Hi,
I'm new to this site, and I'm finding the forums to be very primitive and difficult to navigate:
For example:
I can't seem to find a way to search through the forums for keywords.
I can't seem to find a way to keep track of 'new' posts from the last time I've visited.
I'm not always clear about what forums I should be posting certain questions into.
I think there are a LOT of forum topics, perhaps it would be better to have a "Product Support Forums" with subforums under that for specific product discussions, making the location for more general discussions more obvious?
I don't know if these are limitations of the forum software being used, or just how it happens to be configured, but from my perspective the size of this community has outgrown the effectiveness of the forums. I've setup forum sites before and have used www.DotNetNuke.com as a platform, but there are dozens of other platforms available.
Perhaps I just don't know how to use these forums effectivly? Any advice would be appreciated.
Matt Christenson
Replies
Matthew, one thing that can help with keeping track of new posts is to try using the RSS feed. Unfortunately the default forum feeds are almost useless, but I've got a hacked up version that tries to make it useful. My version of the feed is at http://better-ning-feeds.appspot.com/feed/http%3A//diydrones.com/ac... and you can see more info at http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/i-made-it-easier-to-follow-activi...
Someday I'd like to create a mailing list/newsgroup/google group version of the forums, which would keep forum posts and replies in the same thread. I think that would be an extremely convenient, user-centric way of reading the forums.
follow button when you post it is automatic