PLEASE VOTE - What do you think about the new changes?

[coxabey]

I kind of agree with you about the too many sections in the Cardmaking. And why so many card images posted there instead of in the gallery anyway?

I only post my cards in the 'Cards' section of the Gallery - no way am I trawling through all the different sections........even if it means that fewer people see them

[Biscuitlid]

I also used to work day in day in implemeting change and afterwards I always asked for detailed feedback and acted upon changes where possible.

I have to confess that since this new forum was developed I haven't used it or posted as it's just too much and too complex to find simple things.

I agree that the quick responses and friendly banter on here seems to be getting lost which is such a shame as it was a brilliant place to come.

If changing this back in some way is possible or making it less complicated than it is - I for one would be back here every day

[MaryAnne]

I think the idea about splitting the forum up with different categories is good because before it was getting over run with the rolling Magnolia and other threads and not many new ones were started but I don't think there needs to be so many - maybe one for card ideas and one for techniques, one for challenges and then the stash central one. There aren't loads of categories in the general scrapping forum and that works just fine?
I don't know why the 'chatting' has to be taken to the social groups because I don't think they went on that much - apart from maybe the Magnolia one? Most of the posts were sharing cards and that's continued in the main forum categories anyway?

This first reply seems to address most of the issues.

Nat and I have been discussing the Card forum and searching for a way to make it more dynamic and better used. As I am not much of a cardmaker myself, I defer to her on most things But neither of us has managed to hit the perfect solution.

I don't know why the 'chatting' has to be taken to the social groups because I don't think they went on that much - apart from maybe the Magnolia one? Most of the posts were sharing cards and that's continued in the main forum categories anyway?

This is not really accurate - we NEVER intended all the chat to move to the SG section! That was specified ONLY for those threads that were olely about a particular stamp lines (Magnolia/Sugar Nellies/etc) that, we agree, were in danger of over-running the forum. It made sense for those chats, which were likely to be of interest to a small group of members (those who sold/owner those stamps) rather than the general cardmaker to become group chat.

- maybe one for card ideas and one for techniques, one for challenges and then the stash central one

The idea of having specialized sections for TYPE of card was something we both agreed could be more useful, after considering how people might use the forum. If you were a cardmaker (or a scrapper who needed to make a card) you would likely have the subject in mind. We felt it would be frustrating to have to plow thru loads of Wedding cards in order to find the Happy Birthday iseas you were looking for. I'm still not convinced this was a mistake.

But we have been talking, over the last week or two, about the techniques forum idea. We both liked that and thought it could be very useful - not least because some cardmaking techniques are totally applicable to scrapping as well and people who don't consider the Cards forum their first stop would be tempted by it

I've said in a thread in GS that I was defering this till Mystik Nat got back from goliday, so I can have a cardmaker to offer advice from a cardmaker's POV. The idea is NOT dead, just deferred!

We DO HAVE A CARDS SECTION in the gallery, so why do we need to have the individual sticky messages for posting images?!

We did always suggest this, but people still posted in the forum, as I guess it offered them better/more feedback - the gallery posts were seen as not getting enough comments, which is why people started posting them in the forums to begin with. We simply tried to organize them better with the threads.

The SG thing is more about the way the posts are indexed and those notifications. The email notifications are a HUGE drain on the server, and slow things down unbelievably. Not to mention the bounced messages when people have a full email box, or some other problem.

vB, the forum software we use, is still posting about an update a week, correcting problems, changing or adding functions, addressing concerns. At the end of the day, the big upgrade that brought the SG Chat option was required because it also fixed various bugs, security holes, and other long standing issues from the LAST big upgrade. The security issues alone mean we can never go back to the previous version. For some, the reading backwards and no notifications is a big issue - while we (Smax and I) do have hope that there will be an upgrade at some point in time that allows you to switch to first to last reading, the notifications would defeat the server-load-saving benefits of SG over threads so I am not holding my breath for THAT to happen any time soon, if at all.

