Feedback wanted on the forum structure!

[Lord Snot]

Yep, I know... I wanted a way of marking all the threads from a certain forum as being read, even if i hadn't actually read them, if that makes sense. There's a button for marking everything ever as being read, but I just wondered if there was a way to do it for everything in, say, the introductions section or something

Go to the Introductions sub-forum and click 'mark forums read' at the top left. You will then get the option to mark only Introductions read, or to mark every forum as read.

 

[Muggle]

I have a suggestion. Seeing as this is a safe place for us to talk veg*n shop. Perhaps making it so you have to have an account to view threads, members profiles etc would be good. i dont like the idea that anti vegan people can view our conversation. Or perhaps even lurking members of other nameless forums etcetc.

I've been thinking about this. Not the whole forum but it appears that the Lounge is the main chatty/personal life area and I think it might be nice to have that as a members-only place? I don't really like the idea of non-users being able to view things such as the chat thread or the user picture thread...

 

[Second Summer]

I've been thinking about this. Not the whole forum but it appears that the Lounge is the main chatty/personal life area and I think it might be nice to have that as a members-only place? I don't really like the idea of non-users being able to view things such as the chat thread or the user picture thread...

Yes, this is a valid concern. I can't see any reason why we would want those to be public since they probably won't contain any info that would be of interest to people searching for info on veg*ism, i.e. to googlers. (May be of interest to oglers, but I'm not sure we need too many of those. ) Hmmm. So might do that later on...

 

[Alice-Bee]

Thats a good comprimise.
Privacy and accessability.

Sometimes I wonder why Im online at all. Im quite a private person lol. My FB account is locked tight!

 

[Second Summer]

Okay, I've made The lounge section visible only to members.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Would it be possible to have the ability to switch off avatars?

I have on occasion, on various boards, put people on ignore just because of their avatars, which might seem extreme, but there you go.

 

[Second Summer]

Would it be possible to have the ability to switch off avatars?

I have on occasion, on various boards, put people on ignore just because of their avatars, which might seem extreme, but there you go.

You can switch to the XFStop Mobile style. If there is a demand for it, maybe we can install / develop another style in the future without avatars.

Also, I think it's possible to switch off avatars in Tapatalk.

 

[Ansciess]

A few thoughts I have about the structure of VV. I hope it's not presumptuous to post my ideas about this:

- I wonder about including a "new to vegetarianism" section to make the site more friendly to people who don't yet feel confident about their identity?
- I wonder about separating the veganism, vegetarianism, and perhaps the animal activism forums into their own section. That section to me would the most prominent of the board. It's odd to me to see them in the same area as the "television" forum, for example
- I wonder about putting the lounge section farther down the page? When I first look at this site, because of placement of forums (that one in particular) it strikes me more as a social forum than a veg advocacy and support forum.

I guess my thoughts are about trying to make the board a veg advocacy and support forum, to help fill the niche that VB occupied, so that's my bias.

 

[Scorpius]

I like having the "Lounge" where it is; moving it to the bottom would seem too much like VB and I don't think IS's intention was to make a clone of that forum!

 

[Second Summer]

A few thoughts I have about the structure of VV. I hope it's not presumptuous to post my ideas about this:

- I wonder about including a "new to vegetarianism" section to make the site more friendly to people who don't yet feel confident about their identity?
- I wonder about separating the veganism, vegetarianism, and perhaps the animal activism forums into their own section. That section to me would the most prominent of the board. It's odd to me to see them in the same area as the "television" forum, for example
- I wonder about putting the lounge section farther down the page? When I first look at this site, because of placement of forums (that one in particular) it strikes me more as a social forum than a veg advocacy and support forum.

I guess my thoughts are about trying to make the board a veg advocacy and support forum, to help fill the niche that VB occupied, so that's my bias.

Thanks for the input. I agree it's not right to have the veg*n & animal activism forums in the same section as television. That section is quite full now anyway. I had been thinking I could perhaps move television and such to a new section called Popular culture or similar. Or I could move the veg*n & animal activism forums into a section of their own. The big problem then is of course to come up with an appropriate and catchy name for that section.

I shall contemplate your other ideas as well, especially the "new to vegetarianism" idea. I kinda like The lounge where it is in the Community section. I think that's the right section for it. At the same time, I do want to emphasise the veg advocacy & support + animal activism aspects of the board ...

 

[Lord Snot]

You could always call the animal & veg section "VeggieViews" to really emphasise that they're what the forum is about. And they would be the forums where you'd give your veg*n views, right?

I just woke up though, so that might be a crap idea

 

[Ansciess]

I like having the "Lounge" where it is; moving it to the bottom would seem too much like VB and I don't think IS's intention was to make a clone of that forum!

