A call to members for ideas and feedback!!

beardie

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Cailyth, Pinky, & Brain
Hey everyone!

I've been trying to get some extra time in to improve the site a bit for everyone. Some of you may have noticed the recent updates and new Similar Topics feature.

Well, I realized that I have some of my own ideas for things to do to improve the website. I have a couple well done posts planned to convert into formal articles, some changes to the home page, I was considering, and a couple other things.

But what I realized was that other than people posting suggestions (some of which are great), I hadn't really just ASKED you all... what sort of features on the site would YOU like to see??? And I don't just mean in the forums (but not excluding it either). Anywhere on the site... or entirely new sections, perhaps?

I'd love to see your thoughts. This way, I can gather up different thoughts of yours, and see if some can be made into a reality! Obviously, things like amount of work (this is mostly hobby time for me) to make it happen will play a factor... but in general, I think it will help me just to see what people want.

Also... if there are things that are annoying or frustrating for you... please let me know that too! I am very open to honest constructive criticism.

So, please reply and let me know! What would you like to see?

Cheers,
-Alex
 

Taterbug

BD.org Addict
Well, firstly - thank you for maintaining this forum! And great work on the upgrades :) the similar topics feature is great!

One if the things I like about some other forums is a "like" feature - not necessarily the FB like but sort of an "I agree!"
 

beardie

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Cailyth, Pinky, & Brain
Taterbug":2ij5h5ht said:
Well, firstly - thank you for maintaining this forum! And great work on the upgrades :) the similar topics feature is great!

One if the things I like about some other forums is a "like" feature - not necessarily the FB like but sort of an "I agree!"
Yeah... I've thought the same before. :) Actually, I have felt like life needs a like button. There are so many things where a simple gesture of "I like this" or "I agree" seems appropriate these days... emails, comments people make, etc. :)
 

Goonie

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Retired Moderator
It would help to have an article about the different morphs, and have it stickied in its own forum so members won't be asking the same questions.
 

diamc

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Goonie":pxzsbqmz said:
It would help to have an article about the different morphs, and have it stickied in its own forum so members won't be asking the same questions.
Wish there was a "LIKE" button for this. :lol:
 

FloraBelle

Member
First off, I want to repeat what others have already said.... thank you for maintaining and improving this site! Many times I have visited in a panic, looking for advice or answers as a new beardie mom. My boy is 7 months old now, and doing great!

My only suggestion is a reiteration of a post made back in 2009... "Important questions regarding care". It may bear updating and repeating. I see the same questions asked over and over to people looking for help (what kind of uvb do you use, what are your temps...etc)... To the point where I have even seen this aspect of the forum used as the butt of a joke by breeders and on other forums.

The questions are important, especially for newbies.... But for those beardie parents who already have their setups optimized, it can be a drag to have to justify yourself on the basics every time you are looking for info, help or advice. I find myself starting or ending every post with something like, "my setup is correct according to forum guidelines" so that I don't get the regular string of questions!

Perhaps just updating and reposting that original post would help... And maybe a new, separate, string on health issues faced by newbies or something... Where the focus is .... "Before you post in the health or ER forums, check your basic setup and include this info in your help request"... Or something like that...

Just some thought! I really do rely on this site.... Wonderful of you to do this for us! :blob5: thank you so much!
 

beardie

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Cailyth, Pinky, & Brain
That list of questions has always been a challenge. The same string of questions often puts people off too. Maybe there's another way to approach it. Perhaps a smooth and easy to use "wizard" that walks a user through the common questions (with an option to skip or come back to later). I could save the info somewhere, and have a page that summarizes a users's answers. But also, if they have answers, maybe link it to the right of their posts, with their summary profile info? Hmmm.... ideas. Will have to think that through, but something along those lines might be helpful all around.
 

Tonja

BD.org Addict
Flora, not to nitpick but, anyone that posts in health or the ER forums are usually in a panic over an incident with their beardie or an issue. Many want answers and quickly, especially in the ER forum and don't think to put in information that may be pertinent to their particular situation and in some cases setup has nothing to do with certain emergencies or what may be perceived as an emergency by an owner. I know being a first time beardie parent 3 yrs ago almost now, I had issues with near drownings in my beardies and wanted help...setup had nothing to do with what was going on and sometimes its info that is not needed <not always but sometimes>, I wanted to know what to do for my dragon who gulped water then got very listless and lethargic with a hard time breathing. I can certainly understand setup and tank conditions can affect health but in an emergency its not always necessary. Some may be put off by having to answer a long list of questions when they feel their dragon is hanging in the balance. Just my thoughts.
 

beardie

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Cailyth, Pinky, & Brain
It's come to my attention that the upload form was not quite working for some images. In looking at the logs, this issue may have occurred for about 4-5 of you.

