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New Forum Design
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At some point you have to bite the bullet and recognize that TMC is not going back to the old version, and make your decisions based on it. Options are to either say goodbye to the community, or grin and bear it without being annoying and posting every day how you hate it, or offer individual incremental recommendations.
Note that you don't even have to wait for Danny and Doug for some things! You can educate yourself and adjust elements with stylesheet overrides: Forum stylesheets
Then take a while to identify "what don't I like about it?" Post constructive recommendations, not just "it sucks, I hate it", and recognize that it is less than unhelpful to make a recommendation to go back.
Sometimes it takes forever to get something in place, because Doug and Danny are both busy elsewhere -- it took several weeks to get the "edit first post" functionality on the original board.
I've made the forums workable for me. It appears that Danny and Doug are doing work to converge the default more toward what I consider workable. There are still some hiccups I run across, but they're getting fixed.
Note that you don't even have to wait for Danny and Doug for some things! You can educate yourself and adjust elements with stylesheet overrides: Forum stylesheets
Then take a while to identify "what don't I like about it?" Post constructive recommendations, not just "it sucks, I hate it", and recognize that it is less than unhelpful to make a recommendation to go back.
Sometimes it takes forever to get something in place, because Doug and Danny are both busy elsewhere -- it took several weeks to get the "edit first post" functionality on the original board.
I've made the forums workable for me. It appears that Danny and Doug are doing work to converge the default more toward what I consider workable. There are still some hiccups I run across, but they're getting fixed.
Suggestion: disable feedback buttons (like/dislike,etc) until a user has reached a certain level of positive feedback to prevent malicious use of the system (I've already seen and been victim of it).
Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
Just to attempt to improve on this suggestion...
Would it be better to only disable the ability to "dislike" until a user has reached some threshold, while still allowing the newest users to "like" and rate posts as "helpful" and "informative" (and even "funny"?) I think the newest users are some of those that may benefit the most from being helped, so to prevent them from using those feedback options seems counter-productive. I agree that something should be put in place to prevent a new user from abusing the ability to provide negative feedback via the "dislike" button.
Nice reshuffle of the site. I think it is better to move the news and videos down. Lot's of folks posted into the News section (with older TMC) inappropriately, presumably because it was the first thing they saw. Thanks for moving SpaceX out onto it's own!
I like ohmman's and Andyw2100's suggestion about a threshold and limits for "dislike". In the past the threshold was guided by reputation points. I am not sure how to find a new way to determine what an appropriate threshold would be without reputation points. Certain amount of posts? Certain amount of ratings, or received ratings (which would imply a certain amount of posts)?
The "dislike" option seems to be creating tit for tat flame wars within threads (sometimes amusing, most often distasteful). Maybe disable? I recall other discussions about how the older TMC forum had a "negative" rating for reputation which was ultimately removed, and instead the "report" button was substituted(?) for the "negative" rating. Maybe this needs to be done again.
I like ohmman's and Andyw2100's suggestion about a threshold and limits for "dislike". In the past the threshold was guided by reputation points. I am not sure how to find a new way to determine what an appropriate threshold would be without reputation points. Certain amount of posts? Certain amount of ratings, or received ratings (which would imply a certain amount of posts)?
The "dislike" option seems to be creating tit for tat flame wars within threads (sometimes amusing, most often distasteful). Maybe disable? I recall other discussions about how the older TMC forum had a "negative" rating for reputation which was ultimately removed, and instead the "report" button was substituted(?) for the "negative" rating. Maybe this needs to be done again.
Those News and Video sections are legacy and should go. They were created years ago when embedded videos and links to articles were always broken. IIRC, they were put in one place so a mod could fix them, back in the low traffic times. Anyhow just because a thread has a link to an article or a video is no longer special, and that thread should just be in the section appropriate for whatever the article or video is about.
Negative reputation was disabled in the old system because certain people were using it to send anonymous insults. Sadly some of the people that did that were among the ones that ended up with the most green bars. Make of that what you will.
Negative reputation was disabled in the old system because certain people were using it to send anonymous insults. Sadly some of the people that did that were among the ones that ended up with the most green bars. Make of that what you will.
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Just another comment about "dislike" buttons. It is too easy to click a "dislike" button to a post and move on, rather than writing a thoughtful critical rebuttal. It leaves the original poster wondering what was wrong with what they said, and if they are diligent (or compulsive) enough they would have to hunt down the "disliker" and try to get feedback. Ultimately it can lead to less discussion on the forum, not good.
I believe the "dislike" button invites a less thoughtful forum where people can willy nilly cast about opinions about other posts without ever explaining themselves. I had posts where people could have "disliked", but instead they posted thoughtful, critical, and useful responses. This is what the forum is for, to allow back and forth about material and subjects. The "dislike"button makes it too easy to shut down a discussion and thread without adding anything to it.
