26 replies to this topic

[RJM]

Trap17 is full of people creating GUIs and I can't believe this isn't more of a contention.

There are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY to many topics. More is NOT better. It's a huge turn-off and I'm not sure it's worth the MyCents to hang around and give myself a headache trying to figure out what topics my interests fit in. If I was lord Trap, this is what I'd see under my main forum page:

-Trap17 Faqs, info, and requests.
-General Discussion
-Tech
-Science
-Political
-Humor
-Life
-Everything and Nothing

Under each of those categories, I'd have a general sub, then maybe 5-10 more subs. More 5s than 10s.

Trap needs some sort of organization bad. It's like walking into a teenager's room and looking for a clean sock. I'm THIS| |CLOSE to just buying a new bag of clean fresh knee-highs and giving up.

[Nabb]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 07:59 PM, said:

Trap17 is full of people creating GUIs and I can't believe this isn't more of a contention.

What? You do know that GUI means Graphical User Interface, right?

[Quatrux]

It's a big forum, what would you want, I like that everything is categorized so much, for people searching for information on google it's much easier to find something, if you want less categories in my opinion you could find a forum which is not so active and does not have so much members? I don't get the idea for what you're trying to say, it's the same as walking into a room, a very big room full of people, a lot of people and a lot of place for them.

[xpress]

Well, I got your point. But its very difficult to reorganize the entire trap17 forum now, and it creates lots of problems. It also effects the SEO of trap17.
Personally I don't think its a problem.

And in my opinion if a newbie view the home page of trap17 forum he immediately thinks that its a big forum. So he/she may think it is very easy to earn myCents for his posts because he can find lot of topics that interests him. But if there are only 6 to 7 main categories in the forum home page he may think that this is very small forum and may not be that much active.

Thats my personal opinion when I first saw trap17. Well, first impression is the best impression, isn't it?

You know, there is another associate forum to xisto called astahost. Everything is same(myCents etc..) at that forum except the number of categories at that forum are smaller and more technical. Just try it once if you wish.

[salamangkero]

Quatrux, on Mar 4 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

It's a big forum, what would you want, I like that everything is categorized so much, for people searching for information on google it's much easier to find something, if you want less categories in my opinion you could find a forum which is not so active and does not have so much members? I don't get the idea for what you're trying to say, it's the same as walking into a room, a very big room full of people, a lot of people and a lot of place for them.

I agree. I do believe the topics are not simply a bag of beans upended haphazardly, rather, it is quite well organized. Quite remotely from your image of a messy teenager's room, I believe Trap17 is like a Department Store. There are so many items but they are all organized in such a way that you will know where to get a clean pair of socks.

Far be it from me to step down to derision, I do believe your proposed system of organizing forum threads would be more like a teenager's messy room. Everything and Nothing sounds pretty much like a large clothes hamper that accepts all items of clothing, a cop-out, if you will, as this is the place where chaos is tolerated so that the other threads may have order.

I do think the organization is simple enough. I mean I don't have headache fits just trying to figure out where I might find something that is of interest to me.

There is something I'd like to share, in the hopes that it might be of some help. In the left panel, there is a list of the topics most recently posted to. It is, to me, a randomizer of sorts. I can quickly scan it, click on those that I think may be of interest to me, read through those that actually interest me and post a reply where I am inclined to do so (mostly when someone needs help, when someone is, as I perceived, utterly wrong, or when I have some idea to contribute which has not yet been posted) Plus, I get the bonus of posting in a "live" topic, as I am one who hates resurrecting dried-up, dusty, decaying dead topics that haven't been posted to in months

[RJM]

If I have to scroll way the f to the bottom of a mile long page to find the forum I'm looking for, there's something amiss. I would rather take a quick glance, click, maybe click another sub category after that, then be reading...

Yes, GUI is the graphical user interface. Did I confuse you?

I don't get the impression that it's that busy. The other forums I go to get a lot more busy and have far fewer categories. A LOT of the categories can be combined with others of the same general interest. It only appeals to the type of user that doesn't mind reading through long lines of text.

You guys are thinking more like programmers than designers. No decent web designer would make it's user scroll that far to get to what he or she wants. It's frustrating as hell. I've resorted to just using the "View New Posts" link 99% of the time.

Edited by RJM, 04 March 2009 - 11:49 AM.

[rayzoredge]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

You guys are thinking more like programmers than designers. No decent web designer would make it's user scroll that far to get to what he or she wants. It's frustrating as hell. I've resorted to just using the "View New Posts" link 99% of the time.

