World Affairs is way more serious and with more debats then Funny Stuff and General and I think it should be kept separate. Funny and General can be merged ... but I like posting my random thoughts, bad experience in General and I guess they won't be relevant to the audience of the World Affairs one...

my other 2cents.
Valentina
Hoiling, Feb 14, 2006 @ 13:50

The reason we want to fold the Current Affairs and Funny Stuff into the General forum is because, currently, neither of these forums get enough traffic (Posts, replies, and Views) to justify a seperate forum.

We hope that by folding them into one forum, it will make it easier for people because they will only have to look in one place (General) instead of 3 different places.

Additionally, we plan on introducing some new forums and the current system cannot support too many forums (we know- we need to change the system asap)

So- Unless alot of people weigh in and tell us that they want us to keep the World Affairs forum open, we will fold it as planned.

This is your opportunity to influence what happens. We know what Hoiling, Tasmin and Shorrik want. Anyone else out there have an opinion?

Oded

SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 14, 2006 @ 16:23

From my point of view, the main goal of Genevaonline is to get people to know and meet each other. So, for me, the first priority would be to improve Member Activities and Events pages, put a "what's on tonight / tomorrow" section on the home page and improve the chatroom (disable get focus on incoming messages, create multi-user chat). Forums are not so much used... so be it. It is not the core of GOL.

However, regarding the forum, my opinion is as follows: a community that has no territory (physical place to meet of its own), no common religion nor traditions, has nothing to hold together but values (being open-minded and friendly, willing to meet others) and shared history. For me, if GOL was a country, deleting past events feedback forums would be like burning a section of the national library. Deleting picture galleries... national gallery.
I don't know about the technical aspect of it in details. But I know that 1000 messages do not weight more than 1 or 2 pictures. The database argument is not valid to me then. For all that, I would prefer having thoses messages archived (be them visible or not) than deleted, and put them back online in a "nostalgia" forum whenever it is technicaly possible.

Hope it helps
Hobbes, Feb 15, 2006 @ 11:58

Hey Hobbes.

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree that there are more pressing issues we need to take care of, but these things (improving the Member Activities, Improving the chat...) require time and money so they will have to wait.
In the meantime, we will do the things we can to improve the site which do not require any additional investment from us.

As you said, the forums are currently not the most active part of the site, and we hope that by making them more user friendly, we will make them more attractive and people will be more open to sharing their views here.

The Space problem I spoke of is not space on the database, but space on the page. Our current design does not allow us to open alot of forums (more than 6 forums means that the bottom ones require scrolling) and so we have to experiment with different forums in order to see which ones to keep and which ones to add/delete

Unfortunately, the current system does not allow us to save forums either. They are eaither online, or they are deleted. So- unless you have a solution for this, I suggest you copy the posts that you want to save and repost them in the General forum.

Last thing- my post about deleting the forum has been online for 2 days now and has gotten 5 responses. To me this means that people dont care, or they dont read the forums (maybe cause we have too many forums and they are hard to navigate) in any case, I think it means that we need to improve the forums, and I hope this will be the first step.

Thanks again,

O
SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 15, 2006 @ 12:25

I agree with your approach, I don't read the World affairs forum, I mush prefer the light and banal stuff, members activity reviews etc. I am sure you can run loads of statistics about what is read and what is not read, so I have faith in your reasoning!
I agree with Hobbes' point about the chat rooms and improving the activities and events pages - but I also know, time/resources/etc are limited.
Serena, Feb 15, 2006 @ 12:38

Hi Oded,

Thanks for your answer. I clearly understand your concern. However, I guess that the following easy (minor SQL request changes) and (I suppose) free changes on Member Activities (MA) and Events, could make a big difference:

- remove past events (the former argument "so people can see there are lots of things going on on GOL" is not a valid one anymore; there are always plenty things going on in the coming days now)
- by default, order events by event date (sooner ones on top, no dates set bottom), not posting date
- use the same layout for MA and Events. That is, on Events, remove "Sort by: Posted on Activity date" and activate the grid titles to do that, as on MA

I am not an SQL expert, but I should manage changing a "SortBy'PostDate'" into "SortBy'ActivityDate'" if help is needed / welcome. Do not hesitate to ask !


About the forums, I don't see any problem with scrolling. GOL is a "fixed layout" (vs. "flow layout") website, and scrolling is already needed on all pages on 1024x768 screens. Just put the older or less interesting ones at the bottom ! I'm active on the forums and I care ! ;-)

Hobbes, Feb 15, 2006 @ 16:02

If we can do these things right now, we will.

If we cant, Ill see what it will take and contact you for help.

Thanks again.

O
SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 15, 2006 @ 16:07

You're most welcome, thanks to you !
Hobbes, Feb 15, 2006 @ 20:38

Hello guys,

1) I agree with Hobbes about having activity sorted by activity dates rather than post.. I had wondered about this 2 months ago (I know there are other priorities) but I was told I can simply press the button Activity date to get it sorted ;-).

2) In terms of design for the member activities, one good option would to use the width of the screen instead of just its length.. For example, you could create a BIG calendar in that section in terms of graphism and automatically, when you post an activity linked to a certain date, it would go into that cell/box (eg 3 items in Friday box, 1 on Tuesday...). That would make it VERY clear I think!!!!

3) About deleting the forums, I agree completely with saying this is NOT to do. It is like deleting the successful history of GOL. Why not do a freezed forum called "Nostalgia" where you could access all the past posts but could not write anything?

That's it for now and thanks for what you do guys!
Jim
JiMEGA, Feb 19, 2006 @ 13:59

A bit too late for the forums (as I sad before- our current design does not allow us to save a forum. Its active or its deleted) but I agree with you about the rest.

We will be going into a second round of improvements soon and will try to implement alot of the things members asked for)

Thanks again

O
SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 19, 2006 @ 15:11

thank YOU!!!
JiMEGA, Feb 19, 2006 @ 20:47

Thanks Serena.
SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 19, 2006 @ 21:17

One more request about the agenda; would it be possible to have a "printable" version of it ? Meaning, print all forthcoming events with full details. For instance, if you want to get organized with friends to attend some events but are offline (cafe without hot spot / laptop) it would be handy.
Thanks in advance for putting it on the fast growing wish list ;-)
Hobbes, Feb 20, 2006 @ 20:15

Added it to the list.

Thanks

O
SiteAdmin Oded, Feb 20, 2006 @ 20:46