A call to members for ideas and feedback!!

Clancy49

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Hello!
I'm new to this site and I would like to "thank you" too for doing all that you do to keep this site going. I've have found a lot I helpful info here and some reminders that I've forgotten. I was wondering about a site or articles on treatments for certain illnesses/parasites. For example, I've seen some ppl/vets are still treating coccidia with sulfa drugs (which is very hard on the liver on an already compromised beardie). There is another drug out there that is easy on the liver and irraticates the coccidia parasite. I'm not sure if I'm being very clear but, just a thought. After all, it's "us" the owner that has to ask our vets what we need from them sometimes.
Thanks again for all your hard work. Cheers to you!
 

beardie

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Clancy: Have you seen this article?
https://www.beardeddragon.org/articles/parasitecare/

It's a bit older, but does cover quite a bit. If there's something lacking with it, I'd like to hear feedback on that as well. We could either look to add a supplemental article, or maybe update the existing.
 

beardie

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This is a slight tangent to the "Call for feedback"... but I figured those reading/following this thread might appreciate this and be willing to provide me with feedback.

I've started another topic for replying on this though, as to not clutter this topic.

What am I talking about? A test page for better and more dynamic Mobile device support! 35-45% of our traffic is from Mobile devices (smart phones and tablets). So, I'm working on making that experience a bit easier. I am still a bit limited by the forums, but may be able to still work with resizing some things there too.

For now, I just have a test using the home page. Links on it will just take you to the regular pages.

ANyway... more info is here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=211628

Please reply on that topic for feedback specifically on the mobile test page.

Thanks,
-Alex
 

beardie

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DarkwingDork":2adydzz4 said:
I do all my forum reading on my phone in my spare time and I love this site enough to suffer through doing it on a mobile browser. I would love you forever and always if you added Tapatalk support. Pretty please?
Jon,

I looked into this. When I setup a Tapatalk test, I looked through it. What I realized is that there's no way to put Google Adsense ads on it. So, I wondered... why would sites do this since it would eat away at their revenue source.

I did some Google searching, and indeed this is a serious problem for sites deciding to switch over to support Tapatalk. It's great for increasing traffic on smaller sites, but as users switch away to use Tapatalk, the website owner loses all revenue from that traffic. Tapatalk responded to a discussion about it on their own forums, but their reply really came across to me as "these are not the revenue problems you are looking for" (Star Wars reference... sorry.. I'm an old geek). Basically, they said that Tapatalk drives up visitors because it stimulates responses.

Sure, that makes sense for very small sites just starting... or sites that are so huge, Tapatalk traffic is insignificant, but as many medium/large sized website owners pointed out, if you have a good level of responses and visitors on your site, revenues just seem to go down. This means... the costs to run the site start to outweigh the money the site makes. That would mean the end of the site!

I will have to pass on supporting Tapatalk until they actually show revenue options for website owners that make sense. From what I can tell, their only value comes from the websites choosing to support them, and they give nothing back. And the options they suggest doesn't seem to do much for those who have tried.

What I CAN do, however....

I will be looking into the next version of phpBB, which supposedly has a much better support for mobile. I will also be looking at making larger customizations to the forum templates. I have recently done a bunch of work lately to making dynamic page designs for the non-forum parts of the site (the stuff I developed from scratch, and thus have more control over). A post just a little before this one, from me, links to another topic regarding that, with links to the demo pages. I am really hoping that this will start to improve the mobile experience. I will take what I learned from that redesign work, and see how I can best apply it to the forums myself as well.

I am hopeful mobile support (smart phones or tablets) will be improved... one way or another. :)
 

Taterbug

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It seems forums handle mobile better than others - though I guess they use a differnt software package. My biggest problem with posting from mobile is how tiny the text is and clunky the text box is - having to pan around the screen... I've not had any problems from my iPad.