I actually agree with you there, and I actually do the same. Every single time I log into Trap17, I head over to View New Posts to see what's up. If there are any threads I want to read or participate in, I open them in new tabs in FF to peruse later. This approach is good for me, personally, in a number of ways:

• I don't revive a long-dead/solved thread
  
• I don't spam (as much)
  
• I'm up and current on recent issues as opposed to replying to someone's problem from 3 years ago
  
• I don't waste hours sitting online at Trap17 trying to post on every single thread, offering better contributions to what I can instead of what I can't

Those include my pet peeves, which of course I have no control over (people who first join and immediately think to post a ton of one-liners in random threads to earn MyCents).

The Open Discussion default page is something I can agree with you on. No one should have to scroll down a mile of TEXT to try to find what topic they're wanting to post in. (It's a web-design eyesore.) It seems to be a working template though that others copy or use, because of the fact that if you do a bit more than your usual surfing, you'll most likely find other forums in the same style as Trap17.

However, in defense, I'm sure it IS a pain in the sack to try to reorganize what Trap17 already has for posts into categories that actually fit. To redesign the default opening page wouldn't be much of a problem so that all the categories would be available to you on first glance (with drops to sub-categories), IMO, but to organize, let's say, General Discussion... I don't really want to be the guy stuck with that job (unless I get paid for it). Also, remember that most members and staff are on a voluntary basis. Not to mention the fact that I still think that Trap17 is based on a bought template, but if Opaque had exclusive access to the code to modify, then it would be child's play for a good handful of our more tech-savvy staff to make Trap17 a more user-friendly interface.

[Tramposch]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

You guys are thinking more like programmers than designers. No decent web designer would make it's user scroll that far to get to what he or she wants. It's frustrating as hell. I've resorted to just using the "View New Posts" link 99% of the time.

The thing is, we are not going to change something for ONE member. I like graphics, I have to scroll to the bottom, but more users like the forums at the top than the bottom.
It is fine, just stop complaining and you will get use to it if you don't like it.

[rayzoredge]

Tramposch, on Mar 4 2009, 05:43 PM, said:

The thing is, we are not going to change something for ONE member. I like graphics, I have to scroll to the bottom, but more users like the forums at the top than the bottom.
It is fine, just stop complaining and you will get use to it if you don't like it.

You would make an excellent customer service representative.

I LOL'd.

'Tis too is true, what Tramposch pointed out. But then again, if you have to get used to something, that means continuous usage, which means that if it already pisses off OP to use it, most likely he won't be hanging around enough to get used to it. It's a whole ease-of-usage gig factor, but I think one retaining factor of Trap17 would have to be the MyCents system and [basically] being paid free hosting credits.

Still, I think OP has a point.

[Spyda]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 03:59 AM, said:

Trap17 is full of people creating GUIs and I can't believe this isn't more of a contention.

There are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY to many topics. More is NOT better. It's a huge turn-off and I'm not sure it's worth the MyCents to hang around and give myself a headache trying to figure out what topics my interests fit in. If I was lord Trap, this is what I'd see under my main forum page:

-Trap17 Faqs, info, and requests.
-General Discussion
-Tech
-Science
-Political
-Humor
-Life
-Everything and Nothing

Under each of those categories, I'd have a general sub, then maybe 5-10 more subs. More 5s than 10s.

Trap needs some sort of organization bad. It's like walking into a teenager's room and looking for a clean sock. I'm THIS| |CLOSE to just buying a new bag of clean fresh knee-highs and giving up.

Having a lot of topics isn't a turnoff, it actually makes it easy to find a suitable topic for one to post their thoughts in. If trap17 would delete all of these pots, not only would it make it harder for us users to find something to post in, but it would also hurt Trap17 SEO because many topics that were linked to trap would be missing.

Also, there has been numerous topics on this issue, and each has been addresses by a moderator. Next time, please do search for similar threads instead of posting a duplicate

[Nabb]

Well you can actually minimize the sections (click the [-] on the far right of the category names), but it does start to glitch if you minimize too much (by size) - this should probably be rectified.

[Echo_of_thunder]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 03:59 AM, said:

Trap17 is full of people creating GUIs and I can't believe this isn't more of a contention.

There are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY to many topics. More is NOT better. It's a huge turn-off and I'm not sure it's worth the MyCents to hang around and give myself a headache trying to figure out what topics my interests fit in. If I was lord Trap, this is what I'd see under my main forum page:

-Trap17 Faqs, info, and requests.
-General Discussion
-Tech
-Science
-Political
-Humor
-Life
-Everything and Nothing

Under each of those categories, I'd have a general sub, then maybe 5-10 more subs. More 5s than 10s.