Why I dislike the "dislike" button...
I believe the "dislike" button invites a less thoughtful forum where people can willy nilly cast about opinions about other posts without ever explaining themselves. I had posts where people could have "disliked", but instead they posted thoughtful, critical, and useful responses. This is what the forum is for, to allow back and forth about material and subjects. The "dislike"button makes it too easy to shut down a discussion and thread without adding anything to it.
Why I dislike the "dislike" button...
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I can't say that I've seen any conversation get shut down by a "dislike", nor do I think anyone should take it that seriously.
True. No shutting down posts, but it would be better IMO if someone posts a critical reply than just hit a button. Do have to admit, some of the flame wars that occurred with the dislike button have been pretty funny. Forgot who posted "You DISLIKED my post, well I'll ....." It got pretty funny after that.
Update: We applied significant update to the TMC interface including color and font optimizations, new font type, and general tweaks to elements to help with navigation and reading.
Condensed and dark versions are incoming soon.
Condensed and dark versions are incoming soon.
By soon we mean like next week, once the Model 3 stuff calms down a bit.
Are you referring to the snippets that are within snippiness about the speeding ticket thread? If so, that was me -- I wasn't "well I'll" or "why I oughtta". It was an observation that it wasn't constructive to mass-spam all of my posts with "dislike" when you aren't even participating in the thread. If you're going to dislike my post, then explain *why*. There was another person who chose to dislike my post and explain it, and at that point we started to have a debate about speeding laws.
Yay! I look forward to the time when I can turn off all of my stylesheet modifications. Mostly because you broke a bunch of them last night and now I have to go fix them, lol.
Andyw2100
Well-Known Member
Any chance that also coming soon (or even coming at some time) would be the ability to manage watched threads beyond the abilities we have now? (See attached modified screenshot) For example, it would be really useful to be able to select a group of watched threads, and then using the "With selected" option be able to mark all posts in that group as read.
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Yes your post about speeding was one of the ones I recalled where there were a bunch of dislikes, but very little discussion.
You inspired me to try to find the other funny one. Found it! It was by calisnow (post #6):
Rage at a Supercharger Station
I was in stitches with that one.... Now back to model 3...
Benz
Active Member
I used to see 100 posts in each thread on one single page.
So if there were 1,000 posts in a certain thread, then it had just 10 pages.
Can we have that option back again please?
Thanks
So if there were 1,000 posts in a certain thread, then it had just 10 pages.
Can we have that option back again please?
Thanks
I like how we have the red dot back for unread messages. The other style changes are making it much easier on the eyes.
Now if we can just get Tapatalk integration or some sort of mobile app, I think it would be great. I can appreciate how the site now looks better on mobile but it is agonizingly slow, taking 10 to 15 seconds to render the page whenever I click to view unread messages in a thread. Tapatalk (or some other mobile app) could load threads instantly as they wouldn't have to render all of the html styling.
Now if we can just get Tapatalk integration or some sort of mobile app, I think it would be great. I can appreciate how the site now looks better on mobile but it is agonizingly slow, taking 10 to 15 seconds to render the page whenever I click to view unread messages in a thread. Tapatalk (or some other mobile app) could load threads instantly as they wouldn't have to render all of the html styling.
So we already made considerable changes to tighten up unnecessary white space in our last visual update. However, we are now taking that even further with a condensed version which you can now access in the very bottom left of your screen by clicking on the button that says "TMC 2016".
You will then be presented with a window where you can select "TMC 2016 Condensed".
Please of course let us know if you see any issues that obviously are not by design.
You will then be presented with a window where you can select "TMC 2016 Condensed".
Please of course let us know if you see any issues that obviously are not by design.
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JRP3
Hyperactive Member
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
So here's a good example of what I consider misuse of the dislike option (purposely not linking to the post so as to not obviously call anyone out):
Since I assume we'd like to have discussions on this forum with differing POV, people handing out dislikes because of disagreeing seems to negate that goal. The post wasn't rude, just a different opinion - and it gains a dislike from someone. In some instances, the person receiving a dislike finds posts from the person who handed it out... and returns the *favor*. Not good.
I'd suggest that there be simple simple forum guidelines on use of the buttons - with a reminder that abuse could lead to temporary sanctions or whatever.
Since I assume we'd like to have discussions on this forum with differing POV, people handing out dislikes because of disagreeing seems to negate that goal. The post wasn't rude, just a different opinion - and it gains a dislike from someone. In some instances, the person receiving a dislike finds posts from the person who handed it out... and returns the *favor*. Not good.
I'd suggest that there be simple simple forum guidelines on use of the buttons - with a reminder that abuse could lead to temporary sanctions or whatever.
