum database, and the forums had to start over from scratch. Now THAT was painfull.

The thing is, we dont own this site, so we have no real say in how its run. Like you said, some can vote with their feet, well thats been done before, some leave but newbies always fill the ranks, some migrate back to the forum and it rolls along like it did before. So forgive me if I'm not angst ridden about this, I've seen far worse.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

vsmith

this isnt my first rodeo on this site. In fact I think its like the third or forth forum changeover roundup, and overall its been the smoothest, especially compared to past switchovers. A previous one here I lost every photos I posted. On two other outside forums I participate on, the results were even worse, in fact the entire database of all topics disappeared completely on both, and the entire forums had to start over from scratch. So forgive me if I'm less than angst ridden over these changes.

You and me both. I've been here since June of '04 and have seen forum revamps come and go. I stuck it out through all of them despite any problems or dislikes I had for them. It's free so I do what I can to make it work for me. There's no point in whining about it. That's not going to bring the old version back. I would be grateful if they'd change the colors to something I can see without having to highlight the text in the area above the reply box toolbar.

[wjstix]

It does bother me that I can't use my normal home PC browser, Netscape Navigator, with the new forums. I can read the posts, but when if I try to reply, I can't get my cursor to go into the reply box to write anything.