Trap needs some sort of organization bad. It's like walking into a teenager's room and looking for a clean sock. I'm THIS| |CLOSE to just buying a new bag of clean fresh knee-highs and giving up.

RJM, All I can say to you is this. This is what makes Trap17 the way that it is. People here post these topis and or have requested these forums or subs. That is what makes Trap17 work and get's its members to post. I do agree it is a little busy but I understand why it is.

[RJM]

Echo_of_thunder, on Mar 6 2009, 11:51 AM, said:

This is what makes Trap17 the way that it is.

I know.

I see way more activity in other sites with way less topics. I'm used to posting on one topic, looking at another, returning 5 minutes later and reading three or four responses.

I know for a fact that there must be plenty of users out there that take one look and never return. I'm 50/50 on staying. I'll test it for the free hosting, but will probably pay another hosting place eventually.

[antares19]

I like the layout. A lot of topics mean that I can post a lot of things
So the more topics, the more cents
Although it is a bit confused...

[Saint_Michael]

RJM, on Mar 6 2009, 06:34 PM, said:

I know.

I see way more activity in other sites with way less topics. I'm used to posting on one topic, looking at another, returning 5 minutes later and reading three or four responses.

I know for a fact that there must be plenty of users out there that take one look and never return. I'm 50/50 on staying. I'll test it for the free hosting, but will probably pay another hosting place eventually.

Now my question is odds are the forums are very specific and thus the categories are specific as well, however, this is a web hosting community meaning that people who post in these forums have very specific reasons and thus the reason for all the categories. Each category is specific in its own way and because of that it keep the organization a lot less crazier if we just had one forum that covers everything within the forum and thus it would be 100% chaos with 100% confusion as well. Due to the fact it will be hard to post in topics that have a few hundred replies in each one and then going on to beat a dead house by replying to question topics that have already been answered once.

For me though I would think it is time to begin archiving topics because we have thousands of topics which haven't been touch in almost 5 years and its time to bring some freshness in the forums. By archiving very old topics, it cuts down on the spam and preventing members from bringing up these old topics that are really out of date. Granted, ther are some forums such as tutorials that should be archived, but topics in the general forum or even in the introduction forum should be archived.

Of course house cleaning a forum that is near the half million mark in posts isn't a easy task either but still if we archive the old stuff then members will have a sense to start posting fresh topics instead of just posting in older topics and or replying to ones they already replied to.

[saitunes]

I do believe that RJM has some merit. I think the layout is somewhat confusing and not as easy to navigate as it once was. That is probably the sole reason I have stopped posting as frequently.

I think part of it is the layout. check out http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ which I think have a great layout, a 2 column layout.

I prefer the older layout. the previous one I'm sure. I think a 2 column layout would be better.

[mahesh2k]

For newbies,This is called as Information contention. and it is haunting you cause you're interested in too many topics. Narrow down your focus and concentrate on only one topic at time, and if that category is less discussed then move to another topic where topic is discussed actively.

And your suggestion for keep it simple and accessible does makes sense. But imagine the members increasing everyday so every topic that is created could lead to many sub-topics and hence if any discussion gets off-topic then once can prefer the thread where he can specifically write/read based on the topic. So sub-threads do make sense here. It's just that you need to get used to forums.

My suggestion is spend some time on forums, get to know other members. then understand how to get what you want out of topic. How much you can spend on forums and how that reflects your mycents earning. again even this reply may sound like contention to you . So try to keep things simple in big-forum, narrow your focus to specific threads and then move to more threads.

[Tenshi]

I personally feel that with the help of a bit of common sense you can find whatever you want on this forum, besides the forum is a blessing in disguise to those who have a lot of time on their hands (take me for an example). So I cannot complain about the number of topics here, and if there were too many members and very few topics then you would have repeated responses like in the "homosexuality" topic and "Abortion" topic. So having different topics and mainly specific topic it makes it easier for members to reply to varied topics.

At first I found the whole theme annoying and difficult to use but after posting a bit I found the theme really useful and efficient because I had a lot of topics/posts that I could reply to and the categories made it easier for me to find something to reply to instead of racking my own brains to find something

[Alex Cicala]

My contention of the site is that it is unorganized and that there are way too many Forum sections. It's time for a update, no offense, but it will help the site for good. The forum script is fine its just the fact that there are unanswered posts from over 4 years ago and thats the issue. The oldest post that would be acceptable to me would be about 1 year max, after that it would be pruned or archived or deleted. I say time for a change, but ultimately up to whoever runs Trap17.

