dochira wrote:

Under Search, there is a section called Search Query. Here you can refine your searches by choosing a particular forum, whether you want the topic or the posts displayed, and other criteria.

One thing that the Search query is missing (I brought this up before) is that it won't let you just search the titles... Makes modding sorta messy/tedious when looking for duplicates.

dochira wrote:

Under Search, there is a section called Search Query. Here you can refine your searches by choosing a particular forum, whether you want the topic or the posts displayed, and other criteria.

yeah but I agree with the suggestion to add more detailed search criteria in terms of forum>topic

today with some topics going to 100's of pages ... one ends up with such a big result page that mostly people end giving up or starting new threads... then as bmw said .. u guys have a hard time.

dochira wrote:

Under Search, there is a section called Search Query. Here you can refine your searches by choosing a particular forum, whether you want the topic or the posts displayed, and other criteria.

yeah but I agree with the suggestion to add more detailed search criteria in terms of forum>topic

today with some topics going to 100's of pages ... one ends up with such a big result page that mostly people end giving up or starting new threads... then as bmw said .. u guys have a hard time.

ME AGAIN guest

Gotcha. Take the "advanced search" and make it more advanced..

Potential types of searches to add...

1) Search thread title only
2) Search within a forum (from the search page)
3) Search within a topic (should be a form that appears when browsing the topic)

Any others?
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Genma wrote:

Potential types of searches to add... 1) Search thread title only 2) Search within a forum (from the search page) 3) Search within a topic (should be a form that appears when browsing the topic) Any others?

I think that about covers it.

I guess most of the Threads which end up getting locked as they r wrongly placed are buy NEW members.

Why not add some compulsory basic guidlines telling to use search facility at the time when a new member registers.

wont be 100% effective but still I guess some of the newbies would just read it.

mostly when a person joins new, he wants to just post in the rush of excitement and search mostly is forgot !!

z123_us wrote:

I guess most of the Threads which end up getting locked as they r wrongly placed are buy NEW members. Why not add some compulsory basic guidlines telling to use search facility at the time when a new member registers.

That's if the noobs read the thing.

Quote:

wont be 100% effective

I'd be surprised if it were 10% effective.

Quote:

mostly when a person joins new, he wants to just post in the rush of excitement and search mostly is forgot !!

That's true.

If possible, maybe if anyone starts a new thread, a message would pop up, "Have you done a search before starting a new thread?" just to remind them...

z123_us wrote:

I guess most of the Threads which end up getting locked as they r wrongly placed are buy NEW members. Why not add some compulsory basic guidlines telling to use search facility at the time when a new member registers. wont be 100% effective but still I guess some of the newbies would just read it.

�a�l is right, the guidelines are there in every section. if it is read the newbies' posts will not be "posted" to be locked.
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bmwracer wrote:

That's true. If possible, maybe if anyone starts a new thread, a message would pop up, "Have you done a search before starting a new thread?" just to remind them...

hehe I was one of such a noob .. i remember niko directing me to the french thread

as for pop ups, I have not seen any till now, do dont know if genma is in favor of popups.

and for such a thing, we will need to update the database with respect to all old members, that it is not their first post! .... all is very simple ,just that needs to be tested with live data n all so sometimes one might hesitate

I'll offer one insight on the newbie's lack of following policies... Newbies of today lack the very basics of Internet usage.

Some background information, followed by my recommendations....

Way back before the HTTP (WWW) protocol was even used (Archie, gopher, telnet, usenet, etc.), everyone knew how to follow the proper procedures of the Internet. That's because access to the Internet was a privilege, and that the people who earned the privilege knew exactly what was going on, and how to follow protocol.

During the 1990's when the Internet started becoming commercialized, the newbies of that time flocked to the hundreds of thousands of classes and workshops, offered by K-12 schools, colleges, computer user groups, and computer stores. Even the regional ISPs got into the training act, offering free night classes to new subscribers. The idea was to train the newbies so that the ISPs would have less support issues to deal with. These trained users are now considered in 2005 as the more experienced Internet user.

We're now in 2005. We're facing a new generation of newbie, where they're not obtaining the proper training in using the Internet. To them, it's simply signing up for an Internet user account, and they're in! It's virtually like signing up for a cell phone plan. I don't see that much of an effort made by the ISPs to train newbies. It's simply not in their best interest financially. Free workshops have shrunken substantially these past few years. I also see a lack in the "buddy" system, where an experienced Internet user serves as the mentor to a newbie. Instead, newbies are hanging out with other newbies, and they're all doing the wrong things.

So the idea of a newbie reading the FAQs and stickies BEFORE peforming an action is NOT going to happen EVER. That's why you see moderators and administrators being more and more persistant in educating newbies to follow the proper procedures for THEIR message board. Having a "mean" tone to the reminders is necessary. If you're a moderator and you try to play that "nice guy" role, you're going to be stopped on again and again.