We would be VERY HAPPY to leave just one "Look what I made" thread, like there is in GS for new cards, and have everyone post their cards only to the card gallery, and use tags to make searching more useful. Then we could get rid of all the sub threads and leave just maybe Card Chat (for general chat about cards and cardmaking, not to be overrun with particular stamp line chat), Techniques - what I recall from the GS thread on this topic was perhaps we could have a thread called something like "Help with THIS TECHNIQUE" then someone who had some experience with it could post in the forum about it, maybe offer some directions, maybe some photos, maybe even some links to where the technique was demonstrated, and people could comment, ask questions, etc in that thread on that technique, and Challenges, where we could set challenges (well, Duh! )

The Magnolia/etc chat can stay in the SG section while the more general chat can come back (really, it never should have left ) and if there is a technique that people chat about in SG Chat, that can easily be added to the techniques section. Don't misunderstand We are not banning all mention of Moomins, Sugar Nellies, Magnolias in Cards!! We only want to make sure that the cards section does not become a way to promote any particular stamp line, but more about cardmaking in general.

Does that make sense? Do those changes to the forum sound like what it is you want? Is another poll in order??

[CraftyPrincess]

It would be cool to get a techniques forum bagsies for a shaped cards thread

I agree with the idea of there being categories to make it easier to find card ideas it's just I think it would look less over facing if there was a sub forum called 'share your cards' or 'card ideas' and in that forum there be categorised threads for birthday cards, mens cards, moomin cards etc? (moomins ) Just wanted to clarify what I was trying to say in my post before.

[Debbieh]

If Social Groups could be flagged when they had new comments, like subscribed threads do, that would make a huge difference.

[enola05]

And if the posts on the social groups were numbered that would help too. then at least you could make a note of what number you got up to AND be able to find that post so know where to start from when you come back

[MrsRudy]

Now that would be a good idea Karen.

[Valentine]

We would be VERY HAPPY to leave just one "Look what I made" thread, like there is in GS for new cards, and have everyone post their cards only to the card gallery, and use tags to make searching more useful. Then we could get rid of all the sub threads and leave just maybe Card Chat (for general chat about cards and cardmaking, not to be overrun with particular stamp line chat), Techniques - what I recall from the GS thread on this topic was perhaps we could have a thread called something like "Help with THIS TECHNIQUE" then someone who had some experience with it could post in the forum about it, maybe offer some directions, maybe some photos, maybe even some links to where the technique was demonstrated, and people could comment, ask questions, etc in that thread on that technique, and Challenges, where we could set challenges (well, Duh! )

The Magnolia/etc chat can stay in the SG section while the more general chat can come back (really, it never should have left ) and if there is a technique that people chat about in SG Chat, that can easily be added to the techniques section. Don't misunderstand We are not banning all mention of Moomins, Sugar Nellies, Magnolias in Cards!! We only want to make sure that the cards section does not become a way to promote any particular stamp line, but more about cardmaking in general.

Does that make sense? Do those changes to the forum sound like what it is you want? Is another poll in order??

for responding to our poll - It's nice to know our opinions are taken into account

What you have suggested makes perfect sense to me...I hope everyone else agrees???

Clair
xxx

[MrsRudy]

Sounds good to me.

[Pink Chocolate]

i dont quite understand but please dont take that as anything cos i do tend to take alot longer than most people before the penny finally drops lol

my main grievance was the sg's but i think i get that that one cant be changed so i guess thats all i really need to understand anyhow tee hee im hard work believe me lol

thank you for trying to remedy and reply to our problems though, i am sure we all appreciate it

[Fifi-T]

If Social Groups could be flagged when they had new comments, like subscribed threads do, that would make a huge difference.

The social groups can be tracked using an rss feed. The browser safari has this built in, and there are a number of freeware rss feed readers out there.

I use RSS all of the time, now I don't know how I did without it. It allows me to keep a track of new blog posts and the groups I most care about on uks.

[kevie192]

I can put up with the changes in the forum no problem but what I DO object to is that it seems to be one rule for one group and one for another...

The hAnglar and stAnglar thread is FULL of chat (just look here). So if that's allowed, why can't people talk about magnolias, pp images etc. in the same way?

Kevin x