Were you unhappy with the actual structure of VB? I thought it was very efficient for what I took to be its goal. Maybe that's a question - how is the goal of VV different from pre-Huddler VB and how would that be reflected in the structure of the forum?

From my perspective, I thought VB was pretty great (and successful) at following what I understood to be its mission as a veg*n support and advocacy forum. I think the structure of it (categories and formatting) highlighted that - and the interpersonal relationships grew from that, but the forum wasn't based on that. If you look at VB initially it seems pretty clear that it's a support and advocacy board. I could be wrong but to me VV still looks like it might be a social forum with people who happen to have an interest in veg*nism.

I wouldn't even mind a "clone" of VB, if it was pre-Huddler and excepting a few other minor issues. It was a good forum.

But I don't want to step on any toes in giving my opinions about how this forum might evolve. Just some personal opinions.

 

[Pickle Juice]

Were you unhappy with the actual structure of VB? I thought it was very efficient for what I took to be its goal. Maybe that's a question - how is the goal of VV different from pre-Huddler VB and how would that be reflected in the structure of the forum?

From my perspective, I thought VB was pretty great (and successful) at following what I understood to be its mission as a veg*n support and advocacy forum. I think the structure of it (categories and formatting) highlighted that - and the interpersonal relationships grew from that, but the forum wasn't based on that. If you look at VB initially it seems pretty clear that it's a support and advocacy board. I could be wrong but to me VV still looks like it might be a social forum with people who happen to have an interest in veg*nism.

I wouldn't even mind a "clone" of VB, if it was pre-Huddler and excepting a few other minor issues. It was a good forum.

But I don't want to step on any toes in giving my opinions about how this forum might evolve. Just some personal opinions.

You aren't stepping on any toes. One of the major ways we want to be different from VB is in asking the members for input, and adapting the board to reflect what the members want it to be, not just what the owner says it should be.

 

[Lord Snot]

I think Ansciess makes some great points. Right now we are more like a social forum, although I think that is temporary for a couple of reasons - we're all pretty veteran veggies who don't need to make threads asking for advice, and we've done most veg*n topics to death on VB. We also want to vent about what happened there because discussion on VB itself gets shut down. Once we've got that out of our system and we attract new veg*ns, it will shift so there are many more threads about veg*nism and the chattier/casual threads aren't dominating everything.

On the other hand, the number of people who sign up to a place and then forget about it after their first thread is really high. The social threads are what makes a place a community. It's important to get the balance right.

I don't think the placement of the forums is terribly important, as long as it's easy for new veg*ns to find the section where they can ask their questions. But we do want to make the right first impression when people open up the front page, so the veg*n stuff should be as prominent as The Lounge.

 

[beancounter]

I could be wrong but to me VV still looks like it might be a social forum with people who happen to have an interest in veg*nism.

+1

 

[Pickle Juice]

I think Ansciess makes some great points. Right now we are more like a social forum, although I think that is temporary for a couple of reasons...

Yeah, all new forums start out like this. We need posting activity to get ourselves on the map, so topics in the beginning tend to be whatever gets people posting and keeps them posting. If this is to change, we need people to help make that change.

 

[Lord Snot]

Yes.

If everyone who's concerned that the forum is too chatty would start a serious AR/veg*n topic once a day, they could soon change that.

 

[Ansciess]

- I wonder about including a "new to vegetarianism" section to make the site more friendly to people who don't yet feel confident about their identity?
- I wonder about separating the veganism, vegetarianism, and perhaps the animal activism forums into their own section. That section to me would the most prominent of the board. It's odd to me to see them in the same area as the "television" forum, for example
- I wonder about putting the lounge section farther down the page? When I first look at this site, because of placement of forums (that one in particular) it strikes me more as a social forum than a veg advocacy and support forum.

Adding to this, I would move the "health" section above the "academic disciplines" and music/literature/t.v. etc. categories. I think people who are looking for a veg board are going to be initially more interested in health aspects of veg*nism than looking for community on those other things. All of the kinds of non veg/animal/health categories I would put lower. One difference that I would make from VB is that I would highlight the animal categories a bit more.

 

[beancounter]

Yes.

If everyone who's concerned that the forum is too chatty would start a serious AR/veg*n topic once a day, they could soon change that.

That would certainly be a good thing, but like you said ealier, most of us are veggie vets and have rehashed topics several times. I'm not sure those threads could sustain interest for long without new members/fresh faces.

But of course that get's us into a chicken or the egg situation.

 

[Lord Snot]

Yeah, we have to get the ball rolling. There's little point advertising if newbies are going to take a look, think "all these guys want to do is chat" and leave. But until we get newbies, mostly we are just going to chat.

I will put more effort into creating and contributing to AR/veg threads.