Symptom: The upload progress indicator stays at 100% but does not confirm success..

Cause: Something about the image was triggering our security software and blocking the request behind the scenes, in a way that was not being detected by the upload form.

Solution: I disabled that one security check (not a high priority one) for now.

So, if you had the issue of the progress bar remaining at 100% and not providing you a confirmation of a successful upload, please try again.

If anyone has any issues when uploading, please let me know.

Thanks, Shane95, for the heads up and helping me test the solution.
 

CooperDragon

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Staff member
Moderator
It would be nice to have some kind of general photo hosting account on the back end that would allow for direct image posting to the site. Not really sure how feasible it would be though.

I like the similar posts feature quite a bit. I think it will be very helpful for those looking for as much info about a topic as possible.

It would be helpful to have a way to flag posts as a way to follow them. I try to view every post using the unread posts link as my bookmark but if I'm away for a while it gets kind of overwhelming. If there was a way to easily see and check back in on posts I was actively following before I left that would make it much easier to "catch up".
 

beardie

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CooperDragon":1eqysi0c said:
It would be nice to have some kind of general photo hosting account on the back end that would allow for direct image posting to the site. Not really sure how feasible it would be though.
A possibility. I wouldn't be able to store original files, but I could resize them on the server to a couple reasonable sizes. Essentially, I'd be building out a mini photo hosting website. I sort of do this with the Visitor Photo Album, except those don't require someone to be logged in. Maybe it should, and maybe it could be the same feature. A possibility... just need to think through details and amount of time to create it.

It would be helpful to have a way to flag posts as a way to follow them. I try to view every post using the unread posts link as my bookmark but if I'm away for a while it gets kind of overwhelming. If there was a way to easily see and check back in on posts I was actively following before I left that would make it much easier to "catch up".
Do you mean a way other than "Subscribing" to a topic? Or do you mean a way to summarize the topics you're following, similar to showing your own topics and such? If you weren't aware, you can actually subscribe to any topic even without replying, and would get email notifications.

Oh, also, there is a "Bookmark Topic" feature. I'm not sure when that was added or if that's been there for a while now. I don't remember it (possibly part of this recent update). I'm not sure how it works, but I suspect it allows for something similar to Subscribing, but without email notifications. You can view your Bookmarks under the User Control Panel, "Manage Bookmarks".

Perhaps what we need is to have the links to Subscribe and Bookmark be more visible than buried on the bottom of the topic page.
 

CooperDragon

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Staff member
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Yes, bookmarks sounds like what I'm looking for. I don't subscribe to the topics because the volume of e-mail I'd get would be unmanageable. I'm just looking for a quick visual way of locating topics I'm active in so I can re-visit easily.

If you're thinking about hosting the images in house, then perhaps each user account could have an allotment of drive space to store data (similar to on a domain controller/file server) and when the quota is filled users can remove older images. Might add too much complexity or cost, but it's an idea to think about. A lot of new users seem to have a rough time figuring out the photo posting system.
 

Taterbug

BD.org Addict
CooperDragon":19mic2mn said:
Yes, bookmarks sounds like what I'm looking for. I don't subscribe to the topics because the volume of e-mail I'd get would be unmanageable. I'm just looking for a quick visual way of locating topics I'm active in so I can re-visit easily.

If you're thinking about hosting the images in house, then perhaps each user account could have an allotment of drive space to store data (similar to on a domain controller/file server) and when the quota is filled users can remove older images. Might add too much complexity or cost, but it's an idea to think about. A lot of new users seem to have a rough time figuring out the photo posting system.

I don't like the e-mails either, I have a filter dump them... somewhere... so they don't clutter my inbox. Maybe just a "no emails from subscriptions" option in the control panel?

For the photos if you can't provide storage space maybe a [help] button that has the quick and dirty of how to share links? Or, I've seen forums have a button that just pops up a dialog for the user to paste the url and it drops the code in. The dialog could have instructions saying "upload your image to a photo sharing website and paste the url here" and could link the more popular sites?
 

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