This one does a good job of consolidating the forum area for mobile - I was kinda surprised. but their main category list doesn't show up well for me. :roll:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?278-Welcome-Forum

The changes to the article and main page look slick. :)
 

beardie

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Taterbug":3gm3qjec said:
It seems forums handle mobile better than others - though I guess they use a differnt software package. My biggest problem with posting from mobile is how tiny the text is and clunky the text box is - having to pan around the screen... I've not had any problems from my iPad.
Exactly! That's what I'm working on with my prototyping for the rest of the site, and will eventually try to translate over to the forums. Most of the "mobile themes" I've seen for phpBB are really hideous and limit a lot of the functionality. While some will have to be limited, it should be workable. iPads aren't too bad given the screen size, which is why with my prototypes, I made less change to them.

This one does a good job of consolidating the forum area for mobile - I was kinda surprised. but their main category list doesn't show up well for me. :roll:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?278-Welcome-Forum
I'll have to take a look when I have some more time (lunch break right now).

The changes to the article and main page look slick. :)
Thanks. I will see how much I can do similar types of changes to the forum templates to create my own theme.
 
Hi, thanks again for all that you do on the forum, its been a tremendous help to me ever since I found it.

Something I saw quite a while ago that someone suggested in the website comments forum, that I'm still quite interested in was a sticky or something where someone could post either looking for a babysitter or offering to babysit for each other's beardies. I think this would be great, while I wouldn't worry my dog and cat at a kennel for a couple days, I would worry about my beardie due to the more specialized care they require.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, I know it must consume quite a bit of time keeping the forums going, and I know a lot of people appreciate it.
 
Having the profile section updated would be nice so you can see some of thier beardies or other pets, their DIY they have done, and easier way to upload pix would be amazing. This site still confuses me in some parts. Lol
 

beardie

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Shanshan2102":6u43lu11 said:
Having the profile section updated would be nice so you can see some of thier beardies or other pets, their DIY they have done, and easier way to upload pix would be amazing. This site still confuses me in some parts. Lol
One thing I was planning to do was to add a way to upload photos directly to this site. I need to double check our storage capacity and maybe upgrade that a little, but I am hoping to greatly simplify the photo update/insertion. Something combining the way I enabled uploading images for the 2015 Calendar with auto-inserting the forum link. Personally, I wish that phpBB would have editing more like WordPress, where you see what you post as you type, not have to see the BB codes.

As for the Profile... I might be able to do something, but much of that is part of the forum software itself, which I don't manage/write.
 
Hey beardie, ive been on this website for over a year, but dont post much, but thank you for caring so much for this site and beardies. I thought i used to be the only one with a bearded dragon, and knew what it was like to love it. :roll: I thought i was weird until i found this site, but now i feel normal :mrgreen: :blob8: but i think that it would be a cool idea to have a way to post funny bearded dragon videos. Id love to see some peoples priceless bearded dragon reactions on camera, other than reading their experiences :mrgreen: and thanks for your time
live, love, beardie :mrgreen:
 

CooperDragon

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I've found that using the bookmark feature helps me keep track of threads I've responded to vs ones I've read but don't have anything to add to. Is there a way to automatically bookmark a thread that I've responded to?
 

beardie

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CooperDragon":1pp297q5 said:
I've found that using the bookmark feature helps me keep track of threads I've responded to vs ones I've read but don't have anything to add to. Is there a way to automatically bookmark a thread that I've responded to?
Unfortunately, I don't think so. I've not used the Bookmark feature much.
 

CooperDragon

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OK, no big deal. I can just keep adding them manually. I've found that it's a great way for me to not miss updates on anything I've previously commented on (especially if I've been away for a while and have hundreds of unread threads to check on).
 

beardie

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Yeah.. I know... 7 years later... while some of the requests/suggestions provided on this thread were somewhat met through other means, I think the new forums meet most of these so much better. Here's a breakdown of each suggestion/request and their status...