Maybe the portal page of JDorama has to change with the times. Instead of the main web page being the message board itself, present a starting page using a simple, un-cluttered layout, while storing the message board itself somewhere else. The starting page http://www.jdorama.com/ should cater to the newbie user, taking for granted that he is totally clueless as to what a FAQ even is. As an example, I'd keep the Featured Artist section, the birthday announcements, the user statistics, the search engine, and the top 50 artistes/dramas sections. And then, use a portion of the starting page to post links to the FAQs and other announcements in a non-topic format.

Next, I'd create a sub-domain and store the forum there. Make it http://forum.jdorama.com/ . And I'd have a link to that site on the starting page. Other sites, including JTV, JPOP.com and many other Asian sites are in this configuration. The idea here is that the experienced JDorama users will make a bookmark for forum.jdorama.com and go there on a regular basis, bypassing all the newbie stuff. All other newbies will still enter the main www.jdorama.com site. With the new forum starting page, I'd bring the formatting back to its original phpBB format, where the forum listings is right up there at the top, along with the header banner and other phpBB options.

In the forum posting template, I'd add on some quick messages reminding users of various resources, such as the FAQs, stickies, and search engines.

From there, I'd modify the phpBB admin_welcome_inactive.tpl template file (the e-mail all newly registered users receive) and re-organize it to look like the following:

Code:

Subject: Welcome to {SITENAME} Forums Charset: iso-8859-1 {WELCOME_MSG} Please keep this email for your records. {SITENAME} THINGS YOU SHOULD READ IMMEDIATELY: General Forum FAQ (First-Time Forum User? Read This!) http://www.jdorama.com/xxxxxxxxx Proper method of requesting xxxxx information http://www.jdorama.com/xxxxxxxxx Your {SITENAME} account information is as follows: ---------------------------- Username: {USERNAME} Password: {PASSWORD} ---------------------------- Your account is currently inactive. You cannot use it until you visit the following link: {U_ACTIVATE} Please do not forget your password as it has been encrypted in our database and we cannot retrieve it for you. However, should you forget your password you can request a new one which will be activated in the same way as this account. Thank you for registering. {EMAIL_SIG}

That way, the newbie will have the information in their e-mail inbox before making that first post.

Hope this juggles the minds of the powers-at-be...

--- dummyuser2 (aka groink)

*sigh* im sorry. i am one of those n00bs. i have failed you all ::bows::
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Interesting insight, groink (dummyuser2 ) I wonder if all-cap postings, flamings, etc would be reduced (or eliminated) if proper netiquette was observed.

Anonymous wrote:

I. Instead of the main web page being the message board itself, present a starting page using a simple, un-cluttered layout, while storing the message board itself somewhere else.

personally i find the homepage to be very interesting indeed, with all info in a simple manner as per need. all direct links are also available.

..groink .. u were a mod out here sometime back if i remember !! not sure though

z123_us wrote:

..groink .. u were a mod out here sometime back if i remember !! not sure though

You are correct.

dochira wrote:

You are correct.

i have decided to go ahead with the "petting" this time

How about this feature: a way to view not only "new" posts, but "unread" posts for a certain amount of time (ie: the past day, past week, past 2 weeks). An example of this is when I load the "view new posts" page and I suddenly have to go do something. Hours later, I come back and reload the page to find that all the posts that I haven't read yet don't show up on the "view new posts" page. I dunno, I just get frustrated with it sometimes since I don't know which posts are new or otherwise. Does anyone else feel the same way?

Oh, here's another one: a function that would PM users, be it the thread starter or people involved in the discussion, that the topic was moved to another forum, merged into another topic, or deleted for certain reasons.

I say this because I know some people wonder where their threads go when they go try and look for it when I've already merged or moved the thread somewhere else.

eightysix wrote:

How about this feature: a way to view not only "new" posts, but "unread" posts for a certain amount of time (ie: the past day, past week, past 2 weeks). An example of this is when I load the "view new posts" page and I suddenly have to go do something. Hours later, I come back and reload the page to find that all the posts that I haven't read yet don't show up on the "view new posts" page. I dunno, I just get frustrated with it sometimes since I don't know which posts are new or otherwise. Does anyone else feel the same way?

That sounds like a good idea: there have been times when my browser hangs up or I leave and come back, only to find all the unread posts have been "read"... It would be nice if the user could have some control over that...

groink has a good suggestion regarding the links in the welcome email. As for reorganising the portal, I still prefer the current format. Its faster to access the various parts of the site/forum, given that an even larger number of users (new and old) simply read and do not post.

Will discuss with the mods regarding the changes in the welcome email. Should be worked out soon.

About sending PM to the users after merging/splitting/deleting a thread, I guess it could be worked out. Just an auto-PM script sent by the mod executing the action, and to all users involved in the thread(s).

Next is the option to display posts since a given period (hours? days? weeks?). It is unfeasible to mark down which posts had been read by each individual user, both on space and cpu resource. So I guess letting the user search by a given period would be nice. Will try to incorporate it in the front page.
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