Forum Feedback Changes and improvement to TE that I want to see

[Renegade]

Alright so its about time we took some feedback. Pour in your suggestions on how we can improve the overall experience on TE. Changes or additions that you would want to see. Maybe some simplification or addition of forums. More engagement in some form.

From our side we would prefer if you guys posted more discussion threads as it keeps the momentum going which I feel has slowed down a bit due to lesser google traffic than before so lesser new members. Upside to that is that we get much less spam and only focused members.

 

[letmein]

The grouping of the sub-forums into two columns instead of the old vertical look sucks. I can't tell which sub-forum has a new reply/thread and which one doesn't.[DOUBLEPOST=1398173036][/DOUBLEPOST]And I can't tell who made the last reply

 

[mrnikhilsudo]

Well I can't find thread tools to close my for sale thread. Also in a sale thread, once I post the thread I can no longer edit the title in future. That is kinda a bummer.

 

[raksrules]

Well I can't find thread tools to close my for sale thread. Also in a sale thread, once I post the thread I can no longer edit the title in future. That is kinda a bummer.

I have an active sale thread and i have changed its titles around 3-4 times, the thread was originally opened on 04th April or something but i still changed its title in last 3-4 days.

 

[m-jeri]

Price policing in market section needs to stopped. A restriction that the member who wishes to police the thread needs to contact the buyer via PM and let him know the price. Give seller a chance to think over and take action if necessary. if the seller is being unfair(Not reducing the price to your liking is NOT being unfair) then make it public. Dont make it a mess. Posting in thread directly in any manner will make the seller mad. No it doesn't make it better that the poster is doing it for the good of others. If he is really being noble, do the deed in a respectful manner. Not guilty until proven otherwise. Everyone has their own rationale. Not unless your money is involved, 110% you wont get why. And to this day i never seen an overpriced item get sold. No buyer is that dumb.

This policy of pro buyer is not good. Rather be neutral. The buyer is also a guy who makes normal salary like everyone else. Everyone including me would like some extra money in my account.
People come to forum market section to get the best price. No one starts a thread for social work. No one.

This is not some local crap market where you bargain like dumb idiots. Appraise the item properly and make a quote. No seller is angry or rude to a honest buyer. Take a note of former feedback.

 

[soggy316]

+1 for the old vertical layout. The 2 column layout is buggy for me (on both chrome and FF) in that I cannot click on some sub-forum links (mostly the first one of the left column).

 

[TEUser2K1]

Can the background be slightly dark. That will be easier for eyes.

 

[cranky]

We really need to work out a way to get more discussion. It seems the board is filled with product recommendation requests and responses, show-offs - I mean that disparagingly, and market threads. I had blocked off all of those and many a times there's simply nothing to read or respond to.

 

[Onemufc]

Bring back all threads related to mobile phones.

We need more discussions on that.

 

[Renegade]

Can the background be slightly dark. That will be easier for eyes.

There are multiple skins on the forum. You can change to whichever suits you best.

 

[Renegade]

We really need to work out a way to get more discussion. It seems the board is filled with product recommendation requests and responses, show-offs - I mean that disparagingly, and market threads. I had blocked off all of those and many a times there's simply nothing to read or respond to.

A forum is all about what the forum members post and it seems everyone wants to read and rarely anyone wants to post. Now while we can push some interesting threads into the mix but in the end it should be upto the members to share new stuff, start new discussions which are more tech oriented. We all should look to start a new thread on something new, at least two threads a week. That would be giving back more than enough to the community. Everyone will have a lot to discuss and read.

Still let me see if we can do something about it.

Bring back all threads related to mobile phones.
We need more discussions on that.

Can you please elaborate on what it should cover. Isn't there a new thread for each mobile phone.

 

[Onemufc]

The generic threads or the kind of owners forum. I think a lot of activity can be achieved by that.

 

[m-jeri]

Better yet create some new trophies. Best poster of the month, Best Thread starter of the month. Not by quantity though please. Too much spam. Some sort of like meter or thanked by numbers. I am sure even existing members will start with somethings.

 

[cranky]

How about replacing this unit with a cherry-picked set of posts that have actual discussions? I don't want to single out particular members or topics, but the community is turning out to be about gadgets and acquisitions. There are two threads on technology in the shot below. I don't consider audio to be technology heavy and the AC thread started off as a purchase question and got turned around at some point, so actually not even one. The rest are baubles.

You could also look beyond tech devices - I don't mean new forums, but the way tech news is covered. Technology is beginning to permeate other aspects of our lives - automotive/transportation, entertainment (the production side, not the presentation side), food technology and engineering. All of these are at the core, based on compute power, data communications and programming. A simple brief change for the good people who cover tech news on the forum would be a good start.

I do agree that members steer the community, but I also think that the forum needs to have its own vision as well. Else it falls into the trap of massification, and loses its basic attraction. I can count on one hand the number of interesting questions - let alone answers - I have seen in over a year now. People come to a forum because the forum offers something that others don't what is that, and what should it be? That will give you the answer you need.

 

[vercetti]

There are a lot of threads which have run into 500+ posts and its very diffucut to search and browse through the posts to search for a particular information.
Would be great to have a search functionality within threads.

This kind of searches are present in many other forums as well and are a big boon for people looking for important historical information

 

[Renegade]

There are a lot of threads which have run into 500+ posts and its very diffucut to search and browse through the posts to search for a particular information.
Would be great to have a search functionality within threads.

This kind of searches are present in many other forums as well and are a big boon for people looking for important historical information

The search function on TE is better than all other tech forums. It is feature rich and easy to use if you spend a minute figuring out what is what.

[DOUBLEPOST=1398234762][/DOUBLEPOST]However that brings me to another point. Why do we need to pool in everything in a single thread in teh first place. It is bad for anyone looking for information and bad for TE on the search engines. A dedicated thread with a specific title is much easy for everyone.

 

[letmein]

However that brings me to another point. Why do we need to pool in everything in a single thread in teh first place. It is bad for anyone looking for information and bad for TE on the search engines. A dedicated thread with a specific title is much easy for everyone.

That was tried with the "Mobile Devices Specs & Features" sub-forum wasn't it? What the result? Dozens of threads with zero replies.

 

[Renegade]

That was tried with the "Mobile Devices Specs & Features" sub-forum wasn't it? What the result? Dozens of threads with zero replies.

Nope that is not related at all. Those are auto created threads for devices as part of the forum functionality. And my point is completely opposite to that. Even those are single threads. I am talking about specific issues.

 

[6pack]

However that brings me to another point. Why do we need to pool in everything in a single thread in teh first place. It is bad for anyone looking for information and bad for TE on the search engines. A dedicated thread with a specific title is much easy for everyone.

Even with dedicated threads people don't read from the start. With lots of threads asking the same question and only a few members answering questions here, it becomes awfully mind numbing to answer the same question again and again.
Let's take it as granted that no one will search for stuff since they don't have time and feel their question is different (even though it might probably be the same as anyone before them).

 

[vercetti]

My point was searching around specific topics itself.
For EG- "Asus RT N13 DDWRT" thread has grown to more than 70 pages now - as each of the page as great information on the hacks and workarounds - I was not able to find the content and had to manually browse each page everytime.

Thanks to you - I came to know about a new feature then.

However that brings me to another point. Why do we need to pool in everything in a single thread in teh first place. It is bad for anyone looking for information and bad for TE on the search engines. A dedicated thread with a specific title is much easy for everyone.