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Check in to talkSFU v3
Hey anyone able to login and view the forum? Drop a post here!
Also, all your old posts, counts, and login details have been transferred over to the new site but you will have to update your avatars. You can do that by clicking on your name at the top right of the forum, which takes you to your profile.
Hope you like the new setup!
Also, all your old posts, counts, and login details have been transferred over to the new site but you will have to update your avatars. You can do that by clicking on your name at the top right of the forum, which takes you to your profile.
Hope you like the new setup!
Comments
I noticed that when you click Log In, it brings up a dialog asking for your Email/Password, but I logged in with my Username/Password - could be confusing (unless email works too).
Also, is there any way to make Announcements and Discussions appear in one column on the main page?
I hate to say it.. but these forums are horrible!
vB was a lot better... If I have to come here and see this.. I don't think I'll be coming back anytime soon.
What was wrong with vB?
also, I find Vanilla to be very innovative and user friendly to use and it's only going to get better over time... i'd rather be there from the start then switch later. it's also more SEO friendly meaning it's better for indexing in Google. it's also more lightweight so it put less load on the server (and loads faster for you).
there's a lot of thought and decision making that went into the switch, so give it some time and hopefully you will begin to like it. along with that, if theres things you feel we need to improve let us know because that's how talkSFU has grown to where it is now... based on your feedback. we're listening, but please be more constructive then just "it's horrible and vB was better" it's not, trust me.
actually the funny thing is that i've seen wordpress hacked to function like a forum, and i'm sure this forum could be hacked to function like a blog... it's all about perspective
no wait, it's all about discussion
a couple of things though.. i actually prefer to have the categories smack down on the centre of the page rather than on the right side.. or maybe on top of the page so that people can navigate more effectively.. right now the home page is set to show all discussion and it looks rather cluttered.. =\ and it can be overwhelming for newcomers which may deter them from further visits.. can something be done to declutter the home page?
second.. this is more of a personal preference but can we do something the color coordination/theme? all this black and grey makes the site look.... dreary.. vibrant or eye soothing colors pleaseeee!! =D
third.. i like the shoutbox a lot so it's a pity to have to part with it (minus the trolls who have nothing better to do) is it possible to integrate that in here?
lastly... where are the emoticons and smiley faces?! =(((((((
my friend is working on a custom theme which is a lot nicer, so that will be changed as soon as it's ready... this is just a free version that comes included
what do you think of a facebook style "chat bar" instead of the shoutbox? here's a demo of what i'm thinking about using but we can keep the old box if you like that better : http://www.cometchat.com/
emoticons will be added as soon as we can get a good discussion editor built... it's probably a month or two away
thanks for the great feedback! :)
With that said, I wouldn't mind having something of an integrated IM on here.
edit: the shoutbox is back!
I agree with the forums being rather thrown together this way. Essentially one big board rather than the split that was before for all intents and purposes. I know for one I'm not going to click around in all those categories trying to find specific discussions.
Regardless it may be an idea to at least remove SFU News stuff from showing up on the main one as that seems to be rather spammy. Not that it's really knocking any discussions off the front page right now but it could happen.
I think it probably would have been better to get a bit of input before doing it. Maybe you did and I don't know what I'm talking about ;p. But obviously it's your site so obviously you can do what you want.
2. There are definitely advantages to the old style. The academic forum, for example, is full of posts with course titles like "ECON 103 - is anyone else in this???", which are probably irrelevant to 99% of the site's visitors. With the new style, these posts could clutter the main page. On the other hand, it's easier to jump right into posts rather than navigating to the appropriate folder to see topics. I think I could get used to it.
i agree with Ether, after visiting the site a couple of times.. i'm starting to get used this new style as well.. the only thing i don't like is not being able to see the categories first thing on the site.. we could have tabs or a drop down menu in lieu of the current set up of it being below the shoutbox but it needs to be seen..
When I meant horrible, I meant the way everything is setup.
Today I visited again after a week or so. And once again it looks awkward. It just doesn't seem like a forum anymore. More like a spam site LOL.
At least the vB forum layout looked professional and easy to move around in.... With this new setup it looks like a blog or just something else.
I know half the users visiting this place will think the site was hacked or taken over by someone else.
Personally, maybe you should look into creating a format similar to vB.
I'm not saying vB is bad or Vanilla is bad, though you could've gone with xmb, phpbb and other free software too.
As for vB I've been working on it since vB2.x so I know it quite well. BTW it doesn't cost $220.. you can get the latest version for cheaper. I agree though the new company that bought vB is fairly greedy.
BTW, if you don't know already the new dev team from vB that left the company has made their own forum now. It's called xenforo, you should check it out. It's cheap in price and looks similar or better than vanilla forum.
Anyways, my opinion isn't too great of vanilla forum right now. There is so much more vB and other forums can do. Maybe it's because Vanilla is new... but either way at the moment I am not liking it much.
Maybe if the layout changes and all I'll come back.
Till then fair well.
So cometchat isn't support well right now and they have tried to find a replacement dev. But I think it's better to use arrowchat since he is the orginal dev and knows it in and out. Plus I hear he left exploits in the cometchat version after the fight.
Anyways just a head up for you to save you $$$$
We (as in most of us, who are born in the 1980s) may prefer vBulletin because we've grown up using it, but most new students have grown up using platforms like twitter/facebook/wordpress. They expect things to be simple and easy to use (ie. in-place editing) and vBulletin is the exact opposite of easy to use... registration is a pain in the neck, the layout is heavy and limiting, and making posts is slow. The backend is even worse. With that said, vBulletin is ahead on some things like stability and security, but I felt it was a good time to switch.
At the end of the day, your opinion of talkSFU shouldn't be based on what software it's based on... it should be on the quality of the community and the quality of the information that you get from here. What makes talkSFU so great and so awesome is that most of the members here are students. That means they're smarter and more open minded than the average person walking down the street. That means you actually get mature, intelligent, and useful discussions to participate in instead of immature and direction less chatter.
It sucks that you would judge the site based on the look and feel of the new layout rather than the quality of the people that are here... their the ones who make this community what it is.
I've scrapped the idea to add a chat bar... it seems pointless now that I think about it. The Shoutbox works great, and you guys seem to like it so we'll keep that.
@Combray Thanks for pointing out that the SFU News threads were cluttering up the discussions list... I removed them and I'm working on a way so that it doesn't post 10 all at once. I think if they were spaced out to 1 or 2 posts a day it might be better..
Another idea I liked was @Siuying said about listing the categories along the top. That way the discussion list would remain the way it is for people who like to do a quick scan of new topics, but allow everyone else to cycle through the posts by category quickly and easily... that might be next on the list of things to do, what do you guys think?
And yeah, I am indeed a homosexual.
I am also a homoerotic individual