@Taterbug
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!"
Done! Finally! And not just "like." Love, Laugh, Sad, etc. And flexible to add more, and positive ones give "points"/kudos to the poster.

@Goonie
an article about the different morphs
Todo: Not yet on this, but this and several other articles/content are in the works.

@FloraBelle
Important questions regarding care, when seeking assistance.
Todo: This is STILL a need. But I have a plan and this on my todo list. The new system supports custom fields in a much better way, and I am looking into a possible way to have a custom field show up near their name with a tool tip of the details.

@Shane95
Fix the image upload form (reported by Shane95)
Done! This was fixed already... but still worth noting (and will again a few more times), the new Media Gallery feature supports people having their own albums and the upload process is SOOO much smoother and more integrated.

@Heyimbrit
directly upload a picture instead of having to go through another site
Done! Again, the new Media Gallery feature is great!

@CooperDragon
helpful to have a way to flag posts as a way to follow them ... 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”.”
Done! Better than bookmarks and other methods before... Under the Forums tab, Find Threads, Threads with your posts

@gamester666
info on breeding crickets
Todo: As I noted, lots of content is in the works. Pulling the sticky thread that was provided by @Tonja into a well formatted resource article is on the list. Also, with the Resources feature, I've enabled it so that members with a significant number of posts (300 ... i.e. those with a vested interest in growing the content of the site) are able to create new Resources. Members can provide feedback, rate them, and like them. Those that are popular and well liked, and well written, we can look to migrate over into the official articles, or have as a highlighted resource.

@beardie
want to see more regular streams of official content on the site, and not just the content that can become buried in the forums.
Done! and Todo: Yeah, I know. I'm quoting myself here. But I really want to emphasize that our plan is to really grow the article/written content on the site beyond the forums. My wife (a content writer) will be helping out a lot on this. But, in the past many have expressed a desire to be able to help write articles. With the new Member Resources section, those with 300 or more posts can draft, write up, and maintain their own articles, living document (maybe a "life of my beardie" story, etc.). Others can like, vote on, provide feedback, and even "Watch" resources for updates.

@DarkwingDork and @Taterbug
Paraphrased: Improved mobile
Done! So, Taterbug provided a link to a Bee forum that had software that was good on mobile. At the time, they were using vBulletin (similar to phpBB that we used, but a bit cleaner). However, it seems that almost a year ago, they upgraded to the same software we are using today, a paid for forum/community system rather than the ones we were using which are free open source forum systems. Until I came back to read this thread I didn't know that. Somewhat ironic, I guess. But yes... mobile is sooo much better on this. And now, mobile is some 80-90% of our page loads, it makes sense to make that a major priority. Still not looking at Tapatalk, though... sorry. :)

@Marshamello
babysitter or offering to babysit for each other's beardies
Todo: Still don't have this. Logistically it is challenging, and might require much higher levels of traffic to be able to find clusters of people that might be looking to do this. Definitely something many would like, but heavily dependent on the people. I was looking to see if there could be a way to show "recent posts" in a forum, but sorted by geographical proximity (based on IP addresses). Not sure that can be supported, though.

@Shanshan2102
profile section updated would be nice so you can see some of their beardies or other pets
... their DIY they have done
... and easier way to upload pix would be amazing
Done! Done! and Done! The new Media Gallery feature can support people having their own albums. For now, I've migrated the old "guest" visitor photo album. I've also created a category for people to share media about their Enclosures. We can expand on the categories as we have more interest. And for people just needing to upload pictures for their posts, that's also quick and easy.

@TangoMallangoLopez
a way to post funny bearded dragon videos
Done! Well, sorta Todo... we do now support video uploads on posts, but they have to be relatively small in size (video sucks up storage space fast). I'll look into whether we can support this without too much expense (cloud storage is not cheap).


Anyway... this thread has been lingering forever! I'm glad to have FINALLY gotten so many things checked off the list, and most of the rest on the priority list for content creation. :)
 

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