[Tenshi]

cicala, on May 20 2009, 06:24 AM, said:

My contention of the site is that it is unorganized and that there are way too many Forum sections. It's time for a update, no offense, but it will help the site for good. The forum script is fine its just the fact that there are unanswered posts from over 4 years ago and thats the issue. The oldest post that would be acceptable to me would be about 1 year max, after that it would be pruned or archived or deleted. I say time for a change, but ultimately up to whoever runs Trap17.

Lol yeah, I personally have a problem against all the topics that have an expiry period. But the topics that can be kept alive for a long time is fine with me. The problem with the pruning is that there are few moderators and unless the admin asks for the pruning, we cannot ask the mods to do it all alone. I also have a problem with questions asked 2-3 years ago and members either out of ignorance, stupidity or to spam the topic reply to it giving advice sometimes wrong advice.

One day, maybe we will get a chance to get rid of all the topics that are useless

[k_nitin_r]

Hi!

While I would say that at times I've got to go to multiple forums for what I need, I wouldn't say it is excessive. If I were to post something about the new Safari 4 browser, I'd either go to Computer > Software or Internet > Web Browser since there's an overlap there. Safari 4 is both computer software and an Internet web browser. In the interest of keeping topics under the category that best defines the subject matter, I'd then post my thread about Safari 4 in the Internet > Web Browser forum.

I would say that there are lots of forums here at Trap 17, but that's only because we're not a topic-specific discussion forum, such as a PHP forum or a Botany forum. You can talk about anything from UFOs to how to tie a bow-tie and that's the beauty of it - no matter what you want to talk about, you can turn to Trap17!

Regards

[Kubi]

RJM, on Mar 4 2009, 04:46 AM, said:

You guys are thinking more like programmers than designers. No decent web designer would make it's user scroll that far to get to what he or she wants. It's frustrating as hell. I've resorted to just using the "View New Posts" link 99% of the time.

At least you're not on the moderator team. We have to scroll even farther to get to our forum (At the bottom).

I do agree there are a lot of forums and it takes a while to get used to, but if you take the time you'll find out that it does have a general order, and it becomes relatively easier to browse.

[Saint_Michael]

Since I just came across for the first time in a few months, refer to post #15, but in recent months forums have been rearranged and so it took some time to find the right forum. Of course, I am like one of the other members in that I just click view new post and then to take it a step back further I use the option to go back one week, two, a month etc and then I begin posting from there.

Sure it is overwhelming, but that is why you take the time to go over the forum and see what topics are covered and stuff. However, the confusing thing would if the sub-topics were hidden and so a person isn't going to be clicking all over the place to see what forums are in that main category.

Either way, best thing to do is click on view new posts and start your posting off in there and when you have the free time browse around Trap17 and see what it has to offer.

[rob86]

I'm a n00b here and I just would like to say some of my opinions on trap17. It was quite overwhelming at first and personally I was looking for a way to change how things looked but that doesn't seem to be an option. I just removed the shoutbox, and it looks much better without it, less bulky, but I'm wondering if i'll miss something now. I'll have to check it through the shoutbox page once in a while.

I also think the similar topics thing at the bottom is usually much too big. It wouldn't be so bad if the topics were all new, but some of them are 5 years old and I'm not sure it's even worthwhile or proper etiquette to revive them from the dead. Never mind, I just figured out it stays contracted if you click the -. Atleast I HOPE it stays put.

I do like the simple colour layout of the forum though. It's easy on the eyes and that means I don't mind looking at it often.

Another thing I noticed is -- I have to log in to trap17 multiple times per day! I'm a member on other forums and I can't even remember the last time I actually logged in to those sites. I don't know, this could be my browser or something, but it's annoying to click on New Posts and get an error all the time from not being logged in. Is this a forum setting or is it something I'm doing wrong?


All in all, you do get used to it once you find your way around. The View New Posts is what I usually use on this forum and others anyway.

The funny thing is while writing this post, I solved almost all the things that were bugging me (shoutbox, similar topics). lol

[The Simpleton]

I totally agree that a newbie would find it very confusing in the beginning to go to the forum he wishes - one might say that after sometime he could get accustomed to it. But in some cases this may not happen.

I found a very simple solution to this confusion. Since I already know what my favourite fourms are, I press Ctrl+F and type out the name (I'm a fast typist so that's no time matter) and voila! I'm in there in a second. Now isn't that convenient?

Being in such a large fourm like this is a good thing coz you feel part of a very large community and I wouldn't want the forum size to decrease at all. If possible, increase it!